A publisher is not coming to save you.
Publishers have never “saved” authors.
We have this cultural misconception of a wordsmith artist as an author—a person who has a way with words and images and research, writing something powerful, and the publishing company whisking away the manuscript and turning it into such a bestseller that the author never has to write another word and still lives in the lap of luxurious royalty payouts every month.
This never was.
And thank all that is good that it never was.
Ernest Hemmingway and Samuel L. Clemens spent their evenings and weekends writing letters to fans and holding signings, just like us modern authors do. And if you’ve ever met a modern bestselling author, you’ll know exactly how many hours they put into book signings, speaking engagements, tours, interviews, and answering emails.
Selling the book has always been a huge part of what it means to be a successful published author.
Writing has always required all of who we are.
Not only for the writing part, but for the EDITING and the publishing and the marketing, too.
To be an author is to be someone who so fully owns every word that you write that you are willing to put your entire livelihood on it.
If you’re willing to sell your soul to a publisher who sees you as 90% of a retail price, go for it. People forget that publishing is a business. The author write a book and sells the content to the publisher, who then partners with a printer, distributor, and retailer, and they split most of the money between themselves.
The author is left with $1 or $2 per book, for as long as their publisher, printer, and distributor are willing to continue selling their book.
But there’s been a shift. We, as authors, now have access to our own publishing platforms, printers, distributors, and retailers.
And this is exactly the conversation that I’m looking to have with you, if you’re interested.
If you want to hold on to your words, your message, your book, then let’s keep talking about what it takes to be a publishing success in the modern marketplace.
Because, to be honest, I’m not here to pander to folks who just want a publisher to swoop down and save them from real work.
I’m here to have a conversation with authors who BELIEVE in their own words and just want some freaking help getting their message out to the world.
What are some of the things I want to open up a conversation about? Well, for starters, I want to talk more about:
- What it looks like for an author to have all the support they need to put together an incredible book and then ALSO keep the creative vision, legal rights, and all the profits from book sales.
- I want to talk about what it looks like for an author to sell books directly to readers and build a list of their own customers. (WHAT? I know, impossible in the traditional publishing world but VERY possible now.)
- I want to talk about what it looks like for an author attract readers to the main message of their book and then offer the readers something even more in-depth and transformative on the back-end. What if someone read your book, fell in love with your message, and then want to work with you as a client or come to a workshop or join a community you’re building? The book is the magnet, the beacon, and the back-end is where all the magic happens.
- I want to talk about what it looks like for an author to, not be chasing what worked 10 years ago, but be in a strategic position to take advantage of what’s next. 10 years ago, you could become a bestseller if Barnes & Noble put your book on the front table of their stores. That doesn’t work anymore because the volume of people walking through Barnes & Noble is decreasing dramatically, while book purchases on Amazon.com continue to increase. And now Amazon is opening physical bookstores? As an author, I want to always be looking at how you can have strategic partnerships with potential places to sell your book, not just blindly chasing what used to work.
- I want to talk about digital marketing and podcasting and speaking on stages and all of the ways authors can get their books directly to their readers now, from all over the world, and with nothing but a phone in their hands.
- And, to be honest, I mostly want to talk about what’s new, what’s worth experimenting with, and what’s working for other authors now.
If this is you, stay tuned. I’ll be holding space for my thoughts and conversations about what it takes to be a publishing success in the modern marketplace.