Moscovian wrote:
wellspring wrote:
Good luck!
I've been studying publishing routes myself for my own projects. Have you read this?
http://authorearnings.com/the-report/Wellspring, I did read Hugh's report. Illuminating to say the least. My editor has highly discouraged me from publishing in the traditional way, which she has done for half of her own books. She shared with me her experiences and found it to be frustrating. I have two friends that are authors that told me to self publish, a third that told me to publish traditionally, and a fourth that said it really doesn't matter these days.
One thing for certain is that the paradigm as shifted considerably in the last ten years.
I'm glad you've been asking around and hearing the same thing. I ran the numbers and it's really telling.
It used to be that the big publishers gave you an advantage because they'd give you access to distribution to get your into book stores, and also because supposedly they'd promote your book. The promotion claim was always dubious-- they threw huge marketing budgets at books, of course, but mostly for established authors or books that were already hits. And even then it's unlikely that you'd earn enough from additional sales to make up for the massive drop in royalties. And with Amazon, you get traditional bookstore distribution as well-- insofar as brick and mortar sellers carry anything but established titles anyway.
Someone in sci fi (Sarah Hoyt, maybe?) pointed out that nearly all sci fi published through traditional publishers goes through one of three or four people. Those editors are the bottleneck. They live in the same city, have the same friends, and the same tastes. The fans have to put up with whatever they think is worth reading, and never see good stuff that the editors happen not to like.
So glad you're A) done (and wow that's hard to do) and B) thinking seriously about how to best publish it. Don't forget to post a link so we can send you $$$ and enjoy your writing! Hell, what primarch buys alone is probably enough to get you on the NYT bestseller list.
