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In our local area, there are many new publishers that claims to publish our writeups. The time frame of submission review is less. Also, they are cheaper than the renowned publishers. Is it a good idea for a novice writer to submit the manuscript to such start-up publishing firms when they themselves might have less funds for promotions etc?

Edit: Coming from technical background where publishing research paper in genuine Journals (like IEEE etc) requires a fee; I was under impression that publishers in literary world demanding a fee would also be genuine. I didn't know publishers don't charge money! But since now I know, I understood that all claimed-publishers I encountered here were, well not real publishers.(Thanks to all who answered on Stack Exchange - I saved my money and my idea/story to be sold as is this way)

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    In the case of traditional paper publishing, can they achieve a good geographical reach?
    – NofP
    Commented Sep 24, 2019 at 10:03
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    What do you mean by "they are cheaper than the renowned publishers"? Do you mean they spend less on their staff, offices, marketing? Or do you mean it costs you less money to use them? A real publisher doesn't cost the author a penny.
    – Cyn
    Commented Sep 24, 2019 at 14:14
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    Yes, I edited the question. Thank you
    – Karan Desai
    Commented Sep 25, 2019 at 5:40

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It depends what your goal is. If you want to build a readership and make money from your writing, then paying anyone to publish you is not a good idea. If a so-called publisher makes money by charging writers a fee, then their business model is based on collecting as many fees from as many writers as possible, not selling as many copies of a few books as possible, which is the only way you will make any money.

If you are convinced of your ability to market a ton of books yourself (and there are some people who do this successfully) then you will need a publishing services company to take care of some of the mechanical bits, and you would probably be well advised to go with an established reputable one. It will doubtless cost you more to start with but if you are confident in your business plan you will make enough money on sales to cover their costs and you will have fewer headaches to deal with.

Otherwise, the only way to reach a lot of readers and make money from writing is to keep improving your work until you are able to land a legitimate publisher who is willing to pay you and advance for the privilege of publishing your book.

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  • Thank you. Noted, I shall work hard and keep improving until I find a real and genuine publisher. The search of one becomes more confusing and scammy when the writing happens to be in a regional language and target readers are regional. Here we do have many publishers on English, but hard to find a genuine publisher who publishes in regional language. But I shall research more. Thanks.
    – Karan Desai
    Commented Sep 25, 2019 at 5:43

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