I finally got my novel edited, what's the best option for publishing?

[Wingstofly]

I finally got my novel edited but I'm not sure what is the best way to publish my novel, whether it be to publish it here on tapas or to try going with a publishing company.

I was thinking that my book could get more exposure with a company though.

Hmm what do you guys say?

[darthmongoose]

Depends on a lot of things, really?

• If it will read well in a serialised format, a chapter at a time, with chapters being relatively short, like around 1000 words, Tapas is best, but if it's more something that reads best as a larger piece like a traditional book, consider submitting to a publisher.
• If your comp titles (books in a similar format and writing style aimed at a similar audience that were decently successful within the past 10 years) are on Tapas, publish on Tapas. If they were published elsewhere, try to publish there.
• If you aim for trad publishing, remember, you will probably need to get an agent. Also it'll take a long time, you'll need to go through revisions or multiple drafts with an editor and it'll likely take a year or more to actually publish, so if you want it out now, go for an online platform.
• Whichever option you pick, you will need to do a bunch of promo yourself anyway. Modern publishers kind of expect writers to promote their work on social media and stuff as part of the deal. Depending on the publisher, you may get just as much exposure if your work gets featured on Tapas.

[candiedcotton]

Adding to this, for the love of cheese, please do not self-publish unless you have educated yourself well on it. Especially on something like Amazon.

The Pros and Cons of Self-Publishing on Amazon

[Freemints30]

Trad pub which can take years and year and requires you to get with an agent first unless you are going with very small trad publishers. (and sadly now days trad pub are sorta expecting new authers to do their own promotion and rarely offer much resources to advertise you so you are usually on your own and have to sell your book yourself. BS and is pure laziness on their part but meh). The benefit is you don't have to pay for editing,formatting or covers or getting you book in stores cus they do that for you rather then you actively doing that yourself.

Self publishing through amazon, d2d, instaspark, ect. (key note never pay a publisher a dime, if they ever ask for money assume its a scam). As someone who has research self publishing I do highly recommend it but a few caviates. You said its edited which is great, but PLEASE make sure it has been done by a professional, cus even if you read through your work a million times you will still have errors. You will still have wonky lines and scenes especially if you are new. It can be expensive as hell though especially if you can't make your own covers, or format and plan to use a full package editing for a 90K word manuscript (developmental, copy editing, line editing, proof reading).

Also amazon is somewhat.. finicky in their terms and service, IE if you are KDP you can self publish to other stores and places like Barnes and nobles, D2D, google books, smashwords ect. However if you decide to sign up to Amazon Unlimited (which has a lot of pros and how a lot of self publish author make their money) you cant post on any other store front without risk of losing your account. Even in the case where it has been pirated so you have to prove you tried to take it down with a dmca.

[redfish]

I've heard ingram isn't too bad for self-publishing

[darthmongoose]

I've heard ingram isn't too bad for self-publishing

I would personally caution against this, and any other "Vanity Publishing" option (ie. places where you pay them to publish your work, not the other way around or at least free), because they won't market or promote your book at all, so on top of paying the $49 to get it published, you'll then need to do a massive amount of legwork or spend a lot of money getting the word out about your book, even more than you would on Tapas (where there's at least the chance of a feature). There are some Vanity Publishers who will do marketing, but they usually cost a lot.

I'd recommend saving yourself the money and publishing somewhere that doesn't cost you money so you can spend what budget you do have on things like good cover art or paid ads.