What are the Different Ways to Get Published? 

The two major ways to get published are self-publishing and traditional publishing. What are the differences between the two?

I will go over some general facts about these two ways of publishing in this post. However, we go more in depth in the Publishing Mastermind, part of the Writing Gym program, where we also help you figure out what is the best way for you to publish. 

Self-publishing

This is the Do-It-Yourself route. You write the book and hopefully find someone to edit your book for you. You design the cover and the interior and figure out the logistics of this process. This is the “cheap” and “easy” way. However, it becomes a lot more expensive that people anticipate. You pay for the editor, the layout, the interior, and more but end up with a book that doesn’t sell.  

In Write to Publish we don’t make any judgments on how people want to publish. Choosing a way to publish is like choosing an outfit. You have to find a way that works for you and what will make the difference for what you want to do–this is one of the things that I help people with.  We talk about your goals, how you can get there, and what makes the most sense for you given what your goals are. 

Traditional publishing

This is where you get paid for your book. The general trajectory is that you finish your book, get an agent, and the agent helps you find a publisher. You might have seen on Write to Publish many posts from clients talking about working with me to find an agent, how I get them in touch with an agent, and that I work with a whole bunch of agents and people from the publishing industry for my clients. 

One of the tricky things about traditional publishing and what most people get hung up on is that there are different tiers. It’s like going to college. Going to community college, a state college, and an Ivy League college differs in how you reach your certain goals. Similarly, there are basic publishing houses, middle ground publishing houses, and then your high-tier publishing houses. In Write to Publish, we shoot for the high-tier publishing houses. 

Why? When you publish a book traditionally through top-tier publishers, they will give you some money, publish your book, and do your marketing for you. In these top-tier publishing houses, you will get the best of everything.

Within this are the top five publishing houses: Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin Random House, and Simon and Schuster. I have relationships with editors from each of these publishing houses to get my clients the very best information for their publishing journey. 

We work with all kinds of authors who want to go either route. The Writing Gym is a great program, whether you want to self-publish or traditionally publish. The Publishing Mastermind is focused exclusively on shooting for those top 5 publishing houses, and Novel Selling U is where you work with your publishing company and editor so that your book can sell. 

I look forward to your questions, comments, and talking to you about how you want to publish and how you can get there.