Publishing is exciting because it means your book is finally going to become “real” and tangible. Yet, this is the part that so often derails even the most passionate and determined author. One reason is that many authors struggle through the writing and then suddenly have a finished book and nowhere to send it. If you are one of them, it may be that you started in the middle — writing — instead of at the beginning — planning. What follows are the seven most common publishing options.

1. Conventional or traditional publishers
There are two choices here. (1) You submit a proposal to a recognized publishing company and it is accepted; (2) The publisher assigns the book to you as a writer for hire and pays you a set fee. In both cases, the publisher assumes all publishing responsibilities. The publishing industry is highly competitive, and many of the larger houses are gobbling up the smaller ones. Publishers are in business to make money, and they look at your book as a commodity. They ask one question: will it sell?

2. Self-publishing
You take on these responsibilities by forming your own publishing company. For advice on how to do this, check out Independent Publishers’ Association (PMA) or its local chapter in your city. The guru of self-publishing is Dan Poynter, whose book, The Self-Publishing Manual: How to Write, Print and Sell Your Book, has become the bible for self-publishers. As a self-publisher, you are responsible for printing, warehousing, marketing, and distributing your books.

3. POD/Subsidy Publishers
Author services companies until recently were called Print-on-Demand (POD) publishers, but that designation is changing. POD is a digital technology that prints anywhere from one to 1,000 books at a time. The rest of the time your book is stored as a digital file on a large server. This eliminates the need for large press runs and storage space. Most author services companies, such AuthorHouse, iUniverse, Infinitypublishing.com, Xlibrus, and PublishAmerica offer a variety of packages to authors and contract out the actual printing to Lightning Source or some other digital printer.

4. Co-publishing
The publisher provides many of the necessary services, such as the ISBN number, production, and printing, and puts up the money on the front end. You, as the author, pay it back out of sales.

5. Independent publishers
These are generally small houses that handle from 10 to 20 titles a year, usually in few selected genres, such as African American literature, spirituality, inspiration, and religion. An “indy” publisher must put out at least 10 ISBNs a year in order to be accepted by a major distributor, such as Ingram or Baker & Taylor. This a growing segment of the publishing world. Most independent publishers belong to PMA.

6. Electronic Publishing
Your book is published as an electronic or eBOOK through an e-publisher, on your own website, or on CD-ROMs. Or, it can be self-published and distributed through other appropriate websites, listserves, or chat rooms. (E-publishing looked like it might be the wave of the future, but it languished a while and seemed to be going nowhere. Now, due to new technology and renewed interest, it is making a comeback.

7. Do nothing
Ninety-five percent of authors do nothing. That means more than 400,000 manuscripts go unpublished each year because, when authors get to this point, they simply stop.

Each one fills a particular set of needs and preferences. For some authors, nothing will do but a well-known, New York publisher on the cover of their books. For others, it’s the creative control or the profit that matters. For some doing the work involved in finding an agent, approaching a publisher, or learning the ropes of self-publishing is just too intimidating. That’s why it is important to know what you want or don’t want in the publishing process before you get to far along.

Bobbi Linkemer is a book coach, ghostwriter, editor, and the author of 16 books under her own name. She has been a professional writer for more than 40 years, a magazine editor, and a book-writing teacher. Her clients include Fortune 100 companies, entrepreneurs, and individuals who want to write books in order to enhance their credibility or build their businesses. Visit her Website at: www.WriteANonfictionBook.com.

When authors receive rejection after rejection from agents and publishers, they may decide to take matters into their own hands and self-publish their works. Many authors, however, choose to self-publish because they want to be in control of the publishing process, not because they were unable to attract a book publisher.

If you’re thinking of publishing your own book, you need to learn everything you can about the publishing business. Although many authors choose one of the vanity presses that call themselves “self-publishing companies,” using one of these publishers to produce your book is not truly self-publishing.

Print-on-demand (POD) technology allows authors to self-publish their books at a reasonable cost. The print on demand method helps to reduce the cost of publishing by only printing and shipping books as they are ordered. Although POD printing is used by many of the vanity presses, dealing with a POD printer and publishing with your own ISBN makes you the publisher.

One of the most important aspects of self-publishing your novel is knowing how to market it. This knowledge can mean the difference between selling a few books or thousands. Your marketing efforts need to be well-planned and  professional.

If your promotional materials contain typos and misspelled words, what does that say about the quality of your book? Make the best possible impression on media, reviewers, book sellers and others by paying as much attention to your marketing materials as you did to your manuscript.

There are many online discussion groups for the various genres of fiction. Locate the groups related to your genre and get involved with them. In addition to attracting fans and book buyers, you will learn what people like to read and may discover ways that you can target your work to a larger audience.

When communicating online via email or in forums and discussion groups,  always include a “signature file” or “sig file.” A signature file is a pre-written block of text that is automatically attached to your message. Your signature file should include information about your novel and where the reader can purchase it. Link to the book’s page on Amazon.com or the page on your website where readers can buy your book. You might also include links to your blog or social media profiles.

Many authors choose to self-publish their first books to establish a track record. If you successfully publish and market your first novel, it may be easier to attract a traditional publisher for your second and subsequent novels. Of course, after successfully self-publishing, you may decide you do not want or need a traditional publisher.

Learn more about writing and publishing novels and selling books here at SellingBooks.com.

Some call it just plain ”publishing.” Others claim to have self-published their books when they use Publishing on Demand (POD). Actually neither designation is completely correct. Yes, it is a kind of publishing, but a very special kind. It is not self-publishing, a process that differs substantially and requires far more expertise and involvement.

POD is an outgrowth of the huge changes that occurred in printing technology when digital printing was developed. For the first time, authors were not forced to use offset printing with its minimum press runs of 1500 to 2000 books. For the first time, an author could order only the number of books he/she needed with this new technology, and was able to fill in small quantities as future needs arise. This was a great boon for beginners who were feeling their way in the publishing industry and for memoirists who wanted to distribute books just to family and friends.

The novice writer enjoys the advantage of having the POD house handle all of the prepublication work that is required to produce a book. And that service is available at a very minimal initial outlay of money for the services one receives.

For a production payment of as little as $300, the house will produce a finished book and in most cases do it extremely professionally. The high end of that scale—a ceiling of about $1,000—represents lots of bells and whistles that the house will try to sell you, but which frankly are of little or no value. You can receive a top quality book for an average investment of under $500, and that’s the level you should be at when dealing with this method of publishing. Use the company’s basic program, nothing more.

The Process
You turn your manuscript over to the POD house, along with an initial production check. In return, the house art staff produces a professional book cover. That alone would normally cost you anywhere from $300 to $600 if you were to hire a designer yourself.

The text that comes off the computer, of course, is not what appears in a finished book. It must be formatted to conform to the page size, produced in a type font that is conducive to easy reading and leaded (spaced between the lines). This requires a high level of skill. You can learn to do it, but I strongly recommend a professional formatter. The cost depends on the length of the book. Formatting a 300-page volume, for example, can cost between $800 and $1200.

Every book requires an ISBN number if it is to be sold to bookstores or libraries. This is an identification number that is assigned exclusively to a single book. Barcodes are needed to accompany the ISBN. In addition, Library of Congress Cataloguing is a necessity if you plan to tap into the huge library market. All of these are obtained for you by POD staffers.

The POD House will then print your book, bind it and register it with a major wholesaler (usually either Ingram or Baker & Taylor), a requirement if you are selling to libraries and bookstores. The book will also be placed on Amazon, Barnes & Noble.com and Borders.com. Further distribution and promotional activities are your responsibility.

Be Aware
Two words of caution: Most houses do not obtain a copyright for your book. But that’s not a serious problem. You can do it yourself for just a few dollars. Search for “Copyright” on the Web. The government’s copyright web site will come up and explain each step you must take. It will also supply you with a formal application form. Completing everything is perhaps a 15-minute task and very easy to accomplish.

The second matter you should be aware of is that when the ISBN is ordered by most POD houses, it is listed in the house’s name. You must understand that the entity that owns the ISBN controls all of the finances of the book. So when you read in the publicity, “You control the book. All decisions are yours,” it is a bit misleading. Don’t construe this to mean that you lose total control over your book. It is yours by copyright.

In fact, on the finance side, you do have the right to decide how much of a royalty (percentage of the profit of the sale of the book) you wish. But the reality is that when it sells your book, the house will insist upon taking a certain flat amount, which is usually quite substantial. As a result, if you select a high royalty, the retail price will shoot up above the competition. With a lower royalty, you will make very little money. Nonetheless, at any level of royalty, you have managed to publish your book with no more money out of your pocket than the initial production fee. That’s a pretty fair deal for what you’re getting in return.

The only negative, aside from the minimal compensation, is that there is still some reluctance to handle POD books on the part of the better book reviewers and some book sellers. This a carry-over from the old days of the vanity press, when the level of quality was so poor and from the sloppy, haphazard work y turned out by the charlatans who infected the POD world when it first began.

Today most of the reticence has faded. People judge POD books not by the publisher that produced them, but by the quality of the book itself. POD creations have reached the best seller lists in some cases, and they are available through the majority of bookstores. Even if they are not stocked on the store shelves, they can be ordered quickly.

Finding a POD House
Most POD publishers maintain web sites. Click onto “POD Publishers,” and you will find a number of them. Read their sites carefully, and discount the meaningless extras (the bells and whistles I spoke of above). Be extremely careful if you go to contract. Study the document before you sign or better yet ask a literary lawyer to review it. Think ahead. What impact will each of the conditions of the contract have on the sales of your book. How easily can you leave the POD house and either self-publish future editions or contract for them with a traditional publisher?

While I am reluctant to evaluate the different houses that I have not used, I leave that task up to others. There are a number of sites that make these evaluations. The one I recommend most strongly is www.bookmarket.com/ondemand.htm. The site is owned by John Kremer, a highly respected publishing guru, and supplies information on a large number of publishing on demand houses.

Another site I recommend to you is www.sfwa.org. This extremely informative site is maintained by the Science Fiction Writers of America, but its information is applicable to all genres. Although I do disagree with the site’s contention that POD is not the best choice for a beginning writer, I find the rest of its counsel excellent.

Click on the site, scroll down to the box near the bottom that states “Writer Beware.” Click on it. Over on the left side of the next screen, you will find “Print-on-Demand, Self-Publishing Services.” Click on that, and read it carefully.

POD publishing may not be ideal for every author, but it is a worthy alternative for beginners, family memoirists and in fact anyone who strikes out with traditional publishers and and has a burning desire to make his/her book available to the public.

This column is an excerpt from the blog of Charles Jacobs, book coach and author of “The Writer Within You,” named a Best Book of the Year seven times and winner of both gold and bronze medals. The book can be ordered at www.retireandwrite.com. For coaching, Charles can be reached at carosbooks@gmail.com.

Going with a traditional publishing house is good for a person with an established platform (radio host, a speaker, someone with a huge newsletter following, etc.). The good thing about traditional publishing is that they take over, and do everything from editing, to cover design, but you lose creative control much of the time.

The book after the editing process may not even resemble your work. But you do get an advance, although it might not be too much for a first time author, and if you don’t “sell through,” that is, make back your advance in sales, you will have a really hard time convincing the publisher to put out another book of yours. And you may never see a dime after your small advance. As well, if your book does make it to the book store, if it doesn’t sell in 30 days, the books will be returned and you will most likely be blacklisted by the publishing house.

You generally have to sign your rights away unless you hire a good attorney who has stipulated that you will get the rights to your book back if it does get shelved. Traditional publishing houses used to pay royalties of 10% retail (i.e. if your book is $20, you get $2) but now they mostly only pay 10% of wholesale, so you only get $1 for that same book.

Self-Publishing is hard, because you have to do everything yourself, but the returns are great, because you can retain 70-90% of your investment. If you print them up yourself and then sell them, you really can make some great money. However, the biggest stumbling block is distribution. Very few distributors will deal with a self-published author. Even getting online distribution with Ingram or Baker & Taylor is going to be very tough. Plus, you have to print up at least 2,000 books to bring the price down, and they will most likely be sitting in your office or basement until you can figure out how to sell them.

POD – Print on Demand – is a great technology that combines the two types of publishing. It’s great because there is no inventory to return, or sit in your basement, and if you pick the right pay to publish company, they will give you a pretty good return on your investment – that is, if you choose the lowest distribution discount (20%) to maximize your online royalties. For example, the POD that I am with, they give me $6.28 out of every $14.95 book that I sell. And they provide online distribution, so the book is on Amazon.com, B&N.com, etc. The drawback is that you have to pay an upfront fee, like $1000 to publish with them. And if you are trying to be NYTimes bestseller this won’t happen because they don’t review POD’s. As well, you will not be in bookstores because POD’s carry a non-returnable status.

But, more good news: you own your rights 100%. What I do, is I use my POD for online distribution and cover art (but you can also submit your own cover design, interior files and retain complete
control). Then, I purchase the cover back from them, and take the files to a printer so that I can get my book printed up for substantially less, so as to have copies to send out to the media, sell at various events, etc. My POD charges me $5.65/unit, whereas if I go to a small printer, I can get my books for approximately $3.50/unit.

This is just a quick overview. But choosing the type of publishing for your book is an important one, so it is worth taking the time and energy to figure out which one is right for you.

Please visit Sally Shields, speaker, radio personality, free publicity specialist and author of the #1 Amazon.com bestseller, The Daughter-in-Law Rules on the web at: http://www.thedilrules.com for contest giveaways, free bonus gifts, Sally’s newsletter, 101 Surefire Ways to Market Your Book, Product or Service, free music, … and more!