Do remember this post? I talk about being a broke writer and how I'm trying to go the Traditional Publishing route because I priced out some services for self-published authors and I didn't think I could afford to pay for a good cover, developmental edits, proofreading, formatting, etc. because it would total thousands of dollars. Plus there are some benefits to traditional publishing that self-publishing doesn't necessarily have.
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So I've just been humming along, and then I saw this on Twitter, from Ellen Oh, author and co-founder of We Need Diverse Books.
I was completely shocked to read this. I talked to a few authors from my Seton Hill MFA days for more details about this and they confirmed that this is a legitimate part of the business. Then more people hopped on and essentially said, "Self-publishing for the win!!" when they learned of this practice.
Which got me thinking...the first thought that entered my head was a sad/angry, Nobody wants to pay authors and no one can make a living writing, because I keep hearing of so many instances where that seems to be true. And then I remembered a lot of articles that I've read that include quotes like these:
The more I read about where traditional publishing is going in this new century, the more I wonder why any writer with sense would join traditional publishing. -- Kristine Kathryn Rusch
If you want to see someone point out some of the darker/more disappointing realities of traditional publishing, these three articles bring up some interesting points that also, in addition to the tweet I shared, made me think that maybe I should reconsider my publishing path:
- Business Musings: Heads, Sand, and Traditional Publishing by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
- Business Musings: Traditional Writers by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
- Traditional Book Publishers... by Dean Wesley Smith
