Traditional vs Indie Publishing: What to Expect: Professional Author Series, #1

By Pamela Beason

After the book is written, should you pursue a traditional publishing contract or travel down the do-it-yourself route with indie publishing? This brief, honest guidebook, written by an author with years of experience using both publishing routes, will help new authors decide which route is right for them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WildWing Press
• Release date: Dec 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9781519953889

Pamela Beason

Pamela Beason, a former private investigator, lives in the Pacific Northwest, where she writes novels and screenplays. When she's not writing, she explores the natural world on foot, in cross-country skis, in her kayak, or underwater scuba diving. Pam is the author of nine full-length fiction works in three series: The Run for Your Life young adult adventure/mystery trilogy (which includes RACE WITH DANGER, RACE TO TRUTH, and RACE FOR JUSTICE), The Neema Mysteries (which feature Neema, the signing gorilla in THE ONLY WITNESS, THE ONLY CLUE, and coming soon, THE ONLY ONE LEFT), and the Summer "Sam" Westin wilderness mysteries (which include ENDANGERED, BEAR BAIT, UNDERCURRENTS, and BACKCOUNTRY).  In addition to these series, Pam has written the romantic suspense novel SHAKEN, and CALL OF THE JAGUAR, a romantic adventure novella. She also wrote the nonfiction titles SAVE YOUR MONEY, YOUR SANITY, AND OUR PLANET and SO YOU WANT TO BE A PI? and has published informational ebooks for wannabe auhors. Pam's books have won the Daphne du Maurier Award, the Chanticleer Book Reviews Grand Prize, and the Mystery & Mayhem Grand Prize, and a Publisher's Weekly award, as well as a few other awards.

Book preview

Introduction

As an author, I find that other authors can be my best supportive friends or my worst enemies. There has always been some competition between authors, but in recent years, there’s been a lot of trash talk pitting traditional authors against indies. Both systems have advantages and disadvantages, and there’s way too much spin from both sides to paint themselves as the winners in the publishing game. We need a lot more honesty and straight talk in this business.

I often give talks on this topic because I am a hybrid author, having published using both routes. Years ago, my how-to books were published by Scott Foresman, Bantam, and John Wiley & Sons. More recently, my Summer Sam Westin mysteries have been published by Berkley Prime Crime, a division of Penguin. My Neema mysteries, my romantic suspense novels, and my nonfiction e-books are all published through WildWing Press, my business name.

For the sake of simplicity, I am going to call self-publishing Indie Publishing here, although some people use the word indie to also refer to small presses and independent bookstores.

I still constantly investigate both routes to try to determine which is best for the books I want to publish. The rules of the publishing game seem to change by the hour, and it’s hard to keep up with what’s going on everywhere. There’s way too little straight talk about either traditional publishing or indie publishing, and that’s why I want to share. Either route is a lot of work for an author, but each has its own advantages and disadvantages, and I will talk honestly about what you can expect from a traditional publisher and what you’ll be expected to do as an indie author.

The competition in the traditional publishing world has always been fierce—the number of new titles published each year (especially those from new authors) is small, and shelf space in bookstores is limited. So, in the past, a wannabe author’s chance of being published was very, very small. Now, the advent and ease of self-publishing has opened up exciting new possibilities for authors, but it also means there’s much more competition for readership. The number of new books published each day can be hundreds of thousands. And those are just the new releases; there are now millions of books available online.

How does an author survive in this environment? Is Traditional publishing a better bet, or Indie publishing? That’s what this little booklet is all about. I will discuss the steps in both processes, but I am not going to teach you how to complete the steps in the process—each one could be a whole book on its own. I don’t intend to complain about anything or persuade anyone to take one road or another; I am only going to honestly talk about my own experiences, as well as the experiences of other authors I know. But publishers’ participation and author’s writing skills and promotional talents differ, so please know that each author’s experience with publishing may vary.

I’ve divided up this discussion into the various phases of publishing, and within each chapter I will discuss what traditional publishers do and what indie publishers/authors must do.

Chapter 1:

Writing and Rewriting

You already know that nobody is going to help you with the initial writing of your book, unless it’s your critique partners. The basic rule these days is—whether you are aiming to try for a traditional publisher contract or publish on your own, your manuscript should be as near perfect as you can get it before you send it to anyone or set it free into the world of readers.

Traditional Publishing

In my experience and that of my colleagues, most publishing houses no longer have developmental editors, those wonderful characters you see on television who help authors whip a novel into shape. I suspect