Writing a book was half the journey and the remaining begins now. The journey will produce enduring results if you get it published through a good publisher. A good publisher is the one who can make your work reach across the globe and transparently pay you your deserving royalties.

Traditional publishers: The books which you see at major bookstores are all by traditional book publishers. These publishers carefully scrutinize the manuscripts which come to them filter and publish only the ones which are worthy and the ones they can do justice to. The single most differentiating factor between traditional and all other types of publishers is the fact that the others do not have any retail book distribution network viz. ability to sell books through book stores.

Self publishers: Self publishing is a new fad amongst authors. The concept is these so-called publishers publish everything that comes their way. The authors pay them and use their services as required, e.g. editing, cover designing & printing. Once the book is ready the book can be sold through book selling websites. These services are also called Print-on-demand services. A few call their services co-publishing. Various websites tweak around their services to separate their offerings from the competition, in all the services are similar, give and take a few differences.

These days a lot of self publishers have created a strong negative wave about traditional publishers which in turn benefits their own businesses. It is surely a shortcut for the authors as well, who save the effort of pitching the manuscript to traditional book publishers but is the effort worth it, is a question which is relative to each individual. We have put together an unbiased differentiation between traditional and self publishers below to allow authors to make well informed decisions about the publisher they choose.

• Through a Literary Agent
• Yourself

This varies from project to project. Fifteen percent is the general norm literary agents get from everything related to the book’s sale. This broadly includes the following , upfront fee if the publishers offer the same, royalty on all books sold , paid excerpts from other forms of media ( newspapers, magazines, websites , etc.) ,audio books and e-books . In short everything that the content monetizes.

Typically , Literary agents pitch the author proposal or manuscript to publishers, and help the author negotiate the best deal .It works well as the agent makes money from the deal, hence he tries and gets the best he can. Most agents edit and fine tune the book pitch . They have an idea of which publisher is looking for what genres of books hence pitch likewise , which drastically improves the chances of the book’s success with the publishers. Once the contract is signed they act as the author’s face to the publisher.

Generally do not, the literary agents get their commissions from what they make for the authors

1. Upfront buying: The publisher paysme fee for the a one ti copyrights and owns them from there on . The writer gets due credit but no royalty thereafter.

2. Royalty format: In this format, the publisher pays the author a particular royalty from the book sales

3. Signing fee and royalty: Well known authors sometimes charge a signing fee as well as a royalty.

Just like any regular deal it depends upon who is in greater need. If the manuscript is extra ordinary and the author is a proven best-selling author, publishers pitch to get the rights, leading to better deals for writers. If the manuscript has been rejected by several publishers, the one who picks it up and invests logically negotiates harder. Hence royalties have no fixed rates. An industry average is 8-10 percent.

Do your homework well. Following pointers may be of help to you :

1. Pitch to the right publisher: Most authors make a terrible mistake of assuming all publishers publish every genre .Well most big publisher publish across genres, but not all. Most publishers have special genres / sub genres, e.g. spiritual, children, fiction, investment, management, etc. Trying to sell a non priority genre to a publisher is like selling a fridge to an Eskimo, your fridge may be fabulous but he does not need it. The genres publishers want to buy are listed on their websites, or can be understood from the books they publish.

2. What is in it for the Publisher? : For a moment assume you are the publisher and think of all things the publisher will be looking at before buying the manuscript. Publishing is not a charity business, people do not enter the industry to serve art. They are here to make money, period. Before you approach any publisher read the Leadstart Manuscript Evaluation Metrics, it will give you a clearer understanding of the publisher requirements. Each publisher has their own evaluation methodology, this method is ours.

3. Stand out of the crowd : Leadstart Publishing is a medium sized company and yet receives about 20 manuscripts a day, i.e. 600 manuscripts in a month an publishes only 4 -5 per month. The manuscript evaluation team has only 6 people here and we ensure each and every author who writes to us gets a reply, even if we reject the work. We require, two sample chapters of the manuscript, a synopsis and your CV. We ask for your CV to know what you have written till date. If you write a blog mention it, if you have been published elsewhere mention it. Your synopsis is the most key element of your pitch, the synopsis must be so compelling that the evaluator is forced to read the sample. In the sample chapters need not be the first two only, they need to be the best two.

4. Sound professional: Being a first timer is no sweat, but being silly is an issue. Please read through a lot of stuff on the internet before you start approaching publishers. A lot of authors feel they present themselves better in person than through written communication , so insist on meeting even before they have sent any material to publishers .Well if being an author you fail in written skills, what impression are you creating on the publisher ? Any legitimate publishing company starts work with you only after they have chosen your manuscript to publish.

Not really, you get the copyrights of any original content you have created as soon as you create it. But you cant help it if someone somewhere else in the world has created the same content and published it. He will own the copyright. Its better hence you publish the content as early as possible. It is a good idea yo register the copyrights with the IPR (Intellectual Property Rights) authorities to protect your work .Also when an ISBN is assigned to your book it protects the work to some extent.

The evaluation of a manuscript differs from each publisher to the other and no publisher we know of has ever disclosed their tool publicly .We decided to be transparent here as well , following is the gist of our manuscript evaluation metrics , we have disclosed enough information which will allow any writer to approximately evaluate his / her manuscript ..

PRE PRODUCTION:


1. Proofing
2. Editing
3. One round of Author Proof corrections
4. ISBN Assignment read more (http://www.isbn-international.org/)
5. Cover page design ( Front Cover , Back Cover, Spine , Inside cover)
6. Page making and Layouts

PRODUCTION:


7. Book Printing

POST PRODUCTION – PRE RELEASE:


8. Pre- Release PR :
   Making of Press docket and sending the book to all major media ( Newspapers , Magazines & Websites )
9. Media Tracking: Tracking Media coverage across media for Book Reviews.

DISTRIBUTION AND INVENTORY MANAGEMENT:


10. Dispatching the books to various distributors / bookstores as required. Maintaining a required inventory level at distributors and at publisher’s warehouse.