Basically the title. In what ways do you share your writing? Do you look to self publish, go through professional organizations, or possibly publish online? I’ve never really shared much of my more serious or longer writing and would love to hear the ways people get their stories out there.
Caveat: Have done technical writing professionally, but haven’t yet had my fiction published. Aside from some ghost writing, I suppose.
Long-term, I’ve had my eyes on a hybrid of traditional and self-publishing, mostly from a purely business perspective. Self-publishing in order to keep the majority of my IP in my own hands, but also doing something in traditional publishing for the publicity boost. Assuming, of course, I write something they want.
I’ve always had my eyes on writing as a career, so I want to make moves that make sense from a business perspective, and it’s pretty risky to put all your eggs in one basket.
Like, say you launch a career solely publishing on Amazon. Well, next Friday Amazon could roll out some change that breaks everything you built, and li’l old you as a one-person business isn’t going to have pockets deep enough to get into any legal battles with them even IF they do something illegal. Best to spread out the risk between multiple platforms.
Same idea with doing a hybrid of self/traditional publishing…spread out career risk over multiple platforms.
One of the the old, well-known and long-lasting Sci-Fi and Fantasy imprints, DAW, was not too long ago sold to a publishing company based in China (Astra Publishing House).
That sort of stuff alarms me, because I know that companies in China, especially media companies, absolutely have to toe the governmental line.
So them buying an American imprint that publishes visionary, forward-thinking books (sci-fi and fantasy) by English-speaking authors looks predatory to me, given how censorship goes in China. Like…why did they want that? I don’t think it’s as simple as “money”.
So I want to make sure as I build my career I don’t have all my eggs in one place, be it with one traditional publishing imprint, or one distributor (such as Amazon), etc. If I have traditionally published books, I want to try to scatter them among imprints so if one goes under or is sold like DAW was, it won’t hurt my income stream. Similarly, if I have self-published works, I want them available on multiple platforms.
Diversity is good.
That’s awesome that you have put so much thought into it. I think you definitely make some fair points, especially when starting out. From everything I’ve read it seems smart to be careful when dealing with publishers. That hybrid approach seems like it will keep your options open and possibly be able to cultivate a bit more grassroots support should things fall through. It sounds like you also will be trying to do most of your dealings on your own instead of trying to find an agent?
The publicity boost from publishers also seems really helpful. On that note, have you already started/planned to start any of your own marketing? I’ve thought about possibly doing websites/blogs or putting work on forums and in contests to get some of my stuff out there, but haven’t pulled the trigger yet.