In the last twenty years there has been an explosion of new publishing models that take advantage of new opportunities afforded by the internet and advances in printing on demand. There’s also been a corresponding rise in scams. So what is “hybrid publishing” and how does it fit into all of this?
Hybrid publishing isn’t quite traditional publishing and it isn’t quite self-publishing. Essentially: A hybrid publisher takes on some or all of the functions of a traditional publisher, but the author shares in more of both the initial investment (in the form of fees) as well as the upside (in the form of higher royalties).
It’s tough to generalize about hybrid publishing because there are so many different models with so many differing levels of legitimacy. Many scam artists out there have taken advantage of the hype around hybrid publishing in order to put a glossy spin on exploitive practices.
One more reason for confusion around hybrid publishing is that a “hybrid author” is a totally separate term. This usually refers to an author who has been both traditionally published and self-published (such as yours truly), not necessarily someone who has published a book with a hybrid publisher.
Hybrid publishing is still viewed with quite a bit of skepticism in some corners of the publishing world, with some still viewing it as little more than vanity publishing by another name. But as publishing continues to evolve away from the virtual monopoly of traditional publishing, expect to see new upstarts continue to pop up in this zone.
In this post I’ll cover:
- Hybrid publishing models
- Who should consider hybrid publishing
- What to watch out for
- Resources for authors considering hybrid publishing
Hybrid publishing models
One helpful way to think about the book publishing process is as a collection of services, such as editing, design, and distribution. In traditional publishing, the publisher handles all of the services and pays the author an advance on top of that. In self-publishing, the author handles (or outsources) all of the services but receives more money per copy sold.
In hybrid publishing, the hybrid publisher usually manages these services, including distribution, but the author shares in the cost of production and an initial print run in exchange for royalties that are higher than traditional publishing but less than self-publishing.
In theory, hybrid publishers offer value by managing these tasks for the author, and some offer better design and print distribution than a self-published author would be able to achieve on their own.
Some hybrid publishers are selective in the authors they choose to take on, others are more like assisted publishing models that will take on all comers.
While it’s tough to generalize across the landscape, Jane Friedman helpfully breaks down hybrid publishing into four rough categories:
Editorially curated. While authors typically subsidize the costs of editing or publication, the publisher doesn’t accept every author who walks through the door. As a result of their selectivity, the publisher usually has better marketing and distribution. Examples include She Writes Press and Greenleaf Book Group.
Crowdfunding driven. Publishers such as Inkshares and Unbound require the author to raise a certain amount of money from their readership before they are granted a deal, which then closely adheres to a traditional publishing process.
Assisted self-publishing. Authors pay to publish, and there is little or no discernment in what types of authors are accepted.
Traditional publishers with a self-publishing arm. Some traditional publishers—usually small presses you haven’t heard of—may offer author services or assisted self-publishing.
Even within these categories there are varying levels of quality and integrity in the publishing outfits, but I agree with Jane’s recommendation to be especially skeptical of the last two.
Who is hybrid publishing for?
There are really two types of authors who should consider hybrid publishing:
- Authors with cash who are looking for a bit more upside than regular self-publishing.
- Authors with cash who don’t want to manage the publishing process on their own.
Notice the “with cash” part? Yeah. If you don’t have cash to burn there are more economical ways of getting your book out there. Traditional publishers will pay you to publish your book, and self-publishing tends to cost less than hybrid publishing, especially if you handle some of the tasks on your own.
Some authors might appreciate having the publishing process managed for them and are willing to pay to not have to get into the self-published weeds. Or you might come across a hybrid publisher who genuinely seems to offer a value add with their design or distribution.
At worst, a hybrid publisher is really just a vanity press or scam artist in disguise, taking advantage of the buzz around hybrid publishing and exploiting your ego to charge you top dollar for things you don’t need.
Be very, very skeptical of anything a hybrid publisher promises. You know how people say “trust but verify?” Yeah, no. Verify first, then trust.
What to watch out for with hybrid publishers
Considering hybrid publishing? Here are some things to keep in mind:
- Look for value add. Actually check out the books the publisher has released and talk to authors about their experience. Check out their past campaigns. Find out how their books are distributed. Check out the discussion about the hybrid publisher on Absolute Write.
- Don’t let a hybrid publisher play with your ego. We all want the validation that comes with someone investing in our work. Scam artists know this, so beware. Being able to throw the words “my publisher” into a cocktail party conversation isn’t worth having your pocketbook emptied.
- Know what you’re signing. What rights are you handing over? What costs are you committing to? How can you get out of the arrangement if things go south? Be absolutely sure of what you’re getting into before you commit.
- Be very skeptical of agents and publishers who use a bait and switch that steers you to their self-publishing arm. Many publishers, including some of the major ones, use extremely scuzzy services that are at best extractive of your cash and at worst wholly exploitive. Some reputable agencies have established legitimate hybrid publishing enterprises, but unless you’re already a pre-existing client, be very skeptical.
- Are you sure you don’t want to just self-publish? Self-publishing requires some entrepreneurialism, but at the end of the day, it’s not that hard and you retain maximum flexibility.
Hybrid publishing resources
Here are some more resources that will help you evaluate hybrid publishers and stay safe on the journey to publication:
- IBPA hybrid publishing guidelines – The Independent Book Publishers Association is a bit controversial because of their publisher membership policy (and I don’t like their attitude toward author royalties), but these guidelines for a hybrid publishers are a good general place to start to understand what to expect.
- SFWA guide to self-publishing – The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America has some really fantastic resources to help protect authors. Also check out their guidelines on vanity and hybrid publishers.
- Not All Hybrid Publishers Are Created Equal – Jane Friedman has some really good questions to ask a hybrid publisher.
- Absolute Write’s Bewares, Recommendations & Background Check – The Absolute Write message boards are a good resource for gauging authors’ experiences with a particular publisher.
- The Author Exploitation Business – This post is a bit out of date as Penguin no longer owns Author Solutions, but the essential principles that David Gaughran articulates in the post still apply. Be wary. Unfortunately, not all publishers are out of the author scamming game.
Do you have experience with hybrid publishing? Anything I missed in this post? Take to the comments!
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Art: Oedipus and the Sphinx by François-Xavier Fabre
Hi, love your blog. I’m half of a micro (2 person) publisher based in Melbourne, established 20 or so years ago. Our market is difficult with a relatively small population spread over a massive area (with correspondingly massive freight bills). And we do children’s books, which are heavy and expensive to freight. We do our own trade distribution, with my other half spending most of the year on the road visiting bookshops. So we work hard to cut costs, but where we can really come unstuck with children’s books is the high cost of quality illustrations — which is entirely justified but very hard to absorb in a difficult market where we just can’t sell enough copies to recover that cost — so we risk going broke very quickly. So we’ve come up with our own hybrid publishing program, for some books only — we only take on books that we think we can actually sell and that fit our own type of publishing, but represent a higher risk to us than books we publish under a conventional model. It’s as simple as this: we ask for the author and/or illustrator advance to be waived or reduced so we don’t have to pay this cost upfront but the authors and illustrators still earn royalties on a conventional calculations, and we ask the author and illustrators to commit to purchasing some stock themselves — usually 200-300 copies — at a wholesale price of 60-70% off retail price, depending on the book, to sell through their own non-trade avenues, which they normally do quite comfortably given many of them do school visits and so on. This just helps us to get the printrun to a more viable level and reduces our upfront costs. We like to publish, but in a financial environment where it is next to impossible for us to get business finance, the upfronts cause many a worthy and potentially successful project to be sidelined as we simply don’t have the cashflow.
This is a worthy model. By the way, many professional publishing contracts come in with an author-purchasing clause. Authors who don’t believe in investing in their own book can certainly apply to the agent-Big 5 process. The tolerance for risk at that level of publishing, where people are judged fully by financials alone, is slight. Good books deserve to emerge, somehow.
I’d like to know if those Melbourne books’ cost is based upon a Print on Demand press price, or if it’s another kind of printer. Who then bears the cost to ship? One plus: an author-illustrator combo has twice as many buyers of the 300 copies. At $15 book at a 70 percent discount is $4.50 per copy. 150 copies would be $625 to each creator. You’d want to check on editing, marketing, advertising, and the other elements of a good publishing deal to see what your chances are of getting any more sales beyond the profit you’d earn selling you author copies.
“Many publishers, including some of the major ones, use extremely scuzzy services that are at best extractive of your cash and at worst wholly exploitive.”
All too true, unfortunately! It continues to amaze me that publishers care so little about the harm that does to their reputation.
And amen re David Gaughran, who does sterling work to shed light on the shady side of publishing.
I can’t find much detail on David Gaughran’s gripes about IBPA. He’s certainly a go-getter at marketing his own industry advice, but since he doesn’t call his own company a publisher, he’s outside the scope of the shade he’s throwing on IBPA. He does publish books, but they are his alone.
Just so the IBPA has its say in this matter, people can go to its website to read the open reply to Gaughran. https://www.ibpa-online.org/news/news.asp?id=401590
Hi there, I returned to this post after seeing the link on Nathan’s website today and Ron Seybold’s comment. On our hybrid model, we as the publisher provide the editing and design at our cost, same as conventional publishing — and it is top quality (we are highly qualified — to Masters level — designers and editors with combined 45 years in the industry). We don’t do print-and-demand — it is generally too expensive for us but the bigger problem is we often have custom specifications — it is a feature of many of our books — that don’t fit print-on-demand: die-cuts, lift-the-flaps, slide-out puzzles, board books, lots of spot gloss finishing, gold stamping, that kind of thing. So we print in China, sometimes India, and again as publishers we cover the cost of ocean freight and customs clearance and, for the author’s stock, we deliver at our cost one-drop to their nominated destination in Australia (metropolitan — a small extra charge might apply for delivery to more remote areas, but not always). So what we provide is exactly the same as conventional publishing without the strain on us to pay advances up front when at the same time we have to grapple with our own development costs. In truth, in Australia the only reasons we can make this work — and it doesn’t always but that’s publishing — is because we are tiny with low overheads, are multi-skilled, and have our own distribution. It simply would not work if we had to factor in other costs. I used to be the publisher of a much larger publishing house before founding my own ’boutique press’ and I know well where the costs go! We’re also selective on what we take on for hybrid publishing, of course; we need to be reasonably confident that we will be able to sell it through our market channels.
… I meant to add, the biggest reason we can make hybrid publishing work in Australia is because if the author commits to a chunk of the printrun the overall printrun is of course bigger with corresponding economies-of-scale across all costs (as Ron has noted)– so we can provide stock to the authors at a cost they could not achieve themselves on a small printrun for themselves, and if they then sell through their own channels they get a much higher return, while at the same time we can also publish a book that we could not otherwise publish because the printrun would be too small. We all then hope it takes off and we reprint — but these days that’s too risky an assumption to bank on. Hybrid publishing allows us the test the waters on projects we would otherwise deem too risky, despite the potential. We are after all self-funded with our life savings invested in our publishing house, so we have to be careful.
I am with a hybrid publisher. I don’t pay anything up front, but what I owe for each book is taken from my royalties. The publisher does an edit, produces cover design, marketing, formatting, translation, and audio.
There are many award winning authors in the stable, as well as Amazon best sellers.
The publisher sells wide, not just with Amazon.
I retain ownership of the copyright, and have 90 days if I want to withdraw from my contracts.
I have been quite happy with this publisher, who keeps us up to date with progress and future plans.
And they don’t take on everyone who submits.