Unfortunately, there are many different kinds of publishers and finding a good one is getting harder all the time. There is a board called AbsoluteWrite.com. They have many answers to your questions and most of their information is valid. Another good board is PreditorsandEditors.com. They list many publishers and have alerts for some bad ones. Also, you can pick up a copy of The Writer's Market.

Best of luck, jeff

This is a pretty big question. Well, the answer can be pretty big. Here's a synopsis.

1. Traditional publishing. You're an author, you pitch a book, and they publish it. You get a cut (a royalty) of the sale of each book. You may get an advance against royalties - meaning that you get some money up front and then royalties against your first sales are deducted against that advance. Most traditional publishers are deluged with ms ('manuscripts') from hopeful writers and won't look at them unless they're submitted by an agent. And finding an agent is a whole 'nuther topic.

2. Self-publishing. You're the player, the coach, the general manager. You write, arrange for editing, arrange for layout, arrange for cover art, arrange for printing, do the marketing, set up your website, do the logistics of shipping books to distributors, and so on. You also keep all the money from the sale of each book. After you pay your expenses. :)

3. Vanity presses. You submit your ms and some money and they will handle all the work like a traditional publisher. This area is where most of the scams occur - basically, you're paying to have 100 copies of your book printed. They may make all sorts of promises of having it in every bookstore in the country; they can't make that promise. If you have to pay up front, watch out.

4. POD - print on demand. This is not a publisher; rather, it's a production mechanism, but lots of folks confuse POD with either self-publishing or vanity presses. All sorts of publishers, from vanity to traditional, use POD for various reasons. Amazon owns a couple POD houses themselves.

Obviously, there's more.... but I've run out of room!

Very thorough and informative. Thank you so much!

For my first book, I have used CreateSpace, a subsidiary of Amazon. The book will be for sale on Amazon and Ebooks and the royalties are OK, you must however, do a lot of the promoting yourself, hence, you join groups like this one and pitch your book, hoping that others will start the word of mouth system.

If you want to see what I did so far in a very elementary way, check my website: http://www.pimckenzie.com

I hope it is of help.

Cheers

By now you should have more questions.... please ask away. There are likely many folks lurking who are curious as well. The publishing field is so big that it's difficult to keep offering info without a direction...