Traditional vs Indie Publishing by Pamela Beason

Author:Pamela Beason
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: self publishing, indie publishing, traditional publishing, hybrid publishing, do-it-yourself publishing, authors, writing book, editing book, publishing business
Publisher: WildWing Press
Published: 2015-12-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8:

The Publishing Schedule

The publishing schedule is one of the major differences between traditional and indie publishing that drastically affects the author.

Traditional Publishing

A traditional publisher wants to publish only a certain number of books each month, quarter, or year. So your book will be slotted into their schedule, and it’s not rare for a year or two to elapse between book acceptance and publication. That can be incredibly frustrating for the author, but there’s nothing you can do about it except sit down and write the next book.

Here’s another shocker: there’s often no guarantee of publication in a publishing contract. Market conditions or management or company goals may change between the contract signing and the publication date, and it’s possible that your book won’t ever see the light of day. In which case, you will (eventually) get your rights back. But if records exist saying that title was purchased by XYZ Publishers but there are no sales records, you may find it impossible to sell to another publisher because the new publisher may consider your book “a loser” even though it was never published. In which case, have a stiff drink, change the title, and keep on trying.

Publishers have also been known to publish in a different format than was originally promised to the author. A friend of mine was promised trade format, which typically sells for somewhere between $12.95 and $21.95. But then the publisher decided to publish in mass market paperback, which typically sells for between $6.99 and $9.99. It takes sales of many more copies at 10% of $7.99 than it does at 10% of $14.95 to earn back a $5000 advance. Needless to say, this change of format on publication was a serious blow to the author’s bank account, but there wasn’t anything she could do about it. (Chapter 11 is all about the payment schedule; brace yourself for more blows there.)

Indie Publishing

As an indie, the good news is that you can publish your book as soon as it’s ready—all the online bookselling sites publish within hours or even minutes after you upload your files. How rewarding! Make sure the book is ready for publication, though. If word gets around about errors, you may not be able to convince new readers to buy it even after you fixed the problems.

There may be other good reasons to hold off on publishing your book, even though it’s already complete. Most authors find that books sell best in series, and if a reader likes a book, it’s natural for that reader to immediately look for the next book in the series. If a year goes by between the release of Book 1 and Book 2, that reader may have completely forgotten about you. So you might want to hold off publishing Book 1 until the completion date for Book 2 is within sight.

Another great thing about being in control of the publishing process is that you can upload new versions anytime you want. I have done this to fix

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