Publishing Strategies

Some weeks back I wrote about self-publishing, saying that it wasn't for me mainly because I want to work with publishing professionals when my novel goes out into the world.  My theory on this is I will learn from them all the little nuisances of publishing and promoting books.

However, nothing is ever as clear-cut or monolithic as it might first appear.  In this case, I was basing my discussion on the assumption that to publish you need to use the same source to publish every version of your book.  And that's not true.

For example:  last month I submitted to a small press that only wanted the electronic rights.  Had they accepted the book, I would have had an ebook of my novel but not a paper version.  Since people still read paper copies, and some people prefer them, I realized I needed to find a way to offer a version in paper.

Suddenly self-publishing seems like the perfect answer.

I also made the mistake of not considering my overall marketing plan.  Don't make that mistake.  Think about an overall marketing plan and, as you consider how to publish, think outside of the box.  Consider whether you want to self-publish and, if so, will it be electronic only or paper or both?  If you want more of mix look for a small press that wants only the electronic rights (this is increasingly more common) and do the paper edition yourself.  Or if you don't want to even consider self-publishing, look for a more traditional small press that will handle both the paper and electronic publication.

And don't forget about an audio book.  (don't laugh; several friends suggested that I do an audio version first to promote the book.  If the effort wasn't so high I might have considered it)  Chances are you'll need to do that yourself or with until your work is wildly successful.  If you do it yourself, your main enemy is background noise.  So you may have to record the book at odd times.  The good news is you can find good theme music for the opening and there are services that will podcast it for you, in case you don't want to do that yourself.

So spend some time, do some research, and plan out how your book will go to market.  It is worth the effort.