traditional publishing

Benefits of being a hybrid author

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There are pros and cons to traditional publishing vs. indie or self-publishing. Why not do both? Pub Crawl has started an excellent series on just this question!

Benefits of being a hybrid author: When to self-publish and when to go the traditional route? Part One: Traditional Publishing

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Julie here! Today, I have Falguni Kothari as my guest on the blog. Falguni is a successful “hybrid author,” with both traditional and self-publishing experience. Her new book, MY LAST LOVE STORY (Harlequin/Graydon House), comes out tomorrow, January 23, 2018. This is Part One of a two part post, so be sure to come back tomorrow for Part Two. Take it away, Falguni!

Never keep all your eggs in one basket. The adage has become more of a philosophy I’ve adopted to navigate various aspects of my life, including my publishing career. So, what or who is a hybrid author? A writer who avails herself of all the publishing opportunities available to her, such as traditional, self and paid publishing, in various combinations, is a hybrid author. She is not turned off by the ever-shifting landscape of the publishing industry, but rather, she slams open doors for herself and charges across the altering, often turbulent publishing landscape, very much a captain of her own ship.

Read the full post on Pub Crawl!

Quick Link: How To Be A Writer: Traditional Publishing To Indie And Hybrid With John Birmingham

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Joanna Penn, of The Creative Penn, makes sure to cover all her bases. She doesn’t just do post, no she has podcasts – with transcripts. Someday I want to grow up and be her. All her posts are interesting and great and this one is no exception. Check it out in whatever format you want and let us know what you think.

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How To Be A Writer: Traditional Publishing To Indie And Hybrid With John Birmingham

by John Birmingham

Today I’m talking with Australian author John Birmingham about his journey from the dizzying heights of the traditional publishing scene, to deciding to go indie and hybrid and his insights into how the publishing industry has changed. It’s an honest and really fascinating interview.

In the intro, I talk about how we can deal with the political upheaval, and how, as Toni Morrison says, “This is precisely the time when artists go to work.” (Quoted in Brain Pickings).

Plus David Gaughran’s report on what Amazon cares about, and the latest KENP rate, which has dropped again. Remember, it’s your choice to choose exclusivity or to go wide, but if you want a healthy long-term eco-system for writers and readers, then you need to support the other vendors.

John Birmingham is an award winning and bestselling Australian author of science fiction, techno-thriller, crime, urban fantasy, memoir, and nonfiction. His latest nonfiction book is How to Be a Writer: Who Smashes Deadlines, Crushes Editors and Lives in a Solid Gold Hovercraft.

You can listen above or on iTunes or Stitcher or watch the video here, read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and full transcript below.

Read the full post on The Creative Penn.

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Quick Link: Who Decides if a Book Should Be Published?

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It is always fun to be able to peer behind the scenes and learn more about what happens behind closed doors. Today Janet Kobobel Grant from Books & Such helps us to learn more about the traditional publishing world.

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Who Decides if a Book Should Be Published?

Blogger: Janet Kobobel GrantThe ultimate decision-maker at a publishing house in whether to offer a contract has changed over the past several years. Having done my share of presentations at publishing committees, I soon learned that anyone can scuttle a project. All he or she needs to do is vociferously offer negative opinions about it. By questioning the feasibility of making money on the book (which is the bottomline), that person knows what the outcome of the discussion will be. The tide will turn against the project. But one individual on the committee has the power to sway others to his or her opinion more effectively than anyone else.

What make a committee say no

But before we dip into that pool of water, let me say that publishing committees are as unpredictable as the stock market. Sometimes the committee just isn’t in the mood to say yes. That can happen because:

Read the full post on Books & Such

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Quick Link: 10 Questions to Ask Before You Accept a Traditional Publishing Deal

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Congratulations, you have been offered a traditional publishing deal! But before you go spending your royalties, be a smart cookie and check that deal out through and through. Susan Spann from Writer’s In The Storm has some tips on what to watch out for so you can vet your deal carefully.

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10 Questions to Ask Before You Accept a Traditional Publishing Deal

By Susan Spann

The explosion of independent publishing houses in the U.S. and abroad makes it vital for authors to investigate publishers carefully before signing a contract. While even diligent research can’t ensure you’ll avoid every possible problem, here are some questions to ask before you accept a traditional publishing deal:

  1. Does the Contract Require You (the Author) to Pay for Anything?

If the answer is “yes,” this is not a traditional publishing house, and probably not a deal you should sign. Traditional deals don’t require the author to pay for anything, either out of pocket or by allowing the publisher to recoup expenses before calculating the author’s royalty share.*

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Quick Link: 3 Things Your Traditional Publisher Is Unlikely to Do

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You know we love authors of all kinds here at Publetariat. Anyone who writes a story is my kind of hero, but we do lean towards the self-publishing author just a little more. At Jane Friedman, Jane shares three reasons why sometimes being indie is the right choice.

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3 Things Your Traditional Publisher Is Unlikely to Do

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Years ago, when I still worked for a traditional publisher, I wrote a blog post about the No. 1 disappointment of all published authors: the lack of marketing support from their publisher. This was back when social media was still a fringe pastime, limited mostly to MySpace. So if your publisher wasn’t investing in marketing or publicity, you probably had few available tools to market and publicize your work outside your community—unless you had funds to hire a publicist or a national platform of some kind.

Today, some form of online marketing by both author and publisher is essential for all titles, and while traditional forms of marketing and publicity are still key—everyone wants a mix of online and offline exposure to maximize word of mouth—publishers’ launch efforts may be focused primarily or entirely on online channels. It tends to be more efficient, targeted, and cost effective.

Yet authors still have very traditional ideas of what their publisher ought to do to demonstrate support for their book, even though where and how books get sold has changed dramatically in the last decade. Here are three things that you may want or expect your publisher to do—but are very unlikely to happen.

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Quick Links: Should You Self-Publish or Traditionally Publish?

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Jane Freeman tackles the question should you try to publish traditionally or go the self-publishing route.  She gives you some thoughts you might not have heard before.  Personality has a lot to do with it. As someone who is self-employed, self-publishing seems a more likely route for me, if I ever get a book finished. ; )

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Should You Self-Publish or Traditionally Publish?

June 21, 2016

The key is to know yourself. You got to check yourself, before you wreck yourself.
The key is to know yourself. You got to check yourself, before you wreck yourself.

by Jane Friedman

Are you wondering if you should self-publish or traditionally publish? You’re not alone. The same question is on the minds of many writers I meet, regardless of their career path or how established they are.

When I began working in the publishing industry in the mid-1990s, a stigma surrounded both self-published books and self-published authors. I recall speaking at the Chicago chapter of the Romance Writers of America in the mid-2000s, and running a workshop on how to self-publish. About three people showed up and two of them were already self-published; it was by far the worst-attended session I’ve ever run at a major writing event. At the time, self-publishing was not a well-regarded path to success, and it indicated some kind of author failing or eccentricity.

Times have (dramatically) changed, and now some self-published authors accuse traditionally published authors of being misguided or short-sighted in their allegiance to a “legacy” system.

But there is no single right answer to this question because it’s context dependent. That means the right answer can change—even for the same author—from book to book, and from year to year.

This post outlines what I think are the biggest factors that play into the decision.

1. Do you expect or want to see your book stocked in bookstores across the country?
It next to impossible for a self-published author with a single title to achieve wide-scale distribution for their book at bricks-and-mortar stores. You may be able to get your book stocked locally or regionally, especially if you have the right connections or are a well-known person in your community. But for the most part, a self-published authors’ books will sell primarily through online retail, whether as a print book or an e-book. That’s not the drawback it used to be, given that more than half of all books sold in the United States sell through Amazon (regardless of format).

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Quick Links: From Trad-Pub to Self-Pub–Tips and Observations

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Elizabeth S. Craig is one of those amazing authors who has had book published by a publisher as well as self-published. She recently got rights back to some titles from her publishing house and decided to re-release them as eBooks her self.  She is gracious enough to share her experience and thoughts.

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From Trad-Pub to Self-Pub–Tips and Observations

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

 This is the second time I’ve gotten the rights to my characters back from a publisher and taken a trad-published series to self-pub.  The last time I did this was five years ago.
Karma Karma Karma chameleon....
Karma Karma Karma chameleon….

There were some big differences between this time and last time.  The first time I’d had only one book released in the series before taking it to self-pub.  This time the series had five books in it.

This latest series had a nice following but I found that many of my readers for the Penguin series  seemed unaware of my self-published series.  They would email me asking when the next Southern Quilting Mystery was coming out and I would tell them…and then ask if they knew about my Myrtle Clover series.  Many times they didn’t.

One reason they didn’t is because Penguin didn’t want any non-Penguin books included in my author bio.  I can understand this.  So not only were my self-published books not included in my bio, the original trad-published book in the series (from Midnight Ink) wasn’t, either.

So that’s officially my favorite thing about taking this series to self-pub. I loved, loved, loved being able to advertise my self-pubbed series in the back of the book.  I’m hoping for some real crossover from my audience.

And now for the curiosities from this release.   Print sales have been very strong…I’ve ranked as high as in the top 15,000–18,000 for printed books on Amazon.  It’s also selling well through IngramSpark, which tells me that bookstores are ordering it for customers.

 

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Quick Link: What Happens After You Sign the Contract?

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Weina Dai Randel at Writers In The Storm gives us another peek behind the curtain with what happens after you sign the contract. Hint – it involves lots of edits…

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What Happens After You Sign the Contract?

May 30th, 2016

Ready to get publishedBy Weina Dai Randel

When I was pitching my novel to agents, I didn’t think of what would happen after you signed a contract with a publisher. To me, the process after the contract was like a grand party locked behind a door – I didn’t have an invitation, so I would not get to see what the fun of the party was. But after ten years of writing and eighty two rejection letters, to my uttermost joy, I received the invitation – I signed the contract with Sourcebooks, and my two novels about Empress Wu, The Moon in the Palace and The Empress of Bright Moon, were finally published in March and April this year. I would love to share my experience of the process with you.

After the signing, I received a heart-warming welcome letter from my editor, with whom I would work for the next two years. The letter was thrilling to read, and it contained all the important dates: such as the due date for the developmental edits, the due date for the copyedits, the date when it was likely I would receive the book cover design, the date when I would receive the back cover copy, and finally the date when I absolutely couldn’t make any changes to the manuscript, when it was closed for ARC.

I read the letter at least five times to get familiarized with the terms such as ARC, advance reader copy, and the back cover copy, the paragraphs printed at the back of a book – I didn’t know my editor would write that, not me. The letter, I believe, was very important for a new writer to understand the steps of the process.

The real work began when I received the edits, which contained a list of bigger-picture problems – the opening chapters of the book, for example. Yes, the most important chapters I spent years writing. My editor thought they were too long and asked to get into the main character’s journey faster. I considered the comments, clarified some questions, and dove into revision. I cut some scenes, adding more clues and descriptions to a few important characters, and revised them on Track Changes, as my editor had requested. Then I submitted the revision before the deadline. And I thought, now what?

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Quick Link: Why Traditional Publishing Takes So Long

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Ever want to peek behind the publishing curtain? I do! I love learning what happens behind the scenes. Good for us that S. Jae-Jones (called JJ) at PubCrawl gives us the scoop on why traditional publishing takes so darn long. Another point in favor for Indie publishing?

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Why Traditional Publishing Takes So Long

Apr 6 2016
 

Woman Holding An Umbrella Late For An AppointmentRecently I announced that the publication date of Wintersong has been moved from Fall 2016 to Winter 2017, and I had a lot of questions asking why it would take so long for the book to come out when it was already finished and edited?

Ah, my friend. Sit back and listen, because we are going to be discussing this interesting phenomenon called publishing time.

In the PubCrawl Podcast, Kelly and I have discussed submissions and acquisitions, sales conference, and touched briefly on the concept of launch. Traditional publishing is generally scheduled about one year in advance, so if your book gets acquired in 2016, it may not be published until 2017 or even 2018.

Why is that? Well, most publishing houses operate on a schedule of “seasons”: periods of 3-4 months that comprise a catalog. For example, at my publisher, the seasons are as follows:

  1. Winter (January through April)
  2. Spring/Summer (May through August)
  3. Fall (September through December)

Each season has a schedule of when things need to be submitted or finalized: launch, catalog, sales conference, etc. While acquisitions and editing may happen at any time during the year, the actual publishing part of publishing happens at set times. For example, for books to be published in Fall 2017, the schedule may look something like this:

  1. November 2016: Launch (introducing your book to the sales and marketing force)
  2. January 2017: Catalog (getting information about your book online for booksellers, librarians, et al to take notice)
  3. March 2017: Sales Conference (when the people selling your book into their accounts start pitching to their buyers and getting a feel for how many copies of your book Barnes & Noble, Amazon, indies, etc. will be taking)

If your book is to be published September 2017, then why all that time between sales conference and publication date? This is so your marketing and publicity team have time to start building buzz about your book to the consumer: sending your book out for reviews at all the trade publications, big magazines, newspapers, etc. or buying ad space or social media or what-have-you. By the time your book comes out, hopefully enough people will have heard about your book to seek it out on release day.

Read the full post on PubCrawl

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Quick Link: Can Traditional and Indie Publication Live as Friendly Neighbors?

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Author Jody Hedlund speaks from experience; she has successful books through both traditional and self-publishing.  Jody brings her unique perspective to the traditional vs self-publishing debate with an attitude of perhaps we can all just get along. What are your views on the two, and do you think they can co-exist?

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Can Traditional and Indie Publication Live as Friendly Neighbors?

friendship-day_10062663-031914By Jody Hedlund

This year in 2016, I have FOUR books slated for publication. Three of them are being published through three different publishers:

Undaunted Hope, a historical romance through Bethany House Publishers (Jan. 1)

A Daring Sacrifice, a young adult medieval romance through Harper Collins (Mar. 1)

Newton and Polly: A Novel of Amazing Grace, a historical through Random House (Oct. 1)

I’m super thrilled about all three of the books. While each of them targets a slightly different audience, my readers seem to be enjoying them regardless of the differences.

So far, I’ve had a very positive experience working with traditional publishers. I’ve learned a LOT about the ins and outs of how the whole process of publication works and varies between houses.

Since I’m in a super busy life stage (raising 5 kids), having a traditional publisher’s help with cover designing, editing, and marketing has really freed up my time to focus on writing. To be completely honest, I appreciate being able to hand something over to my publishers and know that the project is in good hands. It takes a great deal of stress off me.

Not only that, but working with a variety of traditional publishers has helped to get my books in front of different readers. Each of my publishers has different marketing strategies which has allowed my books a wider audience than if I’d attempted to publish them on my own. I’ve also appreciated the relative ease of getting into brick and mortar stores, libraries/library conferences, foreign print, large print editions, wide-scale blogger and reviewer programs, and many other venues.

However, as beneficial as traditional publication has been for my writing career, I’ve been itching to try my hand at indie publishing. I’ve heard so many positive things about it, that I wanted to experience it for myself.

Read the full post on Jody Hedlund

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Considering Self-Publishing? You Might Want to Do This First

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On The Write Life, gives his thoughts on the traditional versus self-publishing options for writers and why he thinks authors should try traditional publishing first.  Do you agree with him? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

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Considering Self-Publishing? You Might Want to Do This First

There are different ways to get your work published, but the biggest two options in today’s marketplace are still the following:

Publishing contract

Traditional publishing: You sell your work to a publishing house, like Simon & Schuster or HarperCollins. The publisher typically pays you money up front in the deal, then distributes the book in print and e-book forms.

Self-publishing: This method allows you to publish your work independently, without anyone judging your work. You’re in charge of everything. A common website people do this is through Amazon’s CreateSpace.

I could talk about all the nitty-gritty elements to both publishing options — the pros and cons, the ins and outs — but that would take you hours to read. So instead, I’ll just focus this post on one simple question: If you’re unsure what path to take concerning these two major publishing options, what should you do?

Which publishing method should you try first?

If you are truly on the fence concerning which path to take, you should always try traditional publishing first — period.

I’ll tell you why.

It’s because if you send your work out to agents first but hit walls, you can always self-publish it afterward with nothing lost. Easy peasy. But if you self-publish it first and then seek an agent for it later, you’re setting up a very difficult task.

Let’s say you have a novel. You send it to an agent who is open to submissions. When the agent reviews your query and first pages, they are asking themselves the following: “Can this person write well? Is this an interesting story? Can I sell this?”

An agent will take a long critical look at your writing, and it’s not easy finding a rep who loves your voice and your book.

When an agent reviews a self-published book, it gets more complicated. They’re asking themselves the following: “Can this person write well? Is this an interesting story? Can I sell this? And why does this book deserve a second life via traditional publishing?”

Read the full post on The Write Life

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Indie & Trad Publishing & Flying Monkeys On The Yellow Brick Road!

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This post by Bob Mayer originally appeared on his Write On The River site on 2/12/15.

As you negotiate your journey through the wonderful world of publishing, be careful of those flying monkeys as you gaze in the crystal ball of your career path.

Don’t take anyone else’s monkey as your own! We all are on our unique yellow brick roads to Oz, whatever Oz might be for each of us.

Lately I’ve run into some new writers at conferences who eventually whisper to me they’ve signed a traditional deal, but they’re afraid to mention it to anyone because they get castigated. The attitude seems to be that if the book is good enough to get a book deal, then self-publishing makes more sense.

What a change in just a few years when people would break open a bottle of champagne upon getting a book deal. Now one almost dares not mention it for fear of being ridiculed for not taking the indie route. There are some indie authors saying they will never go back to traditional publishing; the key phrase is “go back”. It’s curious that a lot of us who have been successful as indies actually started in traditional publishing, giving us a distinct leg up; along with a thing called backlist.

 

Read the full post on Write On The River.

 

Lessons From The Traditional Publishing Model Part One: THE BOOK, THE BOOK, THE BOOK!

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This post by Susan Malone originally appeared on her Malone Editorial Services site on 8/6/14.

Traditional publishing is in the toilet. Big news flash, right? I lined out some of the whys in my recent guest blog on Authorlink.com.

But what can we learn from big publishers’ successes and failures?  A lot.  So let’s dive in and today talk about the thing new writers are missing all over the place—putting the product, the book, first.

This really does seem like a no-brainer.  I mean, we’re writers, right?  It’s what we do—we write, we hone our craft, we study, we get critiqued, we write some more.  At least, that’s the way it used to be!

One of the issues new writers (and many seasoned ones as well, although they handle it differently) have with the Traditional folks is that this takes f o r e v e r.   Yep, it does.  At every single stage of the process, writers get to hurry-up-and-wait.  Hurry up and produce exactly what that agent, editor, etc., requests, and then sit on their hands for months and wait on responses.  It can drive a sane woman batty.  I’m in the process of getting one of my great YA writers agented, and of course, as it’s August and all of publishing is on vacation, my writer is frustrated that the agent won’t read his work until September.  Hey!  That’s actually quick!

 

Read the full post on Malone Editorial Services.

 

Start Here: How to Get Your Book Published

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This post by Jane Friedman originally appeared on her site on 1/28/12.

Publetariat Editor’s Note: We mostly focus on the indie and small press routes to publication here at Publetariat, but since the hybrid publishing model (a mix of indie and mainstream releases) can be very effective it’s never a bad idea to share information on how things work in traditonal publishing, too.

It’s the most frequently asked question I receive: How do I get my book published?

Unfortunately, when I hear this question, I know I’m dealing with someone who is at such a beginning stage that it’s difficult to know where to begin.

With this post, I hope to offer the most critical information and address the most pressing questions, as well as provide a starting point for more fully exploring what it means for you to try and get meaningfully published. I’ve also created an Amazon list of the best resources on this topic.

If you’d like an in-depth guide on how to get your book published, consider my book on the topic: Publishing 101: A First-Time Author’s Guide.

 

First: The Difference Between Fiction and Nonfiction

Novelists (fiction writers) follow a different path to publication than nonfiction authors.

Novels and memoirs: You must have a finished and polished manuscript before you look for a publisher or an agent. While you may have heard of some novels or memoirs being sold based on an idea or proposal, this is rare for first-time authors without a strong publishing track record.

For most nonfiction: Rather than completing a manuscript, you should write a book proposal—basically like a business plan for your book—that will convince a publisher to contract and pay you to write the book. For more information on book proposals and what they entail, click here.

 

Read the full post on Jane Friedman’s site.

 

Literature Helps Explain The World To Me

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This post by Aasim Akhtar originally appeared on The News on Sunday on 4/13/14.

A literary agent in France, Marc Parent is to publishing what Edvard Munch was to painting

Good looks, comic brilliance, and career success have not prevented Marc Parent from doing what he does best: living life as an emotional basket case. More riddled with pain than an arthritic joint, Parent is to publishing what Edvard Munch was to painting — the ultimate scream.

Marc Parent has been working in international publishing for 28 years in the wake of his studies in French and Comparative Literatures at L’Ecole Superieure Normale and at the College de France in Nanterre and Paris, and at Columbia University, NYC. For the last 10 years, he has been a publisher of foreign fiction and non-fiction at Editions Buchet/Castel in France, where he put together a major Indian and Pakistani catalogue of writers, including Daniyal Mueenuddin and Padmasambhava’s Tibetan Book of the Dead.

In May 2013, he started one-of-a-kind literary agency, India Maya Literary in Paris representing writers from all around the globe, with a special focus on fiction and non-fiction writers from India and Pakistan.

His publishing behind him, Parent holed up in Beach Luxury Hotel in Karachi on the occasion of KLF 2014 summing up his motives for the work as an effort to use thoughts about undoing the buttons of the ego to gorge out a proposition of his own.

Before his retreat, TNS tracked him down on the lawns facing the creek for an update. Unassuming and frail, he was nonetheless exuberant. Excerpts follow:

 

Click here to read the full post on The News on Sunday.