Publishing Methods: What is a Writer & How Does a Writer Become a Published Author?

A writer, simply put is one who writes. Everyone who writes on a regular basis is considered a writer whether or not they have ever been published.

Writers can mean those who write for newspapers or those who write fiction, those who write for medical journals, or those who write TV sitcom scripts. They all write. They all get Writer's Block. If I was to start detailing all of them, I'd have to write an encyclopedia on the subject, so, for the sake of simplicity, in this article, we will assume that a writer is one who writes fiction in novel or short story format. Now, back to the question: What is a writer?

A writer is someone who writes, probably every day or nearly so. Usually they feel compelled to write, as though they have no control over it. It is as though they will die if they cannot write something down. Their every fiber burns with the sensation, the uncontrollable passion, that they must put words to paper in order to survive. They feel every emotion their characters feel: the love, the pain, the horror, the fear, the anxiety, and the lust for adventure. They not only feel their characters, they become their characters. Everything in life sparks a new story idea. They awake at night from their sleep to jot down in notebooks. They pull their car off the road to write down ideas on the edges of maps. They are obsessed with the fever that is coming known as writing. That is a writer.

An author however, is generally perceived as a writer who has been published. For some writers, it is enough that they write, publishing their work is not their goal. For most writers, however, the goal is to become a published author. The trick is being published. You have many options. Which one should you choose? Let's look at your options:

Self Publishing

Vanity Press Publishing

Traditional Publishing

(Because it took me so long to explain each method - I moved each section to it's own separate article for each. Clicking the above links will take you to each of those Associated Content articles.)

In other words: All Three in Summary

Self-publishing is you starting your own business (a publishing house) and earning an income.

Vanity press is you doing a lot of hard work, getting your book printed, and possibly being scammed out of the money that should be yours, while they get rich and leave you with nothing, unless of course you can sift through the scams and find one that is not a scam.

Traditional publishing is you hiring a business to do the work for you and you both earn an income.

Can a Book be Both Traditionaly Published AND POD Self-Published?

If you self-publish via POD than you have printed up this book's "first edition" and when you finally find an agent and the agent finally finds you a traditional publisher, you will only be able to offer "second edition" (also known as "reprint") rights. As a general rule, unless the book as sold over 10,000 copies a publisher will not buy second rights.

The average book sells just 500 copies. (at the average 4% royalty of wholesale price that averages out to : $1,000 - $1,500 total pay for you the author for the entire life of the book)

Rarely does a first book make over $2,000 for it's author.

The average life of a book is 3 months. (meaning the publisher pulls it off the shelves and stops selling it just 3 months after it went to print)

In order to keep you book in print past those 3 months it must become a "bestseller".

In order to become a bestseller, you must sell an astronomical total of 10,000 copies in that 3 months time.

Most publishers DO NOT promote your book. The books that become bestsellers, had an author that put a lot of their time and money into marketing the book themselves. Most books, regardless of publisher, sell only as many books as THE AUTHOR promotes. This is true wither you publish via Scholastic Books (with it's 100 new titles each month, including Harry Potter) or Twighlight Manor Press and it's 10 books every other year.

Basically all a book publisher does is list your book in their catalog and hope that book stores choose to stock it on their shelves.

Books (such as Harry Potter -- traditional published--- and Eragon ---self-published---) get famous, not from the publisher's promotion, but from THE AUTHOR'S having gone out there and told everyone under the sun how great their book was and paying large amounts of their own money (we are talking hundreds of thousands of dollars of the author's private pocket money, money they already had BEFORE book's release, in the case of such authors J.K.Rowlings, Palini, Steven King, etc.) for advertising in such newspapers as The New York Times. Eragon, a self published book, became an over night best seller because of a single one day full page ad in The New York Times, that cost Palini's parents over $14,000! Within a few weeks he had big name book publishers begging to sell the reprint editions.

So you see. What you the author are willing (or can afford) to pay for a marketing campaign, is going to determine how many book you sell, not who you choose for a publisher. Keep in mind that when you see ads for book, either in newspapers or on tv, those ads were paid for by the author him-herself, NOT the publisher.

Most writers, once hit in the face with the harsh reality of these facts, never attempt to write a second book, which is why there are so many one book authors out there.

On the other hand a self-published POD book never goes out of print and you earn 100% of the profits off the retail price.

If you are willing to promote and market your book hard enough, you'll make more money in the long run by self-publishing, because you can keep selling your book for the next 10 or 20 years.

If you want to do both POD self publish AND traditional publish, than you MUST do it the other way around. Traditional publish first and POD later.

Your best bet is to hold off on the POD right now, and focus on finding that agent. Let the traditional publisher buy the first edition rights, get paid your advance and your royalties, let them sell the first edition, than next year after the book has gone out of print, you bring it back out as a POD reprint and continue to sell it for the rest of your life. (A lot of authors do this and after writing 4 or 5 books, they have a pretty steady monthly income coming in.)

I hope this helps.

So What Should I Do?

You've reached the end of this lens and you now have a better idea of the different roads you can take to get your book published. Now the question is, which of those roads should you choose?

I'd recommend that regardless of which you choose to do, you should at least self-publish one book when you are starting out. Why? Because there is no better, way to learn what it takes to bring a book to your readers. By self-publishing a book, you the author, can't just stop after writing the script. When you self publish, there is no editor for you to send the MS to. You are the editor. YOU must strive to up your editing skills and edit the MS yourself. This is not only a great learning experience, but it well help you to be less critical of editors you may deal with in the future.

After editing the book, you must than track down a printer to print up copies of your book. This like-wise is a good learning experience for beginning writers. It helps you to understand the difficulty that publishing houses have to deal with when getting your book into print: typesetting, cover design, layout, format, getting an ISBN, etc. etc. etc. It'll do wonders to open your eyes to the reason it takes 2 to 3 years for a publisher to get your book in stores.

Lastly, you must do all the marketing and research and advertising yourself. You must track down dealers and distributors. You must contact bookstores and place adds in newspapers. Once you have put in time and money into selling your self-published book, you'll have a greater understanding of the work that your publisher puts in.

In the end, there are two advantages to self-publishing your first book:

#1.) You won't head to a publishing house all high and mighty and demanding to see your book on shelves next week. Yes, many first time authors approach publishers and editors with such demands, in fact, 9 times out of 10 a new write comes in, acting like they a the greatest thing since Stephen King or J.K.Rowlings, and they often say as much. They seem to think that publishers just wave a magic wand and voila, a book suddenly appears. By self-publishing their first book, they get knocked off their high horse and get to see the publishing world for what it really is: a lot of hard work, time, and money, with very little return.

#2.) Secondly, by having self-published your first book, you now know how to do it again, and do it better next time. Why is this important? Because less than 1% of all manuscripts that are sent to publishers, well ever get published. Nearly all MS are rejected, tossed out, or mailed back unopened. If you should find that you are one of the millions of authors who publishers reject, you can always say: "I did it before, I can do it again!" That way you have something to fall back on if your next greatest hit, gets ignored by the publishing houses.

Sites Every Writer Should Check Out:

Publishing Law Center: Copyright, trademarks, intellectual property, contracts, licensing, rights, PubLaw Update Newsletter Legal information for publishers of magazines, newsletters, books, and multimedia products including copyrights, trademarks, contracts, licensing, & rights. A wealth of information for authors, editors, agents, and publishers looking to learn more about their field.

U.S. Copyright Office U.S. Copyright Office is an office of public record for copyright registration and deposit of copyright material.

US ISBN Agency - ISBN Assignments, SAN, Bookland EAN Bar Code Symbols, Technical Information and Advice No other source can assign legitimate ISBNs to US publishers.
Bowker provides technical advice on uses of the ISBN standard to the publishing industry.?
Also includes SAN and EAN Bookland Bar Code information.

US ISBN Agency - Important message about the ISBN resale scam! No other source can assign legitimate ISBNs to US publishers. This online scam is reaching alarming levels. Read the ISBN's warning. Help put an end to the ISBN resale scam!
Book Industry Study Group, Inc. Welcome to the Book Industry Study Group, Inc. Working to create a more informed, empowered, and efficient book industry supply chain. Get informed answers to all your publishing questions.

The Library of Congress The Library of Congress. The Library of Congress is the nation's oldest federal cultural institution, and it serves as the research arm of Congress. The #1 authority on publishing laws.

Bar Code Service from Bowker - ISBN, Bookland EAN Images and Graphics Bar Code service from Bowker saves time and effort;electronic one stop shopping provides uniformly accepted bar code graphic files of the highest quality, and learn how and where to use your bar codes.

National Novel Writing Month - National Novel Writing Month National Novel Writing Month is an annual novel writing project that brings together professional and amateur writers from all over the world. Check out the forums, for a massive user-written source of information on making your next book the best one ever.

A Writer's Desk: The Author's Corner - Home Page Welcome to The Author's Corner! Here you well find items selected just for the writer in you. This Amazon Store is brought to you by A Writer's Desk, the forum for writers. Our product list is always changing and being added to, so look around today and come back tomorrow to see what's new!

This article was originally published in August 2007 under the title Publishing Methods is copyright to Wendy C. Allen and The Twighlight Manor Press, and is reprinted here with permission.