Paths to Publishing

Happy Blog Day Everyone!

Today, I wanted to share something I’ve been thinking about this week. Publishing pathways and what they mean. Before we get to that though, it’s of course, time for the Weekly Briefs.

Weekly Briefs

#IndieAugust

It’s Indie August! Another month dedicated to the independent and small published authors of the world. If you follow the tag on Twitter, you may just find your next favourite read! Give it a go! Remember, all writers have to start somewhere.

Harvey Duckman Presents…Volume 3

You didn’t think that just because Volume 2 was out and getting stellar reviews that this would be the end of it did you? Volume 3 is set for an October release, in what is proving to be a very packed month for my publisher. It will of course include a exclusive Brennan and Riz story, one that I’ll talk about that in detail after the book releases, in the coming weeks I may even share the title with you, and possibly moan about writing for a special Harvey Duckman release, but that’s all I’ll say for now.

Don’t forget, if you write Steampunk, Fantasy, Sci Fi or Horror (or a mix of the genres), then feel free to submit your work to this growing anthology! Click here for submission guidelines.

Creator Chaos

The next in our, All About Me, series is lined up, and it’s everyone’s favorite #vss365 tweeter, Kelvin Rodriguez! He will be at the mercy of whatever questions you want to ask, so please throw some good ones our way…

We will be recording soon I promise, life has a habit of getting in the way this summer. Guest Writers have already been contacted though! You’ve got some great content to look forward to.

A reminder of who the rest of Creator Chaos are:

Me – I don’t think I need to explain myself…

Kelvin Rodriguez – Fans and followers of the #vss365 tag will recognize this fellow and his creations, a master of the pun. He also has a mighty fine singing voice.

Zack Brooks – Author of the ‘Charlie the Cupid’ shorts and ‘The Trials of Amaford” novellas, the audio book version of ‘How Not To Be A Rogue’ is out now! This is a perfect chance to get in on this series, with a great narrator. A great guy and the defacto leader of our rabble.

Pete Hartog – Author of the novel Bloodlines, and currently working on its sequel. A great guy with a great taste in music and a fantastic name. He also has a blog you can find here, give it a read! He’s currently working on a sequel to Bloodlines.

Click here to listen to all the podcasts so far and look out for us on Spotify and Apples Music Service!

Vector Unit Regen Orphan’s War

Still on hiatus, but all being well I should be able to resume it September going forward. It’ll probably be a fortnightly release schedule but I do want to see this story finished.
To catch up on the series so far, click here!

Brief Mentions

Liking what you’re hearing about Brennan and Riz? Click here to look at the short story collection of their adventures so far!
Looking for newer stuff?

Click here to order ‘The Yeti in the Snow’, the standalone Brennan and Riz Christmas story. Only available on Kindle. It may be collected in a paperback version in the future.

Click here to order Harvey Duckman Presents Volume 1 which includes ‘A Walk Through The Pleasure Gardens’

Click here to order Harvey Duckman Presents Volume 2 which includes ‘The Black Cat on the Prowl’

Click here to find me on Goodreads

And now…time for our main feature presentation…

Paths to Publishing

I am a published author, though my publisher, 6e, is a small operation. Why am I mentioning this? Because I see some people questioning which is the best way forward, and others doubting the method they have chosen. What I will write here, isn’t the universal truth, just my opinion, from what I gathered. You may not agree with it, but that’s fine. To begin with though, let’s look at the major types.

Traditional Publishing. 

There’s a lot that falls under this umbrella as it covers anything where someone else takes your manuscript, polishes it up, then pays to have printers print it out and send it to shops and marketplaces. What varies is their reach, what services they provide for free (and which ones they expect you to do as the Author) and the rights of the work. The last part is the most important. In any given deal, you need to make sure that the rights stay with you the author, no matter what. Unless of course you’re working on an already established property, in which case the rights won’t matter that much.

Anyway... In most instances (unless you get lucky and get published by the big four, you’re going to be responsible for your own marketing (be it something you actively do yourself, or pay someone else to do). If you’re publisher has it’s own marketing department, then great, but that might just mean you’re paying them extra...
Traditional Publishing is also where Advances come into play. These are cash sums often given on the advance of books sales, which is something very important to keep in mind.

If you get an advance, and your book fails to sell to target, then they’ll be coming back for their money. That’s why it’s called an Advance. Similarly, royalty payments only start once the publisher has gotten back their money (the Advance). If you don’t get an advance then the royalty payments will start straight away-ish, being forwarded to you on the agreed statements. So basically every so often, they’ll pay you what they owe you.

Getting traditionally published is the hardest on the path, so few publishers accept unsolicited submissions these days, often because of the volume of submissions they got before. So this means you need to represented. This means, you need an agent. This is what querying is all about. I’ve tried to do this in the past with my Daemon Soul series and it’s a hard process that requires you to research agents that are compatible with your idea and pitch. There’s no use trying to get the attention of an Agent that deals with romance fiction, if you only write hard boiled crime. Getting an agent is just the first step, and most times, they’ll take their fee from you when they land you a deal, with them taking a cut, though I’ve seen the rare one charge up front for their time, something that isn’t cheap.

Some consider traditional publishing the only way to do it, as for so long, it was the only way of doing it, making the powerful publishers gatekeepers of sorts, deciding what and didn’t get published. I don’t agree though, especially with the notion that only traditional publishing gives you legitimacy, that’s just what they want you to believe, so you don’t look elsewhere for your reading.

Let’s move on to the next type.

Hybrid Publishing and Vanity Publishing.

Both of these require you to pay in order to publish, but they’ll do most of what you need. How they operate though, is vastly different. Hybrid Publishing is very upfront with what they do and how much it will cost, stating plainly on the website their costs and packages. Vanity Publishing on the other hand, will lure you in with the ‘maybe’ notion that you’ll get a traditional publishing deal. Once your hooked, they’ll flatter you into signing up to them and tell you that because you’re an unknown Author (despite them all loving your work to pieces and being really positive about it) that they can only publish your work, if you pay for all the up front costs. Not only that, but in these cases, they may keep your rights as well during the whole process and afterwards depending on what happens.

 In certain scenarios, they can keep your rights forever, keeping them in limbo with you unable to do anything, unless you get legal consul. What’s worse is, that with Vanity Publishing, you still may never see the print run you were dreaming of, and it’ll be down to you to get your books in shops.

Why go for one of these? If you have the money and want to keep a certain level of control and are sick and tired of the process to get traditional published. You may not have all the time you’d need to go full indy, then going through a hybrid may be for you. Just watch your rights and read through everything before signing up.

Independent Publishing.

As you may already be aware, two of my fellow Creator Chaos comrades are independently published authors. Both Zack Brooks and Peter Hartog have put themselves out there, off their own backs. As long as you can afford it, and have the time, this is the pathway that gives you the most control over everything. This also means you can be flexible with sales as you have all the tools at your disposal to make your work a bestseller. Problem is that left alone, it’ll be hard for your work to be noticed amongst the sea of other Indy authors, this is where marketing is even more of a pressing concern.

It’s also advisable to get an editor in to look at your work and proof read it. You can use services like Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing, allowing your work to go directly to the kindle store and allows for a print on demand services. This means that any fans who want a physical copy of your book can order from amazon. Amazon have invested a lot into their KDP program, and you can see that they want to shake up the industry.

Through all of this though, which is the better pathway? Which is the one I would most recommend to people. It is genuinely hard to say without knowing what people’s predicaments are. If someone has their heart set on getting published at Random House then so be it, I wish them the best of luck. If I’m being honest though, I would urge people to either go independent, as overall it’s the best deal in terms of rights. One thing I must add though is that no matter what method you choose, if your work is out there, either on a shop’s shelve, or on an online shop front, you are a legitimate Author. It doesn’t matter how the writing got there, it just matters that it’s there.

Thank you for indulging me in this little topic, I’m not sure what time or even what topic next weeks blog will take, but till then: Keep on writing!