The manuscript is written. What’s next in the publishing journey? The three primary roads to publishing are: Self-publishing, pay to be published (often referred to as vanity publishing or hybrid publishing), and traditional publishing. It’s best to learn more than a superficial understanding of the industry to be successful.

SELF-PUBLISHING: The author has complete control of the process and outcome. The author should hire a professional with the skills they do not have, such as content editing and line editing, cover design, and formatting the work to look like the industry standard. They must have it printed. And, if they want an eBook, they have to learn what is different from eBook and print book formatting. They must market their book and build a fan base.

Note: The quickest way to tell if a book is self-published is to read the sample on Amazon. Are the page numbers in the correct location? Are both margins flush? And most telling, what is the quality of the writing? Every manuscript needs professional editing. Simply put, self-published works are not vetted.

PAY TO BE PUBLISHED: There are many companies that provide all the aspects of publishing a book for a fee. Some allow for purchasing only the services needed. Others have packages that are comprehensive. In researching for this post, I found it is difficult to find pricing information on their websites. The packages of services are not well described, or more than one package is needed to get the book complete and in print. They publish whatever is submitted. Editing is an additional fee. The work is not vetted.

TRADITIONAL PUBLISHING: The “big five” English language publishers are primarily headquartered in New York and London: Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, and Hachette. These have hundreds of Imprints that specialize in nonfiction, or a specific fiction genre, such as, HarperCollins’ Harlequin imprint. The large traditional publishers ordinarily do not accept unsolicited or unagented manuscripts, thus requiring the author to find a Literary Agent to represent their manuscript to the publisher. The literary agents often specialize in non-fiction or specific genre of fiction. They developed relationships with Acquisition Editors at several publishing houses. They pitch the manuscript to the acquisition editors. The editor reviews the manuscript and if they like it, will pitch it to the editorial panel. The editorial panel vets the manuscript on many aspects, such as, originality, marketability, writing quality, and so forth. Generally, human content is valued above AI- generated material.

Traditional publishers do not charge a fee to be published. They don’t post services on their websites because their services are not for sale. Some of the largest traditional publishers pay an Advance on anticipated sales. No royalties are paid until the amount of sales covers the advance. The literary agent splits any income from the sale of the book with the author.

Independent traditional publishers rarely pay an advance. Many don’t begin paying royalties until the cost of publication has been recouped. A few, like Cactus Rain Publishing, pay a half-royalty from the first sale of the book, meaning they are willing to wait longer to recoup the expenses so that the royalties can be shared immediately.