Aggregators, Retailers, Educators and Other Services for Today’s Self Publishing Authors
We are about to wrap up our Self-Publishing Topics and Sunday’s articles contain a lot of links. Possibly enough links to take you well into March. But I promise to wrap up this topic by Wednesday’s Chat on the 26th of February.
There are three main types of publishing companies in the self-publishing world, including aggregators, retailers, educators, and those that offer production services, which we’ll cover in the next section.
Types of Self-Publishing Companies
Publishing Company Type
Purpose
Use them if you…
Aggregator
Book distributor
Want hands-off book distribution
Retailer
Retail store that sells books
Need a platform to sell your book
Educator
Teach authors how to self-publish
Want to learn a proven process
Servicer
Provide author services
Need editing, cover design, printing, etc.
The following website is more up-to-date than the previous link. Because the Publishing World changes continuously, this article is a great read.
Self-publishing companies aren’t publishers. On the contrary, they’re the services that enable you to get your book out of a folder in your computer and distribute it to the world for people to read.
Book retailers, such as Amazon and B&N Press, are the online bookstores in which your book will be discoverable and sold. Each big book retailer generally provides a branded eBook publishing platform for you to individually upload your book.
Aggregators, such as Draft2Digital and Smashwords, allow you to distribute to a bunch of book retailers all at once. This will probably save you time and energy, though you’ll need to pay an extra fee for their services.
Print-on-demand distributors are full-suite self-publishing companies that include print-on-demand services on top of distribution options. Naturally, they’re particularly useful if you’re planning to distribute a printed book!
Before Chat go ahead and read these articles so you can help me talk my way through them.
Join us on Sunday at 7PM ET and we will talk about these different options available to today’s Self-Publisher.
Vanity Publishing, Self-Publishing What's the Story?
Self-Publishing was almost unheard of in the mid 1990s. Now, it is everywhere.
Readers tend to come in two groups. Those who cling to a physical book, complete with that old book smell and dog-eared pages. The second group is good to go
with an e-reader and all of an e-book’s convenience.
There are of course, outliers, opportunists who will read a cereal box if that is the only thing available.
Authors used to come in two camps.
Traditionally published and Vanity Published. The latter was an especially good idea if it was an Ancestry type book. Maybe a cook-book for gifting during a
holiday.
Then during the great transition to all things internet, self-published books became an option. Many people having been stung by the Vanity Press heyday or those
who had submitted a book to publishers time after time only to end up with enough Rejection Letters to paper their walls, saw the option of self-publishing as something acceptable.
We began the Month of February looking at Contracts, we tuned them inside out and attempted to de-mystify their contents. We learned a little about how to get into
a contract and how to get out of them.
For the rest of February I want us to look at Self-Publishing as a viable alternative to Traditional Publishing. With any kind of Writerly Topic, the more you
know, the better able to make decisions you will be.
This Sunday, 16 February, we are going to look at the difference between Self Publishing and Vanity Presses.
A vanity publishing company is a business that an author can pay to essentially be their book
publisher.
A self-publishing company is a business that gives authors the ability to publish their books themselves and pick and choose the needed services to
do so.
If you are seriously ready to try and break your contract with a traditional publisher, there are several things you have to consider before taking action. Keep in mind that publishers are in the business of making money from author’s works. This means they are in it to protect their own interests
and in most cases, consider the needs of their company before that of the author.
Many authors embark on this mission to break their contract in an effort to take more control and see more success through self-publishing or through new opportunities.
HERE’S WHAT WE COVER FOR HOW TO BREAK A PUBLISHING CONTRACT:
I hope you will come to Wednesday’s Chat and explore the reasons an author breaks a contract. There are many links included in this post. Take your time.
Disclaimer: We, at the Writers Chatroom, are Not lawyers. We are not giving legal advice. Please don’t let anything in this post or Wednesday’s Chat be any more than an idea.. You get it..
Visit Us On Wednesday at 8PM ET at the Chatroom
Welcome to Contracts Part Two
On Wednesday, we talked about Contracts. The topic chat was an effort to get participants on the same page with vocabulary. On Sunday, February 9th we will talk about Things to Avoid in a Contract.
Sunday, 9 February at 7PM ET at the Writers Chatroom
Part Two of this Chat will happen on Sunday February 9th and will include –
