Choosing the correct publisher for your work

Every author who wishes to put their dream into a reality will come upon the issue of finding a publisher who will be willing to publish their work. Whether the author wants to spend a large amount of money to do so or to use a Print On Demand (POD) publisher who most always will publish and print your work for very little or at no cost to the author, the choice can be difficult at times. Many first time authors do not have any idea how much a traditional publisher charges an author to publish their work and once the author has found out what the costs and procedures are to use this particular publisher then the disappointment becomes the reality. I was one of those authors. In the begiining I presented my work to a traditional publisher only to be shocked at what it would cost in the long run to get my book out there. I searched the many websites that offered hundreds of publishers willing to take on my work either for free or for a nominal fee. The nominal fee charged to the author to do their work is just that. Once the nominal fee is accepted and the publisher accepts your work then the additional fees begin to pile up. Before long a fee for a certain printing package of lets say $1200.00, turns into double that and at times even more than that. A first time author such as I was in the beginning then turns to the many POD publishers that are out there. Their promises of "absolutely no cost to the author at all" by these POD publishers is true to a point but then things start to turn towards the bad. After accepting the authors manuscript the publisher will offer additional services that were not told about to the author before signing a contract. It is up to the author whether or not to accept these services but most of the time they are pressured into using them. These services can range from $50 to $300 in most cases and sometimes even more. I was not one to be pressured into using their additional services and had my work published regardless. My first book turned out to be acceptable to me and to those who purchased it over the last two years. I continued to write two more books and presented them to the same publisher which was a major mistake on my part. For the sake of this scenario I will not go into any further details on an authors choice of using a POD publisher to publisher their work. I must say though that if an author is considering using a POD publisher they should do extensive research and check out this subject very carefully before making a decision. Regardless of my mistakes in choosing the correct publisher my work stands for itself. So much so that presenting it for review to The Military Writers Society Of America was one of the best things that I could have done in my writing career. Life Interrupted By War was awarded first running up and Disability Compensation The Veteran's Guide was awarded the Gold Medal award for 2011. I must thank all those who read and reviewed my two books in consideration for an award for 2011. I will be submitting two more books for the 2012 year with hopes of the same outcome. Thank you MSWA for understanding my need to put my work out to the military world. Thomas van Hees