How Do I Get a Physical Copy of My Book without Publishing It?

How do I get a physical copy of my book without publishing it?

Most of the time, these sorts of publishing houses are known as vanity publishers. An excellent rule to follow is to never, ever, ever, ever, EVER pay your publisher to publish your book. T don’t need to make their profit off of you, the writer; t’re taking a chance on you because t think that your work will make THEM some money, and hopefully you along the way as well. Not all publishers offer advances on royalties, so you might not get anything up front, but many do. If, instead, t ask for you to pay them for editing, cover design, marketing, or whatever, throw on the brakes, kick it in reverse, and drive away as fast as legally possible. Those services are things t are supposed to have access to, likely in house, that get paid either salary or contractually by the publisher, NOT the author. I am, personally, self published, but when I licensed my audio book rights to Podium Publishing, I did not receive an up front advance, but what I did get as a contract letting me know what to expect in terms of royalties from sales. This is a perfectly acceptable way to do business; if your work sells, then everyone makes money. T did not ask me to hire the narrator, pay the cover designer, put it through their editing or proofreading to look for any errors, or any of that. T took care of all of that in house. My job was to write the book. Theirs was to produce and distribute it. In short, NEVER pay someone else to publish your work, EVER. There are many free methods you can use to publish that won’t cost you a dime. If you want a publisher or a professionally designed cover, well, then that’s on you, but at least you own your work and you’re not putting down a large chunk of cash just to pay for the privilege of splitting your profits with someone else.