Prismatic Publishing

When I finally undertook the writing of my first book, I was taking a course in writing for children. I had grandiose visions of sending the manuscript off to a dozen or so publishers and having at least one of them fall as much in love with the words that had flowed so freely and beautifully from my imagination. After all, my writing instructor praised the book I had labored so hard to produce. I was even offered help to get my book in print.

I sent it out several times, but only one publisher read the entire manuscript. And they very kindly sent me a personal letter which contained some valuable suggestions as to how I could make the book stronger.

The hard reality set in very quickly that finding the right publisher would be a long-term project. Eventually, I was introduced to other ways of breaking into print, such as, vanity presses, print-on-demand, and self-publication. But, they are topics for another time.

The process that had by far the greatest appeal to me was that of traditional publication. This is also, I believe, the choice of most writers.

So, what are the advantages of traditional publication?

1. The process is so simple. Send out manuscripts, following very closely what publishing houses are currently interested in, i.e., ones that publish books that match the genre of your book.
2. Once you have become a partner with the ideal publisher there is very little for you to do, except to work on your next masterpiece.
3. You will have a contract with the publisher clearly defining what he is going to do for you and consequently, you don’t have to worry about those aspects of putting your book in print.
4. You can hope for a modest advance and feel confident that when your first book is in print and becomes a best seller, future advances will be larger and soon you will be able to make a living as a full-time author.
5. You will receive royalties in the neighborhood of 10% of the cover price of each book sold. As an example, if the cover price of your book is, say, $15.00 and the book sells about 5,000 copies per year, the theoretical annual royalty would be about $7,500. If the following year you can repeat this process with your second book while maintaining new sales on the first book, your theoretical annual royalty would be $15,000. Project that out over a five-year period and you’re approaching $40,000 per year. That is not as much as an attorney, a doctor, or engineer will be earning, but it is certainly respectable. Especially since your write for the love of writing.
6. You will have invested very little of your own financial resources (copy paper, toner, a writer’s market book, envelopes, postage, etc.)
7. The publisher will take care of having your book edited, formatted, and cover designed by professionals. They will handle negotiations with the printer, cover shipping costs, make arrangements with a distributor.

This is not an exhaustive list of all the benefits of traditional publishing but it does cover what most people think of when they think of traditional publishing.

The limits of traditional publishing will be the subject of my next blog post.

What has your experience been with traditional publishers?

Author: David R Christensen