A publishing company is a business that helps bring written work to market, whether it’s novels, poetry, learning materials, comic books, or magazines. The bigger publishing firms release their books under different “imprints” that will specialize in certain genres of publishing. Smaller publishers might release less than a dozen books each year. Publishers may also exist specializing in online writing, whether it be for journals or trade coverage.
Why Become a Publisher?
Although getting a publishing firm off the ground can be hard work, it offers both veteran and novice authors many advantages that they wouldn’t enjoy with a third-party publisher. For one, it allows for more creative control over the finished product. Although a major publishing firm will allow you access to established marketing teams and designers, it will necessarily mean that you have less control over many of the aspects of publishing. These might include the cover art, the interior design of your book, and the way it’s marketing to audiences. With your own publishing company, you’ll be in complete control of all those particulars.
Another advantage is that you can use your own publishing company to enable other writers to do the same. Although expenses such as royalties and marketing would have to be taken into consideration, running your own independent publishing company will allow you to get out books that you consider valuable and help fellow authors get ahead. One further benefit of starting a publishing company is that you can sidestep the enduring bias that many readers and booksellers have for self-published work. Both can be of the opinion that self-published work lacks merit and wasn’t of enough value to get properly published, so release on a proper imprint can impress audiences about the quality of your work.
Finally, starting your own publishing company gives you a much better opportunity to expand and curate your own brand. Use your company to publish promising works from other authors who align with your own and the brand associations can be mutually beneficial. Eventually, your publishing company may become an authority as a specialist in a particular genre.
How to Stary Your Publishing Company
Starting your own publishing company is an exciting proposition, but it will take work to make it concede. The more preparation you put into planning your publishing company, the better. So here are some proven tips to help get your publishing company off to a flying start.
Create a Business Plan
Before looking at the technical details of starting a business, you need to establish some basics before you go any further, such as:
- Will you start the business alone or with a partner?
- Are you going to publish just your own books or those by other authors?
- Which formats will you publish your work as (print, online, audiobook, etc)
- Do you have a particular niche in the market that you’re trying to target?
When you’ve answered these questions, you’ll have a better idea of the decisions you want to make further down the line, and can work towards concrete goals.
Build Your Brand
With your goals in mind, the next step is brand creation. This will include deciding on the name of your publishing house, writing a mission statement, and deciding the kind of books you want to publish. Consider how your brand will play to the strengths of your business plan and yourself as an author, and how these considerations will attract new audiences.
Choose a Business Model
Publishers almost always come under three business models – partnerships, sole proprietorships, or limited liability companies (LLC). Choosing the right model for your business will be situational. A sole proprietorship means that you’ll be running the business single-handed, and will offer you the most control. A partnership splits responsibilities for the company between you and at least one other person. While an LLC will incorporate your business and can offer more protection from liability than the other models.
Develop Your Business Infrastructure
Your business will need its administrative affairs in order before you can start publishing. Some of these prerequisites include:
- A company logo that will also appear on all your published works
- A business bank account
- A functional accounting process
- A website and domain name for your company
- A business email address
- Printing services
The other main aspect of establishing a business infrastructure is hiring. If you’re a full-time author, you probably won’t want to be bogged down with work that can be easily outsourced to freelancers. Such work may include hiring freelance designers to produce covers and deal with formatting, along with editors to help proofread manuscripts. You’ll also need to generate International Standard Book Numbers (ISBNs) for any works that you’re planning on publishing.
Begin Publishing
With the groundwork already in place, the time has come for you to start publishing. Whether publishing your own work or that of a different author, it’s time to apply your resources to generate a finished product. This will require a final design for the cover and interior, and once completed you can get the work printed or upload it to the internet.
Market Your Products
With one or more books already available to purchase, it’s time to start marketing your products. You could start by using online tools to hire a market specialist, who can put together a plan of action for promoting the works. Alternatively, you could also try marketing the works yourself. This will require you to research the genre in question, so it might be worth looking at how successful books in a similar niche were marketed when they were released.
Sending out review copies (preferably in advance) to reviewers, journals, or literary fanzines is a risk-free way to try and broaden the scope of promotion. Another useful tool you can leverage is social media, where you can draw a large audience and use them to cross-promote your works with different demographics. Always remember to keep an eye on the performance of your marketing campaign while it’s underway. This will let you see which approaches are proving successful, and also where your tactics might need some fine-tuning.
Final Thoughts
While starting a publishing company takes time and effort, technology like the internet, and the abundance of freelancers available, means the process has never been easier. If you’re looking for a get-rich-quick scheme, then starting your own publishing company probably isn’t the wisest move. However, if you’re an author who believes in their work and that of other writers they could publish, then you will find the process becomes much easier.