Publishing Confusion – Part One
YOUR TIME ISN’T FREE – EVERY MINUTE IS WORTH…?
There are lots of new writers out there each and every day. There is also a heck of a lot of confusion in writing groups. The same questions get asked constantly, people give inaccurate information to each other, few do their own research to find the information they need to publish a book. The main issue is paying for publishing.
Paying for Publishing – Confusion
What is the new writer really asking? What should your reply be if you’re trying to help them. We really need to look deeper than saying things like ‘don’t pay for publishing it’s Vanity Publishing and Publishing is FREE’ If you say publishing is FREE then you obviously don’t value the time it took you to write, to learn the processes of how to publish. Not everyone is good with computers, websites, marketing, graphic design, etc. And these aren’t even the start to building your Author Brand
There are steps to publishing a book and getting it accepted by a distribution website, the same as there is a process if you wish to try traditional publishing. It doesn’t matter which way you go, you will PAY for various things along the way. Now you want to know HOW or WHY, or WHAT THE HELL…
With Traditional Publishing you will pay for the work they do via royalty share for the life of the book. This is how they make their profit. If they don’t see a profit in your book, you won’t get a contract. Of course prior to that is the time it takes to find an Agent, write proposals, etc. It is all time consuming and your time shouldn’t be FREE.
With Independent Publishing you will pay one off FEES for various areas you don’t have the skill set to do yourself. If you are willing to lean, it makes it cheaper, though please remember your TIME is not FREE. Everyone should have an Editor even if it is your job in life. We all miss things in our manuscripts. The best part of Independent Publishing is you get to keep all your royalties and copyright. If you’re good at Marketing, you may earn a decent income.
AUTHOR BRAND – AND WHAT YOU NEED TO DO
Step One: Writing a first draft of your manuscript. WRONG. The first thing you need to do if you wish to earn a decent income as a writer is research your Author Brand. What is this? you ask. Well it’s developing you and showing everyone who you are and what you can do. A bit like a Resume. Once you’ve listed what you know about yourself you can REASERCH what you need to do to get there. What do you need to learn? What way do you wish to publish? How does Publishing work. Do you want to try Independent Publishing or Traditional Publishing. Both have different processes you will need to learn.
At this stage I’m looking into Independent Publishing. You’ll need to research the genre you write. Who’s in the top 100 on Amazon? What are their book covers like? Why are they a best seller? What is their book blurb like? How many novels have they written. How did they find their fans? What are their websites and social media sites like?
There’s so much to research before you even start to write and though you can learn from other writers and authors, you will find some things don’t work for you or are incorrect. RESEARCH is still the key to develop your Author Brand and any learning curve processes you will need.
Step Two: Social media and websites. To build your fan base you need to start chatting, sharing teasers, photos, information about you, your stories. It depends on which social media sites you use. This is where your learning curve begins. Guess what you need to do…Yep RESEARCH… This time you need to learn how to build a website and how to use social media to your advantage and which ones are best for you! How to make a newsletter and get readers to sign up. Once you decide what you need to learn and how to use them, the real work begins. For many, it’s not as easy as it seems, especially when social media keeps updating their technology, causing frustration due to having to learn something new…AGAIN.
Also remember you’re supporting yourself at this time. (unless you have another job). Think about how much you’d expect to earn each hour you research, each time you do something to move forward. How much an hour are you worth? This is the FREE part of publishing, though only if you consider your time is worthless
18 Responses
Reblogged this on Plaisted Publishing House and commented:
How to remove the confusion of publishing
Reblogged this on Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog.
Thank you, Chris 🙂 Much appreciated.
Thank YOU for the post, Claire ?
Look out for Part Two… 🙂
I will ?
Good post, you are right. So many authors are desperate to get noticed and published, they will give the farm away.
I do wish authors would research and understand the processes a bit more than they do. I’ve assisted three this year who’ve had bad experiences because they didn’t research and trusted to easily. I wish to spare them the waste of money and set them right.
You may like the Fiverr posts I wrote. I’ve noticed a lot of writers use them and though there are some excellent small businesses out there, you still have to be careful of the scammers.
Thank you for reblogging 🙂
Reblogged this on wordrefiner.
Thank you, Mark.
Perhaps I’ve misunderstood, but I can’t see the point of building an author brand before you’ve written anything. Most people become writers by writing. Once they have something they think is worth publishing, it would be worth their time to do research about that. People who want to make a living from writing do have to take a businesslike approach, but honestly, if making money is one’s first priority, writing may be the wrong choice.
It seems you’ve taken me a little bit to literally. It depends if a person is writing for themselves or writing to sell. If they are writing to sell then like any other business, they need a BRAND. This doesn’t stop a writer writing for fun, family…etc. These articles are for those writers who wish to become Authors which if you plan to make money, is a business. It’s for those who want to know why they aren’t making any money, it’s to encourage them to develop their skills and grow and learn what they need to be successful. It’s for those who think they are ready to publish and aren’t.
I’ve seen writers who have published without doing their research, many of these books aren’t readable. I’ve seen writers end up with Vanity Press because they haven’t done their research… the list goes on.
A lot of writers write to sell or quite bluntly there wouldn’t be any books or stories out there for us to read. Learning the skills to become published…if that is the way they wish to go, means they need the correct knowledge to get there, as with any other business.
I can’t argue with that; if one wants to get into the publishing business, it makes sense to learn about it first. Somehow I got the impression you were suggesting beginning writers (as opposed to authors, I note!) had to build a brand and research the publishing business before they began writing. I think many beginners would find that discouraging. But of course you were aiming your advice to those who hoped to be successful at publishing. Thanks for making that clear.
Welcome Audrey. When writing the article I didn’t think about those writing for the joy of writing. I’ve mentioned in the third post about what you said. It was a great catch on your behalf. Thank you 🙂
You’re welcome, Claire!
Reblogged this on Have We Had Help? and commented:
Confused about publishing? Read on…
Thank you for sharing Jack. Much appreciated 🙂
My pleasure…