Until recently, publishing a book could be extremely difficult. You'd have to deal with the extensive marketing necessary to get your book seen and bought. You'd have to pay for exorbitant printing costs that only become cost-efficient if you print many, many more books than you could expect to sell. If you want to guarantee these, you could submit your work to a large publisher. Doing this will expose you to another set of problems. You would have to ensure that the work is compatible with the vision of the editors of the publishing house. You might also have to sacrifice creative control to some extent if you want your book to see print. Fortunately for most writers today, it is now possible to go through the process of publication without a publishing house.

Self-publishing is a viable alternative now due to the Internet and electronic media becoming very popular. That said, however, being able to work with large publishers is still a big dream for any author. This is because these large publishers give you access to an established publishing process and the reach of an organization which already has a great marketing, printing and distribution infrastructure in place.

Perhaps the dream of being published is not too lofty. There are actually large publishers lately that have been seeing the potential in works and genres they've never considered before. The time has come when the big publishers start to sign up indie authors. Oftentimes, these works come from the Young Adult genre. Many of these authors are young first-timers who have little experience and little influence, but have already started self-publishing in places such as the Amazon Kindle store, and on Wattpad. These big publishers watch the trends and look for indie authors who seem to be gaining a following, and then become very open to the idea of working with them to produce their current and future novels.

It's a much less risky, more calculated affair now, owing heavily to lower costs involved in printing and distribution due to the rise in popularity of e-books. It also helps that more people are online now than ever before, so marketing is far more effective and far more acceptable in the international community while also costing much less.

This does not come without its pitfalls, however. Indie authors may still come under the editorial knife of the publishers, especially if there is insufficient confidence in the influence of the original work. There are rare cases where the publishers choose to leave the work as is, only editing for consistency and grammatical errors. Most of the time, a lot of the creativity behind the work has to be passed over by editors to fit their vision. This is still how big publishers work and this is one reason why many authors choose to remain indie; to maintain creative control over their work.

It is a good thing that big publishers are now becoming more open to different trends and genres. This is an important part of the evolution of the industry, and people can only adapt to the changes that they see, facing a future where there's more to read than ever before.