If you’re like me, you grew up only knowing about the traditional side of publishing. Self-publishing wasn’t as widely known and certainly not as easy for the average person to break into. Now it seems self-publishing is a strong contender for writers to pursue in lieu of looking for an agent or publishing house to take on their project.

I’m going to share in this post what I’ve learned about both forms of publishing thus far in my writing career.

Traditional Publishing

Traditional publishing is, well, traditional. You go through a series of steps that have been put in place by the publishing industry to ensure that talented writers are being published and represented by the correct agents, editors and publishing houses.

The issue a lot of people find with traditional publishing is how long it takes to break into the industry. The turnaround time for querying an agent or editor can be over a year long wait and that could be all for a simple rejection.

However, going this route ensures you have a team of professionals behind you working to edit, promote and build the best writing platform and book you could possibly write. These are people with real stakes in the success of your body of work because they have bought into your piece, and they only make money if your book sells well. It may be difficult to get into, but the support you receive can make or break whether your story idea will make it to a large audience or not.

Pursuing traditional publishing typically requires you query either an agent or a publishing house. It’s important to do your research before querying either to ensure you are sending in the correct information, in the right format and to the right people. Most agents and publishing houses will have a submissions guideline that will include what is needed for the query and what font and format to use. You will also want to do your research and make sure the people you are querying to would actually have the resources to take on your project. If you’re writing a YA horror novel, you’re not going to send your manuscript to a publishing house that only publishes adult romance novels. Even in the scenario that your novels falls under multiple umbrellas of genres, you need to really make sure that you’re sending your work to the right people otherwise it’s a guaranteed rejection.

Traditional publishing is sometimes referred to as trad publishing, typically via social media. You can easily find a community of people who support trad publishing or a community that actively does not support it. Regardless, there is a community of writers out there to find no matter where you fall on the opinion scale.

Self-publishing

Self-publishing is exactly how it sounds. It’s when a writer goes it alone and publishes their book without the help of a publishing house or agent. This doesn’t mean however that they didn’t have any help.

Often what a self-published or indie author will do is they will outsource some of the necessary steps needed for publishing a book. They might hire an editor, or a social media manager, an assistant, or a cover designer. They might be talented and confident enough to do all of this themselves but oftentimes, someone has helped them whether it was a paid service or a volunteer situation.

Typically, from what I have seen, you can find people to beta read your novel. This is just a general read however, that is only meant to give you an idea of what a typical reader could think of your novel. It’s also a way to get some early reviews in to help boost your ratings and get yourself seen by readers. Indie authors will utilize writing groups that will have discord accounts available, social media to reach out to potential readers, and in some cases it’s just friends or family of theirs.

Something to note, is that if you go this route, it isn’t a bad idea to find some relatively popular bookstagrammers who offer beta reads and reviews on their own platforms. Although I wouldn’t only pursue those who are already influencers, it is an integral part to marketing that has become prevalent in our society.

The truth is, the reviews on the backs of the traditional books we’ve read are a form of that. It’s taken well-known authors, asking them to beta read a novel before going to print so that someone who is already respected by the reading community within that genre can be quoted as enjoying that novel. Personally, this has never made me pick up a book. What catches my eye is covers.

Despite how many times we’ve been taught to not judge a book by its cover, it is of the utmost importance to make sure that the cover and the title are both eye catching! If neither of these grabs someone’s attention, you are less likely to get a lot of readers because the only thing you’re relying on is word of mouth. This is why indie authors will pay professional cover designers to make their covers

Platforms to Utilize

Regardless of what avenue you decide to walk down in order to get your story into the hands of readers, there are certain platforms that can be utilized to help you.

For those looking to be traditionally published, Publishers Marketplace provides information on agents looking for authors, publishing house deals, and even provides a job board for those looking to work within the publishing industry as more than just an author. This however is for American publishing. If you’re Canadian and want to keep it local, The Association of Canadian Publishers provides information specifically pertaining to Canadian publishers founded in Canada.

In terms of networking, Instagram and tik tok are the biggest ones for both self-published and traditionally published authors. Writers utilize this platform for marketing purposes as well as to create reader engagement to maintain a conversation about their work.

Threads, Instagram’s Twitter equivalent, has become both readers and writers way to share diary entries, or at least that’s what it feels like. Conversations are started on this social platform, marketing is done on this platform, and the community has grown and allowed people to find like-minded people because of this platform.

No matter how you decide to share your work, it’s of the utmost importance to ensure you know exactly what needs to be done to be successful in both publishing options. Being a writer is hard work but hopefully this blog will help alleviate some of the stressors of learning about the industry!

As always, write fearlessly, edit ruthlessly, and read endlessly.