TIME TO PUBLISH 12-36 months. ADVANTAGES 1. Monetary advance before publishing 2. Highest potential for traditional media coverage 3. Social signaling 4. Highest chance of bookstore placement DRAWBACKS 1. Very hard to get a deal (less than 1 percent of proposals are accepted) 2. Huge time investment 3. Loss of ownership 4. Loss of marketing control 5. Loss of creative and content control 6. Limited financial upside TRADITIONAL PUBLISHING PROBLEM #1: CAN YOU EVEN GET A TRADITIONAL PUBLISHING DEAL? When considering traditional publishing, the first and MOST important question you need to ask yourself is: can you even get a publishing deal from a traditional publisher? Most authors cannot, so there’s no reason to waste time trying. To get a publishing deal from a traditional publisher, you must go through these steps: 1. Find a book agent willing to represent you and your book idea to a publisher (this is very hard, as most agents get thousands of inbound requests a week). 2. Write a book proposal (this is such a big task, authors often pay freelance writers $10k-$15k or more to do this for them). hOW TO PiCk ThE righT BOOk PUBliShiNg OPTiON · 317