Advantages of co-publishing
As with other ways of publishing books, co-publishing has its good side and its negative side. However, the benefits obtained in the short and long term are really juicy.
1. Easy access to a publication
Self-published or co-published publishers do not have an open publication. His business is focused above all on discovering authors, not on stratospheric sales to recover the investment. At the same time that the author pays and both parties commit, the risks derived from the commercial action are reduced. Here there are no more judgments, evaluations or limits than the money that you are willing to invest. Rest assured, editors won’t have dollar signs in their eyes when they see you.
2. The publisher does the “dirty work”
From the moment the work is received until it is distributed and promoted, the self-publishing publisher takes care of everything: layout, proofreading and designing the cover if necessary, as well as conversion to different formats, etc. Also, one of their main intangibles is that they work with true professionals (philologists, writers, editors). It does not matter if the publication is done through a traditional company or if it is self-published. Editing is a complex process that must be done by professionals.
And between all the phases of the project, the editorial will also make legal and legal advice available to you.
3. High pay
The publishers of a lifetime are (to a large extent) giants that sweep where they step for their own benefit. While they only offer 5% of the RRP to the writer, co-publishing increases that percentage to 25%. This means that in order to make any money with a traditional publisher, you will have to sell many, many books. On the contrary, co-publishing brings you four times more profits per copy sold.
4. Greater control and influence over your work
A self-published editorial will value your opinion to a greater extent. It will take you into account in aspects such as correctness (style, personality, clarifications) or date and mode of departure. In addition, they will focus on your goals, how far you want to go. In a traditional editorial, for example, they will put the cover that they consider, not the one that you like. Think that a traditional publisher is investing in you and wants to guarantee that it recovers or multiplies that money. No one gives for nothing.
5. Publish On Demand (POD)
Small publishers launch a print run and then your book disappears because it costs them, it doesn’t compensate them financially. In contrast, a co-publishing publisher is governed by the publication-on-demand system. This means that your book will never be out of print and readers will be able to access it whenever they want. What makes you feel terrible when you go to buy a book and they tell you that they don’t have any left? That is now a thing of the past.
6. Freedom
When you think you’re lucky enough to be under the shelter of a publisher, sometimes you’re in for a big disappointment. The editors begin to pester you to change this, the other, that… You begin to see how your work becomes something very different from what you have dreamed of and your heart sinks. It’s like this: probably, the publisher will ask you for certain modifications that may even affect the plot line of your novel. But why do such a thing if they had bet on your original idea? For the mere economic benefit, because they only think about sales and want a specific product. They play it safe, they don’t play it for authors they don’t know or who are out of their usual catalogue. As we said in point 4, co-publishing does not cause these headaches.
7. Contracts
Editorial self-publishing brings with it fairer contracts, as it allows you to maintain the exploitation rights at all times. This does not happen in large publishers. When one of them notices you, look at the fine print, just as if you were submitting it to a contest. Sometimes, the illusion that we feel for the project is such that we do not realize that we are “selling our souls to the devil”. No, it is not an exaggeration to think so. With the work, effort and time it takes to build a good story, are you going to let them take it from you and take advantage of your idea?
Disadvantages of co-publishing
The number of advantages of co-publishing undoubtedly outweighs the disadvantages. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t…
1. Your book is not in physical stores
We all dream of seeing our book in the windows of the usual bookstores. It’s a way of saying “I’ve done it.” But we are sorry to tell you that if you co-publish your manuscript, it will not appear in physical stores. Co-publishing or self-publishing is mainly intended for the online format, not to show off on a table in the middle of La Casa del Libro. A traditional publisher, on the other hand, will be in charge of making presentations of your book or promotional material such as posters, bookmarks or gifts. You know, they want to sell and, the more diffusion, the more sales.
However, even this is changing: more and more co-published bookstores, such as LibrUp Librería de Barcelona, are adding books by co-published authors to their shelves. In this sense, the efforts in distribution add a new chapter on a daily basis, so it would not be strange if this reality changes shortly and more stores join this model.
2. You are not part of fairs
With very rare exceptions, a self-publishing or co-publishing company does not cover such an extensive promotion. Remember what we said at the beginning: they are agents that provide dissemination and marketing services, not a pure publisher.
3. You lose the status granted by certain publishers.
Carrying the name of certain publishers behind you ensures that a portion of the public will look at you just because they trust the criteria behind that brand. For example, if a person really likes the collection of horror novels from publisher X, they will risk taking a look at your book if it appears there. In addition, that stamp will be a letter of introduction of incalculable value wherever you go. If you want to achieve prestige with a co-publishing, you will have to achieve the prestige of your own name (we return to Juan Palomo).
