You just finished the first draft of your book, you let your friends read it and you feel like it has potential, but what now? The process of having your book published in Canada is not always a straightforward one, so we thought you might benefit from an article like that.
We are going to discuss the overall book publishing business in Canada, as well as various publishing methods. We hope that we can give you advice that could eventually lead to your works being published in the North American country.
The Book Publishing Business in Canada
Whatever interest you have, you should first explore the market to see if there is demand for the product or service you wish to supply, which is why we will now explore how the book publishing business is doing in Canada.
The good news is that the Canadian publishing industry seems to be doing well because it’s steadily growing. There is ongoing research gathering data from book publishers right now, so we cannot give you the current figures, but we will provide you with the latest information we have, coming from a 2022 study, conducted by the Canadian government.
The data shows a renewal of interest in buying printed books. Total sales in Canada have increased to $998.3 million, with printed books, sold in brick-and-mortar locations, recording $694.4 million in sales (10.5% increase from the previous year). Overall, the data shows an increase of $11.9 million in sales in comparison to 2018 figures.
Canadian authors have also seen a renewed interest in their books, achieving a 10.5% annual increase in book sales. Not only that, but their books proved to be more popular than those written by foreign authors; the former recorded $707.6 million in sales, while the latter – $633 million.
This is great news for up-and-coming Canadian authors who want to publish their first works. It looks like there is demand, and the market is generally doing well.
Types of Publishing
Once you know a thing or two about the industry, it’s time to think about how you want to publish your book. These days, you don’t have to rely on big publishing houses to share your work with the world, though they are still a very good option if you can attract their attention.
Here are three types of publishing:
- Traditional publishing
- Self-publishing
- Publishing service providers
The state of traditional publishing has remained pretty much the same. You need a literary agent to represent you and they would send your manuscripts to Canadian publishers. If accepted, the publishing studio would help you edit and illustrate your book and arrange for promotional events.
There are, however, some disadvantages. For one, publishers print a limited number of books each year and the process can take years. Additionally, famous publishers are very picky, and might also request numerous changes of your book. Lastly, they can remain in possession of your publishing rights for years even if they don’t do anything with the book.
If you want to remain independent and don’t like external involvement in your work, you can instead try to self-publish. It’s much easier to do it nowadays, especially if you don’t mind releasing your works exclusively online as e-books. By choosing self-publishing, you’re going to retain your full publishing rights, and naturally, all the profit.
On the other hand, self-publishing comes at a high cost, literally and metaphorically. You will have to pay an editor (we don’t recommend editing your own books), then pay for printing and/or online distribution of your work, and brunt the cost of travelling and accommodation during your promotional tour.
You will have to figure out everything on your own, unless you can afford to employ assistants and agents, and there’s a lot to figure out.
For example, how many copies do you want to have printed? Where are you going to store them? How are you going to optimise the metadata of your book to make it easily searchable online? How are you going to promote your book? Online, in-person, both? Who is going to distribute your book?
You have to think about all these things before you go ahead and invest your life savings in a book which, no matter how good you might think it is, might not be marketable.
The other type of publishing you can try is publishing service providers. There are many such companies in Canada and they promote themselves as the alternative to traditional publishing, but what do they do?
These businesses may specialise in one publishing sphere such as book design, or offer many different services from editing to formatting and conversion (print to e-book). If you feel confident about doing tasks like promotional activity and you only want some help with editing and formatting, you can pick a provider offering these services.
In case you only want to submit a manuscript, you can choose a publishing service provider that would guide you throughout the whole process. If you pick that, you might have to pay upfront which would require some funds, but you’d generally pay less than if you were to self-publish and still retain your publishing rights.
Final Thoughts
The book publishing business in Canada is experiencing a boom, but getting your work released is no easy task. You have to carefully think about the publishing process and eventual distribution and promotional events.
Traditional publishing is still going strong, but there might be more accessible publishing options like choosing a publishing service provider.
