Publishing- choosing the best publishing method

Unless you have a couple of blockbuster books under your belt; a great, wise and experienced agent working on your behalf; and are being wooed by Random House, most writer out there seem to be fumbling around in confusion determining the best publishing method. Traditional publishing is, of course, everyone's dream where an agent negotiates a deal for you, an editor holds your hand, a big publishing house throws money your way and you bask in the bliss of seeing your bestseller on the shelves of Barnes and Noble while you peck away at the next hit. This is, however, not a reality for most of us.

So what do we do? We search around to find the best publishing solution possible. However, there seems to be much confusion about what, exactly, is the difference between publishing, self-publishing, vanity presses, POD, small press and book packaging companies.

According to Wikipedia, publishing includes the stages of development, acquisition, marketing, production-printing (and its electronic equivalents), and distribution of newspapers, magazines, books, literary works, musical works, software and other works dealing with information, including the electronic media. (Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publishing)

This means that the word "publishing" includes everyone involved in the process from start to finish. This could be confusing.

Now let's take the word self-publishing. A self-publisher is someone who owns his or her own stock of ISBN numbers, is responsible for all aspects of the publishing process from start to finish including getting the book written, set in book format, picking a cover, choosing a printing option, and is in control of marketing, advertising and distribution. The self-publisher shoulders the cost and gets the profits. In order to obtain ISBN numbers the self-publisher must form a company, yet as long as that company is publishing only the writer's own book, this is self-publishing.

Any other publishing arrangement is not self-publishing whether the company the writer works with is a small publisher, vanity publisher, big publishing company, little publishing company, trade publishing company, huge publishing company, mega publishing company, imprint of a publishing company, subsidy press publishing company, or book packaging company. In short, if any company buys and owns the ISBN number and then assigns that ISBN number to one of your books, at that point they own the book as the publisher and you are the author who gets advances, royalties, pay, dividends, or whatever compensational arrangement you have worked out with that publishing company. Regardless of how much money, time, energy, advertising, book signing or input in any form that you, the author, have supplied, they are the publishing company, they own your book to do with per the contract you signed with them, and you are the author.

POD, presses and/or printers, and offset printers are means of getting the book/media into print. POD stands for Print On Demand: a digital, electronic form of printing the book. Small and big presses and printers are just that: companies that take the manuscript in raw form and transform it into a book format. Offset printers are the traditional printing presses used for years to churn out large volumes of books. All the guys above (the self-publisher, the small publisher, the big, mega, trade, huge, vanity, and subsidy publishers) use all three formats: POD, printing presses and offset printers to get the book in print. POD, presses/printers, and offset printers are not good or bad; they are merely tools used to get the material into published format.

This is not to say that a company cannot wear two hats and offer the services of publishing and printing, yet most companies stick with one or the other.

Which publishing method an author chooses to go with, whether it be self-publishing; a subsidy, vanity or book packaging company; small publisher; or large/trade publisher, is an individual choice. The most important aspect of this whole author/publisher arrangement is that the author understand what he or she can expect to get at the end (money, respect, esteem, fame, more time to write) and what he or she will need to put into the mix to get there (money, time, energy, more money, more time, more energy). When the author has done all the research, read all the fine print and thoroughly, totally understands what is ahead and what can be expected to be reaped, that is the time to choose a publishing approach.