I am not opposed to any of these methods. They might work. They might be great. I've heard anecdotal evidence supporting each one of these routes to a writing career.
But what I am a bit agitated about is the attitude I'm seeing about this kind of publishing. We're vilifying the traditional publishing industry and trying to pretend like we have found out how to turn lead into gold. Some things may need to change in the publishing industry. Your route to being published may be different than those of a writer 30, 20, or even 10 years ago.
But don't eat the crap with the cupcake.
There is no EASY way to publishing.
The traditional publishing market rose up by a bunch of people working hard to make money in publishing. Can you trust them? I don't know. Are they just up there trying to steal all of your money and make an easy profit from your work? Maybe.
But they've been around a while and some of the things they're doing is because they gets results. Lets take a look at what does work.**
- Starting with a good book - No amount of hype will cover up for a terrible book. If people don't like it now, they won't like it just because it's in a pretty dust jacket. Trad-publishers don't always get it right, but the best thing you can do to get lots of people to read and buy your book is to write something they will enjoy.
- Editing - Get your book edited professionally.
- Lots of books - Look at all your favorite authors. If they make a living from their works they have a lot of them. In Sci-fi/Fantasy you won't likely make a living off of one book, and you won't have a big following until you've got a few books out. You can make money off the first book, but if you want to make a living you've got to keep writing. J.K. Rowling was popular, but did you hear about her after book 1? Book 2? Book 3? How many books until you break out?
- Advertising - No matter who you are you've got to let people know about your book. Even if you want to be successful on Kickstarter or Amazon you'll need to tell people about your book. Marketing is important.
- It takes time - You might get picked up by 10 billion people the day after you upload your text to Amazon. But be realistic. How many books do you buy a day? How many books do you read a day? If you give a copy of your manuscript to your best friend and it takes him three months to get through it, it might take that long for other people to read it too. It will take time to get your book around. Advertising will help, but it will still take time. Don't be afraid of it, just be ready for it.
- It takes money - No matter what you think about Traditional Publishing, they've been the ones to front the cash for many years. It takes money to advertise, edit, design a cover, get the layout done, market, and more. There are many ways to get this done with less money now, but don't dream. It will take some money to publish a book. If you can use someone else's money that's better, but then you'll need to find someone to give you that money (here's where kickstarter and the sort come in).
I'm not talking bad about any route to successful publishing. I have my preferences, but if you found a different route that you prefer then take it. But don't imagine it will be easy. Learn from the old ways, and take what the did learn. Put in the work, get lucky where you can, have fun, live the dream, and don't give up. Be in it for the long haul. Get rich quick schemes are bad news. Keep your eye on the prize, and put in the work. I'll see you on the other side.
**I'm talking about Sci-fi/Fantasy. If you are a motivational speaker, if you are writing poetry, children's books, or if you're writing non-fiction it still takes work, but you may have other routes open to you. Research what has worked in the past and then decide how to put that to work for you.
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