Traditional Publishing or Self Publishing

Traditional Publishing or Self Publishing
By Cristie Will

I wanted to share my experience of writing and publishing. I have experienced self publishing and publishing with a traditional publisher. My novel 11.11.11 by TJ Stokes was published traditionally. I self published five cookbooks, Whats Cooking, Lettuce Eat, Dippity Do Dah, Republicans and Democrats. I am currently writing my next novel, Mark My Words This Will Happen Again.

Traditional publishing is when someone writes a book and a publisher accepts the book to publish and pays the person that wrote the book a royalty fee per book sold. Sometimes they will pay a small advance and sometimes not, unless you are a famous author or person then they almost always pay a large advance and whatever they pay that amount will come out of the royalty pay in the end. By going with a traditional publisher you wont be out any printing/publishing costs. A traditional publisher will design the cover and formatting of the book. Once you write youre book they basically take over the process of getting the book ready for market. Most of the traditional publishers do not advertise your book or anything of that nature. It is and will be up to you to see that your book sells.

Self publishing is when you find a publisher to publish your book and you pay all the costs to produce a book. If you dont get your book into any of the bookstore chains or even big bookstores then you will have to buy books and sell them yourself if you want to make any money. You either have to design youre cover or pay someone to design it for you.

If you have ever thought about writing a book, but thought you dont have what it takes. I am here to tell you that you do. We all have a book in us. It is hard work writing a book, but the rewards are well worth it.

First off writing the book is just half of it and believe it or not the real work begins in the marketing of the book. Even if you are fortunate enough to get your book accepted by one of the Big Houses you still have to promote it. When I say Big Houses I mean one of the main big publishers.

The publishers are not much more than a printer. Why do I say that they are not much more than a printer? They basically print your book to market and then you have to go out and promote it. If you dont get one of the big publishers to take your book you can forget about getting your book on the book store shelves of the big chains unless you prove your book can sell and when I mean sell it better sell like 5,000 copies or more and then they will look at you.

In the end it all depends on what you want. If you want to make more money per book sold then go the self publishing way, but be prepared for a lot more work.

I hope this helps if and when you write that book that has been bottled up inside of you.

Be sure to visit me at Cristies Cookin or TJ Stokes.

Cooking lessons for Cristie began at 8 years old with the best teacher in the world -- her Mom! Later, she cooked for the restaurant the family owned, and her love of the rade has grown ever since. Cristie's creative cooking has continued for over 40 years. Her creations can soon be on your kitchen table. Check out Cristie's books at www.cristiescookin.com and www.tjstokes.com

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