Publishing Services Companies – a.k.a. Self-Publishing Companies: Authors pay to get their books published. There is no exclusive contract. That means the author keeps all rights to the book. The author can terminate at any time. These firms often charge authors FAR less than if the author hired multiple different individuals to help them through the book publishing process (editing, cover design, interior formatting, print and ebook publication, full distribution (thousands of online platforms), category and keyword analysis, Library of Congress Control Number application, copyright registration, a book trailer, and so much more. One example of this type of firm is BookLocker.com.

Self-Publishing: When authors hires different individuals to do everything (editing, cover design, formatting, etc.), or when the authors tries to do everything themselves. This term is often confused with hiring a publishing services company. Many publishing services companies are also referred to as self-publishing companies. Some authors are beating their drums online, telling new authors that “true self-publishing” is the only way to go. However, they are spouting a LOT of misinformation.

1. They claim you get to keep all your rights. All legitimate publishing services companies allow authors to keep their rights.

2. They claim you’ll have total control over your book. BookLocker authors retain complete control over their books. While certain design elements are encouraged to make a book more attractive and professional (authors never want their books to look like they’re “self-published), BookLocker authors have the final say about everything related to their book.

3. They claim you’ll “save money.” As I mentioned above, the worst part about the current “self-publishing” craze is that authors think they’ll be saving money, but that is not true. Hiring one company to do everything can save authors THOUSANDS. Of course, that’s assuming that the author hires a reputable firm. BookLocker is in its 27th year, and has an excellent reputation. BEWARE! There are thousands of fake “publishing” websites online, put up by scammers in Nigeria, the Philippines, China, India, and elsewhere. You can spot them using THESE STEPS.

Traditional Publishing: A company buys the rights to the author’s book, and then pays for the publishing expenses. Advances are rare (unless you’re a celebrity author), and royalty rates are lower than the other publishing options on this list. MYTH: “My book will end up in all bookstores!” Ninety-nine percent of traditionally published books never end up on bookstore shelves. MYTH: “The publisher is going to send me on a book tour!” That doesn’t happen anymore…unless you’re a celebrity like Stephen King. MYTH: “The publisher is going to put ads in magazines and newspapers, and pay for TV advertisements as well!” No, they’re not. New authors under contracts with traditional publishers are responsible for 100% of their own book promotion. FACT: Most traditionally-published authors never earn more than their initial advance. And, most new authors get no advance at all.

And, are you sitting down? According to AuthorMedia.com: 19% of books published by the Big Five houses sell a dozen copies or fewer!!!

Can you imagine being one of those authors who waited years to have their book published, only to have a dozen or fewer copies sell over the following years??? And remember, the traditional publisher owns ALL rights. You can’t simply start publishing your book yourself to bring in more money. Worse, many traditional contracts have a clause prohibiting the author from publishing a competing book elsewhere (or even publishing a competing one themselves). 

Fake Hybrid Publishers: A company claims they’ll match the money the author pays to get their book published. Hybrid publishing is the most abused term in the industry right now. In reality, the company charges the author so much money that the author’s funds cover all of the publication costs, and much more. FACT: Fake hybrid publishers don’t actually contribute any money toward the publication costs. I heard from one author this week who paid $6K to one of these firms. Many of the “hybrid publishers” are part of the overseas publishing crime cartel, and never get the book published anyway. They just take the author’s money and run, after upselling the author on more and more fake services.

Real Hybrid Publishers: These firms pay all of the publishing costs, only have contract terms of around three years, and they pay higher royalties than traditional publishers. One example of this is AbuzzPress.com. Abuzz Press is an imprint of BookLocker, but it is extremely selective, and only publishes around 10 books per year.

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It’s always been extremely difficult to land a traditional publishing contract (you’d have a better chance of winning the lottery). But today, it’s even more challenging. The book publishing industry has gone through massive shifts in recent years, and they’re just trying to hang on these days. I predict that more traditional publishers will be going out of business – and very soon. When that happens, their authors are in a quandary. Are their books still on the market (in many cases, they are). Who’s getting those royalties? Can the author republish the book, or did the publisher sell their book to another company?) If your publisher has gone out of business, READ THIS.

Many authors are deciding to avoid the traditional publishing industry altogether. And, based on my personal experience (details are below), that’s a VERY good idea.

Too many hopeful authors waste years (yes, YEARS) trying to get their books on the market because they’re holding out for the holy grail – a traditional publishing contract. With self-publishing, those authors could have been earning money from book sales that entire time!

MYTH: If you self-publish, no traditional publisher will want your book in the future.

That is completely inaccurate. In fact, if you self-publish your book, and sell a few thousand copies, traditional publishers will be FAR more likely to offer you a contract. Had you spent a year or two (or more) trying to land a literary agent and a traditional contract, chances are, as a new/unknown author, you would not have gotten an offer from them anyway. We’ve had BookLocker authors land traditional contracts after having impressive sales, become disillusioned with that entire process, and then come back to BookLocker to have their future books published.

Why Traditional Publishing is a Dying Business Model:

1. Sales of traditional publishers’ books are now forced to compete with the estimated four million new books that are now being published each year. Of course, almost all of those are self-published, but that doesn’t mean they don’t capture potential readers’ attention, and sell.

Readers see a book they’re interested in online, go to Amazon, and buy a copy. Most don’t bother to page-down a couple of times on the book’s Amazon page to see the name of the publisher. They don’t care. They see the book cover, read the excerpt, and then click the buy button. The best self-published authors don’t want traditional contracts. They’re making far more money in the end by avoiding the industry dinosaurs.

2. Traditional publishers pay a premium for specific placement in bookstores…but not for YOUR book! That’s one reason traditionally published authors are paid so little money. The publisher is using all of their marketing money to promote only a very small percentage of their books (their celebrity authors). Worse, less than 1% of traditionally published books end up in bookstores at all. I predict those paid bookstore placements will eventually stop as traditional publishers continue to get squeezed. According to WordsRated.com, “Amazon is responsible for roughly half of all the sales of the big 5 publishers.” Also: “Amazon controls up to 80% of all book distribution in the US.”

3. According to AuthorMedia, some juicy tidbits were shared during the Penguin Random House trial back in 2023, including these shocking statistics:

• Publishers only spend 2% of their revenue on marketing. 
• 19% of books published by the Big Five houses sell a dozen copies or fewer. (ONLY 19 PERCENT!!!)
• Publishers rarely negotiate on royalty rates, leading many to speculate about market collusion. 

4. Traditional publishers spend their limited marketing funds on promoting their celebrity authors. If you’re a new author who, shockingly, does land a contract, you’ll be expected to do ALL of the promotion. No book tours, no magazine or TV ads…nothing. Again, you’ll be responsible for 100% of the promotion for your book…yet you’ll be earning a very low royalty percentage. If your book does take off (because of YOUR efforts), only then MIGHT the publisher offer some marketing assistance.

5. Traditional publishers have also become victims of the overseas publishing crime cartel. They’re called impersonation scams. Websites are popping up daily overseas that look exactly like the real publishers’ websites. Even traditional publishers’ logos are being stolen. When authors get scammed by the fake companies, they often lash out at the traditional publisher, thinking that’s who scammed them. What this means is fewer authors are trusting traditional publishers. Incidentally, traditional publishers now have impersonation scam warnings on their websites. However, vulnerable authors often don’t double-check who they’re talking to online. For example, one scammer contacting me from this email address: HarperColinsPublishings.com. The real company is HarperCollins.com. If you’re not a veteran scam-buster like me, you might not double-check that website URL. Many scam victims don’t.

6. As with any industry, technical advances in that industry can make the dinosaurs in that industry become irrelevant. Why should an author wait a year or two (or more) for their book to be published by a traditional publisher when they can have their book on the market in just month, AND earn far higher royalty rates?

My Traditional Book Publishing NIGHTMARE!

I’ve told this story in the past, so I’ll make it brief. I landed a contract (with a co-author, M.J. Rose) years ago with St. Martin’s Press. I had previously self-published the book, selling multi thousands of copies. We made a LOT of money selling our book! St. Martin’s later offered us a $60K advance. Sounds great, right??? It was NOT in the end! St. Martin’s Press then had us take the book off the market while they “edited” it, etc. The editing was a NIGHTMARE. Their editor kept inserting errors into the book. Each time she would send the file back to me, I was fixing HER errors. That took MONTHS. (My co-author claimed that editor was later fired, but I did not contact that editor later to see if it was true. I was FINISHED dealing with her!) It took even longer for them to do everything else. The book was called How to Publish and Promote Online. As you can imagine, by the time the book hit the market, almost all of the information was old (irrelevant), and many of the links didn’t work. My co-author and I were so embarrassed that we didn’t promote it.

Had we kept the rights, and just kept selling it ourselves, we’d have made FAR more money in the end, and we could have kept updating the book every few months. But, we couldn’t do that because St. Martin’s Press then owned all rights to it, and they didn’t want to issue an updated version. All told, St. Martin’s Press only sold 845 copies over the years. Of course, we never received anything beyond the initial advance. It was a HORRIBLE time- and money-wasting experience, and I have self-published ALL of my own books since then.

When Authors Ditch Their Own Traditional Publishers

Authors, even well-known, best-selling ones, have been veering away from traditional publishing for years. According to The Steve Laube Agency, as far back as 2012, Ann Voss Peterson wrote of her decision to never sign another contract with Harlequin. One major statistic from the article is that she sold 170,000 copies of a book but earned only $20,000.

Barry Eisler, an author of thrillers, turned down a $500K advance traditional publishing deal so he could self-publish.

Mark Dawson ditched his traditional publisher, and turned his John Milton series into a 7-figure income.

My old co-author, M.J. Rose (R.I.P.!), self-published her first book, Lip Service, sold 75K copies of that, and landed traditional contracts for that and her later books. However, she also became disillusioned with traditional publishing, and went out on her own again.

There are many similar stories online!

According to Barrett-Koehler, “Total book industry revenues in the U.S. are no higher than they were twenty years ago, and, adjusted for inflation, they have shrunk.” They added, “A book has far less than a 1 percent chance of being stocked in a particular bookstore.” They also confirmed that, “Most book marketing today is done by authors, not by publishers.”

When the Borders bookstore chain went out of business in 2011, it had a significant impact on traditional publishing distribution. Amazon was already hard at work putting Borders and other bookstores out of business.

Wikipedia has a long list of traditional publishers who have gone out of business. And each year, more succumb. Traditional publishing has become an unsustainable business model.

In 2025, Baker & Taylor, the main book distributor for public and academic schools and libraries, went out of business after 128 years.

Traditional publishing is losing ground every year. The entire old business model was upended by computers, advanced software, the digital printing industry, Amazon, and other factors. It’s only a matter of time before they follow the likes of Kodak, Blockbuster, Borders, and (we couldn’t leave this one out) the Gutenberg Press.

According to Google: “Traditional publishing is not entirely dead, but it behaves like an aging dinosaur. Heavily reliant on slow, archaic systems, the legacy industry struggles to reach high sales volumes for most authors while simultaneously losing ground to the highly lucrative and flexible self-publishing market.”

RELATED

• Traditional Publishers Have Let Me Down For The Last Time…
• BookLocker Was My Gateway For Landing A Traditional Contract WITH an Advance! – By Michael Brian Murphy
• The Cold, Hard, Ugly Facts about Traditional Publishing…and Why You Might Want to Avoid It Altogether
• 11 Ways to Know If a “Publisher” or Other Service Provider is an Overseas Scammer (You’ll probably only need to check #1 to prove it!)
• “Hybrid Publisher” is the Most Abused Term (by scammers) in the Publishing Industry Right Now
• “Do traditionally published books still end up in bookstores and libraries?”
• SCAM ALERT! Writers Press Publishing House Caught Faking Relationship with Traditional Publisher!
• DO THEY WANT MY BOOK TO FAIL?! When Traditional Publishers Treat New Authors Like (Bleep) By Anonymous
• When Snobby Authors Pretend to Be Traditionally Published – By Forthcoming Fred
• Can Anyone Really Tell the Difference Between Self-Published and Traditionally Published Books Now?
• “I’m too embarrassed to self-publish!” vs. “I’ll never sign another traditional publishing contract!”
• BookLocker.com – In its 27th year, located IN the U.S., and has an excellent reputation!

HAVE A QUESTION ABOUT SELF-PUBLISHING A BOOK?

Angela is not only the publisher of WritersWeekly.com. She is President & CEO of BookLocker.com,
a self-publishing services company that has been in business since 1998. Ask her anything.

ASK ANGELA!