Getting your book in the door.
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As part of our “When it comes to publishing–First things first” series, today we are discussing the second topic in answering the question “What’s the difference between online self-publishing and traditional publishing?” It’s a common situation–you’ve just finished writing your book, and your next (or your first) best seller is staring you in the face. How do you get your book in the door to be published?
Traditional Publishers:
The process for getting your manuscript picked up by a traditional publisher is a time honored tradition because, in its truest sense, traditional publishers won’t accept just anyone’s written work. Your work must meet certain standards in regards to writing style, genre, subject matter, and overall quality. Some traditional publishers won’t even consider unsolicited works, which means you’ll need to find (or hire) someone to represent you and your book.
From Random House’s website:
“How do I submit my manuscript to Random House?
Like most big publishers, Random House only accepts manuscripts submitted by an agent–the volume of materials we receive is just too large to accept unsolicited submissions. There is an excellent listing of literary agents in a book called The Writer’s Market, which you should be able to find in a local bookstore or library. You can also visit their website at http://www.writersdigest.com for more information. ”
Online Self-Publishing sites:
Online publishing sites, on the other hand, will generally allow almost any legal work to be published. As long as you meet the requirements of their publishing agreement your manuscript is acceptable for publication. Lulu.com, Wordclay, CreateSpace and Blurb all fit into this category.
Here are a few requirements from Lulu’s Membership Agreement:
“* [Your content] is owned by you or, to the extent owned by someone else, that you have permission to provide the Content to Lulu for use as described above and, in either case, that the Content does not contain any Personal Data about any individual other than you.
* [Your content] does not violate any copyright, trademark, trade secret or other intellectual property right of any third party;
* [Your content] does not invade any individual’s right of privacy or publicity;”
Here’s a restriction that Createspace outlines in their Content Guidelines. You’ll see it’s quite similar to Lulu.
* CreateSpace holds personal privacy in the highest regard. Therefore, items that infringe upon, or have potential to infringe upon, an individual’s privacy are prohibited. Additionally, the sale of marketing lists (bulk e-mail lists, direct-mail marketing lists, etc.) is prohibited.
I hope that helps explain the primary differences in getting your manuscript into a traditional publishing house vs. an online self-publishing site. Although I can’t speak to the details for getting your work published through traditional publishing, several of my previous posts reviewed the online self-publishing process.
Next time we’ll cover a very common topic that authors are interested–content ownership and copyright. What rights do we give up when we self-publish vs. through traditional publishing? It’s interesting stuff…
Thanks again, and till next time–Keep publishing!
Henry