I attended a discussion at the Amercian Book Center in Amsterdam last month. Authors, readers and agents met with some representatives of the traditional publishing industry and heard their tips for succeeding in 2025 and beyond.
What was clear from the fifty or so attendees was that self-publishing is already very popular and continues to gain popularity. However, from choosing a publishing platform to creating e-books and utilising print-on-demand services, the landscape is varied and can be confusing.
Having recently gone through this process, both secondhand through my wife’s non-fiction book, The Art Engager, and more recently through my own novel, Human Software, I feel there are a few things I can share that might be of use to others.
In this post, I’m not going to cover inspiration, the writing process or how to finish your book. For now, assuming you have a complete manuscript, let’s focus on how to get it into print or e-book format.
Get an Agent or Find a Publisher?
Assuming you have a manuscript that’s ready to go, has been proofread and perhaps edited with the help of someone else and is as good as you can make it, what next?
The first decision you’ll need to make is whether to publish myself or try to find a publisher, and what is the difference?
Publishers will take your finished manuscript and make it suitable for release to the public. They will sell it for you online, via booksellers and arrange for distribution. However, before you reach that point, it will likely require additional editing, professional layout, and a custom-designed cover. This is all done with your input, but the publisher assists with all these tasks and also covers the costs.
Getting Paid
Depending on the contract you’ve agreed with your publisher, you may get an up-front fee or advance on delivery of the manuscript before it is for sale. Perhaps you’ll receive a percentage of the sales after it becomes available.
This process can be confusing; therefore, many publishers insist that you are represented by an agent. An agent will be able to help guide you, get the right deal for you and put your manuscript in front of many publishers.
However, an agent will also take a commission from the money you eventually earn from your book. Plus, getting an agent in the first place can be tricky. You will need to submit a letter (a query letter) to an agent to get them to look at your manuscript and there is no guarantee they will like it. In fact, the chances could be quite small that, as a first time author, you will land an agent or a publishing deal.
The Time and Money it Takes
Landing an agent is not impossible, but it does require work. A good starting point is the Writers and Artists Yearbook. You’ll find lots of advice and, importantly, names, websites, and submission details for publishers and agents in the UK and US.
Landing an agent, and then landing a publishing deal, and then seeing you book in print or e-book might take a long time though, it might take years, it might never happen.
Also be aware, by the time you’ve got an agent and a publisher in harness, the percentage of the sales you’ll see in your pocket will be much reduced compared to self-publishing. All those middlemen take their percentage – the agent, the publisher, the bookstore (whether it’s online or brick-and-mortar). Your royalty rate for print books might be 10% – 15% of the sale price, they could be lower. For e-books it will be around 25%.
Compare this to self-publishing royalty rates, which are significantly higher, ranging from 70% to 80% of the sale price, which is not unusual, especially for e-books. Additionally, a cheaper print book can also yield up to 70% of the sale price. So this is potentially an attractive alternative. But what are the downsides of self-publishing?
The Self Publishing Overhead
Assuming you don’t want to find yourself an agent or a publisher, you can of course choose to self-publish. This means that all the toil of publishing your book will fall to you. Alternatively there are many services that will help you self-publish your book – offering services such as editing, cover and layout design, proof reading to actually formatting and uploading the formatted books to the self publishing platform. These services can charge a premium as well, anything from 5k-20k depending on the complexity of your book. Alternatively, platforms have sprung up to connect you to freelancers who can help you individually. I used a platform called Reedsy to find my editor and was reasonably happy with the results. Would I use them again? I’d certainly think twice.
Learning to Do it Yourself
When you publish for yourself, it helps to take some time to understand the process of writing and publishing in more detail. This means understanding the relationship between the writing of the work and preparing it for publication.
Editing, Proofing, Designing, Delivering
You start by writing a manuscript and then it will go through stages of editing. Perhaps you will need an assessment of the manuscript from an editor. If you are writing fiction or non-fiction you may want to get assistance with structure – a development edit which helps you see the big picture of your project. When your structure and ideas are in place, and you feel you are getting to the completion of your manuscript you will want to get copy editing and line editing done to ensure that they words make sense on the page. Finally there is proof reading to catch any mistakes and polish the manuscript to a standard which you are happy to share with your audience.
“To write is human, to edit is divine.”
Stephen King, On Writing
Assuming you get to a point where you are happy with the finished manuscript, you then will need to format it ready for publishing. For print books this will mean preparing a print ready file (PDF usually) along with the artwork. Many of the popular platforms such as Amazon KDP or Ingram Spark have portals that allow you to upload your files and proof your book. You can also order proof copies of the physical book before it goes live.
Digital formats for e-books – such as epub or mobi format – are usually simpler to format and quicker to prepare for publishing.
Something for you?
Self-publishing is complex but, as I’ve said a few times to myself, not as complicated as releasing an app to the Apple Store. If you’re a techie, the skills should be within your reach. The publishing process is a fraction of the time you’ll need to devote to writing the book, so perhaps its something you do want to keep within your control.
In terms of how much you will earn and keeping control of your creation, for me there are no better ways to get into the “book business”. Bear in mind that, whether you self-publish or work via a publisher, a lot of the responsibility for marketing will fall on your shoulders either way.
That reminds me, I’d better get back to promoting my Instagram page!