by Gale Leach

My first book, The Art of Pickleball, is an instructional guide to a sport few people had heard of when I wrote it in 2005. As a pickleball player, I knew the book would appeal to a growing niche market.

In 2005, the self-publishing industry didn’t include Amazon, KDP, or ebooks. My dream was to conduct book signings in Barnes & Noble and have the best-selling book about the sport. I signed with a hybrid publisher who helped me with tasks I didn’t understand or couldn’t do easily. Because of my belief in the sport’s future and the quality of my book, we offset-printed 1,200 copies and began marketing.

From that publisher, I learned enough to work on my own. After I began writing fiction, I created a company to self-publish my own books and those of other local authors. I helped dozens of other people get their books to print, under my imprint and Amazon’s. Since then, I’ve self-published five novels for children and two for teens, delivered presentations about self-publishing at writing conferences, and taught classes at local institutions.

Much has changed since 2005, but the steps an author must take to publish a book today are largely the same. One of the toughest questions is still whether to seek a traditional publisher or self-publish. The path isn’t clear-cut because it can change with each book and from year to year.

Some Facts

In the mid-1990s, the publishing world considered self-published works as inferior and unworthy of attention, and today traditional publishing still holds an allure of prestige in the minds of many authors. Yet many self-published authors now criticize traditionally published writers for clinging to an outdated and unfair system.

The largest difference between traditional publishing and self-publishing is control: traditional publishing takes control from the author in exchange for their knowledge and resources, while self-publishing leaves the author with complete control—but also complete responsibility.

Publishing Paths, Responsibility, and Control

The table below is derived from one created by Jane Friedman, a publishing guru, whose website provides a wealth of information about all types of publishing.

Traditional Publishing Today

The “Big Five” major publishing groups handle most traditional publishing, earning approximately 25% of their income from ebooks. You must secure an agent to present your work to these (or most other) houses. Getting an agent can be a daunting task, and crafting an agent’s query letter is an art in itself, but it’s necessary to avoid your request landing in their proverbial slush pile.

Once a publisher accepts your manuscript, they own its rights, and your contract specifies what they can do with it. You receive royalties, while they manage editing, cover design, marketing, and distribution. You have minimal input or control over these processes, but they cover all associated costs.

A traditionally published book can take up to two years to reach bookstore shelves. Royalties from traditional publishers are smaller than those received from self-publishing, but an expected larger number of sales offsets this.

Self-Publishing

Once your manuscript is ready for publication, you can make it available through self-publishing online in just hours. Most companies that assist you in uploading books do not charge for their services. However, you must pay the upfront costs of editing and cover design and, later, distribution and marketing. You receive no advance, but you will get larger royalties.

Self-published authors earn most of their income from ebooks sold or borrowed through Amazon. Larger bookstores and libraries rarely take self-published books because their purchasing channels do not carry them.

Good candidates for self-publishing are romance, erotica, branded series, prolific genre fiction, and informative nonfiction with online support (a website, blog, etc.).

Hybrid Publishing

Combining elements of traditional and self-publishing, hybrid publishing can be a good option for authors who want the support of traditional publishing but still want creative control. 

Reputable hybrid publishers are quite different from vanity presses or “predatory publishers” that lure you into expensive packages and offer little to no support or deliverables. (You can find lists of these predatory publishers online.)

You pay a hybrid publisher to produce and distribute your book in return for a high percentage of the royalties. The publisher handles the editing, design, production, distribution, and sales. However, you retain the rights to your book and have creative control.

Hybrid publishing can be expensive, as you may have to pay all the production costs. Publication quality also varies, and the publisher may have less prestige than traditional publishers and, therefore, less reach in the marketplace.

Note: More than half of all books sold in the United States sell through Amazon (regardless of format).

To Help You Decide

First, determine your book’s purpose and target market. Then, gauge your writing methods, goals, or aspirations for the project, as well as your budget, assets, and how much uncertainty you’re willing to accept.

Purpose

Knowing your book’s purpose will keep you on track while writing, help you find an agent or prospective customers. In general, a book’s purpose is to educate, entertain, and/or persuade—to share a story, idea, or message with readers. You should be able to state your book’s purpose in one sentence.

Some examples might be that your book shows people how to promote their businesses or encourage innovation. Your romance novel will provide an escape from everyday life. My first book teaches people how to play pickleball.

Target Market

Understanding your book’s purpose helps you define your target market. Start by identifying three large groups of people who might benefit from reading your book. These could be professional organizations, hobbyists, age or other demographic groups, social media groups, etc. Going beyond that, Eldred Bird wrote a fine blog for Writers in the Storm that details how you can uncover more audience for your book. I don’t have time or space to cover this topic in detail, so I’ll leave the reading to you and share only the main points he covers in his blog:

• Know your genre.
• Know your book’s age group.
• Define your media format (book, ebook, etc.)
• Distribution

Bird’s closing remarks sum up the process: “Knowledge of your reader base will inform not only your writing process, but how and where you market your work. Do your research. Find out who your potential readers are, what they value in a story, and how they prefer to consume it.”

[While I was writing this, a new post popped up in my inbox from Writers in the Storm: “AI: The Secret Weapon in Finding a Book’s True Audience” by Brittany Pinney. It’s a new twist on how we can manage book discovery and definitely worth a read.

How does knowing your target market help you choose between traditional and self-publishing?

Self-publishing is well-suited for the genres of romance, fantasy, science fiction, thrillers, and non-fiction (especially self-help) due to their large self-publishing audience and potential for strong reader bases. Genres like literary fiction, children's books, and highly academic works are generally better suited for traditional publishing due to the importance of established credibility in those markets.

• Do you plan to write only one book?
• Are your books (or planned books) in genres that are well represented by self-publishing?
• Do you dislike deadlines and pressure?
• Do you want to control all of your editing, cover design, and more?

If the answer to one or more of the above questions is yes, look to self-publishing. Agents don’t want to represent someone who has only one book to offer and none to come. Also, publishing is driven by current sales, so be aware that your greatest book ever might not be something an agent can represent in the current market.

• Do you hope to find your book in bookstores across the nation?
• Want to make the NYT bestseller list?
• Do you want the support and validation a traditional publisher will provide?
• Are you patient, willing to wait up to two years before your book is available in stores?

If you answered yes to any of the above, seek an agent who will deliver your manuscript to a traditional publisher. Jane Friedman says, “If you have any interest whatsoever in traditional publishing, exhaust all your agent/publisher options first. Get thoroughly rejected (as much as that may hurt), and then self-publish. It’s very, very hard to go in the other direction successfully.”

By the way, she also says if you think you’ll self-publish and be picked up by a major publisher later, stop and rethink. This is especially important for series. It is highly unlikely that a publisher will consider your self-published book unless you can show extraordinary sales in a short time.

A side note about writing for children

You don’t market to children; you market to their parents or to the persons procuring for the schools or libraries.

Marketing

I can’t begin to do justice to this topic here, but hopefully I can in a future post. The success rate for self-publishing is comparable to that of traditional publishing. A few authors, through talent and hard work, rise to become bestselling superstars. A few others achieve significant literary recognition and substantial sales. The majority do not make a living from it.

The reality of marketing and promotion can hit self-published authors hard; they often face a steeper climb than anticipated, battling limited resources and the struggle to gain wide readership. It typically takes self-published authors years and the release of four or five books to achieve noticeable success and earn a substantial income, a process marked by countless hours of writing, editing, marketing, and promotion. Before embarking on this path, make sure you are dedicated to the consistent creation and promotion of your work, a cycle that continues year after year, building momentum and expanding your reach.

Charting a course that works for you

In a nutshell, these are your options:

1. Find an agent who will deliver your book to a publisher.

2. Hire a full-service company to act as your publisher.

3. Work with a “hybrid” publisher.

4. Self-publish on your own, hiring any freelance assistance you need, and work directly with retailers and distributors to sell your book.

I’m working on the strictly “Self-Publishing” article that follows this one and hope to have it ready for publication soon.

Good luck on your journey!

Do you aspire to be traditionally published? Self-published? If you are already published what has your journey been like?

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About Gale

Writing The Art of Pickleball in 2005 launched Gale Leach’s career as an award-winning author. From 2011 to 2020, she also created her own company, Two Cats Press, which published the works of six Arizona authors, including seven of her own fantasy adventure novels for children and teens. Currently, she’s at work on a fantasy series that involves technology and magic, multiple worlds, and creatures you only thought were mythological.

Gale and her husband recently relocated to Texas, accompanied by a rescue dog, two rescue kittens, and a bearded dragon. Her interests outside of writing include singing, playing music, genealogy, reading, crafting, and many types of puzzles and games.

You can connect with Gale on social media or her website.

Top Image is a Google Gemini-created file, subsequently tweaked by Gale using Adobe Photoshop Elements.