Recently, I approached a small independent publisher about a book I had written, formatted, and copyedited (it’s a perk to have an adult child who is also an author, holds a PhD in English, and teaches at a university). The book is aimed at parents of sons and daughters who are considering medical careers, and the publisher seemed to like both the manuscript and the concept.
Then we got down to business.
The company was not willing to offer me a traditional publishing contract. Instead, they offered publication through their hybrid division for a $3,000 fee. That made me pause, not because I believe publishing costs nothing. I understand that editing, design, typesetting, distribution, publicity, and all the machinery behind a professionally produced book cost money.
But I kept returning to a simple question: What can a publisher do for my book that I cannot reasonably do myself? That may be the most important question an author can ask in the age of Amazon, print-on-demand, inexpensive design tools, electronic distribution, and direct access to readers.
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I can purchase an ISBN (Amazon provides one for free). I can obtain a Library of Congress control number. I can commission—or increasingly create—a professional cover with AI assistance. I can format a manuscript and publish paperback and Kindle editions. I can make a book available online worldwide. And, as every author is repeatedly reminded, I am apparently expected to market the book myself anyway.
During my discussion with the publisher, much of the conversation eventually turned to my “platform”: How many books had I sold? How large was my audience? How would I promote this book? Could I generate enough sales to justify the publisher’s investment?
I encountered the same emphasis when communicating with a literary agent. Again, the questions focused heavily on what I could bring to the marketplace.
These are legitimate questions. Publishers and agents need books that sell. An author who believes that signing a contract means sitting back while a publisher conjures readers out of thin air is operating under an outdated model.
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But there is another side to the equation. If I must bring the manuscript, credentials, audience, social media presence, speaking opportunities, marketing strategy, and ultimately much of the sales effort, what exactly am I hiring—or surrendering rights and revenue to—a publisher to provide? The answer cannot simply be “publishing.”
The value of a publisher must therefore lie elsewhere: superior editing, market positioning, distribution channels unavailable to an individual author, access to reviewers and media, bookstore penetration, institutional sales, publicity expertise, professional credibility, or a combination of these. In other words, the publisher needs to do something better than I can on my own.
That does not mean the publisher must do everything. Nor does it mean that authors should refuse professional editing, even if their child is an English professor.
A legitimate publisher has standards. Editors improve manuscripts. Designers understand markets. Publishers have house styles, production requirements, and expertise that authors may underestimate. My prospective publisher made that exact argument, and I think it’s fair. But value must flow both ways.
The hybrid model complicates the calculation because the author is both the product’s creator and one of its financiers. Paying $3,000 may be entirely reasonable for an author who wants professional assistance and doesn’t want to manage production independently. For another author, however, the arithmetic may look very different.
If I have already learned how to produce a book, have access to professional editing, know how to distribute it both electronically and in print, and will still be responsible for developing most of its audience, paying thousands of dollars for the privilege of doing many of the things I was already doing makes little sense. I should also add that, by industry standards, $3000 is considered a meager sum, and some hybrid publishers charge well over $10,000 in the end.
There is an additional irony.
The author is often asked to demonstrate that the book will sell before a traditional publisher will risk its money. Yet if the author could reliably demonstrate substantial sales before publication, the author might reasonably wonder how much the publisher is needed.
That is not an indictment of traditional publishing. Quite the opposite. A good traditional publisher can provide something of enormous value: leverage. The publisher takes what the author can do and amplifies it through better distribution, positioning, access, production, publicity, and greater legitimacy in markets where an independently published book may struggle to gain entry.
“I no longer regard securing a publishing contract as the objective. Reaching readers is the objective.”
That is a partnership I would gladly enter into. What interests me less is a transaction in which the author assumes most of the financial risk, supplies most of the promotional effort, and then congratulates himself on securing a publisher.
Medicine offers a useful parallel. We routinely ask whether an intervention changes an outcome. Doing something merely because you can is not enough. The intervention has to add value compared with what would otherwise have happened. The same standard applies to publishing.
My exchange with the publisher ended amicably. She believed her company’s model made sense, but I decided it did not work for me. Neither conclusion requires a villain. I may still publish this book traditionally. Another publisher is considering it, and I may eventually self-publish. I have not decided.
But I have decided something else. I no longer regard securing a publishing contract as the objective. Reaching readers is the objective. A publisher who can help me reach substantially more readers is a partner worth having. A publisher who needs me to provide the manuscript, the audience, the marketing, and the money may simply be offering me something I already have: a way to publish.
These days, that is the easiest part.
