Matt:  Welcome back everyone to another exciting episode of Publish & Prosper. We are going to attempt to accurately and as non-spicy as possible, talk about self-publishing versus traditional publishing. I say non-spicy as possible because clearly we're on the side of self-publishing. 

So this probably won't be the most objective episode, but we will try to provide as much factual and clear information as we can. We've also not eaten lunch yet, so this'll be fun. 

Lauren: Which is a lesson that we've learned so many times, that we should not record before lunch, and yet we still keep making this mistake.

Matt: I have no business doing anything before lunch. 

Lauren: Well, that's fair.

Matt: I've had my coffee, so that's a good start. So I think maybe we'll be okay. Maybe that'll carry us through, but we'll see. 

Lauren: That's true. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: I did have a Monster at least. So there was that. 

Matt: Okay. We might actually get through this. 

Lauren: We’ll see. We are also attempting to record video for this one. We don't know if it's going to work. It's kind of a work in progress. So you might be able to find video of this on our YouTube channel, or you might not. 

Matt: No comment. 

Lauren: I'm doing my best, okay? If anyone knows how to hook up a Nikon Z30 to a MacBook and use it as a webcam, please let me know because I'm really struggling here. 

Matt: All right. 

Lauren: Okay. 

Matt: Self-publishing versus traditional publishing. 

Lauren: Jump right in? 

Matt: Are we not talking about the in-between? Are we just going to talk about self versus full traditional? 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: Okay. 

Lauren: Oh, so I guess that's a good… probably a good disclaimer to start with this one. We brought this idea up originally a few episodes ago, I don't actually remember which one it was. But we were both kind of surprised that we had never done an episode like this before. So I went back and listened to the second episode we ever did, is self-publishing the best path for today's creators? 

And in that one, we did break down the distinctions between self-publishing, traditional publishing, and hybrid publishing. But we didn't really talk so much about the comparisons between the journeys to get there and what you get out of them. It was more - 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Just talking about the pros and cons of each of them. 

Matt: Okay. 

Lauren: So I would definitely - if this is a topic that you're interested in - go back and listen to that one. It actually wasn't as painful as I thought it was going to be listening to it too. Because I was definitely like, oh man, our second ever episode, this is going to be rough. And it really wasn't. It was fine. 

Matt: I mean…

Lauren: We did talk - well yeah - We did talk more about hybrid publishing in that one. So I think this one we're really just going to kind of focus on self-publishing and traditional publishing. 

Matt: Yeah. I mean, ultimately there's two main paths, right? And hybrid is kind of a version of self to a degree. So we can get to that if we need to. But I do agree with the genesis of this episode is that we've already talked about the different types of publishing, you're right. But we didn't necessarily outline the steps. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: The journey, like you said, the path. This episode is not to necessarily only just teach you what the differences might be or what to look for in the fine print. This is actually an episode to talk about what that path down each one can look like, so that you can know what to expect if you choose one or the other. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: And we can touch on the fact that the path for hybrid is no different necessarily than self-publishing. Ultimately, you're just paying somebody else to do a bunch of the work that you'll be doing self-publishing. 

Lauren: Yeah. And I do think that that'll become clear as we talk about the different steps and stages of these. 

[3:57]

Lauren: But okay, real quick, right off the top, if you're new here, if you’re like you’ve already lost me: self-publishing, it's the DIY alternative to traditional publishing. Every step of the process is controlled by the creator, not the publisher, no matter what we're talking about, whether it's editing, formatting, design, marketing, sales, etc. 

And there are different ways that we can do that for self-published authors. They can manage them entirely on their own, which is like the true, true self-publishing route. They can hire professionals to help them with some or all of the different steps. Or you might use a hybrid publisher, which is more of the self-publishing route, but they do have built in teams of professionals to help you with the process along the way. So it's not really the traditional publishing route, but it's not entirely as DIY as self-publishing is. 

Matt: It’s - yeah, it's basically what it says. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: It's a hybrid of the two. It's the contractor model. It's the difference between remodeling your bathroom yourself and paying somebody to do it for you. The result is the same. It's still your bathroom. It's still going to look good, hopefully. It's still going to be all your choices. But either A, you're doing it all yourself, or B, you're paying somebody else to do each of the individual components. 

Lauren: Right. And then - 

Matt: And traditional publishing is... 

Lauren: Oh, you want me to do it? 

Matt: Well, you started. 

Lauren: Oh, okay. So traditional publishing is kind of what most people think of when they think of publishing a book, although that is something that we and others in the indie publishing and self-publishing community are actively trying to change. It's the idea where you or an agent or somebody is pitching a book to a publishing house. It is being acquired by that publishing house and they are handling the publishing for you. 

Very famously, the big five in traditional publishing: Penguin Random House, Harper Collins, Hachette, Simon & Schuster, and Macmillan, that all have a bunch of different imprints within them. 

There are also smaller independent publishers that are still definitely a part of the traditional publishing industry, even if they refer to themselves as indie publishers or independent publishers. They still operate under the traditional publishing model which can get confusing. But these are… some of the big-name ones are like Scholastic, Sourcebooks, Kensington, Wiley, Chronicle, Oxford University Press. Like, those that aren't part of the big five but are still pretty well known publishers that still operate under a traditional publishing model. 

Matt: Yeah, I think it's something you have to be careful with. A lot of people, they just think that the term indie publishing - or indie publisher, I should say - is primarily just referring to a small publishing company. And that's not necessarily the case. Understanding whether this quote unquote indie publisher is actually nothing more than a sub-imprint of a traditional publisher is very important. 

Lauren: Right.

Matt: And the top five that you just rattled off, they all have hundreds of imprints - 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: That look like indie publishing houses. And they're not, they're not indie publishing houses, because they're run by traditional publishing companies. There is some research that may have to be done there. If you choose that path and you're looking at one of those quote unquote indie publishing companies that may look like they operate like a traditional publishing company, there's a good chance it's because they're owned by a traditional publishing company. Just make sure you look closely at that. 

Lauren: Yeah. I think probably the biggest indicator, the biggest way for you to be able to tell is if you have a book, you're going to figure out a way to publish it when you're self-publishing it. As opposed to traditional publishing, where there are barriers and gatekeepers in every single step of the process along the way to getting published. And just because you have a book does not mean that you're going to get it published. 

Matt: Right. 

Lauren: And so that's the difference. If there's somebody along the line, if there's at least one person along the line that can say no, we are not going to publish this book for any reason other than it violates our terms and conditions, then it's traditional publishing or they're operating under a traditional publishing model. 

[7:48]

Lauren: So let's talk a little bit about that journey. 

Matt: Well let's talk a little bit about the gatekeepers. 

Lauren: Ooh, okay. 

Matt: Since you kind of already went there. So we'll jump around a little bit. But when you talk about the two main paths to publishing, like the self-publishing side or the traditional publishing side, there are gatekeepers or barriers to entry, however you want to phrase that. But nonetheless, we're just talking about things that could potentially demotivate you from choosing that particular path or what you might list in a pros and cons column as the cons. 

And for self-publishing, some of those barriers to entry, or however you want to refer to that, could be cost. For self-publishing, if you really want to put out a good book, and you want to be able to sell a good amount of copies, and potentially use that book for other purposes, as a lead magnet or something like that, then you need to spend a little money. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: You're gonna need to get an editor. You're gonna need to have a designer help you with layout and the cover probably and some of those other things. So there is a cost to self-publish. 

While many of the self-publishing platforms might be free to use, like Lulu, there's still a cost to publish because you really should pay somebody to do some of those things. And like we talked about the contractor versus do it yourself model, even though self-publishing is considered a do it yourself model, that doesn't mean you shouldn't put a little money and effort into putting out the best quality product you can. 

Also, depending on how you want to get your print books into the hands of buyers, there may be upfront costs there. If you decide you're going to have your self-published book printed at an offset printer - which is in many cases overseas, but even some here in the US - that means you're paying upfront for however many copies you decided you want of that book. It's not a strategy we recommend by any means, but people still do it. So there could be a cost there if you decided to do that. 

And then some self-publishing platforms will have small built-in costs or fees, like upload fees or things like that. 

Lauren: That's also another place where the hybrid publishing option comes in, because that's the self-publishing side of hybrid publishing, where it is that hybrid between the two is while they do have built in teams in a similar way to traditional publishing houses, where they have people that are going to help you on your publishing journey, you have to pay for those services. In traditional publishing, you are not paying out of pocket for any publication of any book that you're doing. 

Matt: Right. 

Lauren: But if you're doing a hybrid publishing route and you are working with a publisher that is going to have a service provider built into the publisher, you are paying for those services. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: So that's an upfront cost that you're going to have to handle. 

Matt: Yeah. One of the other barriers to entry for some people for self-publishing is they can't get past the age-old stigma of, oh, it's a self-published book. It used to be that if you said your book was self-published, or if people knew your book was self-published, they were just like, oh, that's got to be garbage. They did it themselves. It can't be a good book. These days, obviously nothing's further from the truth than that statement. 

Lauren: Yeah, we see it all the time. 

Matt: Certainly, it doesn't mean there's not some hot garbage that comes through, right? Like, we definitely see some dumpster fires that get - But I mean, honestly, let's be real. Plenty of traditionally published dumpster fires out there. 

Lauren: Oh, absolutely. 

Matt: Honestly, that is all in the eye of the beholder or the reader. That stigma that your book is self-published so it's not going to sell well, nobody's gonna wanna read it, it's not gonna land you any clients is completely false. There are hundreds, thousands of people that self-publish books every single day that look great that they go on to sell thousands of copies of them. I mean, we've got examples everywhere inside Lulu. That stigma just doesn't exist anymore. 

And to be quite honest, anybody who reads a good book or gets handed a good book or gets recommended a good book, the last thing that ever comes out of their mouth is, is this self-published? Nobody cares anymore. 

Lauren: No, they really don’t. 

Matt: A good book is a good book. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: A piece of garbage is a piece of garbage. It doesn't matter how it was published. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: I mean, that's just the reality of it. That stigma really doesn't exist anymore. You might find traces of it when you talk about organizations like libraries and things that may or may not want to take a risk on a book because it was self-published or because ordering it might not be as easy as getting a traditionally published book. But outside of those small traces of that, there's really no such thing anymore as that self-publishing stigma.

Lauren: Yeah, I think that in talking about the gatekeepers of self-publishing, the only place that that stigma is really relevant anymore is in talking about brick and mortar stores and libraries and places like that acquiring copies of your book.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: And it doesn't even necessarily mean that they won't do it. You just have to put more legwork into it. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: In traditional publishing houses, they have a built in sales team that their entire job is they have relationships with - whether it's an independent bookstore, a wholesale book retailer, libraries, whatever it is - they have these sales reps that have connections with these places and quarterly, annually, whatever, they'll go to these places and say, hey, here's our list of upcoming titles. 

We think this one's gonna be really big. We recommend that you have like, a good stock of these. We recommend that you pre-order this one so that you have it the day it comes out because there's gonna be a bunch of library patrons that wanna get it as soon as they can. And there's nobody doing that for your self-published book. 

Matt: Right. 

Lauren: So that's the kind of thing that you have to put in the legwork then at that point when you're doing it. And then also there are the occasional - like I know we've talked about this in other episodes where like self-published books, there is a little bit more of a… I guess barrier to ordering them because they're non-returnable. So like a bookstore -

Matt: For a bookstore. 

Lauren: Yes, I’m sorry. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: For a bookstore, if they order twelve copies of a book from a traditional publishing company and they only sell two of them, they can return those other ten if they are unsold - 

Matt: In most cases.

Lauren: In most cases. You cannot usually do that with a self-published book. So they're a little bit more reluctant to take that risk without at least having it very well pitched to them by the author. 

Matt: I think it's important to note though, on both sides of the fence, like with self-publishing, you can get your book into bookstores. It's not - 

Lauren: Oh yeah. 

Matt: It's not rocket science. 

Lauren: Absolutely. 

Matt: But you do have to prepare for the fact that, just like Lauren said, whatever distributor is going to get you into a bookstore, you have to agree to a wholesale price for your book, you have to agree to discount your book, which means you're making even less off of that book. And in most cases, you also have to agree to returns, which means if the book is returned, money's coming back out of your account to cover the cost of return. 

I would be the first, maybe not the first. Actually, I hope I'm not the first. But as I was sitting there listening to you talk about this, it dawned on me like, I don't - other than vanity, or just wanting to see your book in a bookstore - as a self-published author or indie published author, there's no benefit to being in a bookstore. 

You're not gonna make any money off those book sales, at all. You might make a dollar per book if you're lucky, but the problem with that is also because it's not traditionally published, that means that sales effort is not behind it. So your book is gonna go right on the shelf, spine out, not face out, and it's gonna be mixed in with the thousands of other books. So, honestly, to me, it doesn't seem worth it. And the flip side of that is of course, the traditionally published books are going to get that sales push because that's the only way the traditional publishers make money, is off the bookstore sales. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: So they have to send these sales teams into these bookstores. They have to really push these titles because that's the only sales channel they really have. Everybody has their own agenda here. And when you take a step back and you look at it, you can start to understand what's more beneficial for you based on what your goals are. 

If your goal is purely I just want to see myself on a bookshelf at Barnes & Noble, and that's it. You don't care about selling copies of your book. You don't care about generating leads from it. You don't care about creating more books in a series. You just simply want to see your book on a shelf one time at a Barnes & Noble or something like that, or whatever your bookstore - Waterstones, it doesn't matter. Then yeah, that's fine. Try your hardest, take that route. But at the end of the day, I don't see the benefit there. I really don't. 

Lauren: And listen, no shade, because I am absolutely - that's been a dream of mine since I was like 10. But also I agree with Matt, other than fulfilling the decades-long dream of one day I'm going to see a book with my name on it on a shelf in a bookstore. I agree. I don't actually think there's any benefit to having your book in a bookstore.

Matt: It just takes so much work.

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: Like even the traditionally published route and we'll get to that, and just because it's traditionally published, by the way, does not mean it's going to end up on a shelf in a bookstore. 

Lauren: Oh, absolutely. 

Matt: And we'll get to that. 

Lauren: All the time. 

Matt: But the point is, it just takes so much work. Both routes, to get your book in a bookstore on the shelf, it takes a lot of work. It's hard and it's just not, I don't think it's worth it. 

Lauren: No.

Matt: You can at me all you want. You can send an email to podcast at Lulu and tell me why you think I'm an idiot. But that just seems like way too much work for little to no payoff unless you just have this decades long dream of seeing your book on the shelf. And then when that's done, it's done. 

Lauren: Yeah.

[16:17]

Lauren: The traditional publishing gatekeepers are a lot more traditional gatekeepers. There's a lot more like actual roadblocks to you getting your books published. I'm gonna talk about the three main ones… you know what? We're gonna combine this. Talking about the journey to self-publishing, and I'm going to make it clear that each of these steps has a gatekeeper built into it. 

You want to write a book and get it published. Step one: write your book. Mostly for fiction, you're going to write the whole book. You're going to be pitching an entire manuscript of a book. If you're writing nonfiction, you might be able to just write a book proposal and pitch your book and submit your book as a proposal and then write the book after it's been accepted by a publishing company.

But for the sake of clarity and talking straight through this we're gonna go with the route of you are pitching a completed manuscript to a publishing company. Except you're not pitching a completed manuscript to a publishing company, because most if not all of the traditional publishing houses at this point will not accept unagented submissions. 

So the first thing that you have to do is pitch your book to an agent. So that right away is gonna the first gatekeeper that you find yourself meeting, you could pitch your book to 20, 50 agents and get no's across the board from all of them. And now you are… there's a metaphor, something, I don't know, I can't think of what it is, stalled, stalled at the starting gate or something like that. I don't know.

Matt: I have no idea where you're trying to go with that one. 

Lauren: I also have no idea where I'm trying to go with that. You haven't even, you haven't even taken the first step of your publishing journey at that point. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Because you are, you can't get an agent which severely limits the number of - And there are some traditional publishers that will still accept unagented submissions, but even then they're like… they get put in a slush pile that's the bottom tier one compared like, the ones that are agented submissions still get higher priority. So, acquire an agent. That's also gatekeeper number one. 

After that, it's your agent's job then to pitch your book to editors, which is the whole point. A lot of agents spend a lot of time building relationships with editors. They'll work really hard on finding the right person to match your book up with because they want - I don't actually know a whole lot about the agent pay model, but I'm pretty sure that agents don't get paid unless your book is sold. So they obviously want to try to find the right home for your book. 

Matt: Yes, they get paid out of your advance.

Lauren: Yes. Now that you've gotten an agent, your agent is going to pitch your book to editors, which is now going to be the second gatekeeper, the second roadblock. Editors can say no. Editors say no every day. Editors say no more than they say yes. So you are going to have to now convince the second person that your book is worth taking a risk on. Your agent's job to do that, it's not just yours, but it's still a gatekeeper, still something that's going to stop you. 

From there, assuming you've got, you've contracted with an agent, an editor is interested in your book, that editor then still has to take that book to their in-house sales and publishing team and pitch it to that team for acquisition. Just because an editor likes your book doesn't mean that the publishing house that the editor works for is going to choose to acquire it.

You've got now at least three different barriers before your book has even been acquired by a publishing company. That’s a lot of people that can say no to you along the way. 

Matt: Yeah, and it's in their best interest to say no to you. So some people view that as a good thing because they think that an agent's not going to agree to work with me if they don't think that this book has legs. Some people see that as some validation where this agent actually agreed to work with me - 

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: And they're actively trying to sell my manuscript too. But for that same reason, that is exactly why they are a gatekeeper, you're right. They're not just going to accept any manuscript. I mean - 

Lauren: No, they’re not.

Matt: they're only going to take the ones they think they can sell that they think is a good story or whatever that might be. And then the other two that you mentioned. Yeah. I mean, those are three pretty staunch gatekeepers 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: That you're going to have to acquire slash get past if you even want to think about starting the journey to traditional publishing, yeah.

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: Not easy.

Lauren: It’s definitely not easy. There's all kinds of little minor steps and sub steps within that way too. Like I've definitely heard stories of agents saying, I think this manuscript has a lot of potential, but it's not quite in the shape yet that I would want it to be before I pitched it to an editor. So like, go back and do another pass at editing the manuscript one more time. Or I'm going to recommend some changes, or maybe hire a freelance editor to do like, a one round developmental editing with you before I take another look at it and decide whether or not it's something that I'm willing to share with editors. So there are definitely steps within steps on this journey. 

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: And then, kind of looking real fast through the rest of the traditional publishing journey. Once your book has been acquired, you're going through several rounds of editing. I actually tried to ask one of my best friends who's an editor, what the average number of editing rounds that a book goes through. And I basically just got like the shrug emoji in response to it, because it can vary so dramatically between, you know, some books by the time an editor gets them, they really only need like one round of developmental editing, maybe a round of line editing and then copy editing and formatting and it's good to go. 

Some of them need five or six rounds of developmental editing before they are in a good enough shape that you can get them out there and ready to go. And that takes time. So that's one of the things that is like a very key distinction between self-publishing and traditional publishing is that self-publishing is a DIY experience where you're controlling your journey. But that also means that you're controlling the timeline under which you are operating. So if you have a book that you say I want to get this book out in six months, I've just finished writing it today and my goal is to have it publish and in the hands of readers within six months of now. You can do that in self-publishing. Good luck doing that traditionally. 

Matt: Yes, with self-publishing, you can actually get your book to market faster. It is one of the bigger checks in the pros list for self-publishing. And this is especially helpful for people who are writing time-sensitive content. 

Lauren: Yep. 

Matt: Maybe it's social media strategies or it's an academic textbook that, you know, is playing off of some of the latest published research on a particular topic. Getting that book to market all of a sudden becomes a much higher priority for some people based on the content, and therefore the traditional model has always been a bit of a problem for them, because it can take anywhere from… We've seen it as little as ten months for a traditionally published book, which is not the norm, but it can take up to two years for your book to see the light of day. 

Lauren: Oh yeah. Easily. 

Matt: Because it will go through so many editors, designers, then it'll get stalled up in certain other bureaucratic processes. Something may happen in the market where all of a sudden they don't think they can now sell as many copies of your book and they may want to sit on it and wait to push it out six months from that point. Or if your book is a book that's got very high political overtones in it, you know, and there's some crazy stuff going on in the world. They might want to hold onto that book and not push it out till next year. Or if your book deals with a presidential assassination attempt, they'll probably want to hold onto that book or they might want to push it out sooner. You never know. But the point is you don't have any control over that in traditional publishing, and in self-publishing you have total control over that. 

Lauren: Yes. Which is really, I mean, at the end of the day, that is in general probably the huge distinction between the two in traditional publishing, you are relinquishing so much control over everything from your pub date to your cover design to what sales channels your book is distributed to and stuff like that. 

Matt: Yeah. You're also going way out of order here. So I've lost - 

Lauren: I know. 

Matt: - all control of this podcast. 

Lauren: I know. So have I? It's okay. 

[23:42]

Matt: I feel like we're starting to get back into that territory where we're just kind of defining what each of those types of publishing is. 

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: So I would, I'll skip around a little bit in this. I really want to make sure people understand this is supposed to be more about like, these are the steps in the process. I think everybody kind of understands to a degree, the royalties and the upfront costs and the rights, but there are some other things along with this topic that I think we've not necessarily beat to death yet at this point that we can talk about, but, you know. 

Lauren: Well by all means, lead the way. 

Matt: Well, I think that we'll start with self-publishing again. So when we talk about the process and the steps to take to get through to self-publishing, we've already touched on that a little bit. It is you in control. You can opt for that contractor model where you're, you're either paying a few freelancers, editors, designers, or you're paying a hybrid publishing company to kind of do it all for you. Which is also, it's still a form of self-publishing or indie publishing. 

But beyond those steps that the physical and logistical things that you do to get your book published, there is some of the work and the things that you have to do to ensure that you're going to make the most money possible off of your book, that you're going to retain all of the control and the rights to that content, and that if there are any upfront costs, that those are negotiated appropriately. 

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: And I think the most important two are obviously how you get paid and how you control and retain control of that work. We've all heard the stories of people who have published their book, like they've self-published it and then it went on to get picked up by a traditional publisher, or maybe it skipped that step, but either way the movie house came knocking and said, hey, we want to make a movie from this book. 

And that's where it becomes especially and extremely important that you still retain all rights to your work. With traditional publishers you lose most, if not all of that.

Lauren: Oh yeah.

Matt: If you're real smart and savvy or if you're, you've got a really good agent, or a good legal team, or at least a friend who's a lawyer or something, you may be able to negotiate portions of your control. It is a little more common these days to see somebody who is just really killing it, you know, like Colleen Hoover for example. Let's just use her, right, because everybody's seen her books in Target. Whatever. I'm not saying read it, but my point is - 

Lauren: Please don’t. Sorry, go ahead. 

Matt:  She's an example of somebody who self-published then got picked up by a traditional publisher, but was smart enough to negotiate the digital rights to her content - 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: - when it comes to TV shows or movies. So the movie that's now coming out, if I'm not mistaken, she's got quite a bit of stake and claim in that. Others have not been so fortunate. We know some, some more indie published authors who right now are really hot on the romance circuit. They're now getting picked up by traditional publishers. They are successfully negotiating the digital rights and the special edition rights. 

So while the traditional publisher will get to put out their paperback and their ebook and the author just kind of relinquishes control and the rights over those, and we'll get paid the standard royalty rates on those. They retain the control over audiobook, over TV movie, and then the ability to put out a special edition. Right? 

So if they wanted to put out a special edition hardcover with gold foil stamping on the dust jacket and a nice ribbon, like they get the right to do that. They can do that however they want. They can run it through Kickstarter. They can run it directly from their website. So understanding that there are ways that you can negotiate some of that control in a traditional publishing situation. It's gonna differ based on who the traditional publisher is, but you should never just blindly sign away anything. No matter how excited you are, if somebody actually picks up your book or no matter what your goals are, just don't blindly sign away all those rights, so. 

Lauren: Definitely not. There are also, there are rights that you might not think about as an author. International rights is another thing that you're signing away in a traditional contract. If you’re - 

Matt: Potentially

Lauren: - not negotiating your contract.

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: That's something that you could be signing away, which means that the published that has now acquired your book has the right to turn around and then sell that to international markets and you've now lost control of what kind of contracts that is creating. You've lost control over any royalties that you're getting from that.

Matt: Which by the way means they have complete freedom to change the content - 

Lauren: Sure. 

Matt: - for that particular market so if they decide that your book would do well in China but they'd have to change a few parts of the plot, maybe change a character's name or two, your cover's gonna get completely redone, the translation's gonna happen, you're not even gonna know what the book says anymore after that. You've now signed your international rights away, either knowingly or unknowingly. I mean, some people don't wanna mess with it, that's fine. But understand that also means if they do decide to option your book for other countries, other languages, there are changes that are gonna come with your content.

Lauren: Yeah, I actually very recently learned that one of my favorite Emily Henry books has a slightly altered ending in the UK edition. I don't know whose decision that was. Like, I don't know where along the path somebody made the decision, but the ending is slightly altered and I don't have a copy of the UK. Tragically, when I was in England a couple of months ago, I bought the UK edition of a different Emily Henry book. So I can't do the comparison. Oh. Well, our video just died. So I guess this is not the episode that we will be releasing on video.

Matt: Guess not. 

Lauren: But maybe we'll have some fun clips that we can put on social at least. 

Matt: Probably. 

Lauren: Even if it's not the whole episode. Okay. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Well, anyway, better luck next time. That's a bummer. 

Matt: Well, anyways. 

Lauren: Okay. Anyway, the point is that that's something that you definitely want to keep in mind as you're moving forward with your publishing journey and the different steps of your publishing journey is understanding who retains the right to your book and in what different formats and markets and everything else that goes along with that. 

Matt: Yeah, 100%. 

Lauren: Don't ask me though, because I don't know anything about book rights.

Matt: Well, same for royalties. I mean, obviously you don't have a lot of control royalty-wise, really in either instance, to be honest with you. Definitely not with traditional publishing. I mean, your advance, if you get one, that's going to be negotiated between your agent and the publishing company. And then their royalties are usually just kind of what they are. 

I think sometimes you have some room to try and negotiate those, but. And then on the self-publishing side, most platforms have a standard royalty that they offer. And then that's it. There is no negotiating that royalty. It's built into the platform. And so whether you're using Lulu or Amazon, or any of the others, the royalty rate is built in, it is what it is. And so knowing that going up front will help you kind of understand what you need to do from a sales and marketing plan standpoint. 

Because if your goal in publishing that book is to make a certain amount of money, knowing what the royalty structure is will help you then completely step back and say, okay, my sales and marketing plan needs to include the fact that every book I sell, print book I'm gonna walk with 80% of the profits there so to get to that number that I wanted to get to that means I need to sell this many copies because the other 20% is going back to the publisher, or…

Understanding that your other channels like selling direct or things like that, you're gonna keep all the profit, there is no royalty split and being able to factor that into your sales plan is important, too.

Lauren: One of the other things, and I'm jumping ahead a little bit in my outline here. 

Matt: No!

Lauren: Shocking, I know. Is that when you are traditionally publishing a book, they also control your sales options. If your publisher decides we're going to submit this book for a promo, for a month long promo, that it's going to be 60% off the ebook for this entire month. They're doing that without any input from you. You might not even find out that they're doing that.

So whether part of your marketing plan is to rely on - which, there's a whole, there's more involved in that than you getting a cut of the royalties from ebook sales. You're probably lucky if you're getting a cut of the royalties from ebook sales, honestly. But if part of your marketing plan includes, okay, I would like to promote that, like this book is on sale, I'm trying to like, promote more sales for my book. You as the author has to stay on top of that kind of information and decide whether or not you're even going to stay in the know about, oh, I who knew that my book was -

Or I saw, an author that I follow on Instagram posted an Instagram Story the other day saying, just found out that all of my ebooks are available on Kindle Unlimited for the next few months. And it was just, like, they were very vague about it. But the way they phrased it I was like, oh, that's not a choice that you made. That's a choice that your publisher made. And you might not have wanted that at all in the first place. 

Something to keep in mind when you're thinking about your royalties, thinking about relying on sales, thinking about what kind of profit you're hoping to make off a book. Although again, realistically with traditional publishing, most money that people are making from traditionally published books they're making from their advance. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Very, very useful resource that we've referenced before, that I'm going to link again in the show notes for this episode, is Jane Friedman's The Key Book Publishing Paths. It's a nice chart that she updates regularly, and then also has a deep dive into all the sections within it. But one of the things that she talks about in there is that these days it is incredibly rare for an author to earn out their advance, and you don't get paid any additional money until you have earned out your advance. 

You know, if your advance factors in 10,000 copies of your book being sold and then you start earning a profit when you hit 10,001 copies, these days, more often than not, authors are not hitting that minimum threshold. Which is just something the publisher - that's a risk that the publisher themselves will be assuming, and that's pretty standard these days. 

But if you're really relying on selling through your advance so that you can then turn around and continue to make a profit on your book… I don't know how realistic that is. 

Matt: Yeah, but people also I've heard of these days where they'll negotiate actually a smaller advance because they do want to be able to advance out of it and collect royalties annually. So I think there's a little bit of flexibility there these, but I don't know. In my, if it was me, like, I'm going to get every dime I can upfront from this traditional publisher. And if I advance out great, if not, I'm already onto the next book anyways, but. 

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: It is something to know and to understand that that advance could be all you get.

Lauren: Right. Right. It absolutely could be all you get. And that’s - 

Matt: it could take you six years to, to sell out of that. Or you might never sell out of that. You're right. And it is, it's more common than not to not sell out of that. So. 

Lauren: Yep. Which is not to say that nobody does. 

Matt: Right. But it's not to say that, hey, that's not a good strategy. Again, if your agent negotiates a pretty nice advance one, their fee is coming out of that first, so know that, and in many cases, they'll actually get the check, the advance check from the publisher, they'll get their cut out of it and then they send you the rest. And in some cases it goes right to you, but I don't know that that's the more common way. 

But nonetheless, I mean we're not saying it's a bad strategy. Like if you can get a pretty big advance out of it, then great. But just know that might be the only money you get out of it.

[34:26]

Lauren: We're getting close to the threshold on this episode. Plus we're both going to start eating the foam coasters on the table if we don't get lunch soon. But I do want to talk about - that's not foam. It's cork. Words are hard. I really just looked at this coaster and said foam. 

Matt: Oh, did you? 

Lauren: It's very clearly cork. 

Matt: I was too busy communicating outside of the studio with Haley about what lunch was going to be. 

Lauren: Well, that was a much bigger priority. So you continue to do that. And I will talk about something that I do think is really important to talk about in this episode, because we talked about the first half of the publishing journey, or we were just talking about getting your book to the point where it has been acquired by a traditional publisher and or making the decision to self-publish and getting your book in shape to do that. 

There's still a whole second half of that and that is the production, marketing, and sales journey.

Matt: Right.

Lauren: For your book. 

Matt: The fun stuff. 

Lauren: Right. Obviously. Again, I'm not going to dive super, super deep into the self-publishing journey for that, because we have done that episode repeatedly. So definitely - I will link some in the show notes, but we've definitely done episodes to talk about all the things that you have to do if you are a self-published author, when it comes to book production. And again, that's going to be things like hiring editors, hiring interior format designers, hiring cover designers, or choosing to do any of those things on your own. 

If you're going to contract with a hybrid publisher and have them use their built-in services to help you get all of that done. There is also, of course, there's always the version where you actually do it yourself. But that's up to you how you choose to do that. And there are a bunch of episodes, blog posts, Lulu U videos on our YouTube channel that can help you with all that. 

But I want to talk a little bit about the traditional publishing journey and what that looks like, because I feel like that's something that a lot of people aren't super familiar with - you’re looking at me like, is it because I have to stop and put my lunch order in before we keep going with this episode? Okay. While Matt's ordering lunch, I'm going to talk through a little bit more about the traditional publishing journey. 

Matt: I’m done. 

Lauren: Oh, are you done? 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Wow, look at you. 

Matt: That's right. 

Lauren: The first thing that I want to talk about is like the actual production of your book. Obviously, one of the things that people consider a pro of traditional publishing is that they have this team of editors, copy editors, formatters, cover designers that are going to help you produce your book. 

Matt: Right. 

Lauren: That's one of the things that takes so long. That's one of the things that adds like a solid year onto your publishing timeline, is that they have all of these stages that your book has to go through in order to get it done. The important thing there, the important thing that you have to realize as that part of the traditional publishing journey, is that you have given over control on all of the design elements and all of the production elements that go into your book. 

If you don't like your cover design, you might get some options like, okay, here are three or four different options for cover design. This is what we're thinking, pick one of them. If you don't like any of them, you can't be like, oh, sorry, back to the drawing board. Unless you're like a really big deal. Honestly. 

You might be able to give some direction in the first place and say, hey, you know, this is what I was thinking for the cover. Or this is like, you know, I had some thoughts and ideas on this, but ultimately somebody else is making that final decision. Someone else gets the final say on that. That's with all of these things, with all of these stages. So that's something that you want to keep in mind throughout the journey. 

What exactly you're… paying I guess? Like we were talking about with hybrid publishing and self-publishing, you are paying for service providers that are going to do these design elements for you. But because you're paying them, because you're actually literally contracting them and paying them, you get final say on design decisions. 

Matt: Right. 

Lauren: You are not paying for any services in traditional publishing, but instead you are relinquishing control. 

Matt: Right. 

Lauren: So that is the cost. 

Matt: That's the currency you're trading in, is your control, rights, and profits. 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: That's what you're trading for the work that the traditional publishing team is doing. And that's a much longer payout schedule, by the way, than just paying a couple of subcontractors up front - 

Lauren: Oh yeah.

Matt: - and being done with it. If the life of your book, in perpetuity, is worth the trade off there, then by all means. 

Lauren: Same to be said with sales and distribution, where that is, that's what you're trading. You have a built-in team of people that are going to, when I say promote your book, I do not mean marketing, that's a separate thing. But you have a team of people that already have relationships, like we talked about earlier, with bookstores, distributors, retailers, libraries, whatever it is, that are going to promote your book to them in order to have them stock it in their store, library, catalog, anything. 

You have people that are going to handle promotions and discounts and promo campaigns like that and stuff like that. So you're not doing any of that stuff, but then you also have no say in any of that. Again, it's another area where you are giving up control in favor of not having to do the work. If that's something that's enticing to you, great, cool. I'm very lazy. I want other people to do work for me. So I get it. But think about what you're giving up. This is where we're starting to get biased. I can feel the bias coming out. 

Matt: I've been biased the whole time. 

Lauren: I know, I know.

Matt: But that's okay. 

Lauren: But this is actually, so this last one is the one that I think is really important, that I really think that people don't understand enough. A lot of people that get traditionally published, one of the biggest surprises when they are going through their traditional publishing journey, is how little marketing and publicity support they are actually getting for their book. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: And whether that's… I mean, any publisher, any traditional publisher that you're working with is still going to provide some kind of marketing and publicity campaign. They're going to have a strategy in place. They're going to have something in mind. 

Matt: But only to the amount that it benefits them - 

Lauren: Correct. 

Matt: - in the sales cycle. That's all. So everything a traditional publisher does from the minute they agree to buy your manuscript from you, it's all in an effort to sell copies of books. Which is not a bad thing. But the point is you're only going to get so much marketing attributed to your book project as is needed to sell copies of your book.

Lauren: Right. 

Matt: And in fact, if you have any kind of audience of your own, at all, they're going to lean on you to go back to your audience and do what you could have done without them to begin with, which is promote your book to your audience on their behalf. 

Lauren: That is actually something that these days publishing companies will actually look at what your existing audience base is before they consider acquiring your book. You will have a leg up on the competition. If it's coming down to two very similar titles from two very similar authors, if one person has a social media following of 20,000 Instagram followers and the other person has 500 of their college acquaintances and people that they've worked with a couple of times ten years ago, they're going to more likely than not go with the one with 20,000 followers. 

Matt: Which is unfortunate because, you know, one of the biggest selling points for using a traditional publisher in the past - and when I say past, I mean, 10, 20, 30, 40 years ago - was it was a way to get exposure. 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: Because you didn't have your own audience. And so in those days, books were truly… manuscripts were purchased based on whether or not they thought it was a great book that could sell, not whether or not you had your own built-in audience of tens of thousands. You relied on them to get you that audience. Nowadays, they've flipped that model and the traditional publishers want you to already have that audience built in. 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: And so for those that are trying to establish themselves and they don't have a big audience, they've now kind of lost that option that used to kind of exist if they wrote a really good book. If they don't have an audience already, they're even further down the list. Like you said, and so in that instance, though, again, my argument is that if you already have that audience, why hand that over to traditional publishers so they can make money off of it? That's just even more motivation to go publish it yourself and sell it directly to that audience and keep all that hard work and that profit. 

Lauren: Yeah, for sure. In defense of traditional publishers. 

Matt: Boo. 

Lauren: I know. One thing that they are useful for when it comes to marketing and publicity is that earned promo that we've talked about in the past where it's something like trade reviews like a New York Times review or Library Journal, reviews like that, Publishers Weekly, social media or influencer promo campaigns. Book subscription boxes are really popular and that's, you know, a lot of the big book subscription boxes, the books are only provided by traditional publishers. They're not including self-published books in there. There are smaller ones that absolutely, there are ones that focus exclusively on self-published books, but some of the, like, really big, big name recognizable ones, those titles are coming exclusively from traditional publishing houses. 

So they're good at those things. They're good at having that kind of, they've had these relationships that they've built up and you will get, not that you will get, let me rephrase that. You have the potential to get some really cool earned promo opportunities that you probably wouldn't get as an indie published or self-published author. 

But one, you're not guaranteed to get any of those things. And two, that only does get you so far in terms of the like on the ground street team marketing that is selling individual copies of your book and building yourself a brand name as an author. At the best of their ability, they're helping you sell copies of your book, but they're not helping you grow your brand as an author. And at the end of the day, all of that marketing work now falls on the traditionally published author. 

So if that is something that you're like, man, that to me seems like the one of the best benefits of traditional publishing is having that crazy built in publicity network of all these connections that I can tap into and like, really use that to get my name out there. Get in the New York Times and have this out and the other thing and have an end cap and a signing at the Union Square bookstore - Union Square Barnes & Noble, Union Square bookstore - If that's the path that you think you're taking, I need you to understand that you are going to have to put in marketing and publicity work on your own as a traditionally published author. If you don't wanna put that work in, I don't know, consider a different dream? 

Matt: Now you sound like me.

Lauren: Well, I'm not - I don't want to be discouraging. I don't want to discourage people from this, but it is definitely something that I feel like that's the number one thing that I see debut authors talking about when it comes to people that are traditionally published and they talk about, like, what was something unexpected about this, or what was something that you wish you'd known before you had your book acquired by a publishing company, or whatever. I feel like that's one of the things that I see the most often is people saying, like, I had no idea how much I would still have to handle my own marketing. 

[45:07]

Matt: Yeah, but again, just like we've said in tons of other episodes, and we said at the top of this episode too somewhere; all of this is only relevant in so much as what your goals are for the book itself. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: So again, yes, you'll get some marketing help from a traditional publisher. It may come in the form of getting you to the New York Times bestseller list, and it may come in the form of getting you in a subscription box or some other thing. I think use it for what it is, but it comes down to what your goals are for your book. I mean, again, if your goal is to sell as many copies of this particular book as possible, I can see where you're gonna need a little bit of time to think through the pros and cons of both of these. 

Because you can sell a ton of books by being self-published, and you'll make a bunch of money. You can sell a ton of books and traditional publishing, and you may or may not make a bunch of money. You can sell less books as a self-published author and sell more books as a traditional published author, but still make more money as a self-published author because of the percentage of the profits you keep when you sell, especially if you sell direct. 

So if your goal is money, you're really going to have to think long and hard and do the math really well. If your goal is fame, you just want to see yourself on a Barnes & Noble bookshelf like Lauren, you're going to want to chase a traditionally published deal as hard as possible. You're going to want to try to get an agent to work with you as much as possible. 

If your goal is to continue building a name for yourself, or your brand, or your business, and potentially use this book for ways to also increase other streams of revenue like your online course or some other things. You're most definitely going to want to self-publish any publish. You're not going to want to give any of that control profit or anything else over to a traditional publisher. If they even agreed to take the book. 

All of this goes back to what your goals are. Everything we talk about almost all the time really goes back to what your goals as an author are for that book, that project. But I do think that the process, the workflow, the steps, the path, the journey, whatever you want to call it to self-publish to me is easier, more enjoyable, and potentially a lot more beneficial long-term for you as a creator than the traditional publishing one. 

The traditional publishing path these days is not set up to benefit an author at all. It's at this point now basically all they can do to stay alive. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: So they're going to do what they can do to stay alive, but that model is just quickly fading and they're just not agile enough to change. So be careful who you hitch your wagons to.

Lauren: Well, I had left a section in the outline to talk about which one we think is better. 

Matt: I just told you. 

Lauren: Clearly Matt has already done that. So I actually have nothing to add to that. I do think it's interesting - I apparently I do have something to add to that. 

Matt: You always have something to add. 

Lauren: I always have something to add. But no, I will say for me, like as somebody who - I said earlier, this has been a dream of mine since I was a kid. Went to school for creative writing. I've worked in the book industry in some way or another for my entire adult career. But I think five, six, seven years ago, I absolutely would have come into this episode and even come out the other end being like, no, I still think traditional publishing is the way to go. 

And I can't say that anymore. I can't say that I wouldn't still want to be traditionally published. I feel like it's going to take more than five and a half years at Lulu to make me alter that dream. But I do think that if, if somebody asked me genuinely, which path should I take? Pretty sure my answer is self-publishing. 

Matt: I don't disagree with that whole… Again, you've always had this dream of seeing yourself... I get it. Like that's a very strong gravitational pull. Like if you've always wanted to be a published author in the traditional sense, because you wanted to see your book, your face on that shelf. I get it. That's hard to get away from. 

And it is the motivation for why a lot of people that we see right now do what they do, whether it's actors or musicians or writers or it doesn't matter. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: I mean, that's a very strong pull. And for some people that's a goal, they just have to do everything they can until they hit it. There's just no other option for them. If you're seriously creating content or books for the purpose of making that a sustainable career or as a way to support some other business, or your brand, or whatever that might be, it's just not a feasible route. The numbers don't add up the amount of effort and time it takes. It's just not worth it.

[49:20]

Lauren: Yeah, well, I think that's it. 

Matt: What do your bracelets say today? 

Lauren: Oh, actually, that's a great question. One of them says, old habits die screaming, which feels very relevant to the conversation that we just had. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: One of them says, hiss, but with several S's. 

Matt: Okay. 

Lauren: And the other one says foolish mortal. 

Matt: Alright. 

Lauren: Saved the best one for last for you. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Well, if you want to argue with us about how we're wrong about self-publishing and traditional publishing, if you have any questions about the distinctions that we've talked about in here, if you have any ideas for future episode topics, if you have any questions, still doing a call for a mailbag episode. So if you have anything that you want to talk about, you can always find us on Lulu's social media. You can email us at podcast@lulu.com. 

This one was not the one that's going to be a video episode, but maybe we'll get some clips on YouTube and Instagram at least. So you guys can see both of us being weird in here as we try to figure out how to work around a camera after doing this for months without a camera. Better luck to us next time for getting that video recording up. And in the meantime, thanks for listening and we'll see you next week.