Hello Tomodachi’s,

What are you all up to? Me? Well, you know, I am doing almost everything under the sun and still would find time to occasionally put some more things on my already quite filled plate. 😀 I like keeping myself busy, so I do not end up becoming idle.

Anyway, today’s post is about the three types of publishing routes writers can take when they are considering publishing their work.

For new authors, it could be especially overwhelming to decide which route is best for you and your (financial) needs and later figuring out which publishing house fits your current situation. I know it was overwhelming for me. I was so overwhelmed with everything that it took me several weeks of reading and getting to understand the publishing industry and the differents routes I could take before actually publishing my first mini poetry collection, I’m Only Human, in January 2016. However, I had a great urge to publish my work at least 2 years before that.

First I will start off with briefly explaining Traditional Publishing. Traditional Publishing is when a book publishing company buys the rights to an author’s manuscript. That means once the manuscript is sold the author does not really hold any more rights to control what happens to his or her book. The book publishing company can, pretty much, do as they please with the book and make whatever changes they deem necessary to make the book become more profitable. Not to mention this an old (and in my opinion outdated) way of publishing books. The advantage of this type of publishing is that pretty much everything is done for you without you having to raise a single finger.

Self Publishing, on the other hand, is the complete opposite to traditional publishing. That means you do not sell your work to the publisher’s but only pay for them to publish your work and you have full control over what happens to your work as well as being able to keep your author’s rights. I choose this route for my publishing my work because of these very reasons. However, as good as this publishing route may sound (yes, there is always a ‘but’ coming) the disadvantage is that it could end up becoming quite expensive because you have to pay for everything you want to be done to your book including marketing. Many self-published authors have to go through the trouble of marketing their own book which determines if a book becomes successful or not. Now let me tell you marketing is not an easy thing to do. Everything can, in some way or form, be an opportunity to promote your book or work. You just have to find or recognise when those opportunities come. That is what marketing is all about.

And last but not least, Hybrid Publishing is a publishing route that makes use of different blends of publishing and marketing elements. It has a combination of both traditional publishing and self-publishing elements.

I would advise people to think and consider very carefully before going into any of publishing routes. It is not easy as it may seem.