Why Bother Submitting to a Publisher

Why Bother Submitting to a Publisher

By Linda Jackson

Although I am a gung-ho proponent of self-publishing, I would still advise new authors to first submit their manuscripts to traditional publishers before venturing into the bold world of self-publishing simply because of the cost. I chose self-publishing (after only five submissions to traditional publishers) because I like a good challenge. Not everyone is that radical.
Why bother submitting to a publisher when all the tools to self-publish are so readily available? Why bother with a publisher when you get to keep “all” the profits rather than a lousy 7 to 10 percent royalty? Listed are two “pricey” reasons why. Consider them before you give up on manuscript submission.

The publisher bears the cost of printing, saving you, the author, thousands of dollars that can be used toward marketing. And if you’re lucky, you might even get an advance towards royalties. If so, use some of that money for marketing. Treat your writing career as a small business. Set aside money to help make it grow. If you can get someone else to foot the printer’s bill (which is what a publisher does for an author), the least you can do for YOUR book is spend a little on marketing. Before even submitting to a publisher, you should already have a marketing plan for your book, and I don’t mean the 100 people who have promised to buy your book, or the two local gas stations who have promised to carry your book. I mean a real marketing plan – a plan to reach thousands of people who will buy your book. Also, list out the costs and return on investment. Then write down a budget for marketing your book and use it. Submit this plan with your manuscript. Publishers will appreciate it.
Distribution is not cheap, and some distributors will deliberately take advantage of a self-published author. You will pay a distributor at least a few hundred dollars in set-up costs, followed by about $60 – $100 a month in administrative fees. A few hundred dollars for distribution might not sound like much, but during the lean months when no sales are coming in, distribution will feel like a millstone tied around your neck. You can expect to receive about 30% of the retail cost of your book after the wholesale and distribution costs. In addition, wholesalers will take all of the 90 days allowed them before they pay you. After which, your distributor will hold back a portion in case of returns. That’s right. Bookstores may return your books, and you have to give them their money back. So after you deduct the cost of wholesaler discounts, distributor’s fees, and printing, you might come out with about 10% of the retail price of your book (about the same amount a publisher would pay you in royalties). And contrary to what they claim on their websites, distributors do not get your book into the bookstores. Your distributor will get Ingram to order a few copies of your book, after which, the book shows up on all the dot coms as if they have purchased it. In reality, that 20 – 40 copies of the book sit in Ingram’s warehouse until YOU generate sales by getting bookstores to order it or by generating orders through online booksellers. However, if you have done a lot of marketing before you get setup with a distributor, then your distributor might actually market your book and generate the bookstore orders. But don’t count on a distributor spending any of THEIR money to promote YOUR book.

So, why bother submitting to a publisher? To escape the cost (and headache) of printing and distribution in order to concentrate on writing and marketing. Use that money you would have spent in these two areas for marketing and promoting your book. Furthermore, you as the author can walk into a bookstore and present your book as a published author rather than a “self-published” author. (There is still some stigma.) And when some bonehead asks the question “Did you publish it yourself?”, you may proudly answer “No.”

Even as a small publisher, there are still times I would like to hand over the publication of my own book to someone else. So why advocate self-publishing? It’s challenging, and, like my character Joshua Tanner, I can’t resist an adventure. Of course, there are other very good reasons to choose to self-publish, but those will be covered in another article.

The faithful heart sees its commitments not as millstones, but as anchors. ~Anonymous