What to do once your Manuscript is Accepted

The process of publishing can take several weeks to several months, depending upon how well edited and clean your manuscript is. Expect that your manuscript may not be available to the public for up to a year once it is accepted. There are three typical types of publishing that are offered throughout the business.

First, there is traditional publishing, which is what most authors are familiar with. Traditional publishing is where the Publisher offers a certain amount of money (an advance) plus royalties against the projected sales of a book. The amount of advance is flexible according to its "saleability", content, genre and length of the manuscript to be published. Traditional publishing is a bit more difficult to get into for first time authors. As with all businesses, there are greater risks to publishing a manuscript for first time authors than there are for "tried and true" authors that already have successful books out there. It requires a great deal of doggedness to find a publisher willing to take a chance on a first time author.

Next, we have subsidy publishing which offers a more rounded and less one-sided opportunity to publishing your manuscript. Generally, a fee is attached to the publishing of a manuscript which is considerably less than the entire cost. The publisher will carry a large percentage of the cost, while the author invests several hundred to several thousand dollars in the publishing of their book. Keep in mind, publishing costs a great deal of money to get a manuscript from the editing phase, through the artwork for the cover as well as advertising and printing costs. This is NOT self publishing. This is the route which I chose to go as a first time author. It allows for more freedom of marketing your manuscript and more "wiggle room" to get out there and sell your book. As an author, I also retain the rights to my book or to any film offers that might come from it's publication--which in Traditional Publishing, the Publisher retains for the length of your contract with them. If the Publisher doesn't like an offer a movie studio may make, they can decline it and you have no "say so" as to whether it is made into a film or not.

Lastly, there is the "self-published" author. In the past, self-publishing was frowned on by the industry. However, in more recent times, some self-published books have done quite well. We are unaware of what the long-term ramifications of self publishing may include, however, some of the more famous self-published books have been: "Eragon" by Christopher Paolini, "The Bridges of Madison County", by Robert J. Waller, "The Christmas Box", by Richard Paul Evans, and "The Celestine Prophecy" by James Redfield, just to name a few. With self-publishing, the author does all of the sales, marketing, writing and printing of the manuscript. The hidden costs can be huge, even for a small printing of the manuscript. This would mean that the author has to front the cost of: editing, press releases, advertising, travel to and from speaking engagements and book signings, sales and distribution, cover art, printing costs of all materials, as well as the manuscript itself--not to mention the legal fees and copyright issues. So, you can see for yourself that self-publishing can get quite costly, very quickly.

For Further Information on these publishing options see:
http://brightonpublishing.com/

Take into consideration the ways in which you, as an author, would like to be involved in the sale of your book. Choose from a Traditional, Subsidy Publishing or Self Publishing format and go from there. And, as always, keep writing!