What is the difference between self-publishing and traditional publishing?
A traditional publishing company picks up the initial costs of publication, which include cover design, layout, and editing. For this, the traditional publisher requires long term control (generally 5 – 7 years) of an author’s rights to his or her book, and pays the author royalties of about 8%-12% of the book’s cover price. Truly self-publishing a book means that the author pays up front for all of the publishing components (cover design, layout, editing, etc.), finding contract designers, editors, etc. to handle each element in the process. Because the author assumes all of the risk, they control all of the rights to the book and should make most, if not all, of the money from the sales of each book.
