Hybrid Publishing
Since its inception in the year 2007, self publishing has come a long way. We see more and more writers choosing this route to publish their books. With this increase, the number of firms offering self publishing services is also on the rise. Self publishing offers ease of access to bring out one’s book in the market. Traditional model of publishing has always been time-consuming, evaluation-based with lesser transparency in terms of sales figures. All these cons are taken care of in self publishing.
Here, we need to have a better understanding of few of the terms prevalent in the self publishing sector –
Self publishing – When a writer takes care of all the aspects of publishing a book – cover design, editing, typesetting, proof reading, ISBN assignment, printing and selling. In this case, the writer may herself work on these points or take assistance from contractors or service providers that provide a one-stop solution to all the aspects of publishing a book.
In the past few years, we have seen the advent of publishers who operate in the self publishing mode. Here, we must differentiate between a self publishing service provider, a self publishing platform or a hybrid publisher.
Self publishing Service Provider – An entity that offers services to help writers in self publishing their works - cover design, editing, typesetting, and proof reading. In this case, ISBN must be provided by the writer. He/she needs to take care of printing and selling it online/offline.
Self publishing Platform – A platform set up to assist writers in printing, selling and inventory management of books. In this case, writers are supposed to upload print-ready files of their books. That means, the services of editing, designing, proof reading must be taken care of by writers. However, the hassle of printing, managing the inventory and order fulfilment is the responsibility of the self publishing platform. Kindly note, in this case too, the ISBN is to be provided by the writer.
White Falcon Publishing has created India’s first academic publishing platform – ScholarGram that follows this model.
These two models are the pure form of self publishing a book.
Hybrid Publisher – Publishers whose model is a mix of a self publishing service provider, self publishing platform and traditional publisher can be termed as a Hybrid publisher.
Hybrid publishers act as a one-stop solution for writers keen on publishing their books. White Falcon Publishing falls in this category.
One point to note here is, White Falcon does not accept any and every book that is submitted for publishing to us. With respect to its similarity with traditional publishing, White Falcon has an evaluation process in place whereby the content is reviewed for plagiarism, novelty, target market, etc. Post review, we suggest the list of services that might be required in the publication of the book. Another point to note here is, the ISBN that is assigned to the book is that of White Falcon’s. So the publisher of the book is not the author but White Falcon Publishing. Hence, this model does not directly fall under the self publishing category.
White Falcon provides end-to-end services ranging from designing, editing, typesetting, proofing, ISBN, printing, selling (online/offline), inventory management, marketing, royalty reporting.
Online marketing of the books is done by the publisher irrespective of the services availed by writers. Pitching the books for pile-ups at premium retail outlets is also done by us. These are some of the differences that one would find while working with a hybrid publisher where the publisher is not solely responsible for the services that it has been paid for. But it is the responsibility of the publisher to market their books and help increase sales through means in its purview.
From the Director’s desk
Navsangeet Kaur