Self Publishing vs Traditional Publishing

The debate is raging. With the coming of the internet and Amazon's pioneering efforts to make it so much easier to publish yourself, why do traditional publishers still exist? What is their purpose? Why, oh why, do we let them run off with all that lovely money we as writers so greatly deserve?

Well, dear reader, it's because they have skills, resources and knowledge that we as writers don't necessarily have.

There is a certain amount of ego involved in wanting to be published by a traditional publisher, and quite a bit more credibility. A reader knows that a book published by a traditional publisher is held to a high standard - from content, to editing to formatting.

With a self-published work, the reader just doesn't know what they're going to get. The cover is a pretty good indicator. If you're looking at something that's clearly been slapped together in Word, you can generally assume that not much more care has been taken with the content. In some ways, a professionally designed jaw-dropping cover is more important with a self-published title, because it lends your book credibility.

Self-publishing can be lucrative - it's a rapidly growing sector. But if you choose to self-publish you have to do all those things a publisher would normally do for you. You have to get your book professionally edited, you have to have it laid out, illustrated and designed by professionals. You have to put ten times as much effort into marketing your book as you did in writing it. You can't skimp. These things are what dictate the success of your book.

It doesn't matter if you've written the most heart-achingly wonderful story since the dawn of time, if your presentation is bad, it will not sell.

So while self-publishing is certainly an option, if you don't have the skills or the bank roll to make sure every element is covered, then find a publisher to do it for you.

How not to start your novel

If you're trying to get published, the odds are you are going to have to make your way through a few gatekeepers before someone, somewhere decides to give you a shot.

Literary agents, commissioning editors and publishers - and even their assistants - go through hundreds upon hundreds of manuscripts before choosing the one that they'll take a chance on. Getting them to even read past the first paragraph can be terribly tricky. Yes, it can be a matter of taste, or mood, or any amount of environmental factors, but there are a few recurring no-nos that have been collected from agents and publishers across the world.

Here we list the top 5.

1. Too much description
Whether you're expounding on the weather, setting an idyllic village scene (and still doing it three pages later) or having your protagonist muse long-windedly about whatever it is he/she likes to muse about, you're probably going to bore your reader. And fast. Get to the action. You're not Tolkein.

2. False beginnings
"Write left, dodge right. Muahaha! You weren't expecting that, Reader. I've got you now." Right? Wrong!
Leading your reader off in one direction, only to change it straight away is incredibly annoying. That means starting the story in a dream, killing off who the reader thought was the protagonist early, getting too into a minor character, anything that makes the reader feel like they just wasted a couple hours of their life, really.

3. Avoid the prologue
"What?!" you gasp. But seriously. A prologue is a fairly lazy way to add exposition or back story when you're not sure how to include it in the main text, and half the time it takes the reader ages to figure out what the point of it was. It's a fairly common device in fantasy, but avoid it all the same.

4. Obvious beginnings
An alarm clock, the first day of school, a birth. Even getting fired, although it is the end of something, is an obvious start of something new. Anything that is obviously the beginning of a new path should be avoided at all costs. Start in the middle of the action.

5. Starting with dialogue
The reader has no context for the speakers, so there's no reason for him or her to care about what is being said. This goes for anything that requires context - a battle, a bar fight, a game of soccer. Who do we root for?

Featured Author: Rudi Venter

Rudi Venter was a perfectly normal guy. He loved his wife, he loved his children. They lived happily together in their home in Johannesburg. Until one day it all came crashing down.
Rudi's wife was brutally murdered, his world was ripped away from him. He was left to care for his children when he could barely take care of himself in his grief.
But the biggest shock was still to come... Rudi was wrongfully accused of murdering his own wife.

From the heart-wrenching discovery of his murdered wife to his shock arrest, A Grey Day Part 1: From Sun City to Sun City pulls no punches in the telling of Rudi's story in his own words.

This is a tale of vindication, as much as it is an insight into the South African justice system - a wake up call for many.

KBSA Publishing is incredibly proud to have Rudi as the first of (hopefully many) South African authors published by us. Rudi's bravery once again came to the fore when he took a chance on an unknown publisher.

His goal with A Grey Day was not to attain fame, or even to rake in money, it is simply to set the record straight. Convicted by the press from day one, Rudi wanted the chance to have his story heard as it really happened, and we are thrilled to be able to give him the chance.