To Self-Publish, or Not to Self-Publish? by Devi Nina Bingham

 Based on the article: The Indie Author's Guide to Hybrid Publishing (publishersweekly.com)

To self-publish, or not to self-publish? This has traditionally been the question every author asks themselves. Author Nicole Audrey Specter of Publisher’s Weekly answered, “It’s Complicated” to this question. However, now there is a middle road, that of Hybrid Publishing. It offers the best of both worlds, but do authors understand that? Her article shows that while Hybrid Publishing is still misunderstood, it may come from behind to win the race.

The author’s conclusion is that Hybrid publishers are not well understood due to there being a preponderance of many different business models. However, she points out that there are commonalities, such as charging the author a fee in exchange for services including proofreading, design, file preparation (formatting), and distribution. The strong benefits of Hybrid Publishing are that Authors get to keep the lion’s share of the royalties and retain control of their book. However, there is a downside. Bookstores will not carry a book that does not have a traditional publisher. Lastly, she cautions that Hybrid publishers have gone out of business, so beware.

Though her answer is, “It’s Complicated,” when you break Hybrid publishing down, it is only a combination of traditional and self-publishing. It gets tricky, though, trying to understand the different publishing models. Instead of whittling it down to a single definition, the author interviews four Hybrid publishers who make their pitch.

 The article states that there are other publishing models that look a lot like Hybrids including “vanity presses” that offer traditional publishing services while asking their authors to help defer the costs. Companies like Kobo offer assisted self-publishing where the author chooses from a menu of services for a fee. The one author that was interviewed states that the dividing line between Hybrid publishing and all others is that Hybrid Publishers screen their submissions. They do not publish every author, like Kobo and iUniverse, making Hybrid publishing a legitimate choice.

I have spoken with published authors who say about Hybrid publishers: “Why should I pay a publisher-they should be paying me!” The author does not address this important objection. She could have explained that publishers have up-front operating costs to cover, such as building rental, employee salaries, their time editing, paying graphic designers and typesetters, distribution, and marketing. She could have clarified that in the fiercely competitive, dog-eat-dog world of publishing, unless you have a proven track record as a best-selling author you should not be surprised when you must pay for services rendered.

Additionally, when an author hands their manuscript over to a publisher for editing and the many other hoops a book must pass through before it becomes a finished product, they are freed up to do what authors do best: writing more books, and marketing. The article failed to present this as a benefit of using a Hybrid publisher. Having myself experienced only self-publishing and traditional publishing, Hybrid publishing did at first seem like a foreign concept to me, but one that I wanted to be more familiar with because it offers all the benefits of a traditional publisher, plus decent royalties, and control over your work.

It has been my experience that with traditional publishers you “sell your soul” for their expertise, and sometimes, that is exactly what you need to do. I am a firm believer that every author should have at least one book that has a traditional publisher, and on that, this author and I seem to agree. This is because when you are starting out, your professionalism and status as an author needs to be established. Having a publisher with savvy editors and designers will earn you that much-needed market cred. Your talent, plus a publisher’s resources, can turn a promising manuscript into an award-winning book.

Conversely, what the article did not say about self-publishing is that only seasoned authors will breeze through it. A new author who attempts to self-publish must be prepared to be the cook, the waiter, and the busboy-and most are not prepared to handle all of it at once because there is a steep learning curve. Therefore, a traditional or Hybrid publisher is your best bet when you are still learning the ropes. There are many unseen pitfalls awaiting a new author who wants to self-publish, as I found out, the hard way. Most of my books are self-published, and while I learned everything there is to know about book publishing, I had to learn it fast, and through trial and error. Had this author disclosed how difficult self-publishing can be more new authors would consider Hybrid as a viable alternative.

It is a missed opportunity that this article featured publishers rather than authors. I would have preferred to read testimonials of what authors experienced when they went with a Hybrid publisher. Did they get the editorial magic they were looking for? Did the book cover design wow them? Did the editor include you in crucial decisions? How long did the book take to get to market? And most importantly, in the end, were they happy they chose Hybrid publishing, and would they do it again?

I am unsure who the target audience was for this article, but my guess is that it was written for beginning authors who know little about the different forms of publishing, as there was nothing in the article that was novel to me. Had she interviewed more authors it would have been more engaging. I am always interested in hearing about new innovations in publishing and how authors are navigating it.

While this article gave an overview of Hybrid publishing, it gave no history of how Hybrid publishing began, nor industry projections of how it is expected to grow and develop in the future. I have been publishing for over a decade, and my forecast is that while the Hybrid sector began small and is still building momentum, like a racehorse you did not see coming from behind, it is going to finish strong.

References:

Nicole Audrey Specter. The Indie Author’s Guide to Hybrid Publishing. Publisher’s Weekly. 2016. The Indie Author's Guide to Hybrid Publishing (publishersweekly.com)