Downloadables for this Module

• Ebook - To Self Publish or Not to Self Publish

Is Hybrid Publishing the Best of Both Worlds? 

Hybrid publishing is essentially a blend of traditional and self publishing. It involves hiring an agency to act as a publishing house for you. In other words, it’s paying a company to publish your book, instead of doing it yourself, which means you retain all the rights to your work. It falls more closely in line with self publishing than traditional publishing.

Pros

1. It’s fast.

It’s like done-for-you self publishing, so you don’t have to learn all of the steps yourself. If timeliness is of utmost concern for you, hybrid publishing can essentially run your book through the process a lot faster than you can do it yourself.

2. You keep the royalties.

You’ll pay an upfront fee for their services, and then you get to keep the typical self-publishing royalties of 60-70%.

3. You retain full creative control.

The manuscript you submit is exactly what will be published (unless they upsell you on editing, etc.). This means that unlike traditional publishing, you still get to call the shots on what exactly you publish. Another way to think of it is that oftentimes a traditional publisher will treat you like you work for them (because they now own the rights to your work), whereas a hybrid publisher works for you.

4. You get to say you were published by a publisher.

If readers don’t know the publisher, it looks like it was traditionally published. Their name will be on the copyright page instead of yours. However, even if you self publish, you can create a separate publishing entity by setting up something called an imprint (which we will explain later in this course).

5. You’ll have access to extra services (like editing, cover design, etc.).

Most hybrid publishers offer services for every step of the publishing process, so you can pay to have everything done for you, but it will cost a pretty penny.

6. Most hybrid publishers are higher quality than self publishing. 

Most readers probably won’t be able to tell the difference, but there is often a discrepancy in quality from self publishing to hybrid publishing to traditional publishing (in that order).

Cons

1. It can be really, really expensive.

Like most convenience services, you’ll pay a premium for the convenience of having someone else publish for you. We’ve seen these packages cost over $10,000 when you could do it yourself for much, much less.

2. While often better than self publishing, the quality is still not as good as traditional publishing.

It’s important to remember that nobody is going to care as much about your book as you do, and it’s no different with an expensive hybrid publisher.

Do your goals align with hybrid publishing?

• You aren’t concerned about cost
• You aren’t concerned with the stamp of approval
• You want a fast, done-for-you service
• You don’t care if your book is in bookstores