Deciding to self-publish your book is not easy. Deciding who to work with is even harder.

* The aim of this blog post is definitely not a Work with us, we are the best! kinda thing. We are not, and we know that. Maybe there is no “best”, anyway.

Beware vanity publishers! POD is the best!, POD doesn’t make sense!, Don’t do this!, Why don’t you do this? etc. . . You hear all kinds of advice, and it’s getting confusing, isn’t it?

Here is the truth: Every publishing service and method has its own pros and cons. There are many professional publishing services out there that will fit your needs. But there are also some…

Traditional publishers get thousands of manuscripts every year, and they publish let’s say 20 to 100 titles per year on average. So usually what you’ll get from a traditional publisher is a rejection. That’s not necessarily because your manuscript sucks. That’s just how it works with traditional publishers.

There are many factors that cause rejections, like:

• Maybe your manuscript is boring, not interesting, too complicated, too basic, you name it.
• Maybe you thought submitting your manuscript with the complete illustrations was a brilliant idea. No, you’re not making the publisher’s work easier by handling the illustrations. That’s their job.
• Maybe the particular publishing house you sent your manuscript…

Remember the “there’s no spoon” scene in The Matrix? Yes, Print on Demand (POD) is somehow like that: “There’s no book.” Well, okay, there’s a book in the cloud. But it’s not printed yet.

Wait a minute. No book? So how do people buy my book?

• You upload a print-ready PDF to a POD provider.
• If everything is OK with the files according to their guidelines, the provider approves your PDF.
• They list your book with online retailers, as if it’s a printed, ready-to-ship book.
• Someone buys your book.
• Your POD provider prints only one copy and sends it to…