A guide to publishing your book

SO MANY CHOICES
The traditional route
- You could try to get an agent. This would be like having your tooth extracted without anaesthesia.
- Agents specialise in certain genres, and your work may not fit their market.
- Traditional publishing houses are terribly risk-averse. They want the same proven authors over and over.
- They would not consider you ‘big’ enough for their investment.
Big online self-publishing providers
- The big boys employ aggressive sales personnel, so beware. Once they have your contact, they will hound you. You may end up selling your car to pay for their fees. They have no shame, so beware.
- The big boys will promise you listing on Amazon and sales of thousands. But reality might be quite different.
- Your books will be priced in USD, which may be too high for local markets.
- The quality of production might not be what you expect; we have seen some  of their products.
- Check their royalty scheme; they are not always transparent.
- As far as possible, chose a smaller service provider. You will find them more friendly and helpful. If they start behaving like used car salesmen, leave. Although there are many predators, you’ll find some you can trust. You’ll have many choices
Do-it-yourself
D-I-Y will give you total control of your work and costs, but:
- DIY will allow you total control of your work and costs,
- You will get to keep all sales revenue.
- Unless you work in the industry, or you’re a techie, the learning curve can be quite steep
- DIY model might be a daunting prospect tech-wise for many authors.
- You will have to market your own books (but that’s true no matter which publishing model you choose).
Assisted DIY is the best way to describe PAKKA’s model:
- You'll have full control of your costs, and there'll be no big sales pitches. You decide.
- We will advise you on how to save costs.
- We will teach you how and where to sell your books.
- We have the lowest price points of any self-publishing company in Malaysia
Why Self-publish
- If you’re reading these pages, you already know why you want to self-publish. There are many reasons:
- You think you have a killer manuscript that needs to be published.
- You have spent years looking for an agent, who is unlikely to look at your manuscript unless you're previously published.
- No big publisher will look your manuscript if you don't have an agent.
- Almost every author has been there. There’s no chance for any work that’s new or different.
LINKS
Pro-con-traditional publishing
Pro-con-self-pub online publishing providers