TRADITIONAL PUBLISHING
Authors, grab your notepads, typewriters, and write everything about traditional publishing down. It has many layers.
In this blog you will read about: the basics of what Traditional publishing is, and why this might be a good road for publishing your book.
Traditional publishing is one of the most well known styles of publishing. You hear of authors having agents and book deals, your thoughts usually go to Traditional publishing.
Without further delay let’s get into it.
Starting with the basics, what is Traditional publishing?
This is when an author uses services for a press, and the press makes you money by selling your books.
When you hear about authors like J.K. Rowling, Julia Childs and Agatha Christie. You usually think about their amazing books and that they got their big break after multiple rejections from book publishing companies and agents. These authors are great examples of traditionally published people.
What goes into getting traditionally published?
3 Main steps an author has to take to get traditionally published:
- Your book must be a finished draft.
*The closer to being completely edited, the better.
- Send out Query letters to Agents and book publishing companies.
- Get accepted and sign your book contract.
Woah, what is a query letter?
Query letters are usually one-page proposals that you write and send to an agent or publishing company, sometimes even to an editor.
They are usually a single page letter.
That consists of:
-book blurb
-your qualifications (if you have them)
-the reason for querying the specific agent.
Query letter Tip:
Most agent’s don’t want authors querying more than one agent from the same company at a time. Be sure to respect this and only query one agent from a company at a time.
Well, I’d love to say it’s an easy quick process but that would be a big fat lie.
The truth about traditional publishing is:
It is a long, long process. The part that takes the longest usually is querying agents. Agents are extremely busy and are being queried by thousands of people. If your manuscript isn’t up to their needed standards, guess where it goes.
Yep, the trash.
Some agents send rejection replies and others don’t. Man, I could talk about the querying process alone, for a few pages. To sum it up, querying agents can take months to years. You must have patience and determination in order to succeed.
Can we speed up the query process?
Yes we can, although take this with a grain of salt.
Work on your manuscript!
Make sure you are up to date on what agents want to see in manuscript proposals. They don’t want a manuscript with a ton of needed corrections. Agents are usually very picky about what they are looking for in manuscripts.
Always do the research before sending a manuscript proposal to any agents.
DO NOT: waste an agent’s time with an unprofessional, half finished book idea.
Remember your book is important but agents receive thousands of proposals. So, the better their rules and standards are followed, the better chance your manuscript has in being noticed.
Querying agents takes time, months to years. Pick agents you want for your book, follow the rules and hold on to patience.
Author tip:
Look up the agent you want to query and take some time to get to know them. Personalize your query letters. If you found out that agent Zoe loves biking just like you, don’t be afraid to mention that. Agents want to connect with your book, but with the author as well. Plus, it let’s an agent know that you didn’t just see their name and throw them a generic email. You took the time to learn something about them before querying them. This will help make your letter stand out!
Use your time wisely while you wait for a response from the agents you query.
Pull out your book ideas, continue writing while you wait. No sense in letting your skill slacken just because you’re waiting.
Use the time to keep mastering the beautiful art of writing.
Look up authors who have been traditionally published to help give you an idea of what you should possibly expect.
What are the Pros of Traditionally Publishing again?
If querying agents takes so long, what’s the point in getting traditionally published?
Great questions! If and when an agent decides to go with your manuscript, here are a few things that might happen. Depending on the agent and what their company provides for authors, each contract is different.
- The agent will offer you a book contract. READ IT CAREFULLY!
- Your book rights will most likely be owned by the agent’s company.
- The book will get a fast lane to publishing.
- The company might have connections to help promote your book.
- Most of the book will be controlled by the company so you get to sit back and relax.
- The agent will handle most of your marketing strategies and promotion.
- You just do what they say and write more books.
- The author has more time to write and let the agent handle the other stuff.
The biggest difference between Self publishing and Traditional publishing is:
CONTROL AND WHO OWNS YOUR BOOK.
Traditional publishing is especially great for authors who don’t want to control their books. This allows the author to focus solely on writing.
Cons of Traditional publishing:
**Bear in mind this all depends on what kind of contract you sign.**
- Very little to NO control over your book.
- No say in how it is promoted, shown to your audience and priced.
- Contracts and agents to deal with.
- Your profit intake is split between multiple people: you, the agent, the company, etc.
- Again, little to NO control over your book and how it is used or changed once the company has that signed contract.
Let’s say the company you signed a book deal with decides to take out a character and add a weird mascot dog thing instead. They thought it would make the book funnier. You find out, try to stop this not needed change. Your agent tells you, there’s nothing you can do about that change. You signed the book rights away, so the company can add or take away whatever they want in the book. This would majorly suck!
Moral of the story: always read the contract! Make sure YOU are clear on if the control of your book is important to you or not. And don’t be afraid to ask the company/agent to compromise on some areas of control.
*Again, always go through contracts with a legal advisor.
Contracts are usually made to be long, and boring with large, confusing words. Be safe and be aware of what you are signing away.
Many authors have successfully been traditionally published. However, there is a steep price to pay if you are not aware of what kind of contract you signed. Please, PLEASE. PLEASE! Read over the book contract with a legal advisor before signing them.
In the end if you are an author who wants an agent to take care of things, and you don’t care about controlling the book. Then, traditional publishing might be right for you.
This post was all about: Traditional publishing. What it is, and why you authors might just want to get your book traditionally published. After all, being able to say, talk to my agent, would be kind of cool. 🙂
Quick Author adventure with traditional publishing:
I really wanted my book, Grandma’s Magic Blanket, to be traditionally published. Thanks to the awesome movies about Authors who got book deals and made it big with their stories. Such as: Julie and Julia, Miss Potter, and The man who invented Christmas. Feeling inspired, I actually queried a few agents and waited for the life changing acceptance email.
P.S. still waiting for that email. haha
At that time I had very little knowledge on how traditional publishing worked, so as I read up on it more, my views on the whole thing changed. I didn’t want to give over control or deal with agents and contracts at that moment.
Especially, since this was my first book. So, shifting gears I decided on self publishing for now. But, that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t mind giving traditional publishing a try later on when my author career is more established. I like to know all about the process before giving over power to someone else. 🙂
Thank you for reading until the end. As a new blogger any and all support is appreciated and welcome.
Write on~
Cecilia
