You Finished Writing—Now What? Deciding How to Publish Your Book

I finished writing two fantasy novels before I began the project of publishing one. Each one took about a year to write and another half a year to a year to edit. Considering those timelines, I thought that getting them out into the world would be a piece of cake—I mean, the real work was already behind me, right? But I was wrong.

Few things are more satisfying than typing the last word that marks the completion of your novel. That moment when you know you’ve got the juicy, tasty, scrumptious last sentence that wraps up all of the conflicts, loves, losses, and triumphs you’ve been describing for months in the most perfect way. You just know that this is it, and your brain explodes in the best of ways.

And it’s all the more satisfying since hitting that finish line isn’t a walk in the park. Writing a full novel takes time and effort, which is why I respect writers, no matter how poorly written their work is, for their dedication.

But just when you think you’re done, you realize that the real work begins (if you want your novel to ever see light, of course). There are new things to learn, plans to define, and decisions to make—should you go the traditional publishing route, or DIY it? And if you lean towards the second, where do you even get started? Do you begin by selecting the font, finding a designer for the cover art, or picking the platform on which you’ll make the book available?

The hardest part is that there isn’t just one correct answer, and online resources aren’t always in consensus on the best path forward. In the end, you’re the one who needs to make the decisions. Luckily, there are a few questions that can help you make the right call for you.

Identifying Your Goals

We write because we enjoy it, but we share the words we’ve written with the world for different reasons: for approval and validation, for potential success, or maybe just for fun. Understanding the reason why you want to publish your work could be the first step in understanding which path you should take.

If you have no aspirations of becoming a best-selling author, and especially if you’re just starting out as a writer and want to know if you’ve even got what it takes, you might want to share your work with others for the simple purpose of gaining confidence and gathering valuable feedback.

For the purpose of gaining public opinion, professional publishing—whether through the traditional or the indie path—might be overkill. A blog or a platform dedicated to writing could be your solution. Royal Road is a great place to publish fantasy and Sci-Fi stories and to get a sense of people’s reactions to your work.

If, however, your goal is to establish yourself as a writer and, hopefully, turn it into a career, or at least a successful side hustle, you’ll want to consider traditional or self-publishing. Though I’ve heard of people who managed to monetize Royal Road or other social media platforms and create Patreons where people pay to read their series and novels, most writers turn to professional publishing.

Publishing an actual book—edited, polished, and with a professionally designed cover art—makes things more official and shows the general public that you mean business.

But publishing a book doesn’t necessarily require going through a traditional publisher. You can reach a profound level of professionalism by hiring and working with the people who know how to polish your book. The point is that if you want to be known as a professional writer, you’ll have to do serious work.

Defining Timelines

When asked whether they’d rather publish their book independently or through a traditional, well-known publisher, I believe most authors would go with the latter. For many beginning authors, getting picked up by a renowned publisher is not only the highest honor. It is also a validation that their work is good enough.

But while many of us would love to see our novel’s name in a publisher’s catalog, we still end up taking the self-publishing route.

There are many considerations when deciding whether to try the traditional path or become an indie writer, and time is one of them.

The traditional route is lengthy. You’ll likely have to find an agent first (as few publishing companies accept submissions directly from authors), and that’s a process that entails lots of querying and waiting. Only then do you graduate to waiting for a publisher to decide whether they want your work or not.

Answering how urgent this is for you can help you decide. If you have the time and are willing to wait for your chance at glory, learn the rules of the querying game and give the traditional publishing route a try. But if you can’t wait to see your work on the digital shelves of Amazon, self-publishing might be better suited.

Evaluating Means

Publishing a book can be an expensive task—there are editing costs (and a whole five layers of them), cover art design, printing (unless you go for a print-on-demand platform), and marketing.

Considering whether you can actually invest that kind of money can help you decide which route to go.

If money isn’t a problem, hiring the right professionals can help you polish your work and do it on your terms.

But if you can’t make the investment (and I don’t blame you), traditional publishing can have you covered. Traditional publishers won’t charge you in advance but instead deduct a percentage from your book sales. This means that editing, design, typesetting, and marketing will be their investment. Their return will be the success of your book, and your gain will be not having to worry about the expenses and the steps in the way (at the price of lower royalties and less control over the final result).

The middle ground between those two approaches could be self-publishing while keeping costs low. You can reduce editing costs by doing some of the work yourself, using advanced tools (like online editing software or—gods forbid—AI), utilizing beta-readers for feedback on the story arc and general impressions, or designing your own cover art (again, technology can lend a helping hand in the form of platforms like Canva). In this [https://www.yaniwrites.online/post/how-to-edit-your-book-a-practical-guide-for-writers-on-a-budget] article, I’ve outlined the various levels of editing and how you can get it done on a budget.

A Question of Control

The final—and, in my opinion, most important—question you need to ask yourself when deciding how to publish is the amount of control you want over your book. Because with traditional publishing, it will be limited.

I’m sure that the degree of control varies based on your contract and the publisher you’re working with, but however you look at it, it will be less than if you were to go the indie-writer route.

When you’re a beginner and not sure that you know what you’re doing, it might not be a bad thing. People who have worked in the industry for a while know what works and what doesn’t, and can turn coals into diamonds.

But they also might turn it into something quite different than what you intended.

If you’re comfortable with a helping hand and can compromise on some things, traditional publishing will help alleviate the fear of failure and take your book to a professional level.

But if you’re strongly attached to your work and won’t allow certain aspects of it to be changed, publishing on your own (whether online or by actually producing a book) might be the best option for you. I’ve read somewhere that self-publishing isn’t giving up, it’s deciding not to wait for permission, and I strongly agree.

I still advise you to listen to feedback—ask beta readers to be brutally honest about what doesn’t work, and hire a professional editor or two if you can. A writer is always too close to their work to evaluate it objectively, and listening to feedback will help you improve.

But with self-publishing, you still get the final say, and can decide what feedback to accept and what doesn’t align with your vision of your novel.

Conclusion

Realizing that the real work only begins once you’re done writing your novel might be unpleasant, taking the wind out of your sails and filling you with anxiety. But it’s also an exciting time, because now you get to decide how you’ll share your story with the world.

Whether you publish your writing on a blog or a writing platform, self-publish a book, or go the traditional path, the important thing is to celebrate this milestone and find the courage to let your words be seen.

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