TRADITIONAL PUBLISHING PROBLEM #2: IF YOU CAN GET A TRADITIONAL PUBLISHING DEAL, SHOULD YOU TAKE IT? As recently as 20 years ago, this was a no-brainer: of course you took the deal, because you didn’t really have any other options to get a book into the hands of readers. The game has changed since then. In the modern world of book pub- lishing, traditional publishers are no longer the gatekeepers, they provide very little prestige or access, and the other self-publishing options are better than a traditional publisher for most authors. At this time, there are really only three reasons for an author to sign with a traditional publisher: 1. You need the advance they will pay you If you already have a big audience, then a publishing company will probably give you an advance. The advance can range from $100,000 to $1 million (or much more, in rare cases), but the advance is directly tied to the expected book sales. This is not charity; they will do this because they expect to make more money than you when you sell your books to your audience. And if you do not have a big audience, your chance of getting an advance in this range is essentially zero (unless there is some other angle that makes the publisher confident you will sell many books). The cool thing is that even if your book does not sell, you don’t have to pay this advance back. It’s yours. But make no mistake—you are paying for this money in other ways. You no longer own the print license for the book, which means you cannot do anything with this content other than have it in the book. It’s not yours to use anymore, and if the book is a major hit, you only get a small fraction of the profits. You are selling the potential upside to the publisher. hOW TO PiCk ThE righT BOOk PUBliShiNg OPTiON · 319