When you have finished and polished your book, the next step is getting published.  Here are five options to choose from.  The option you choose may vary from book to book.  You want to choose the option that works best for the kind of book you’re publishing.  You also want to consider how each option fits into your writing career.

The first thing that most people think of when they decide to publish is traditional publishing.  Most of the books that you see in large chain bookstores like Barnes and Noble and Borders have been published by traditional publishers.  These are publishers like Random House and Harper Collins.  Getting published by a traditional publisher is not an easy thing to do.  These companies get thousands of submissions every day.  An assistant editor will initially look at your manuscript and if they like it, they’ll begin to pass it up the chain.  It will need to go through at least 5-6 people before the decision is made to publish it.  For more information on Traditional Book Publishing, follow this link.

The second option is to self-publish your book.  When you choose to self publish, that means that you will need to do all of the jobs that a traditional publisher would normally do.  You find a printing company.  You pay the printing company to print your book.  You can hire a fulfillment company to take care of shipping and handling orders or you can do it yourself.  For detailed information on self-publishing, follow this link.

The third option is P.O.D. publishing.  P.O.D. stands for “print on demand”.  This is a relatively new technology and it’s changing the face of publishing.  Print on demand technology is a form of self-publishing.  You pay the P.O.D. company to prepare a file of your book.  When someone orders your book, the company prints a single copy of the book to fulfill the order.  It then sends the book to the customer.  For detailed information on print on demand publishing, follow this link.

The fourth option is digital publishing or ebooks.  A digital book or ebook is a book that’s read online.  There is no paper copy.  This is also a form of self-publishing.  You would be responsible for collecting the payment and managing the download.  For detailed information on digital publishing or ebook publishing, follow this link.

The fifth option is vanity or subsidy publishing.  Once you start researching publishing, you will begin to receive offers from vanity or subsidy publishers.  I mention them not as a recommendation, but rather as a warning.  They charge an enormous amount for the production of your book and promise that you’ll make lots of money.  Often the quality of the binding is poor.