How can I publish a book on my own in India?
Hi there,Disclaimer First: I am one of the founders @ Notion Press Publishing.If you have already written your book, you have a few options.1. You could approach traditional publishers like Penguin, Harper Collins, Hachette etc. who are all renowned names in traditional publishing, and submit your manuscript for a review. However, traditional publishers get bombarded with hundreds of manuscripts and take a long time to even go through them ( if at all they do ). More often than not, they also reject first time authors such as yourself due to a perceived risk of publishing an unknown name.2. You could subsequently approach any self-publishing platform similar to Notion Press and work with a team of book experts who will take care of the entire publishing process and bring both the print and eBook version of your book out to the market. In this guided publishing model, you will own 100% of the rights to the book and take home 100% of the profits from book sales. Notion Press has published close to 4000 first time writers so far in the span of 6 years. To know more about how this works you can check out the website link given above.3. Your third option would be to publish it by yourself by using platforms like Kindle Direct Publishing or Createspace. These are essentially do-it-yourself platforms which would essentially require you to take care of every aspect of publishing ie. cover design, interior formatting, editing etc by yourself. Once you have all these things in place, you can just upload it onto the platform and they will compile it as a book and you can start selling it on online stores. Such platforms are mostly free to use and take a commission from each book’s sale and pay remaining profit as royalty.
How can I get published, in India if I'm a first time writer?
Being a first time writer, you have two ways to getpublished – you can go for traditional publishing or you can preferself-publishing. Traditional publishing comprises of publishers like Penguin,Westland, Rupa, and the likes, wherein you send your completed manuscript to themand await their response. Traditional publishers take anywhere between monthsto a year or two to get back to you with a response (which could be positive ornegative). In a day, they receive tons and tons of manuscripts to read and itis indeed difficult for them to read everything and reply to everyone.Moreover, they’re also businesses who are on the lookout for the rightmanuscript to invest on and make money. So, it usually happens that they go fora manuscript which is from a celebrity, or an already published author, or awriter with an extremely captivating manuscript. So, chances that yourmanuscript would get rejected are very high. On the other hand, self-publishing is one where you investyour money in getting your book published and earn from the royalty your bookfetches you through its sales. You take control of your book and you work withtypesetters, cover designers, editors, distributors, and printers in gettingyour book published. To ease off things, there are several self-publishinghouses in India that take care of all things related to publishing and enableworld-wide distribution of books, too. For instance, a self-publishing housewill take care of designing a cover for your book, editing your manuscript,assigning an ISBN number, taking care of copyrights issues, liaising withprinters, and even coming up with an e-book version of your book. Such housescharge for their services and also offer you more percentage on royalty whencompared to traditional publishing. Going with self-publishing eliminates the need for you towait for a response from a traditional publisher and also gives you a chance toget published. When your book does well in the market, traditional publisherswill see a potential in you and may even approach you for a contract.Self-publishing just opens up new avenues for you to get recognized in theindustry as an author. Good luck!