How to Publish a Book: Traditional vs Self-Publishing
Publishing is the part of the writing dream that feels most mysterious, and it does not have to be. There are two main roads, traditional publishing and self-publishing, and once you can see how each one actually works, the path from finished manuscript to published book stops being a fog and becomes a series of concrete steps. This guide lays out both honestly, including the parts nobody likes to mention, so you can choose the route that fits your book and your goals. First, though, a quiet truth: the single most important thing you can do to get published is finish a manuscript worth publishing. Here is the map, and a board below to build the book that gets there.
First, the part nobody can skip: finish the book
Every path to publishing begins at the same gate: a complete, revised manuscript. Agents cannot sell a half-finished novel, and self-publishing a rushed one is the fastest way to a shelf of one-star reviews. So before any of the steps below apply, the real work is finishing a book that is genuinely ready, drafted, revised, and as strong as you can make it. If you are still writing, that is where your energy belongs; our guide on how to write a novel walks the whole journey to a finished draft. Publishing is what happens after the book is done, and a done book is most of the battle.
Path 1: Traditional publishing
In the traditional route, a publishing house produces and distributes your book, and you reach them through a literary agent. The sequence is: finish and polish the manuscript, research agents who represent your genre, write a sharp query letter, and submit to them one batch at a time, following each one's guidelines exactly. If an agent offers representation, they help you refine the book and then pitch it to editors at publishing houses. A sale means an advance against royalties and a professional team handling editing, cover, printing, and getting the book into stores.
The upside is real: prestige, wide distribution, an advance, and expert help, all at no upfront cost to you. The tradeoffs are just as real: it is slow, often a year or more just to land an agent, then longer to sell and publish; it is highly competitive and full of rejection; and the publisher takes the large majority of the revenue. It suits writers who want the traditional stamp and reach and are willing to play a patient, gatekept game to get it.
Path 2: Self-publishing
In self-publishing, you are the publisher. You take a finished manuscript and shepherd it through the same stages a house would, but on your own terms: professional editing (or at minimum serious copyediting and beta reading), a genre-appropriate cover, clean interior formatting for ebook and print, and then distribution through platforms like Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing and others. You set the price, own the rights, and keep a far larger share of each sale.
The upside is control and speed: you can publish in months instead of years, decide everything, and earn more per copy. The tradeoff is that you carry it all, the cost of editing and design, the learning curve of the platforms, and above all the marketing, since no publisher is building your audience for you. Invest where readers judge hardest, editing and the cover, and you can produce a book indistinguishable from a traditionally published one. It suits writers who want ownership, speed, and a bigger cut, and are ready to wear the publisher's hat.
Preparing a manuscript that's actually ready
Both paths reward the same preparation. Revise until the structure is sound and the prose is clean, then get outside eyes, beta readers, and ideally a professional editor, because you cannot see your own book clearly after living inside it. For self-publishing you will also need to format the manuscript into a professional ebook and print-ready file, and there are dedicated free tools that do exactly that: Inkling is not a typesetting or publishing platform, so when you reach that stage, a tool like the one covered in our Reedsy comparison handles the formatting and export beautifully. Inkling's job is everything before that, writing and preparing the strongest possible manuscript to hand off.
Where Inkling fits (and where it doesn't)
Let us be straight about this, because honesty is the point. Inkling does not publish your book, print it, or sell it, and it is not a formatting tool. What Inkling does is help you write the book worth publishing: it holds your plan, your cast, your world, and your maps in one place beside the Google Doc you draft in, so you can actually finish a strong, consistent manuscript, which is the one thing every publishing path absolutely requires. Think of Inkling as the workshop where the book gets made, and traditional or self-publishing as what happens once it leaves the bench.
- An outline in one app and the draft in another
- A character and world reference that drifts out of date
- A pile of notes your manuscript never actually sees
- A dozen browser tabs standing in for a writing desk
Separate subscriptions, separate logins, and none of them talking to each other.
- All of it on one desk, right beside your draft
- One login, one place, nothing to sync
- One simple price, and 14 days free to try it
The one thing that gets books published
Whichever road you take, it starts with a finished manuscript you are proud of, and finishing is where most would-be authors fall away, usually because the sprawl of a novel overwhelmed them long before publishing was even in reach. Inkling exists to keep that from happening: to hold the whole book in one place so you can actually reach the end, with a manuscript strong enough that the publishing path, whichever you choose, is open to you. Write the book first. The rest becomes a map you can follow.
A few questions, answered
What are the two ways to publish a book?
Traditional publishing and self-publishing. In traditional publishing you sign with a literary agent, who sells your book to a publishing house; the publisher pays you an advance and handles editing, design, printing, and distribution, and takes the majority of the revenue in exchange. In self-publishing you act as the publisher: you arrange (and pay for) editing, a cover, and formatting, then distribute the book yourself through platforms like Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing, keeping a much larger share of each sale but carrying all the cost and effort up front. Neither is more 'real'; they suit different books and goals.
How do you get a literary agent?
You query them. Once your manuscript is finished and polished, you write a query letter, a one-page pitch with a hook, a short synopsis, and a line about you, and send it to agents who represent your genre, following each agent's exact submission guidelines. Most also ask for the first few pages or chapters. Expect rejection; it is normal and not personal, and most published authors queried many agents before one said yes. The two things that matter most are a genuinely finished, strong manuscript and researching agents who actually want what you wrote.
How do you self-publish a book step by step?
Finish and revise the manuscript; get it professionally edited, or at least thoroughly beta-read and copyedited; commission or design a cover that fits your genre; format the interior into a clean ebook and print-ready file; set up an account on a platform like Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (and optionally others for wider reach); upload your files, write your description and metadata, set your price; and publish. After that, the ongoing work is marketing. The order is roughly fixed, because each step depends on a clean version of the one before it.
How much does it cost to self-publish a book?
It can range from very little to several thousand dollars, depending on how much you do yourself versus hire out. The platforms themselves (like Kindle Direct Publishing) are free to publish on and take a cut of sales instead. The costs are the services: professional editing is usually the largest, followed by cover design, with formatting either free (using a tool that exports clean files) or modest. A common approach is to invest in editing and a cover, the two things readers judge hardest, and handle the rest yourself.
Which is better, traditional or self-publishing?
It depends on what you want. Traditional publishing offers prestige, bookstore distribution, an advance, and a professional team, at the cost of a slow, competitive gatekept process and a smaller revenue share. Self-publishing offers speed, full control, and higher per-copy earnings, at the cost of doing (or paying for) everything yourself and building your own audience. Many authors now do both across different projects. The best choice is the one that matches your goals for this particular book.
All of it. In one place.
This isn't five apps stitched together. Your storyboard, your cast, your maps, your covers, and the story itself all live on one desk, right beside the words. Nothing to sync between tools. No five separate subscriptions. Just everything a writer needs, finally in the same place.