In the world of publishing, the way in which your book is published is never as black-and-white as simply “getting published”. There are several different publishing deals that you might find yourself being offered as you advance into your career, and today we wanted to break some of these down. For first-time authors, the world of publishing can be kind of mystical and largely unexplained, so we hope that this article can help demystify it somewhat.

Well, good news! There’s really only three types of publishing; traditional, hybrid and self-publishing.

Traditional: Traditional contracts are commonly offered by major, established publishers, and entail the publisher covering all of the overhead costs associated with printing and production. Traditional publishing also means that the company will own the copyright to your book, and a lot of the process, including the marketing, will be handled by the publisher. Some smaller publishers also offer traditional contracts, and Olympia is one of these. We tend to offer traditional contracts when we believe that a book has the potential to sell well in the current market. The royalties for traditional contracts tend to between 5 and 15%.

Hybrid: The “hybrid publishing” model is a fairly recent addition to the publishing world, and the intention is very simple; it is a way for publishers to take a chance on books that are niche and are perhaps harder to market than a book that would be suited to a traditional contract.  This is worked out by the author contributing a sum of money to the overall printing and production costs. As a result, the publishing process is very collaborative, and the author has a say in how the book should look when it is complete, and can review the production process as it occurs. The marketing process is also quite collaborative, and hybrid publishers- us included- often encourage authors to do some leg-work when it comes to marketing, and work alongside one another to promote their work. Royalties for hybrid publishing tend to be 15% or higher.

Self-Publishing: Whilst not so much a “deal”, self-publishing is a very popular avenue for a lot of authors. Why? Well, the clue’s in the title; it’s all you. You get the opportunity to largely cut out the middle-man and operate entirely on your own terms. This means that you retain nearly all of your profits, and you will get published at the end of the process. Self-publishing is very easy these days, and can be done through platforms such as Amazon KDP and Barnes and Noble Press. Do bear in mind that once your book is out there, you are the marketing and publicity teams, unless you want to pay a sum of money for someone to give you a hand. That also goes for production and pre-production tasks such as proofreading.

We hope in reading this article that you feel a little more informed about the publishing world, and have a better idea of what to look for when seeking out the optimal avenue for publish your work. Happy publishing!

“Are there different types of publishing? What is Self Publishing? What are you? Are you a traditional publisher?” 

These are just some of the questions we receive. So, we figured a blog post about different types of publishing was very overdue.  To clear up some common questions, here are the different types of publishing that we know of!

Traditional Publishers

A traditional publisher usually only publishes work for free. They do fantastic marketing, add you to all of the necessary wholesalers, provide ISBNs and set up events. Pretty much exactly as Hybrid publishing works. The main differences are:

Royalties are low, the standard rate is between 8-12% of the price the book is sold at. Hybrid is generally 20%. You also get far less control in traditional publishing, as your cover is made by the publishers without any huge direction from the author. Traditional publishers also mainly accept work from agents and rarely consider work sent in without one.

Hybrid Publishers

Hybrid publishers are pretty much traditional publishers. Work that is not accepted as a free contract but still packed full of potential has a chance to shine. Their authors are split up into traditional contracts (100% free) and contribution when the work is still full of potential but it’s not exactly what they’re looking for. In this circumstance, a contract is offered for a select fee (this fee can vary, but it’s usually not extortionate) and usually covers the first stages of production; that being the proofing, designing of your cover, the ISBN, printing costs, review copies and marketing. This marketing includes gathering contacts and contacting them on your behalf, setting up signings for you, looking into advertising, adding books to various databases (wholesalers, bookshops) creating you audiobooks, e-book, videos, banners, bookmarks, hosting giveaways, writing blog posts and various social media work for you. This is what we are. Notice the difference between us and self-publishing/vanity. Also, we and most hybrid publishers have warehouses and do not run off print and demand. We stock books in bulk.

Vanity Publishers

Vanity publishers is a phrase that is thrown around an awful lot at many publishing houses that simply are not vanity publishers at all. Occasionally we are asked if we are vanity publishers. The short answer to that is simple, no – no we are not.

A vanity publisher works very differently to most publishers. Firstly, they usually charge a very large amount to be published. We’re talking upwards of £5,000. Once you’ve signed, they’ll quickly create you a cover (usually just a very simple design) proof your book once and then print it. They work by print on demand, so only print when they have an order and do not stock any books in a warehouse. They also hardly market their books at all. The quality of the books is usually very poor and they do not put your book on any databases for wholesalers and bookstores. So you’ll have to do all of that yourself. They also rarely provide you with an ISBN, so you’ll also have to find that yourself too.

Self Publishing

Usually, you agree with a self-publisher a set amount to do a certain package. These packages could be just creating you a cover and printing your book, some can edit, some also throw in marketing and the really expensive ones create you your own website along with putting your book on a database. The downside to self-publishers is they are usually printed on-demand, which means the book will likely be very expensive to buy, which can be off-putting to customers.

So, that’s the difference in publishing. You can also just self publish as an E-Book with the Kindle (Amazon) and there are other variations within these categories. It’s rare to find any two publishers that are the same.