On Publishing and Getting the Word Out

 Publishing is a strange world. You really have 3 sections: tradition, self, and vanity. 

Traditional publishing is where you have one of the old school publishers, like Random, and a contract that says you will write books X length and due by X date and you get paid Y amount for the books. Traditionally published books are considered 'upper class' for lack of a better term, and are the standard that everyone supposedly strives to attain. But here's the thing, you don't get as much in royalties, you have less control, and honestly, you usually end up with simple editing errors that are not tolerated in other methods of publishing. Traditionally published authors are actually held to a lower standard of quality, because the authors are given grace about edits etc, because the publisher is supposed to handle that, not the author.

Self publishing is a fickle thing. The author is responsible for EVERYTHING, content, copyrights, covers, edits, printing, advertising, sales, taxes, the whole shebang. Because of this, self-published authors are actually held to a higher standard than traditionally published authors. I have seen books put out by DelRey for one of my favorite authors, that has over 10 errors in it (missing words, wrong word used, misspelled words) that if I, as a self-published author, were to leave those errors in the book, I would be crucified by critics for the errors and scathingly told that is why self publishing shouldn't happen, that it brings down the industry. Um, ok Mr. Double-Standard.

Vanity Press is loathed by everyone. They are the publishers that are out to make a buck, and don't care about what they are putting out there. These are the publishers that charge you up front (spoiler alert: real publishers don't do this) to publish your books (usually well over $1000). It's left up to you to make arrangements for advertising and try to recoup your money from sales. While there really isn't anything technically wrong with going this route, I don't know many indie authors who can afford the vanity press route.

Interestingly enough, while you have a team working with you in a Traditional situation, in all 3, you as the author are responsible for getting the word out about your books. It's just the manner in which your books get to the public that differs.