Publishing Books: The Joys and Challenges

There are so many joys and challenges to writing and editing a book. There are also many joys and challenges to publishing books. I believe that the challenges come from all the choices that one needs to make to get from finished manuscript to book in hand.

There are so many areas that change the writing style of an author, experience, time working on a certain group. Viewing writing as a hobby or a pastime or a business. These affect what a writer will do when planning to publish. I can say that I wouldn’t go to a large traditional publisher with a write up of a birthday party of a friend, except should that friend be someone famous and they let me!, I would go to a local printer and pay for it as a keepsake for others.

There are also choices to be made, do I want this published at all? Or why do I want this published? For some the answers are simple. Publishing Books are not quite for them, but for other these are the easy questions to answer, the one big one is how?

For some writers this is a bit harder, and for some easier: a author with a reputation with a certain publishing company will have more leverage and information about said publishing company to publish a book with them. For someone who is just beginning this process it is more challenging.

How about deciding if your book is a niche market book? I understand that everyone (myself included) would love to have a mega-hit book one that people will want to read, but as I’ve said before publishing books (yes plural) is all a part of the life of a writer.

There is on demand publishing, traditional publishing, self-publishing, niche publishing. The list can go one and on. What is important, a commandment I suppose, is “Know Thy Market” if the book should be published traditionally this is the way to go. Otherwise, go to other avenues that you believe will help your book.

Publishing Books? easy, you just need to understand the many choices out there.

My Question for you today is this: If you really want to be publishing books, what sort of things do you need to decide upon? (I’m using plural for a reason think big on this one.)