THE WAY YOU DECIDE TO PUBLISH IS RELATED TO WHAT YOU WANT OUT OF YOUR WRITING CAREER.
Many factors will influence your pathway to publication. What are you looking for? Is it fame, a best-seller, film and TV, writing awards, a readership among like-minded professionals, or the satisfaction of seeing your work in print and getting comments from those who read your books. Age comes into this decision as well. I decided to self-publish because, simply, I was too old to wait to be discovered. Another factor for me was that self-publishing became an emerging, and eventually a flourishing industry.
There are for ways to publish:
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Traditional Publishing Houses – Be prepared to do a lot of research. Use “The Writer’s Market” to discover how to write a query letter, who the publishing houses are and what kinds of books they are looking for. Visit the publishers website. It usually gives you submission guidelines. Many publishing houses won’t consider you unless you go through an agent.
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Small Press – There are many of these companies. They are more likely to publish an unknown writer. Follow the same pathway to find one that fits. Some of these companies will help you with marketing.
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Form Your Own Company – Here you will have to look into what it takes to form a business (legalities, responsibilities of running a business), but you may be able to make an income if other authors wish to use your services.
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Self-Publishing – Browse the Net. There are many companies. Comparison shop. Read reviews and check sites that report fraud. Create Space is free, but you need to know about making your own covers and formatting. Packages include lots of items you should familiarize yourself with. The main advantage is that you have complete control over all the aspects of publishing, but once published, you are on your own unless you want to pay for a service.
