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What is the best self publishing company?

Self publishing or through a company?

  • I am currently working on my first novel and was wondering which would be better to pursue. I'm very young (17) and have heard mixed things about age within a publishing company. Some say they would jump at the chance to publish someone so young, others say they wouldn't take me seriously. But then again, I have no idea where to even begin publishing my own novel. I'm feeling a bit in over my head. I'm wonder what the pros and cons are for both. Is it better to self-publish or go through a company?

  • Answer:

    If your writing is good enough to be taken seriously, then you will be taken seriously. It has nothing to do with age. The issue is this: with age comes experience. Not publishing experience, but writers who are older have had more time to practice their craft. If someone who is 27 years old has been writing since the same age that you started writing, they have 10 years of writing practice on you. Their writing will have less of an "amateur" or "beginner" feel to it and will feel more professional. Not because they're BETTER than you or more talented... but just because they've had more time to practice. The biggest cons for self-publishing are low success rates, high cost, and the low rate of return of your investment. Chances are almost 100% that you will lose money self publishing, and not make it. Also, many who self-publish don't realize that it's like starting your own business. You have to be your own marketer, manager, accountant, designer and salesperson. If your self-publishing company offers any of these services, it will be an added cost to an already expensive process. The biggest cons for traditional publishing is that you don't have as much creative control over your work, the process often takes longer than self-publishing because of the extensive editing process, you get less money per book sold, and the industry itself is going through a time of transition right now because of eBooks. But your chances of making money and having a larger readership are much higher in traditional publishing.

ElLiBeLL... at Yahoo! Answers Visit the source

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I've started a little research (so far since I just started researching) cuz I want to see if I can get my book published when I am finished with it. So far I found to go through an agent and the agents get it published from sending it to book publishers. Also, it supposed to be harder self publishing cuz you gotta sell it directly to stores yourself (if they will buy it) while if it was actually published by a book publisher, the stores have no problem buying it from the publishers. Hope this helps!!

Crazy Gurl

Wombat is dead on when it comes to the cons of both avenues of publishing you mention. I just wanted talk about some of the PROS of both avenues and also mention that with digital publishing and print-on-demand services have made self-publishing a lot more affordable. The main cost associated with the initial publishing comes from hiring an editor (in my opinion a MUST if you intend to seriously self publish) and from having a professionally designed book cover (another MUST). The good news is that your share of revenue per book is MUCH higher with self publishing even if your sales are lower. I will agree that it is a LOT of work. Pursuing traditional publishing can be very frustrating as well, and to be honest you really should hire an editor to edit your manuscript before you submit, so its not much different from self publishing in that regard. The good news here is that IF you get accepted, the marketing, design and everything else is taken care of for you. The reality is that lots of people submit books and not many ever see the light of day. If your book is good, I think your age would be of great benefit to you from a marketing standpoint, especially when it comes to self-publishing. I did want to mention however as a word of caution, sites like Amazon Direct Publishing and CreateSpace require users to be 18 years old. So if you publish via those sources, make sure you have someone who is 18 or older do it on your behalf. If not, you could risk forfeiting royalties for violating the terms of service. It sounds crazy I know, but trust me it can happen. Best of luck!

Mark

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