Publish a Book: Five Options

1. A commercial publisher buys the right to publish a manuscript generally together with other rights. Many commercial publishers pay the author an advance on royalties. Commercial publishers are highly selective. They only publishing a small percentage of manuscripts that are presented. A commercial publisher handles each phase of the process from editing to, distribution, promotion. There are no costs to the author. When you are a new writer and wish to start a serious career in writing, this is your best option to start with. However it is a long and slow process. You can find publisher in the Writers and Artist’s Year Book.
2. A vanity publisher prints and binds a book at the author’s expense. All costs are for the author. Vanity publishing is generally a lot more expensive than self-publishing. All rights and completed books are the property of the author, and the author earns all proceeds from the sales. Vanity publishers do not screen for quality.
3. A subsidy publisher is a hybrid between a commercial and vanity publisher. Usually they ask the author to share in the expenses to produce the book such as  printing and binding. Most of them contribute a part of the cost and/or offer services such as editing, distribution, and promotion. Theoretically, subsidy publishers are selective. A subsidy publisher claims at least some rights, though the claim may be limited and non-exclusive. The completed books remain the property of the publisher, which also owns the ISBN until sold. The author earns a royalty.
4. Self-publishing with this option the author has to support the full cost of the project himself, printing, editing, cover, promotion, distribution, storage, etc. Self publishing can be a lot of work, but the author has control over the whole process and it can be more cost effective than vanity publishing; it can also result in a higher-quality product. All rights, the ISBN, and completed books are owned by the author, who keeps all proceeds from sales. This is generally the best option for people who want to publish a book for a restricted public.
5. Print on Demand ( POD) is the newest form of publishing and it is taking the writers world by storm since the last few years. However this form of publishing seems to get more and more popular, it is not always paying off.  Sales of the books are usually quite low as they are mainly sold on the website of the publisher. Even if the author vigorously promotes his book via other websites, press releases and or other ways, the sales remain a lot lower than any of the other options named above. This has partly to do with the ISBN number. Some POD publishers like Lulu fool their costumers in believing that they have control over the whole process; however Lulu had many complaints from not paying royalties to authors to damaging of goods and squeezing the manuscript onto the same quantity of pages in the finished product, no matter how small the size of the book. Lulu also doesn’t  allow their customers to return books.  If you’re looking to complain there is nowhere to go.  If you can run a mile from them. Nevertheless if you must use a print on demand publisher, order one or two copies first to proof read before you continue to proceed further with them.

Beware what you get yourself into.