To publish a book, in the oldest sense of the word, is simply to make it public — Merriam-Webster traces the verb back to the fourteenth century and defines it as issuing the work of an author to the public. What has changed is how many roads lead to that moment. Today there are two main paths, and both are legitimate: the traditional route through an agent and a publishing house, or the self-publishing route, where you run the project yourself.
Which path is right depends on what you want. If you want a traditional deal, the sequence is: revise, edit, query agents, and sign with a publisher that handles editing, design, distribution, and bookstores. If you want control and speed, you self-publish: you hire your own editor and cover designer, upload to a platform, and set your own price. This guide walks through both, step by step, so you can choose with clear eyes.
What comes first: editing the manuscript
Nothing downstream works without a finished, edited manuscript. Agents reject unpolished drafts. Readers refund unpolished self-published ones. Editing usually happens in layers: a developmental edit fixes story and structure, a copyedit fixes sentences and consistency, and a final proofread catches typos.
If you are self-publishing, budget for professional editing — it is the single biggest quality lever you control. We cover the cost logic in our guide to editing your manuscript before formatting. If you are pursuing a traditional deal, self-editing comes first, because the agent reading your query expects a manuscript that reads like a book, not a draft.
Should you try traditional publishing?
Traditional publishing means a publishing house buys the rights to your book, pays you an advance, and handles production and distribution. The path runs through a literary agent for most large houses. You write a query letter — a one-page pitch — and send it, with sample pages, to agents who represent your genre.
The honest picture: querying is slow and heavily slanted toward rejection, and even a signed deal can take a year or more to reach shelves. What you get in exchange is professional editing, bookstores, and a team that is not you. What you give up is control — over the cover, the title, the price, and often the publication date.
Our analysis: traditional publishing suits writers who want institutional support and don't mind surrendering decisions. If the thought of waiting a year for someone else to pick your cover makes you itch, that is useful information about which path fits you.
What does self-publishing actually involve?
Self-publishing puts every decision in your hands, along with every task. The modern version is not vanity printing; it is a real industry with real tools. Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing describes its service as letting you be your own publisher, with control over your book's content, design, price, audience, and advertising — and it supports print and digital formats in more than 10 countries and over 45 languages.
The practical sequence looks like this:
- Finish and professionally edit the manuscript.
- Brief a cover designer — our guide to writing a cover design brief shows what a designer needs from you.
- Format the ebook, and decide how far you want it distributed — the trade-offs are laid out in KDP Select or wide distribution.
- Choose an ISBN and royalty setup; the money details live in what indie authors actually pay for ISBNs, royalties, and distribution.
- Upload, set your price, and publish — KDP says an ebook can appear on Amazon stores within 72 hours.
Per KDP's own terms, ebook royalties run up to 70% or 35% depending on the book and the countries where it sells, print royalties run up to 60%, and enrolling in KDP Select pays you per page read in Kindle Unlimited. A company describing its own program is the right source for what the program offers — it is not independent proof of what any one author earns. We covered a connected angle in KDP Select or Wide Distribution: Which Math Works for Your Indie Ebook?.
How do the two paths compare on money and control?
Here is the comparison in plain terms. Traditional publishing pays an advance — money up front — and then royalties on sales after the advance earns out. Self-publishing pays no advance but a much higher royalty rate per copy, and you keep the rights. The royalty mechanics for ebooks are unpacked in how indie ebook royalties actually work.
| Question | Traditional | Self-publishing |
|---|---|---|
| Who pays for editing and design? | The publisher | You, up front |
| Who controls price and cover? | The publisher | You (per KDP, you set your own list prices) |
| Royalty per ebook sale | Standard contract rate | Up to 70% on KDP, per its terms |
| Speed to shelf | Often a year or more | Days (KDP cites 72 hours) |
| Bookstore reach | Core strength | Print-on-demand and online stores |
One caution: this table describes how each system is structured, not what any individual author will earn. No one can promise you sales, and anyone who does is selling something.
What about ebooks, libraries, and rights?
Most books published today exist in both print and digital, and the digital side has its own decisions. If you want your ebook available through libraries, the formatting and lending rules matter — see how to publish an EPUB that libraries can actually lend. Selling directly from your own site is another option, covered in can you sell ebooks directly from your own author website?
Rights deserve a paragraph of their own. When you sign a traditional contract, you typically license specific rights — translation, audio, foreign markets — and what you keep depends on the wording. Self-published authors start with all rights and sell or retain them deliberately. Our guides to translation rights and audiobook rights walk through what to keep and what to sell. Careful attention here pays off for years; a hasty signature can cost you a market you never knew you had.
What this means for your first book
Here is the practical takeaway, whichever road you choose. Finish the manuscript and edit it properly — that step is identical on both paths. Then choose based on what you value: the publisher's infrastructure or your own control. If you self-publish, treat it as running a small business: hire an editor, brief a designer, price deliberately, and read the platform terms before you click publish. If you go traditional, research agents in your genre and write a clean, honest query.
What the available sources establish is the structure of each path — the steps, the control points, and KDP's published royalty and turnaround terms. What they do not establish is your book's market. That part remains, as it always has, unwritten until the reader arrives.
