The Ultimate Guide to All Types of Book Publishing
The world of book publishing is huge and complicated and sometimes new authors find it difficult to navigate and this is a problem.
This is because if you are an author then you need to understand the entire book publishing industry so that you can make informed decisions regarding publishing.
We are here to help you with that in this blog because we are going to talk about everything you need to know about the different types of book publishing.
Welcome to the ultimate book publishing guide that will help you understand the book publishing paths you can take as an author.
Before we move on to the types of publishing, let us look at the book publishing industry so that you can have an idea about the scale of the industry we are talking about.
The Book Publishing Industry
The global book market is estimated to be at least $144 billion which makes book publishing one of the largest industries in the world as every book sold goes through the publishing industry.
This industry is divided into different formats with print books making up the majority of the industry closely followed by ebooks and audiobooks.
One of the fastest-growing publishing mediums in this global market is audiobooks and it is estimated that audiobooks are going to touch the same levels of popularity and circulation as print books.
However, if you look at the data prediction in the graph above then you can see that the rise in popularity of audiobooks is going to flat line after it has reached the 1.8 billion readers’ mark.
This is because there are some things that are impossible to accomplish in audiobooks because creating an audiobook is an expensive and time-consuming process not to mention the fact that you cannot have diagrams and images in audiobooks.
That is why we predict that physical books are always going to be popular in the global book publishing market and that is why it is never a bad time to invest in a physical book by means of publishing.
The UK Book Market
There are clear winners in this global book publishing industry with a few genres more popular than others and one way to look at that is to study any significant global book market such as the UK book market.
As you can see from the top 10 UK bestsellers of 2018, children’s books make up the majority of the share with fiction and non-fiction as well as crime thrillers following closely.
This is actually the case with all the major book markets in the world as readers are really fond of fiction and nonfiction and children’s books are something that ultimately sells a lot just like academic textbooks.
The Singapore Book Market
However, if you are a nonfiction book writer then you should not get your hopes too low because people love nonfiction as well and nonfiction books serve as important tools in the lives of readers.
If you look at the data presented in this analysis of reading profiles of Generation X readers in Singapore then you can see that travel and food books are the most popular category in the nonfiction genre.
This is closely followed by the hobby genre which consists of specialised books such as photography books and cooking books as well as books on building train sets and books on learning chess and perfecting golf putts etc.
The Singapore book market is a very important book publishing market and it mirrors the book markets globally from all the biggest global markets and this should be a very important indicator for you to understand which non-fiction genres to pursue as a writer.
The US Book Market
If we are looking at significant global book markets then we simply cannot ignore the American book publishing industry which serves as a milestone for other important book publishing industries around the world.
If you look at the latest book publishing trends and book sales then you are going to find that adult fiction and religious books have seen the biggest change in book sales percentages.
This is closely followed by adult nonfiction and academic higher education course material books. What is surprising is that children’s and young adult nonfiction has seen a fall in popularity and sales as of the latest figures.
While this should not stop you from publishing what you want to but should serve as a good indicator for you to understand which kinds of books are going to perform well in the book publishing industry.
Now that we understand the situation of the global book publishing industry, it is important for us as authors to understand all the types of book publishing in existence.
Publishing your book in some of them might be easier than the others and some types of book publishers have a wider distribution network in the market compared to others.
So let us look at the different types of book publishers and the different ways in which you can publish your book.
Types Of Book Publishing
Traditional Publishing
The first type of publishing is known to everyone and we are talking about traditional publishing and this is usually what people understand by publishing.
The traditional system of publishing is very simple to understand and it is a type of publishing where the author is not the investor in this arrangement, at least never the primary investor.
This is the situation where you usually contact the publishing company directly or communicate with them through an agent and contacting the publishing company with an agent is the most common thing to do.
The publishing process goes like this, you contact the publishing company and submit your manuscript to them and they decide whether to publish your work or not.
This is how it should go but this is not what actually happens.
In order to publish your works through a traditional publisher, you need a lot of connections and this is only possible with the help of an agent.
The good thing about this kind of publishing is that you do not have to spend any money if you do not include the agent fees.
The bad thing about this publishing is that you are probably going to get rejected if you are new to the publishing industry without agents or a network.
The author’s payment works in the format of royalty payments in this kind of publishing arrangement where the author agrees to a percentage of the sales profits.
Self-publishing
Self-publishing is a completely modernised form of publishing where the author is the primary investor and they are the producer of the entire project.
When it comes to self-publishing, the publishing house assists the author throughout the entire publishing process.
The publishing house takes care of things like book formatting as well as book cover design, layout setting, printing and even distribution.
They take care of creating the author’s profile online and they also promote the book and even create promotional material for the book.
The only difference between this kind of publishing and traditional publishing is the arrangement of investments.
This is because the publisher invests all the money when it comes to traditional publishing and the author invests all the money when it comes to self-publishing.
There can even be arrangements in self-publishing where the publisher pays some of the money required for publishing if the book is really promising or if they have garnered a relationship with the author as the author has published before with the author.
However, it is very unlikely to see the author funding the publishing project when it comes to traditional publishing because that is something you never see.
When it comes to author payouts, self-publishing author payouts are a lot more compared to traditional publishing because the author is the investor when it comes to self-publishing.
Sometimes the author’s payouts are not even called royalty in self-publishing because the author gets to keep most of it or all of it and the self-publisher is just there to provide a service and charge accordingly.
DIY Publishing
DIY publishing is when the author decides to do everything themselves which means they decide to format the book on their own and decide to create the book cover design and everything else required for publishing preparation.
This is not very popular and also not very common and there are reasons why it is not popular or common.
DIY publishing is not very practical because there are so many steps required for publishing a book that it is going to take forever for a single person to learn everything.
It is not very cost-effective as well which means you are never going to get the best kind of deal with any printing press if you decide to do everything on your own and just print out the pages on your own.
The other thing you need to understand is that when a publisher is providing a service, they take care of everything right from the printing to the storage as well as the distribution. They also help with book promotion.
When a person decides to publish their book on their own, they are not going to have the benefit of the extensive publishing experience of the traditional or self-publishing industry and this means that they are also not going to have access to the distribution channels and store access privileges that authors can enjoy with self-publishing or traditional publishing.
However, if you are someone who likes to be independent and do everything on your own even if it means spending an absurd amount of time doing something that can be done easily with a professional, then this is the best type of publishing for you.
When it comes to the author payout, there is no concept of royalty in this kind of system because you are everything when it comes to this kind of publishing.
The books you print are going to be with your own money and you need to store them at your own place and also help with the shipping if you decide to sell them online.
This also means that you get to keep all the profits as well.
Government Publishing
The Government of every country needs to publish a lot of literature regarding public works and different kinds of government schemes.
They need that written with the help of an author and what usually happens is that they get people from the outside to do the writing for them.
Two kinds of writers sign up for these tasks. Someone who is already an expert at their line of work and popular and hired to add value to the government publication or someone who is new and hired like a ghostwriter.
However, the newbie does not really get to claim their work.
On rare occasions, the government can put in credits for the government literature and it is only done in situations where a name with help the publication.
If you are someone really popular in your field of study and if you are a well-known public individual who is going to add value to the government publication then your name is going to be put in the book.
You might get a one-time service fee from the government or even agree to a royalty payment scheme but that is rare with government publications.
We hope this blog was helpful for you to understand the current situation of the book publishing market globally and we also hope that you now understand a little bit more about all the different kinds of publishing.
If you are looking for a reputable publisher to publish your first book then we are here for you. We are Orange Publishers and we are a legacy publishing company with extensive experience in the global publishing market.
We provide the reliability of traditional publishing coupled with the convenience of self-publishing in a form factor that will help you launch your writing career.
All our operations are in-house right from book formatting to book cover designs, book printing and publishing. We even take care of book distributions as well as book promotions along with everything else you need to publish a book.
We welcome you to visit our website and check out everything we do and we would love to be the name on your bestseller.
