Today's blog post is on publishing...

[seawasp]

... specifically, the False Dichotomies of Publishing between the self and traditionally published paths!

Comments

[kjn]

Heh. One of the things we're looking at for programming in Worldcon 75 is the experiences of publishing in small markets, say max the size of Sweden (~10 million). A lot of the dynamics between self- and traditional publishing are different there. And then you get to places like Estonia (1.5 million) or Iceland (300,000).

[seawasp]

True dat. Though markets are expanding worldwide as well; a self-publisher in Sweden may be selling to someone in Pakistan or Japan, which 40 years ago would've been ridiculous.

[kjn]

Yeah, but the amount of Swedish speakers world-wide is likely to only add 10% to the population in Sweden (and about half of those would be in Finland). The same is true for most other small languages.

Publishing directly in English is another thing, and there are a few such examples among Swedish authors (Sam J Lundwall translated a few of his books to English himself and Karin Tidbeck writes some of her stories directly in English), but the English-speaking markets can be hard enough to get into for the native speakers.

(We do have plans on discussing writing in your secondary language(s) too. Will have to check if Karin Tidbeck will go.)

[xander-opal.livejournal.com]

The most successful self-published author I know of does all right, due to luck and effort on his own part, as well as the help of others in spreading the word on his books. It also took him quite a few years to get to where he is at now.

He also tried the route of traditional publisher first; I suspect that if timing had been different, he would be a traditionally published author like yourself.

I suspect self-publishing is like self-employment in any other field; you keep all the income... but have to deal with all the expenses and the jobs (in addition to content producer, one has to be marketing, management, editor, art department, and janitor). Some can do it well, some are better off focusing entirely on the writing side of it.

A larger company is able to pool resources; rather than a single product having to pay its own way for all the areas above, the income of dozens of products have a portion going to pay for cover art, editing, marketing, and the coordination of management.

A publisher also serves to both filter horrible things out, and polish up good things (which can range from cutting the figurative stone from rough to giving it a gentle buffing for that final shine). Self-publishing puts the requirement on the reader to perform the filtering task; it gets expensive to throw an e-reader with an abomination of text across the room. I've found gems of varying quality as well, to where I look for some authors.

I think it is definitely a good idea to see if a prospective writer's works are a fit for a publisher. Find one that is reputable, research how writing contracts work. It is worth the time and investment, lets you focus on your writing. Self-publishing can work, but you have to work much, much harder and still make time to write. It isn't as easy as type, upload, cash check: it takes the same kind of effort as running a business by yourself.