There are numerous methods of publishing a book, besides publishing through an established publishing house. None of the alternative options requires acquiring literary agent representation.

          I recommend that all authors first attempt to secure agent representation. Literary agents are knowledgeable professionals in the foggy literary world. If all agents pass on the manuscript, an author should self-publish the book.

          With the rise of Amazon and e-reader technology, publishing a book is easier than writing a book. It is a proven fact that if you write, edit, and format a book, you can publish that book.

          The most important fact to understand about publishing a book is that no matter what method an author uses to publish a book, the key to distributing the book to readers is through advertising. No matter how an author publishes a book, the responsibility of advertising lies within the hands of the author.

          I have seen people publish a book and then never once post a single link. Those people did not sell a single copy. The authors that don’t advertise their published book will have equal success. No advertising will definitely equal no readers, and no interest in your book.

 

Types of publishing include:

• Publishing House

• Subsidiary (aka Vanity)

• Self-publish

 

Publishing House

Publishing houses earn profits from the public purchasing books.

          There is an extensive submission, editing, and publishing process.

          The contract will vary for each author. Some contracts include advance payment, or demand multiple written books. 

          A legitimate publishing house earns profits from retaining a percentage of book sales and movie rights sales. If a fee is charged, a clause typically refunds the fees if the author sells a certain number of copies.

          Most publishing houses only accept submissions from agents.

          Working with a major publishing house is the best way to see a book become a movie.

          The two basic criteria used to categorize publishing houses are the amount earned through sales of book copies and movie rights each year, and the number of book titles published per year. With the ease of publishing an e-book, the standard is slowly shifting to only the amount of sales earned per year.

          There are only five large publishing houses referred to as the five main publishing houses that earn extravagant book sale profits, and publish numerous successful titles consecutively every year. Independent, indie, or small press publishing are all the remaining publishing houses.

 

The five main publishing houses include:

• Hachette          

• HarperCollins

• Macmillan

• Penguin Random House

• Simon & Schuster

  

Subsidiary (aka Vanity) Publishing

          Subsidiary publishing companies earn extravagant profits from authors paying large fees, and purchasing large quantities of book copies and merchandising material.

          There is a limited (if any) submission, editing, and publishing process.

          The contract is the exact same for every author. The contract highly favors the subsidiary publishing company, retains large sales percentages, and does not allow the author to cancel for numerous years.

          A subsidiary publishing company charges fees upfront for services, with no clause to refund any of the fees, requires numerous purchases from the author, and retains a significant percentage of book sales to the public and movie rights sales.

          Anyone can submit, and everyone is accepted.

          There is a microscopic chance (at best) a legitimate publishing house will ever deal with a book title published through a subsidiary publishing company, or that the title will become a movie.

 

Self-publish

          Self-publishing means the author completes, or pays someone to complete, every aspect of publishing a book. Format, edit, cover design, print, host, sales, and marketing are the sole responsibility of the author.

          Numerous inventive companies (including my favorite - Amazon) offer self-publishing services that provide advice, assistance, print, hosting, sales, cover design and tracking.

          Self-publishing services are completely different from subsidiary companies because the author retains complete ownership of the book.

          Self-publishing and e-books (thanks to Amazon) are immerging into the mainstream public. It’s impossible to say that a self-publishing author will never find success as an author. I think the people that fail are the people that quit. Self-publishing requires believing in you. A fact will always remain that anything is possible for the people that believe and act as if anything is possible. 

          I choose to self-publish because I want to control every process of publishing my book. I wish to own my errors and my achievements equally. If I succeed or fail, it will be a result of my effort, or lack of effort.

I have read that few self-published authors draw the attention of the main publishing houses. I want to achieve that milestone. My goal is to build a quality self-published catalog that gains the attention of the main publishing houses. Once I figure out how to scale the difficult literary wall of self-publishing into mainstream publishing, I’ll kick the wall down and invite all dedicated authors inside.