When I started my own publishing company, I had the chance to sit down with the owner of the largest science fiction publisher in Canada. We talked about a lot of the arcane details of publishing but most of our discussion was on how to drive sales. His strongest bit of advice was this: “You know what the best way is to sell your books? Have them on bookstore shelves.”

Many authors feel that the only “real” way to publish is to go through the well-established method of querying an agent, having your agent pitch to publishing houses, and then signing a deal where the author pays nothing and gets an advance from the publisher. This is called “traditional” publishing – or trade publishing for short. In this article I’d like to give some idea of what this industry really looks like from the inside.

One of the biggest challenges an author faces in today’s publishing landscape is just trying to understand what’s what. So what actually is what? This article is going to attempt to offer some clarity.