Publishing is the process of availing
information by a writer to the world. For an author it is the credibility and
money that the publishing house awards that keeps them writing but for the
reader, there are just the same books with the same writers on the shelf. Some
first time writers have developed new, creative and fresh ideas that would save
us from the monotony on the book store shelves. But the painful steps that come
along with mainstream publishing can make you second guess whether writing is
worth it.
When one opts for
main stream publishing, say you want to get into Christian book publishing; you have to first write a book proposal. No
publisher can read the manuscript without first reading a proposal sent by the
agent and neither will the agent consider reading it. So when you finally
decide to write a book proposal, you will have to follow the boring standard format.
The next step is finding an agent that is enthusiastic about your work which is
another hard paper because the writer has to first send a query requesting for one
and some agents would not consider taking on first time authors You can’t do
without one because a publishing house will not deal with the writer directly.
Eventually when you get an agent he will have to critically refine your
proposal because truthfully he can’t pitch what he doesn’t like. And finally your
proposal is taken to the market and if they like it you get an offer and then
start writing and if they you have shattered dreams.
With the bureaucracy involved in mainstream publishing, one might as well opt book publishing, print
on demand and other self publishing online services where the entire process of
designing the book, formats, distribution, marketing and PR is done by them.
With this, you can publish a book the way you actually dreamt or envisioned it
instead of publishing one depending on people’s ideas and opinions. However,
there are now services that can be rendered to help you out with your self-publishing
venture. The difference between the latter and mainstream publishing is that if
you are confident that your work is perfect you can go ahead and publish
instead of letting your work go through a screening process.
With self
publishing you can choose whichever genre of literature you want to publish be
it Christian book publishing or How-To books or inspirational
books, with self publishing anything goes.
Book publishing, print on demand and other self publishing
online services is probably and in my opinion, it is the way to go nowadays.
First of all it is such an economical option in that with Print on Demand
publishing, one doesn’t have to print thousands of copies of books but just has
to print what has been requested. Most Print on Demand companies offer
distribution to online and brick-and-mortar retailers.
E-book publishing
which is a type of self publishing is one of the most popular for How-to book
publishing, Christian book publishing and
other kinds. With the developing technology like Ebook readers, tablets, people
have turned from reading hard copy books to soft copy ones. The beauty with
E-books is that there is no upfront or per- book costs. This is by far one of
the best options for beginner authors.
Go ahead and try
out book publishing, print on demand
and other self publishing online services and share with the world whatever
information you would like to share.
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