The Publishing Your Book Dilemma

You want to publish your book and you have worked long and hard to bring it this far. You have edited the first draft yourself, and you have had others review and comment on it before submitting it to a publisher. You are confident that your work is the best that you can produce and feel the hope that someone somewhere is going to like it.

Or, you can choose to self-publish your book and hope it will be received well enough by the local community you can earn some money from it.  Publishing your book means once it’s done there is one thing you will have to do.

Wait. You wait for a reply from one publisher, and then you wait for more replies, and you wait for edits if you have a successful response from any of them. You wait for edits if you get a rejection too because, after all, a ‘no’ might just mean you didn’t give your work a good enough edit the last go-round. You spend hours researching what each publisher expects from you so that you can get a better response from them, but you are also researching information for the subject you have chosen.  If you self-publish you wait to seesaw the interior looks, or you wait for your book to go online on Amazon, or wait for something to be approved by the self-publishing company you are using.

It’s a real publishing your book dilemma.

The truth? You want to be accepted, you want your work published, and really, as much as you’ve enjoyed self-publishing, it would be nice for a traditional publisher to say, “Yes, we will publish your work.” To get that yes you need to improve- yourself and your writing, and that takes time. Or do you want to improve? I mean, you’ve at least done some publishing, and you’ve successfully built a following on your social media sites, so you could already be well on your way.  Yet, there is the nagging doubt you can always do better.  You wonder if you shouldn’t have settled with okay.  Or signed that contract.  With self-publishing, there is the element of how much are you willing to spend before you have to see your book have more sales?  

It’s a real publishing your book dilemma.

Why is it so hard to publish a book ? Because no matter what you do, you need to justify your work with some form of compensation, you need money to continue writing.  You need traffic for your blog, you need to build more connections with people and develop new ideas for another book.  This would be money coming in on a regular basis so that you can continue writing, and making a living at it. 

 If you self-publish, you need that money to pay for any expenses you have, and also for future expenses in the traditional publishing field. It’s not as easy at it looks, this publishing a book business, but if you are aware of these steps along the way, you will be prepared.