I don’t know if this will help anyone, but if it shines a little light on the subject or makes someone feel more confident about what they’re doing, then I’ll call it a win.

 

I get asked, almost daily, about publishing and for advice on the industry. And the first thing I always say is: let’s figure out what you need and your plans as an author.

 

 

Author – A person who writes. You. Me. In Google Docs, on Royal Road, on napkins, and in notepads.

 

Professional – Someone who either makes money doing a thing or does that thing really, really well. Ideally both.

 

Publish – To send something out into the world. Specifically, to make books available for people to buy.

 

Publishing House – A company that focuses on the business side of writing. Formatting. Editing. Cover art. All the shenanigans needed to get the book into the hands of readers.

 

Traditional Publishing – The classic (old) way of doing things. Big names like Scholastic and Penguin, the folks who brought us J.K. Rowling and Jim Butcher. Usually, pretty intensely strict contracts and they have their own way of doing things. Many collapsed during the dawn of Amazon. But the survivors feasted off the others and are still in there going strong.

 

Indie Publishing – Short for independent publishing, it’s the scrappy, entrepreneurial sibling to traditional. Companies like Aethon Books specialize in niche genres but still punch above their weight. Take Dungeon Crawler Carl, for example—it’s signed with Ace (under Penguin) for print, Soundbooth Theater for audio, and self-pub for digital.

 

Now, when we imagine an author, we might picture someone in a cozy room—maybe a cabin by the lake—wearing pajamas and slippers, puffing on a pipe, and adjusting their jaunty hat.

 

 

If you want to get paid as an author (and let’s face it, that’s the dream), you’ll quickly realize that having a book in hand is only half the battle. The other half?

 

 

Because that’s what being a professional author means—it’s the art and the business, tangled together.

 

Being a professional author (whether self-pub, indie, modern pub, or trad) is being a business owner—a messy, complicated, creative business.

 

When you get all that together and hire people to do it for you, and start helping other authors get their books out too, you start getting called a Publisher.

 

Trust me, I know. You don’t even need to have been planning it. It just happens.

 

 

 

At its heart, being a professional author is a business with three major parts:

 

• Administration – Contracts, rights, royalties, corpate docs, long-term financial planning, funding, accounts with distributors, stragetic business planning, all the nitty-gritty paperwork.

 

• Production – The actual creation of a book. It starts with your manuscript. And often, as authors, we sort of stop there. But there is so much more to the Production Department. Such as, Developmental editing, Line editing, Proofreading, Formatting, etc.

 

• Marketing and Sales – Arguably the hardest part. You can write the best book in the world, but if no one knows it exists, it’s dead in the water. Marketing involves ads, social media, email lists, book signings, Amazon algorithms, and every other tool to get your book in front of readers.

You can argue that book covers (which, frankly, is what EVERYBODY judges your book by) would be here under marketing or it could be put unto the Production area. Either way, it’s vital. Same with your book blurb/description. There are paid professionals who make their living doing nothing but writing fantastic blurbs. It’s that important.

 

When you put all of this together, you get publishing: the machine that combines creativity, logistics, and sales into something readers want to buy.

 

 

We all want different things. But a few of the things I hear the most:

 

• Validation – To know their work isn’t garbage. To hear from someone with experience that their story matters and is worth publishing. This is a fully valid need. We are used to doing this job solo, and never knowing if we are doing it right or not. Having some professional encouragement goes a long way. Just to know you aren’t wasting your time.

 

• Support – Especially with editing and fine-tuning the story. Writing is lonely work, and most authors want a team that believes in them. And can help them get their vision created.

 

• Marketing Help – Everyone hates this part. Ads, social media, podcasts—it’s overwhelming, and they’d rather someone else handle it.

 

• Relief from the Details – Formatting, cover art, ISBNs, distribution… Self-publishing is packed with technical tasks, and authors often don’t have the time (or desire) to manage it all.

 

Most want someone to handle the chaos so they can focus on writing.

 

 

Publishers are businesses. They want to make money by selling books. Some focus on individual works (sign a book, see how it does, move on), while others focus on long-term relationships with authors. Big traditional publishers tend to work with books, while smaller indies often invest in authors. But no two Publishers are the same.

 

For example:

 

• Traditional Publishers – Larger budgets, big distribution networks, and classic prestige. Trad focus on bookstores and for many years resisted Amazon to their detriment (though have come around more recently). They pretty much own the bookstore market. Which does make up somewhere around 5-10% of books sold (estimate). Contracts are often restrictive and long-term (Lifetime of Copyright). They take more risks by investing upfront with large print runs, but if your book doesn’t sell, it’ll sit on the shelf. And they are not known for heavily marketing a book that doesn’t organically do well on its own.

 

• Indie Publishers – More flexible, more personal, but often with smaller budgets. No two indies are the same. Some fill multiple roles—editor, agent, coach—and tend to focus on building relationships with authors, not just books. And some focus more on a sort of traditional hybrid approach, three book deal, standard stuff. Often, indies focus on online sales (which, make up somewhere around 70-90% of all book sales, depending on who you ask).

 

Remember the three parts of the business? 1. Administration, 2. Production, 3. Marketing / Sales.

 

Well, the author handles a chunk of 2. And Publishers handle 1 and 3. And some of 2 as well. And all publishers handle these areas differently, focusing more on one or the other depending on how they are built.

 

For example, some Indies like Shadow Light wear a lot of hats. We act as business developers, author coaches, marketing advisors, and cheerleaders. We also encourage collaboration—our authors talk to each other almost daily, sharing advice and support. We do this because we would have wanted this and feel it’s what gives the author the best chances.

 

But, other successful companies do it entirely differently. There’s no one size fits all approach for every book/series.

 

 

 

Publishing is messy. For most publishers, there’s only so much they can invest in a single book before it stops making sense. If your book doesn’t take off, it might get sidelined while the publisher focuses on something else. That’s not personal; it’s just business. And it’s also a part of what authors (rightfully) hate the most. Publishing is a partnership.

 

Your average contract will be for 1-3 books, with first rights on the rest in the series (meaning, they get to negotiate with you on them, but you can choose to say no). If those 1-3 books don’t do great, the publisher will usually drop the author and the author will basically need to restart their business. Perhaps wiser. But from scratch with a new series.

 

This isn’t really anyone’s fault usually. The publisher in this situation lost money. The author loses those books. It’s rough.

 

The average book makes the author, in its lifetime, about $2000 per some surveys.

 

We are all hoping to do better than that. Many authors make a full career. Some make $100/m per book. Some make $55,000/m per book. With both indie and trad. In bookstores or solely online. No one right way here.

 

And Publishers and Authors share a desire for that to happen with every series. And we all are trying to make that happen. But, in truth, we don’t know if it will. We are making educated guesses (both sides are). Or as Deadpool would say, we are making educated wishes.

 

 

 

I dreamed up what I wanted in a publisher and built Shadow Light to match that vision. Every single day i work on getting closer to that vision. We’re a family-run, author-focused indie house. We’re not perfect, but we’re trying to be the publisher we wish we’d had.

 

Our goal isn’t just to sign books; it’s to work with authors who share our vision. We invest in editing, coaching, and marketing, but we also work collaboratively. We are very familiar with the hollywood world and industries and have had the freta fortune of working with some of the best as mentors and friends.

 

 

 

Every publisher has strengths and weaknesses, and not every deal fits every author. That’s why it’s crucial to know what you need and want.

 

Here’s how you figure it out:

 

• Know Your Priorities – ask yourself “why not self-publish?” There are a ton of pros to self-pub. And those who do well, do very well. But there are also cons. Figure out why you don’t want to do that route (or if you actually do) and the reasons will give you some clues into what you need in a publisher.

 

• Understand the Trade-Offs – Every deal has pros and cons. No matter what anyone says, there is no one size fits all, there is no “standard contract”. There are as many variations of deals as there are publishers. There are as many variations of needs as there are authors. Big publishers might offer prestige but demand more rights. Indies might be more flexible but have smaller budgets. Or sometimes a combination of both.

 

• Read Contracts Carefully – Know what you’re signing. Look at rights, royalties, and reversion clauses. Ask questions.

 

• Compare Your Options – No publisher is perfect, but some are a better fit for your goals. If you can, get your work shopped around. Send inquires to everyone you are interested in working with. Read every contract you can get your hands on.

 

If anyone is diving into getting published, I’d recommend reading the contracts for the following companies where possible –

 

• Penguin Random House
• Hachette Livre
• HarperCollins
• Macmillan Publishers
• Simon & Schuster
• Scholastic
• Tantor

 

• Podium

 

• Shadow Alley Press
• Portal Books
• Aethon
• Mango
• Moonquill
• Riverfolk
• Shadow Light Press

 

At the end of the day, this is all a balancing act. Authors and publishers are both taking risks, and no one knows how it’ll pan out with 100% certainty.

 

In the industry of being an author, failure is very top-heavy. Most of it happens before they write the book. They just never sit down and do it. That’s the first point of failure.

 

Then, it becomes that they didn’t write enough books. They didn’t keep learning and improving. And they never got those books out.

 

But every book you write, every step you take in your career, failure gets less and less likely.

 

It’s a career. A beautiful and wild one. One that can be had and can be great. It requires incredible persistence and a lot of work and educated wishes.

 

Find the partner that fits your vision, and don’t be afraid to keep learning as you go. Writing is a business, and the more you understand it, the better equipped you’ll be to make the right decisions.

 

Good luck, my friend! And happy travels.