A Deep Dive into Publishing Models: What Traditional, Hybrid, and Self Really Cost Authors
Isaac Rudansky
Founder @ AdVenture Media & AdVenture Academy | Paid media architect & author | Unapologetic advocate of idiotic optimism | Where bold storytelling and strategic advertising collide
Here we are, Volume 2 of the Scatterplot Chronicles. Thank ya for sticking with me.
Let’s get into things, shall we?
We left off last time discussing how this book is very unlikely to make any money. Let’s dig deeper into the precarious economics of book publishing.
But first, you’re probably wondering if my Amazon Sponsored ads campaign has gotten any better.
It hasn’t. Here’s data from the past 7 days.
The blue bars represent impressions.
CTR is averaging 0.1%.
That means I’m receiving, on average, 1 click for every 1,000 impressions.
Let’s use some back-of-napkin math to get an understanding of how drastically we’re undershooting our targets.
Let’s assume a conversion rate of 0.5%. In other words, assume I’ll receive one order from every 200 clicks. In the last campaign I ran for an author of middle-grade fiction, my conversion rate was 10%, but we can’t assume I’ll be anywhere close to that figure, at least for now.
Here’s what’s working against me:
So, let’s say we’d receive one pre-order for every 200 clicks. What would it take to sell 100 copies in a day?
With our current average of 6,600 impressions, we’re underpacing our target by 99.7%.
Is all hope lost?
No. For two reasons:
I’m not only relying on this Amazon Sponsored Ads campaign. There are other campaigns in development, including:
BUT, I’m still relying on Amazon to drive a good volume (8-10K) of units sold. I believe these campaigns will start delivering the necessary volume as we get closer to the publication date. As I said last week, Amazon makes money when an ad gets clicked and when an item is purchased. Therefore, they are incentivized to prioritize ads that they predict will have the highest likelihood of a click and a purchase.
A book three months out from its publication date simply does not tick either of those boxes.
I’m going to keep these campaigns live, even though it looks like a fruitless waste of $40/day. The data I’m generating is valuable. I’m able to see which search terms have the highest volume, CTR, and lowest average cost. I’m discovering ancillary categories (like children’s puzzles) that may be worth targeting more aggressively as we get closer to February 4th.
So, we’ll see what happens. Until then, we wait.
But we’re veering off track. We need to establish the economics of book publishing. It’s kind of interesting (if you’re the kind of person who finds literally the most boring things in the world interesting), and it’ll help you put all of this marketing and costs into perspective.
Let’s outline the three primary ways one can publish a book:
Traditional Publishing: The Big, Slow, Glittering Machine
Landing an Agent
In traditional publishing, everything starts with landing an agent. An agent’s job is to represent your work, pitch it to editors at publishing houses, and haggle over deals you’d otherwise fumble. Think of them as the first “gate” between your manuscript and the world. But landing one? Let’s just say if you think winning the lottery is hard, try getting an agent. Agents field 8,000–10,000 query letters every year, with some signing two, maybe three clients. Do the math. If that’s not intimidating enough, these agents are picky as hell because their income depends on selling your book to a publisher—and they don’t even make money unless you do.
Pro tip: If someone calling themselves an agent asks you for any amount of money upfront, run. They are not a legitimate agent. Agents work for free and take 15% of your eventual earnings.
Landing an agent begins with the query letter—a single-page pitch that can make or break your shot at representation. This one-page letter isn’t just a summary of your book; it’s a first impression, a taste of your voice, and a sales pitch wrapped up in about 300 words. Think of it as your elevator pitch—except you’re not riding an elevator; you’re waiting in a line of thousands, hoping an agent’s eyes will fall on your words and spark a flicker of interest.
To start, finding the right agents means research. Lots of it. You’re not just looking for anyone with "literary agent" in their LinkedIn bio; you want an agent who actually represents your genre, is building a list that suits your work, and has the track record to get your book in front of publishers. Agent directories like QueryTracker or Publisher's Marketplace can help here, but there’s no way around spending hours combing through profiles and recent sales to understand who might vibe with your story. And here’s the kicker—every agent has their own submission rules, often on their website, and they expect you to follow them precisely.
Some agents want a formal cover letter; others want you to start with a one-sentence hook that could practically double as a movie trailer. Some want the first five pages of your manuscript; others might ask for the first fifty.
Ignore these requirements at your peril—failure to follow these guidelines can be the quickest way to a swift “no.”
I spent a long time querying agents. It was an awful period in this journey I’d just as soon forget. I did eventually land an agent (an award-winning agent from the UK), but that’s a story for next week.
I neurotically tracked all my submissions in an AirTable:
Landing an agent begins with the query letter—a single-page pitch that can make or break your shot at representation. Out of the 150 agents I queried, I received 4 “requests for full”. A request for full is not an offer of representation; it’s just an agent responding that they liked your query letter, liked your first chapter, and want to take a look at the full manuscript.
I spent countless hours writing and polishing my query letter. Here is one of the final versions of my query letter:
Dear [agent first name],
My name is Isaac Rudansky, and I've been writing advertising campaigns for some of the world's largest brands for the last twelve years. I’m seeking representation for my MG adventure/fantasy, GEORGIE SUMMERS AND THE SCRIBES OF SCATTERPLOT (complete and polished at ~75,000 words).
After Flint Eldritch kidnaps his father, ten-year-old Georgie Summers travels to Scatterplot, a realm where trained Scribes record and protect our memories. But Eldritch is out to destroy Scatterplot’s library, and Georgie’s adventure to rescue his dad quickly turns into a dangerous mission to save the world from a deadly plague of lies and misinformation.
There’s fun in Scatterplot, too! The Altecockers (who were cast out of Scatterplot for altering the Great Books), Pocket Horsemen, Writer's Blocks, The mysterious Librarian ... and a joyous coronation ceremony for newly-inducted Scribes.
It’s Amari and the Night Brothers meets Skandar and the Unicorn Thief, and while my novel addresses memory and the abuse of power—it’s also about friendship and its ability to lift children from loneliness and despair.
I've always written. I got suspended in seventh grade for turning in a short story instead of a Social Studies report (I thought it was pretty funny, but my teacher thought it was pretty twisted), but I never stopped writing. I may have been sidetracked over the last ten years with a career in advertising, but it was a way to pay the bills.
The author workshops and networking events I've attended stressed the importance of the "author platform." I wanted to mention that I have 230,000 students enrolled in my four online courses, 31,000 Twitter followers, and a private Facebook group with 56,000 active participants.
While I've submitted to a handful of agents, I'd be humbled to give you exclusivity for as long as you need to review the balance of the manuscript.
[agent first name], I'd be so appreciative if you'd be willing to give this your consideration. By now, you may be thinking that I write too much, but that's not true. I can stop in the middle of
Not the best query letter, but it ticks the right boxes.
Funny story: There was an agent I really liked and wanted to query. I went to her website and saw she was only looking for “Obese heroes.”
Seriously, wut?
My book doesn’t have any obese heroes, say sorry.
Back to the traditional publishing gauntlet.
Don’t get too excited if you’re lucky enough to have landed an agent. Most books agents represent do not get sold to a publisher.
If your agent does manage to get a publisher interested, it’s probably one of the “Big 5” (Penguin Random House, Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, and Simon & Schuster) or one of their numerous “imprints” (basically brand names under their umbrella).
Traditional Publishing—Getting Paid
Now, what about payment? If you’re lucky enough to score a deal, you’ll get an “advance.” An advance is a chunk of cash paid upfront—usually a small chunk for most debut authors. Advances are usually paid out in three stages. There’s the signing payment, a payment when you deliver the manuscript, and another after publication.
Here’s how the royalty deal works: once your book sales surpass the amount of the advance, you get royalties. Standard is around 15% of the net earnings (the amount the publisher makes after selling to retailers, which is typically 50% of the list price).
So, let’s break down the numbers with an example. Suppose your book is a hardcover with a list price of $19. Retailers like Amazon or Barnes & Noble buy it for about $9.50. Your 15% royalty on $9.50 is about $1.40 per book, and 15% of that goes to your agent. You’re left with about $1.19. That $20,000 advance? You’ll need to sell nearly 17,000 copies before you make a cent beyond the advance. And, statistically, most books don’t even hit that many sales.
\We’ll circle back to these economics in a moment.
Once an acquiring editor at a publishing house buys your book, you’re in for another year or two before you’ll see your book on a shelf. The book has to go through rounds of editing, cover design, and marketing strategy (if we’re being generous with the word “strategy”).
You’ll likely have little say over cover art, editorial changes, or even the release schedule. While this sounds harsh, the industry tends to operate on the belief that publishing professionals know the market better than you do. And if you’re a debut author, you’ll likely feel this power imbalance intensely.
Many publishing contracts ask for more than hardcover rights in North America. They may ask for potential future adaptations—film, foreign, paperback, and/or audiobook. The publisher often wants it all. Yes, you might negotiate these terms, but it’s the publisher’s playground, and they don’t play to lose.
Here’s where things get messy: publishers expect you, the author, to do the heavy lifting on marketing your book.
They want an author platform—a pre-built audience ready to click “buy,” and not just a few hundred followers but thousands. You’d think, “Hey, if publishers are reaping 80-85% of the sale price, they’d put in the dollars to move copies.” But no. Once upon a time, publishers organized book tours, signed you up for press features, and threw money at subway ads. These days? They’re tossing nickels your way, maybe covering a few digital ads, but don’t expect to see your book plastered on the side of a bus unless your name rhymes with “Brené Brown” or you’ve got a TikTok following that could fill Yankee Stadium.
The brutal irony? Publishers have a much higher margin than you, so they could afford to spend more on advertising, yet they still expect you to foot the marketing bill, all while taking a hefty cut of the book’s revenue. And here’s where the economics really hurt. Take that $1.19 you pocket per book sold. That’s what’s left after everyone else takes their piece: Amazon, the publisher, your agent. In any paid ad campaign, a $1.19 customer acquisition cost is a fantasy. With Amazon ads, for instance, you’re lucky if a well-optimized campaign brings in a customer at a $5 cost per acquisition (CPA). But let’s get real: at a $5 CPA, you’re losing close to $4 on every single book. And a $5 CPA would be considered incredibly successful to anyone who knows digital marketing.
So here’s the Catch-22 of traditional publishing: debut authors are expected to market their own books but don’t earn enough per copy to justify the costs of reaching new readers.
The publisher controls your price, your royalties, and the unit print run, but they won’t open the purse strings for serious promotion. Instead, they put the burden on authors who are already scraping by with razor-thin margins, effectively setting them up to fail. In the end, debut authors aren’t just struggling to sell their books—they’re struggling to break even. And this uphill battle isn’t just a challenge; it’s become a built-in risk of the traditional publishing path.
So, that’s traditional publishing: a year (or two) in limbo, an advance that may or may not translate to actual income, creative restrictions, and the privilege of doing all your own marketing with no reasonable path to profitability.
Self Publishing:
In the evolving publishing landscape, self-publishing platforms like Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) and Print-on-Demand (POD) services have emerged as viable alternatives to traditional publishing. These platforms empower authors to retain creative control and a larger share of royalties, but they come with their own set of challenges.
Advantages:
Challenges:
The rise of self-publishing has been both an opportunity and a challenge for the traditional publishing industry. According to a report by NetSuite, more than 2.3 million books with ISBN numbers were self-published in 2021, highlighting the significant shift towards self-publishing.
Personally, I never wanted to self-publish my book. Part of this undertaking was to prove to myself—and to others—that I could write a book worthy of being published by a traditional house.
That’s why I spent a year and a half querying agents. Even after landing an agent, it took me a long time to realize that traditional publishing simply wasn’t going to work.
Eventually, after much discussion with my agent, we began exploring the newest category of publishing: hybrid publishing.
Hybrid Publishing
Hybrid publishing—often called the middle path between self-publishing and traditional publishing—has some unique advantages. This route combines the flexibility and higher royalties of self-publishing with some of the perks you’d expect from traditional publishing.
Unlike self-publishing, where the print quality can vary wildly, hybrid publishers use top-tier production partners—the same ones the Big 5 publishers use—to ensure your book looks just as slick as the latest bestseller. Hybrid presses handle the printing, often coordinating with major distributors, so your book can actually hit shelves at places like Barnes & Noble and airports.
Plus, hybrid books can appear in national chains like Target or Wal-Mart. This level of distribution and visibility is simply out of reach for most self-published books.
Another critical difference: in hybrid publishing, the author foots part of the production and marketing costs upfront, which keeps things more balanced. You’re not just an author; you’re a stakeholder, which means you retain a bigger cut of the revenue pie.
While traditional authors are left with pennies per book after all the royalties are carved up, hybrid authors often receive a significantly higher percentage of profits on each sale.
With traditional publishers cutting budgets and taking fewer risks on new authors, hybrid publishing has carved out a niche by offering authors a way to get their books professionally produced and widely distributed while still retaining significant creative and financial stakes in the process. As publishing analyst Jane Friedman points out, the traditional model isn’t the only game in town anymore, and the hybrid approach is gaining momentum, particularly for authors looking to reach readers in ways that align with their own brand.
Alright, now you have a basic understanding of the key avenues to publishing a book.
Let’s get back to the economics part.
I landed at a high-end hybrid press with distribution through Simon & Schuster. Yes, my book will be at airport bookstores, available to purchase at any retail outlet, and so on.
But let’s discuss the brass tacks, and then I’ll shut up (until next time).
I listed my hardcover at $16.99. I negotiated a 35% royalty on the list price. So, regardless of what Amazon or B&N buys the book for, I’ll earn $6 per copy sold.
We decided to print 25,000 hardcover copies at a unit cost of ~$2.75.
But there are other fees associated with getting this project off the ground through a hybrid press:
That’s about another $15,000 in upfront fees paid to the hybrid press, leaving us with $66,000 in available total profit, if every book sells, before a single dollar is spent on marketing.
Let’s say we achieve an impressive $6 CPA from marketing, influencers, and advertising.
If we only spend the $66,000 in available net profit (and break even), I’d only move 11,000 copies of the book.
So, I’m likely to spend more than $66,000, pushing myself into the red.
So there you have it: even with a hybrid press and higher royalties, the economics are very hard to make work—if the goal is linear profitability on this first book.
So what the hell am I doing?
The short answer is, that I’m doing what storytellers do best: I’m taking the risk because, for me, it’s not about the linear profitability on this book; it’s about creating something that may ripple outwards in unexpected ways.
Robert McKee has a line that gets to the heart of this: "Story is about eternal, universal forms, not formulas." Formulas are for accountants; forms are for dreamers, people who feel compelled to put their neck on the line for something they’ve stretched themselves to the limit to achieve—and risk total, abject failure (economic, emotional, and otherwise).
McKee tells us that a story well told "triggers a global and perpetual chain reaction of pleasure."
Maybe that’s the real payoff. There’s something spiritual about making art, about pouring yourself into pages and hoping those pages will eventually mean something to someone else.
Creative expression isn’t a transaction. It’s a rare, vulnerable act, a way of reaching out, a bridge across the void.
For me, that’s the return on investment: a shot at making something that stands outside the balance sheets and boardrooms. It’s something with soul.
Now, that’s not to say I’m ignoring the business side completely. I may be following this vision with my head in the clouds, but my feet still need to be grounded. So, if this book hits 25,000 copies sold, here’s the reality: I’m no longer a “debut author.” I’m an author with a proven track record who has moved 25,000 units. Traditional publishers—who often shy away from unknowns—will see those numbers, and it changes the game. Suddenly, they’re not talking to a novice but to someone who has already proven the demand is there and who has built a readership. At that point, they’re more likely to consider a rights package for the rest of the series, paperbacks, and potentially even film rights.
While I may not consider this project a traditional business investment, I understand its long-term financial potential if this launch goes well. I’m willing to invest now—not because I think it’ll turn a quick profit but because I believe in what this book could mean.
In the end, this journey isn’t about breaking even. It’s about proving the worth of a story and finding out just how far one tale can travel.
See you next week, friend.
Advisor, Speaker, Consultant, Good Friend, AI Strategist
4wIsaac, this is a true masterclass, pulling back the curtain on the publishing industry! this is blend razor-sharp business insight combined with heartfelt storytelling -- a rare and powerful combination of both. so thank you! This very post got me (and surely many others) to a) know about you and b) be thankful to you. in one post that gave both value and told me (a starter of) who you are! well done!
VP of Merchandising at Adorama - Sporting Goods
1moGreat breakdown. I'm looking forward to the next installment.
📊 Digital Marketing | Advertising | Social Media Strategist
1moLove the math broken out like this. The sad reality of publishing today, but hybrid is an amazing option and is helping create more balance in the industry. Also, the obese heroes story… hilarious.
CTO at Link Homecare
1moGreat read! "The Altecockers" 🤣🤣🤣 you're hilarious!!
CEO at Pathway Funding
1moRebecca Serle were you able to take a look?