Publishing Pathways: Traditional Publishing
Last week, I started this three-part series on the different ways an author can get published. I started with the “wild west” of publishing, true self-publishing. This week, I want to look at the “dinner party with three different forks” of publishing: Traditional Publishing.
For many aspiring authors, traditional publishing is the gold standard. For some it’s even seen as the only valid option. And there certainly is an aura of prestige that comes from traditional publishing. At the very least, it’s a more exclusive affair; estimates of how many books are published each year vary wildly, but one thing is certain: the majority are self-published.
Whether that aura of prestige is well deserved or not, it exists because—if for no other reason—to publish a book the traditional route requires a much larger number of people bought into your project before it can hit the printers.
What Is Traditional Publishing?
Like with self publishing, the name tells you a lot. Traditional publishing is the way publishing has worked for generations. In fact, the roots of traditional publishing can be traced back nearly to the invention of the printing press.
There are a lot of nitty gritty details about what different publishing deals can look like with different traditional publishing firms, but it boils down to this: the firm pays the author to purchase the rights to the work, and the author and publisher negotiate a rate of royalty that the author will be paid for each book sold.
This means that the initial costs, i.e. the financial risk, falls on the publishing firm, and thus they also stand to reap the lion’s share of the rewards if the book sells well.
Currently, there are five (though soon, it may be down to four) publishing firms that control between 80 and 90% of the market share for books. These firms, known unsurprisingly as the Big Five, are made up of Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Hatchette, and MacMillian; but they each control dozens of different imprints with names and logos that may not reference the parent company at all.
Pros of Traditional Publishing
Large traditional publishing firms have a lot more resources at their disposal than indie firms or you as an author do (probably… I don’t know what your income tax bracket is). What this means for authors is, in theory, the team making your book dreams a reality will be well equipped, professional, and connected to all the right places to make your book successful. That means the end product should look and feel professional and highly polished.
Like it or not, everyone will judge your book by its cover (and its interior layout, and the feel of the paper it’s on, and the quality of the binding, and…) Having a well resourced team helping you produce your book is a great thing.
Furthermore, traditional publishing is free to you. You may choose to hire a professional editor (like… I don’t know… somebody) to help you polish your manuscript or query letters to help you land an agent, but the number of online resources that offer information, tips, and tricks for free is, frankly, staggering. In traditional publishing, there’s no reason you have to pay out of pocket for anything.
In fact, another major pro of traditional publishing is that, once a firm agrees to pick up your book, you’ll be paid on the front end, and still have some possibility of making money off the sales of your work. How much you’ll be paid and how much you can make off sales probably won’t position you to quit your job and spit in your boss’s eye, but you won’t be starting with a deficit, so that’s something.
Cons of Traditional Publishing
Remember when I said traditional publishing is free to you? That’s only true in the strictest sense of the word free, and only if you don’t value your time. It’s a grind getting your work in front of the right people, and the right people are almost certainly overworked and underpaid, meaning they may not have the bandwidth to really give your work a second glance if it doesn’t catch them immediately.
You’ll need to steel yourself for rejection. There’s probably someone whose very first book got published traditionally on their very first round of submissions, but I’ve never heard their story, so it’s likely the book ended up being a flop anyway.
To publish your book traditionally, you’re going to need buy-in from at least three major players/teams: an acquisitions editor who wants to buy your book, a marketing team who sees you and your book as a viable asset, and a sales team who has a vision for who’ll buy your book. But in all likelihood, you’re going to need a “zero”th major player, a literary agent. Very few traditional publishers will accept manuscripts from unagented authors, and even if you find one that does, going into contract negotiations without an agent is a risk.
A good agent will help you make sure you’re getting the best contract possible, which means the highest advance you can get and keeping more of the rights, but to publish traditionally, you’ll have to sell some of the rights. Selling the rights to your work means that, if push comes to shove, you probably won’t have the last word when it comes to artistic autonomy, and you may not even be able to publish sequels or spin-offs depending on what rights you sell. Did I already say it’s important to have an agent? It is.
A not-so-good contract could leave you with a small advance, a tiny royalty rate, and a book that isn’t true to your vision.
Should You Traditionally Publish?
Here are the questions to ask yourself: Am I comfortable killing my darlings to make a book more marketable? Am I willing to put in a lot of time and effort and go potentially long periods of time without tangible steps forward in the process? Can I learn to celebrate the less tangible steps forward and be resilient? If the answers to those questions are yes, traditional publishing may be the best option for you.
But, if you still aren’t sure after last week and this week, come back again next Monday. There’s actually one more path to publishing that is worth discussing.
