 Which Path Is Best?
As an editor/proofreader, I am often asked which method of publishing is best - traditional or self-published. That's tough to answer as everyone is different in goals for their project, time, skills, and profit preference. I listen to many podcasts and resources including authors. Authors are seemingly 50:50 in their preference and recommendation. I'll share author resources I pay attention to and review responses I received to the question "traditional vs self-publishing" in Google's Gemini, an AI service. Defining Traditional vs Self-Publishing Let's begin at the beginning. According to Gemini: "Traditional publishing involves a publisher buying the rights to your manuscript, covering production costs, and handling distribution and marketing. Self-publishing is an author-driven process where you manage and finance every step of bringing your book to market, but keep a higher percentage of the royalties. The best path depends on your goals for control, speed, and financial return." Below is a very quick review of the differences according to Google Gemini. Choose Traditional If... Control You are comfortable with relinquishing creative and business control to a team of experts. Financials You want a risk-free path with a potential upfront advance, and are fine with a smaller share of royalties. Validation You desire the prestige, industry recognition, and wide physical distribution that comes with a traditional book deal. Timeline You are patient and can wait 18+ months for your book to be published. Business mindset You prefer to focus solely on writing and let professionals handle the business side. Choose Self-Publishing If... Control You want complete autonomy over every aspect of your book. Financials You are willing to invest your own money for higher royalties and long-term profit potential. Validation Your main goal is to get your work to readers sooner than later. Timeline You want to publish quickly and on your own schedule. Business Mindset You have an entrepreneurial spirit and are willing to learn about editing, marketing, and distribution. And Now for a More Expansive Comparison Jane Friedman is a fabulous resource in the publishing world. She has created charts to make it easier to digest this rather significant question as there are actually multiple types of publishing within both traditional and self-publishing. She offers them freely to all. I will attach a copy of the charts she posted January 2025 and a link for you to review her chart post and subscribe to her news. Fabulous Self-Publishing Resource Let me introduce you to my friend Gillian Whitney! She is a 5x author herself and is happy to assist you with getting published. She has a number of resources available on her podcasts, YouTube, and on LinkedIn. You'll see a number of other services available to help you make your publishing decisions. But What About Marketing? I regularly hear from authors that you really need to plan on your own marketing. Going the traditional publisher path does not guarantee the best or full scale marketing effort on your behalf. You are one of many of their clients. It's a given the marketing is all on you when self-publishing, but you really should plan on it no matter how you publish. This is a large topic on its own. Many marketing options have been shared in prior blog posts and will be reviewed on an ongoing basis - stick around for more fun! How About You? Have you done traditional publishing, self-publishing, or both? I'd love to hear how it went for you to be able to share your insight with others! Let's Chat or connect with me on LinkedIn!
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If you follow weekly for my blog posts, you'll note I missed last week. Well, I didn't exactly "miss" the week. I shifted gears to maximize time and got my first newsletter published! Newsletter Plan It took months to settle on a do-able plan to create a newsletter, but I think I've finally figured it out. Marketing one's own business while marketing for others is a bit of a time challenge. Add the challenge many entrepreneurs face of blending business with home life? There are only so many hours in the day. At this time, newsletters will provide snippets of info from the most recent 3 blog posts, news from my Purr-roofreader Assistant Lillie (yes, our kitty), and any last random bits that may connect us in business and life. Please Subscribe! I'd love to add you to my email subscriber list so we can keep in touch! This will help me be more responsive to you with your feedback, sharing your challenges, and what you could use assistance with. I'm a great listener. If I don't have the answer or ability to assist you directly, I can hook you up with resources including people who can. There is a pop-up to subscribe when you stop by this website. There are subscription forms on this blog page and on the Home page. You can always simply shoot me an email or find me on LinkedIn to let me know to add you. Thanks for Your Interest and Support! If you have ideas for blog posts, newsletter features, questions, or pain points we can tackle, I'd love to be of assistance! Let's Chat!  Are You Struggling to Move Forward?
Sometimes, we're our own worst enemy—standing in our own way! Maybe you're thinking of starting a business or book or blog or anything, but you're stuck in the "some day" or "thinking about it" stage. Maybe you started that thing but it's stalled and isn't really moving forward. The day-to-day is happening but the excitement and fire are gone. You've gotten bogged down in survival mode or simply doing all the steps—wash, rinse, repeat. How to Move On A recent podcast episode from Joe Pulizzi inspired today's post with some suggestions that may energize you. The suggestions noted here were listed in his podcast as excerpts from his new book, Burn the Playbook. It is definitely on my buy list after listening to the podcast. Purchasing from Joe directly gives you a ton of extra resources. As he notes in his podcast, there's no need to implement all of his mindset ideas at once—that's a perfect recipe for failure. Instead, pick one. Start there. 6 Mindset Shifts - Joe Pulizzi
From Drifting to Goal Driven Goals are anchors. Write them. Speak them. Track them. You'll get further than if you have none and float along. "If you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there" as the Cheshire Cat effectively told Alice in Wonderland. Joe suggests reviewing your BIG goal weekly, if not morning and night, to really ingrain it. Weigh every decision against that goal. Does your action serve to get closer to your goal?
Lean into Your Crazy Identify your "tilt" as Joe calls it. Find your unique set of skills, quirks, and passions. "I help (who) with (what) so they can benefit (how)." From Tilt to Mastery of Repetition "Repetition is branding, not redundancy" - Joe Pulizzi. We've all heard various numbers of how often you need to say something before someone actually hears it, anywhere from 7-20x! Create Before You Consume This is along the 60/60/1 goal idea. Even if you don't follow that philosophy, focus on your goal before you indulge in social media or surfing the news or random entertainment. Focus for your first hour on what you aim to achieve. Consider a time audit for a week to see where you have opportunities to be more focused, capturing those mindless surfing times or how frequently you're checking email. Get Better Friends This one cracks me up, but he has a point! You are who you surround yourself with. Be inspired by being with inspiring people who challenge you to do more or be better. Joe flips this and suggests your crew determines your ceiling - I like that. Build your core group of friends intentionally. Joe suggests a few types:
Sell Every Day! Somewhere along the line, we grew up thinking sales is icky. "Sales" is no more than sharing your opportunity with others! Why wouldn't just the right person want and need to work with you! If you're in business for yourself, you're obligated to share the news. Don't think of it as selling if you're getting hung up on that word. How Is Your Year Going? We're starting Q4 - fourth quarter of the year. No one says you need to start goals on January 1. You can start them any time—including now—or take this opportunity to update what you may have going. I'd love to hear how you're doing on your goals! I'd be thrilled to be someone you can run some ideas by if you're looking to bounce some ideas off of someone. Let's Chat or find me on LinkedIn!  How to Get Started with AI
Artificial Intelligence (AI) made a big leap forward into the general public consciousness November 2022. AI has made rapid progress in its usefulness and skills. Humans have made progress in how to best interact with the tool that is AI. How Many REALLY Use AI? ChatGPT, one of the largest generative AI models in use at this time, has posted 800 million weekly active users since April 2025. ChatGPT is 1 of roughly 5 big AI platforms as of this writing. Many using AI use multiple platforms for their work or more specialized AI platforms focusing on the mode of output desired (audio, visual, or even video) bringing the number of AI users to at least 1 billion and climbing. What Would I Use AI For? AI is now "multimodal" - it can think and output in multiple formats. We're going to focus on these as a reference point knowing AI is also embedded in many products we routinely use - Alexa from Amazon, online/digital shopping, "smart" home devices and appliances, phones, social media platforms, and more.
Where Do I Start? Prompting - or how you query the system - is how you begin. The technology has been around long enough at this point that some consistent suggestions have developed for how to maximize your results with AI. You can find a variety of ideas here, here, and here. My personally favorite resource is Paul Roetzer with SmarterX and Marketing AI Institute. I've completed some of their AI Academy courses and love their clear formula for prompting that becomes second nature with use. Talk to AI - Yes, Seriously This is simply the easiest and best way to think of how to prompt or query your AI - "talk" to it as if you're instructing a smart intern. "Talking" can be literally if your device does voice mode or by text typing your prompt. It's a bit more robust than what we're used to in Google searches. Bearing that in mind, it does help to have a few cues in mind to get the most out of your prompting to reduce your time shaping the response you're after or throwing up your hands in frustration declaring, "It doesn't work!"
Still Stumped? The crazy thing is AI has advanced enough that we can ask it how to better phrase a prompt for our desired result - seriously! You may be good at prompting with text for a text output, but image or video details are not your specialty to use the above formatting. You can simply ask your AI tool to give you an example of a prompt you could use for whatever vague information you do have. It may take a couple of tries to shape the information you're after, but it beats being stuck or floundering needlessly! Copy/paste the recommended prompt, place that into a new chat, and you're on your way to now shape what you're after. You've Got This! My clients are often older. Major tech changes can be very intimidating. I'm here to assist you! I'm learning the stuff so you don't have to.
Have you been playing with AI? What do you think? Are you getting the hang of it or is it feeling a tad overwhelming? Let's Chat or message me on LinkedIn! |
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