The “Plotter” Approach to Publishing

I’d like to start by saying that you don’t have to listen to me. You don’t have to listen to anyone. Your writing is a sacred extension of yourself and you should treat it that way.

The topics I explore in these posts are a result of my personal research, experiences, and understanding gleaned from connections within the publishing world. It’s just my two cents.

Choose your own adventure! You follow your heart to find what works.

​Now that that’s out of the way, here’s the thing:
 
You kinda have to be a plotter here to find success, even if you aren’t naturally, which is hard for lots of writers. It’s like marketing yourself as an author when you’re an introvert who wants nothing more than to sit in your space, making art that others magically find and pay you for. I get it. I do.
 
Once you decide that what you’ve written should be shared with the world and isn’t just a private musing or story, there are a few options to weigh.

When it comes to making and marketing your book, how much work do you want to do?

This is the big one. Being an author is like any pursuit of success, unfortunately. No matter what route, be it traditional, self pub, hybrid, small press, or other, being an author means being your own boss.
 
There’s more to it than just writing. (If you just want to do that, then that’s 100% okay too, but that’s not a career, it’s a hobby.)

Unless you have loads of financial security and a budget to hire freelancers and third parties to edit, do layout, design, market, and publicize for you (even if you are traditionally published!). In this case, you can offset much of the work by throwing some money at it. Still work, but less strenuous.
 
Your options can be more or less boiled down to three different (broad) avenues.

• If you’re on board and fired up to do all the work (or have access to aforementioned monies) to find success, then self-publishing might be a good fit for you. This is also a great option for authors who desire complete control. The downside, however, is that you have complete control and responsibility.

 

• If you’re willing to put in some work but maybe don’t want it to completely consume all your time AND you have some cash to invest, then consider hybrid publishing. Hybrid publishers are largely pay to play, so be mindful of financial implications.

 

• If you’re willing to do a moderate amount of work but would really rather be guided, look to traditional and small press publishers to help you out.
  
  (I’m lumping these two options together for now even though they can be quite different. More on that later.)

There's also a secret fourth option: Social Publishing. This is when you publish your work on a blog or social media site. Novels can be serialized this way and pretty much all fan fiction starts this way. For the purposes of this post, I'm going to focus on the publishing avenues that have the potential to end with a printed book in your hands that you can flip through to enjoy that new book smell.

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What is the balance of rights ownership that you’re comfortable with?

Not to get too into the weeds with this one since author rights is a hot topic right now, but just know that as soon as you write it, your work is protected, and you own 100% of the rights to it. Agents, editors, and readers are absolutely not out to steal your work and even if they were, they couldn’t because of aforementioned rights you own.

• Self publishing means that you keep 100% of the rights to your work, you do 100% of the work, and you keep 100% of the profits. This is especially appealing to many authors with self publishing being one of the easiest (and certainly fastest!) routes to publishing available right now.

 

• Hybrid publishing offers authors a contract that grants them printing and reproduction rights, usually for a limited time. The author retains rights for any other work based on the book (think like movies, video games, audiobooks, etc.) This varies, so be sure to read the contract carefully!

 

• Traditional publishing asks for the same rights as hybrid publishers at the bare minimum. Usually there are clauses in the contract that specify what subsidiary rights (which cover the above mentioned variations) the publisher is interested in buying.
  
  ​Usually traditional publishers have subsidiary rights specialists who pursue things like television show adaptations, movies, foreign language translations, etc. so purchasing these rights from the author (usually for a specified length of time) allows them to pursue bigger profits via different avenues. This is where having an agent is super handy since they help vet those contracts to make sure the author comes out on top and everyone profits.
  
  The author retains some rights but has less control over the decisions ultimately made. For example, instead of having the freedom to design your own book cover or hire an artist, authors are usually given several variations of a cover design that their in house graphic artists and marketing experts have whipped up, and you choose from those. The trade off is that you don’t have to worry about finding and securing distribution and spearheading marketing campaigns. (You still need to market, but you’re not doing it alone.)

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There are a ton of horror stories out there about authors having little or no control in traditional publishing models and not making any money from the deal to boot, but I personally have yet to find a traditionally published author or editor who have had this sort of experience.
 
Hard stance: This is one of those areas where I’m pretty convinced the internet is making the situation out to be some kind of boogeyman to encourage authors to self-publish without thinking too hard about it.
 
Why? An uneducated author is easy prey to scammers and freelance publishing professionals looking to advance their careers without being too bogged down by inconveniences like scruples.
 
Lookin’ at you book promoters and marketers who are actually bots filling up my DMs.
 
I’ve seen a fair amount of chat online trying to convince authors that they need to have lots of money to get published. Ridiculous.
 
Agents, for example, will never ask you for money. They make money when you make money. If you find someone asking for money who claim to be a publisher or agent, see the red flag for what it is and run!

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How profit-driven are you?

These publishing options also have varied financial implications, as you might have guessed. First thing's first: there's not a lot of money in publishing. Being an author often falls into the category of "starving artist" by our culture, but it doesn't have to be that way. You might not make millions (or maybe you're the next best thing! We won't know until you try), but if you're strategic and willing to do the work, you can make a life in which you're certainly not starving (and hopefully happy!).

The overview of these below is broad and perhaps oversimplified, but I'm trying to keep things as direct as I can for these first few steps. There will be more in-depth posts that take deeper dives in the future.

• Traditional publishers offer an advance to authors for their book that is later paid back in sales. This has been under fire in recent years with social media movements like #publishingpaidme showing the disparity between socioeconomic factors and the amount of the advance paid to authors.
  
  This is more nuanced, but the basics are that you are given a sort of loan to live off of while your book is produced and released, which is paid back to the publisher in the form of book sales. If your book doesn't sell, the author can be responsible for paying it back!
  
  
• Small Presses are different in this regard, so I'm giving them their own point here. They are as advertised: small. So they don't usually have the funds to offer authors advances, or if they do, it's not as large as the bigger traditional publishing houses. This means you'd earn royalties more immediately since there's no advance to earn back. Sometimes their royalty rates are better because of this financial setup.
  
  
• Self Publishing is, of course, run 100% by you, and you can't really give yourself an advance unless you find some kind of small business loan (or better: grant). You get to keep what you earn though, rather than having it go to paying back your advance before you get royalties.
  
  
• Hybrid Publishing is, as mentioned previously, pay to play. So you don't get an advance and how the royalties work varies quite a lot. Usually authors get most or all royalties from sales but you've essentially given yourself the advance by paying the publisher and are now trying to earn it back for yourself!

For another angle on this topic and to do your own research (which I enthusiastically encourage you to do!) check out Jane Friedman's resources about the different publishing paths here.

So, now that you have some idea of what the three paths before you look like, which will you choose? Where will your adventure take you next?

Self Publish
Hybrid Publish
Traditional Publish

Note: If you are writing something other than a novel (or novel-like life writing) then the publishing options expand and shrink accordingly.
For example, if you're a professor looking to publish a book of research, the process looks quite different and there's only really one model available: University Presses.

For the purposes of this blog and the hypothetical publishing journey we're on, I assume you're writing a novel or something similar. ​

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Crystal Carney

Crystal Carney is an editor and writer with an affinity for fantasy, literary nonfiction, and poetry. She has an education in publishing from the Denver Publishing Institute and expands her knowledge base every day through online forums, revised industry standards, webinars, professional contacts, and books. She has a passion for literary art and helping writers realize their dream of writing for a living