Just thought I'd post a link to a summary of different publishing methods. It was put together by agent/publishing consultant Jane Friedman (I think she just calls herself "agent", but a lot of what she does seems broader than that) and seems, to me, to be fairly balanced. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3BkwFa5qpaIc2E0WlRkeXhpMFk/view You'll need to enlarge the image, probably.
Yikes. But thanks for posting this. I read them all very carefully. I am still going for self-publishing, despite being nervous about the process itself. I do want control over what gets put out there. One of the things that the chart didn't mention was control over content. I think most traditional publishers want some control, in the sense that they can ask you to change bits of your story, or eliminate bits, etc. That's a factor also worth considering. While it may be easier to make sales, once your book is accepted (which isn't easy) there is a good chance it won't be quite the book you originally wrote. Length may well be an issue as well. Yup. I'm sticking to self-publishing.
I think that can be guarded against with trade publishers - I mean, they don't WANT you to make a lot of changes, either, they want you to submit a perfect book they can just take and run with! But you can have conversations as part of the negotiations process about what changes they might be looking for, and you can walk away if you don't agree with their ideas. And you can stet any changes they suggest that you don't agree with. I've made lots of changes based on publisher requests, but they've always been requests, not orders, and I've always made them b/c I agreed that they'd make the book better or at least more marketable. Not to say that people shouldn't self-publish if control is really important to them - I agree, it's the most absolute level of control, for sure. But I think sometimes there's a picture of publishers taking an author's work and twisting it into something the author hates, and I've just never seen that happen. If the publisher thinks big changes are necessary, they probably won't buy the book in the first place.
I just thought it was strange that the issue wasn't mentioned anywhere in the chart, as so many other 'differences' were highlighted.
I think the important thing - regardless of whether you self publish or trad publish, is that you take the time to read through everything and if there's something you don't like, re-negotiate or research more and don't sign anything, until you are happy.
Sorry - guess the original poster of the chart took it down... Try - https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3BkwFa5qpaIWGJxOVJ1NG1ieW8/view
It doesn't really distinguish between press sizes - I think small presses, like large presses, would be somewhere on the left side of the page - the difference would be whether they pay advances and/or are focused on digital.
Hi, On dial up and the chart is simply too big to download in a reasonable time. But my issue would be creative control. However, not in the normal sense. My issue is with non-compete clauses in publishing contracts. I mean a lot of authors are turning hybrid - ie doing both indie and trade publishing. But non-competes may prevent someone from self publishing work for a period of time. For me this is a major concern. I make money from my writing. The last thing I can afford is anything interferring with that income stream such as a contractual obligation. I'm currently weighing up the pros and cons of submitting one book to agents etc simply to see what if anything the world of trade publishing could potentially do for me assuming they even accept the work. But I can do that because I'll still be putting out hopefully four more books this year as an indie, so win or lose it doesn't matter. But anything that interferes with those other four books does matter. Something I think every indie author looking at going trade needs to consider. And of course every trade published author thinking of going indie. Cheers, Greg.
