Publishing written works can be troublesome for aspiring authors. After going through the entire process of writing, looking for someone to publish your finished work can be just as hard.

There are actually several options for an author to publish his work such as self-publishing, partnership publishing, POD publishing, or traditional publishing.

What is Self-Publishing?

Self-publishing does not only involve written works. Other forms of media can be self-published as well. Self-publishing is done by the original author without the direct involvement of an established separate publisher. A physical book is privately printed if the author chose to self-publish it. Thanks to the internet, self-publishing became more popular than publishing by traditional means in 2008; around 76% of all published books were self-published.

There are 3 main types of self-publishing:

Print on Demand –To be more economical, some books are only printed whenever necessary. This is a smart choice for self-publishers—giving purchasers the ability to own the printed book while keeping the costs low. There are a number of companies allowing their clients to do this such as Createspace, Lulu, and iUniverse. A majority of these print-on-demand publishers use the internet as their distribution channel.

Electronic Publishing –Self-publishing through eBooks became popular due to the possibility of a virtually non-existent production cost per book. The most common format of written works distributed online is the PDF eBook. These books can be sold through the publishers’ websites.

Vanity Publishing – This publishing method does not actually differ significantly from traditional publishing, especially in the past years. In traditional publishing, an author’s only chance to publish a book is to sign a contract with a publishing company, which is extremely difficult. Originally, vanity publishing arose when authors pay money upfront to publishers so they can publish the book. The initiative is from the author’s confidence in his own talent, hence the word vanity.

Partnership Publishing

Partnership publishing is essentially the same as vanity publishing wherein the author will share the financial risk with the publisher. A lot of publishing companies offer partnership publishing in different models. For example, some publishers require authors to pre-purchase a minimum number of copies to cover some of the production costs, while others allow the author to shoulder the cost of professional editing services.

Some publishers also incorporate other self-publishing models with their partnership model. For example, a partnership book launch will use print-on-demand technology to control the supply and manage risks. Of course, publishing companies offer different partnership models, so if you are an author who would like to publish your works with a publishing company, inquiring more would be a wise idea.

Traditional Publishing

Traditional publishing can be very difficult for authors. After completing the manuscript, authors send it with a query letter either straight to the publishing house or have a literary agent do it for them. The completed work along with the proposal from the author will then be reviewed by the company which then decides to either buy the publishing rights to the book or reject it. If they decide to publish the book, the author will be paid in advance for future royalties; otherwise, the author is free to offer the book to another publishing company.