Self publishing (which used to be referred to as “vanity” publishing”) is more popular than ever these days, and for good reason.   Self publishing allows you to maintain complete control over your book, something traditional publishing houses don’t allow.

Self publishing also puts book marketing squarely on the shoulders of the author.  However, a dirty little secret is that book marketing ALSO falls upon the traditionally published author’s shoulders as well!  Every author needs a website or a blog as a part of their own book promotion and marketing strategy!

The other day I was talking the other day with Mitchell Levy of Happy About Publishing and he used an analogy to illustrate what it’s like to work with a traditional publishing house.  Mitchell says that the goal of major publishing houses is to hit a grand slam home run - you know, New York Times Best Sellers!

Still using the baseball analogy, the major publishing houses won’t swing at a pitch that might result in a base hit.  With that in mind, it takes 18- 24 months to get your book published when you sign with a traditional publisher.  (This was the PRIMARY reason I didn’t even TRY to find a traditional publisher for my book, Beyond the Niche.  I needed it for a project I was working on and I had no intention of waiting 2 years while the publisher “built buzz” for it.)

Mitchell then told me the story of branding expert who had landed a “traditional” publishing contract with a large publishing house.  To say the expert was thrilled would be an understatement.  He was over the moon!  However, that elation quickly faded as he began the arduous process of publishing his book.  See, his book was scheduled for release in the fall and his publishing house had a rule that any book released in the fall had to have a book cover with fall colors.  However, this brandind expert’s “brand” was BUILT upon a color scheme of pastel blue.  Color choice is a huge part of branding and the branding expert was horrified that his first book was going to “betray” his brand that he had carefully crafted!

This little tale may have inspired you to stop searching for a traditional publishing house and begin looking for a self publishing firm for your book.  That’s what happened to Bev Slomka. In her article, How to Find the Best Self-Publishing Firms she writes that she tried for 2 years to find a traditional publisher for her fiction novel.

Bev spent a lot of time and effort in researching self publishing firms.  You could do that too.  However, Kathleen Gage of Street Smarts Marketing recently interviewed  Stacie Vander Pol, the author of the book Top Self Publishing Firms: How Writers Get Published, Sell More Books, and Rise to the Top: and Make Money Working from Home with the Best Print On Demand Self-Publishing Companies

Kathleen has been self publishing books for a decade and she found the book informative.  That is high prasie indeed!

Filed under: Amazon and POD publishers, Easy Author Book Marketing, For the Writer, Writing as a Business, book publishing, pod publishing, publishing companies, Publishing Company, publishing house, Self Publishing