If your Goal is to …

If your goal is to see your book sold in bookstores then it makes sense to take the path of self-publishing and think about selling your book to a good publisher. The main workplace, commercial printing comes with a bit more supply when the book published by commercial publishers are more important than self-published. Publishers, publish in different formats of the books that interest them. Some people prefer business books, some cookbooks, others nonfiction narrative.

There are a number of resources, including websites and books that explain what types of books each publisher wants with their contact information and regularly the name of the editor in the contact. Publishers pay you in advance commercially which is a fee for the permit to publish your work, and take care of all the works like editing, formatting, cover design, and marketing. Expenditure can run in to a few hundreds of dollars.

When your book is accepted, you do not pay the advance back, unless of course it is stipulated in the contract. However, that is very unusual. Commercial establishments has a distribution and sales network in place to get your book into bookstores. Most bookstores, both independent and chains, do not stock the book itself that was published. The downside of commercial printing is that it takes time to see your book is finished and sitting on the bookshelf.

You also lose some control over the process. Most publishers take into account the wishes of the author to cover release date, pricing, and marketing. But they have the final say in those matters. Publishers and literary agents want to get a hold. Most publishers do not accept voluntary manuscripts. Hence do not send the same. Send a query that describes your book and why you are qualified to write it, to fix a suitable publisher.