How To Write A Book: Part 3 - Self Publishing vs Traditional Publishing

I have written a non-fiction book titled "Unmet Needs of Entrepreneurship" that was launched in Feb 2018 and published by Rupa Publications. Here is my personal experience with self-publishing.

I submitted my manuscript to 10-12 leading publishers in India through my literary agent during March 2016. Over a 4 month period, I received declines or no response from most of them. Meanwhile, I rewrote one entire chapter and resubmitted my manuscript. Another wait for 2-3 months and nothing happened. It was frustrating. It was Sept 2016 and I decided to explore self-publishing options.

Traditional publishing refers to getting published through the established publishing houses in India. This requires your manuscript to be vetted and approved by the editors. In Self Publishing, you are in control of the publishing process and the manuscript vetting is very basic. Since I had not received any response from publishers, I visited the websites of many self-publishing houses in India - Notion Press, Falcon, Partridge, etc. They were expensive. One would have to shell out Rs 60-70K approximately. I was not keen on spending that kind of money. Most authors would prefer getting published through the traditional route because it does not involve any cash outflow. Traditional publishers would pay you an advance against royalty and provide many services such as copy editing, multiple proof readings, cover design, typesetting and distribution support. In self-publishing houses, these are value-added services. Also, the quality of copy editing in a traditional publisher is likely to be better than a self-publishing house.

The biggest advantage of self-publishing is speed to market and ownership of the whole process. Self-publishing is a combination of eBooks and hard copy books. In fact, you can go live with a kindle version of your book including typesetting in just a few hours. You can do this by sitting in your bedroom - you don't have to contact agents, publishers, editors, etc.. Publishing on Amazon is very simple and empowering. The royalties on ebooks are 70% and the reach is worldwide. The royalties from traditional publishing are 8-10%. The best part of publishing online is that customers can order a hard copy of your book (print on demand) through Amazon. You need to subscribe to Createspace (FREE) on Amazon or Lightning Source. It took me 4-5 hours to understand the process (from scratch). Also, you can publish your book to markets across the world, decide the pricing, design your cover page, and do a host of things - all for FREE through user-friendly software. In which case, shouldn't that be very attractive - everything seems to be so wonderful !!

Unfortunately, in India, the penetration of eBooks is low. Even worldwide, hard copy sales are higher than eBooks. People still prefer holding a physical book, flipping through crispy pages and smelling the odors of a freshly printed book. Also, self-publishing does not come with a good distribution network. That is one of the major drawbacks of self-publishing. You are unlikely to find self-published books in bookstores as most of them will not stock self-published books. Almost all self-published books are available on e-commerce websites as print on demand book. Also, the print runs are low (~300 copies for the first print run) whereas traditional publishing houses have at least 2000+ as the first print run. Which means that the cost of the book is likely to be higher and becomes unattractive to buyers (most of them start at Rs 450+ for a 200 pages book). Also, the consistency of the print quality can be an issue.

I know someone who has published 5-6 series of science fiction novels as eBooks and he has sold over 80,000+ books which is terrific news for those who are keen on eBook publishing. He is not keen on publishing hard copies. Traditional publishers such as Rupa Publications publish 160-180 books a year. That is a very small funnel. These are books across genres. Getting noticed by these publishers is a long drawn affair and time-consuming. If you can't wait for that long, self-publishing is the route for you!

Traditional publishing could take anywhere between 12-24 months. If you don't have the patience to wait for that long, have the money to afford self-publishing, are confident of selling and distributing your book on your own - self-publishing is the route for you.

And yes, I received a positive reply from Rupa by mid Nov 2016 with an offer to sign up!!

Find out more about the book #UnmetNeedsOfEntrepreneurship 

Buy your copy here: https://bit.ly/Unmet_Needs

Also read:

Part 1:How to write a book - How to get started?

Part 2: How to write a book - How to draw the attention of a publisher?

Part 3: How to write a book - Self publishing vs Traditional publishing

Part 4: How to write a book - How much will it cost?