Challenges in Publishing 

Britons are very keen readers, hence book publishing in the UK is a rewarding business.  People in the UK spend about £60 per year just for buying books. 

People read books as a hobby to improve cognition skills, increase knowledge, and for refreshment. 

Readers take inspiration from famous writers and want to become authors themselves. While every writer wants to be a famous author, but not everyone’s books reach the shelves of bookshops, libraries, and readers. 

Traditional publishers pay hefty royalties to the authors, take the responsibility of publishing, marketing, and selling. 

Seasoned authors may find traditional publishers because of their established reader-base, trust, and repute. However, it is extremely difficult for new authors to find a traditional publisher. UK hybrid publishers are potential alternatives to traditional publishers. 

The difficulty is that since a lot of money is invested into a book before it even hits the shelves, each book is marked as a ‘high risk’. The publisher will have underlying control of the book, perhaps wanting a change in the details of your story or will have final say on the book cover design. However, this traditional plan is vulnerable as so many great books can be turned down. Take a look at this list of brilliant books that were turned down many times by traditional publishers. Luckily, these ones were finally published but it does beg the question, ‘how many great stories might have been missed’?

Why Hybrid Publishers Suit New Authors?           

The major difference between traditional and hybrid publishers is the financial model. The formers pay royalties to the authors, while the latter initially charge a fee from the authors for publishing but give higher royalties to the authors. 

Moreover, the latter also share profit with the authors. The responsibility of promotion, selling, and marketing in hybrid publishing is shared by authors as well as the publishers. 

Hybrid publishing suit the authors, because a large population of Britain has the habit of buying and reading books on a variety of topics ranging from fiction, adventure, entertainment, and literature. 

Paying fees to the UK hybrid publishers is still a profitable business for the authors, selling few thousand copies of the books will not only compensate the publishing costs, but also generate long-term, sustainable, and passive income. 

How to be Successful in Hybrid Publishing Your Book? 

To become a hybrid writer, one has to combine the traits of traditional publishing with the modern era. The writer not only needs to think of novel interesting ideas which the people like but also need to be proficient in making networking circles. 

The authors should be able to focus on the problems of society and propose traditional or novel solutions to those problems for the benefit of society. Moreover, the authors should also be able to comply with the needs of hybrid publishing, i.e., be able to use computer programs to type, edit, design, and format their draft.  

Moreover, they must be active on social media and be able to promote their book systematically. The steps of systematic promotion include: 

1)      Pre-release Promotion: The authors can use YouTube trailers to disseminate to their networking circles what is in their next book. Moreover, the authors can place banners on their Facebook and LinkedIn pages. The marketing can be customized to the niche and population on these platforms. 

2)      After-release Promotion: After the release of the books, the authors can post information about their books on blogs. Moreover, they can request the authors of other blogs to write about their books. Furthermore, the authors can request people to leave reviews about their books. Sometimes, gifting free books to some renowned authors can fetch precious reviews for the books. 

In the nutshell, hybrid publishing is a good way of earning income from publishing books for new authors. However, the hybrid authors need to focus on novel interesting problem-solution oriented ideas and make use of their social networking skills to promote their books.