This post will serve as a brief overview of the publishing avenues from which a writer must choose.

I’m not going to sugar coat anything. I’m going to give it to your straight. This is not to burst your bubble but rather to give you a realistic snapshot of the options available to you and the pros & cons of each. This way you can effectively prepare yourself for what’s ahead.

First. The life of a working author is literally non-stop.
Non-stop writing.
Non-stop editing.
Non-stop networking.
Non-stop promotion.
Non-stop work. It becomes your life.

If you think you’re going to be living in a penthouse suite surrounded by your best sellers, then you have a better chance at winning the lottery. Seriously.

It certainly can happen, and, of course, if you don’t play, you can’t win; but you need to fully understand what you’re up against.

There are 800 books published every single day in the USA. That’s nearly 300,000 books a year.

The average book sells 500 copies in its lifetime. This average includes books that sell millions like Harry Potter or Twilight, so there are many, many books out there selling less than 50.

Quitting your day job and becoming a full-time author takes great courage because it’s very, very risky, as you can imagine from the above figures.

The very first thing you must do, is ask yourself these questions.
You’ll need the answers to decide which path to take.

• What do you want to accomplish with your book?
• When do you want this done?
• Do you want to live solely off writing, or do you want to just see your work in print?
• Do you want to be a NYTimes Bestseller (who doesn’t?)? By when?
• When is a big part of the equation here.

How much you want to work is also a big part of the equation.

Trust me. You work way way way less at any other job, unless you’re in business for yourself. Then you know the meaning of work. It’s your life. There is nothing else.

Your four basic publishing choices are:

1. New York “Big Boy” Publisher
   (this is like Penguin, HarperCollins, Scholastic, etc)
2. Independent Publisher
3. “Self-Publishing” (or Independent Publishing House that you happen to own)
4. Vanity Publishing (many people call this Self-Publishing)

Tomorrow, I’ll start with the pros & cons of going with a New York “Big Boy” Publisher.

See you then!

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