How do I define traditional versus independent publishing? I detail four distinctions in this episode.

After you listen to the audio, check out the worksheet at the bottom.

Here’s what I covered in the podcast episode, which you can listen to while you’re going about your everyday tasks if you don’t have time to read a lot of info!

Traditional / Royalty Publishing

* The publisher pays the author a small advance, and they pay for the publishing costs and some marketing.

* The publisher begins paying the author a portion of the royalties after sales have covered the cost of publishing (earned out).

* The publisher takes all the risk on you as an author hoping you’ll have a big enough platform of followers and opportunities to help sell the books.

* They pay for editing, proofreading, typesetting, printing, binding, cover art and design, promotion, advertising, warehousing, shipping, billing, and paying author royalties.

Large Press: A large press is a big-name publisher (or an imprint of one) that is one of the big 5 (used to be big 6): Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Hachette Book Group, and Macmillan.

Small Press: A small press is an independent publishing house that has a fully staffed publishing team – think editors, proofreaders, designers, and typesetters – but runs a smaller operation than the big-name publishers.

Note: some small presses call themselves indie publishers because they are independent. But they might be traditional in everything they do. This is different from the indie author.

 Self-publishing / Independent (Indie) Publishing

* The author pays for all or most of the cost of publishing and either uses (A) a hybrid indie publishing company that does the publishing work and puts the book in their catalog, or (B) the author becomes their own publisher by independently managing every step of the process, setting up their own imprint, hiring contractors to do the editing and design, and setting up the book on a distribution platform.

Option A: Using an Indie Publishing Company (Hybrid)

This is where you pay for all or most of the costs for publishing, but a company takes care of the process for you. (Some are predators, so you have to choose wisely.) 

* They take your input, and you make most of the decisions, but their team handles the business side of getting your book published, including editing, cover design, interior typesetting, eBook conversion, registering the ISBN and adding a barcode, setting up the metadata for the book, distributing the book to online retailers, and making it available for bookstores to order.

* They might be called a hybrid publisher when they do the work that a traditional publisher does, but the way it’s managed and funded is controlled by the author instead of the publisher.

* The publisher might request a proposal, but not always.

* The publisher reserves the right to refuse a book that isn’t ready, but most see publishing as a business transaction since the author funds the project.

* The process is faster than traditional publishing.

Option B: Author Who Acts as the Indie Publisher

The author pays for all of the costs AND independently manages the entire publishing process, acting in the role of both author AND publisher.

* The author mostly likely sets up a publishing imprint to use for their business name, hires their own contractors to edit the book, designs the cover and interior, and converts the eBook. Some authors choose to DIY that process, but it can affect the quality of results if they lack design experience.

* The author takes care of publishing the book on Amazon (or on a platform such as IngramSpark or Lightning Source) by setting up all of the info about the book and selecting price and options.

* The author keeps all of the royalties (author portion of retail sales) and, hopefully, will eventually earn out their investment through sales. Amazon or book retailers get their cut, just the same (up to 55% of the cover price).

* Author may purchase books at the cost of printing the book.

Which One Suits You?

If you haven’t already grabbed the tool that I created, be sure to get that (it’s linked in your welcome email when you become a free subscriber to Indie Author Blueprint.

In future content, this is where you’ll see a link to content just for paid subscribers to download a worksheet or tools. This time, it’s free for everyone!

After listening to the podcast episode on publishing options, use this worksheet to reinforce your understanding of the different types of publishing and determine which option may be best for you.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit indieauthorblueprint.substack.com/subscribe