Approaches to Book Publishing
The process of book publishing could be done in different ways referred to here as approaches. This has to do with how the process of production is handled and who is involved in overseeing this process. Here are major approaches to book publishing.
Traditional Publishing
This is the conventional publishing approach where the publisher selects a manuscript, bears the costs involved in the entire process of publishing and pays the author royalties for publishing the book. The publisher takes charge of editing, formatting, cover, publishing, distribution, and promotions. The publisher also bears the risks where the publication cost is not recouped from sales. In some instances, big authors are even offered an advance payment on future royalties, at least to keep them with the company. But first-time authors basically start earning royalties from the first book sale. Big traditional book publishing companies in the world are Pearson, McGraw Hill Education, Macmillan, Springer Nature, Thomson Reuters, RELX Group, Bertelsmann, Heinemann, among others.
Self Publishing
This is a publishing approach where authors involve themselves in the production of their works. They do not involve established publishers. In self publishing, the author is involved in designing, preparing, printing, and promoting a book. Even where experts are involved in the design and other aspects of publishing, the author directly hires and supervises their works. This is also a major kind of publishing in the book industry. It might be cost effective but it is always better to involve established publishing houses in getting a book published based on the professionalism such companies bring to the table. They also undertake the risk in terms of cost of production.
Writers have been self-publishing since the advent of the written word. Some authors start off their careers by self-publishing. They begin with a small press to publish their work and that of other writers. There used to be a stigma associated with self-publishing but that has lessened in recent years especially with the impact of technology on the book industry. According to Smith and Bold (2018) the advent of the internet, blogging services and POD (print-on-demand) technology, the proliferation of self-publishing platforms (such as Lulu.com and CreateSpace), the rise of crowd funding platforms (such as IndieGoGo), the growth in e-book sales, and the success stories of a number of high profile, self-published authors (such as Amanda Hocking) has meant that self-publishing is now firmly established as an important part of contemporary publishing. Most of self-publishing done today is through e-books. Self-publishing is gradually becoming a strong part of mainstream publishing, especially as it has to do with ebooks. For instance, Amazon launched a literary prize – The Kindle Storyteller Prize – for self-published e-books, which further integrates self-publishing into the publishing mainstream (Smith & Bold, 2018). This is a viable publishing option an upcoming author could consider, instead of letting your manuscript die because established publishing houses did not accept it.
Vanity Publishing
This is a concept used to describe a form of self-publishing. Vanity publishing refers to a situation where the author pays for the cost of book production. This is different from conventional publishing where the publisher pays the author for the content. A vanity publisher is a company that helps authors to self-publish their books. They collect upfront payments and embark on the production of books with their expertise and professional input in pre-production, production and post-production (marketing) strategies. But in self-publishing, the author does the production supervision directly, and cuts costs by so doing. The author personally hires individual professionals (designer, editor, production company etc.) required at each stage of the work which may involve people from different establishments.
Publishing companies prefer this business arrangement especially where the book is unlikely to sell many copies to recoup the cost of publication. Vanity publishing is also a kind of self publishing but the term sounds derogatory due to the perception that a publisher is not willing to pay for the work probably because it is sub-standard. So the term “self publishing” is preferable. It could be that the publication is in a niche area and the publisher might not want to take the risk by experimenting with publication cost no one is sure might be recouped.
Vanity publishers are often contracted where the author feels they do not have the time or inclination to do the work directly. Rather the author prefers to get someone who knows the job to handle the publishing work. That is how the vanity publisher gets involved in assisting authors to self-publish their works. The vanity publishers understand the process, have the vendors, and know what books need to be ready for publishing.
