What is the difference between traditional publishing, self publishing? - San Bernardino County Sun

By Becca Spence Dobias | Correspondent

I used to imagine myself standing at a forked path, manuscript in hand, wondering whether to pursue self-publishing or traditional. I pored over websites analyzing the pros and cons of each.

What these resources don’t convey, though, is that these are not the only two publishing routes that exist, and that increasingly, other options are blurring the boundaries between what seemed like two distinct choices.

Traditional publishing used to just be “publishing.” There were a limited number of people in the world who had access to the physical resources needed to print and distribute a book so they acted as gatekeepers. Of course, people have hand-written and distributed writing for a long time, but publishing houses, with Richard Hoe’s patent of the first rotary press in 1846, could circulate paperbacks, introduced to the United States only one year earlier.

When accessible word processors, printers, computers, and the Internet made it possible for a vast number of people to create, replicate and distribute their work on a broad scale, the self-publishing/ traditional publishing dichotomy was born. Large publishers were no longer required in order to access these tools, and their role changed to that of quality control — a way to sort through the enormous sea of work that was now available around the world.

But there is more good writing out there than the big five publishers can publish. So, small publishers soon began challenging that monopoly and filling some of that gap. But even with the numerous small presses that exist, there is still more great writing than they can manage. Publication sometimes relies on politics — who you know, how much money and access you already have, etc., as a filter because publishers are humans and humans can only read, edit, design, market and distribute so much. Even then, there’s still more good writing than publishers can handle.

What challenges outdated ideas about the connection between publishing and quality even further is that increasingly folks are choosing to publish their work independently not as a compromise or act of settling, but intentionally. There are a number of reasons some prefer to publish books themselves, including viewing it as a middle finger to the politics and gatekeeping of traditional publishing.

So publishing is no longer necessarily about who can physically publish and distribute a book. And it’s no longer necessarily an indicator of quality. Publishing houses no longer have a monopoly on resources, and they’ve never had a monopoly on quality. They remain gatekeepers simply because they’ve appointed themselves such and we’ve continued to go along with it although the line between the two options has blurred.

My first novel is in production with Inkshares, a crowdfunding platform for books. In this model, authors who secure 750 preorders within a set timeframe receive publishing services from the company including cover design, developmental and copyediting, marketing and distribution. Crowdfunding puts the key to that golden gate in the hands of authors. Instead of standing like a sentinel in front of the opening, crowdfunding asks, “Can you reach high enough to unlock the gate yourself?”

Writing Bloc (WritingBloc.com), a new cooperative publishing model, is taking that a step further. We’re working as a team to write, edit, design, market and distribute our own work. Like self-publishing, we’re eschewing the need for someone to do it for us. Instead, we’re utilizing the expertise and work ethic of our group as a unit to publish our own quality content. We are taking ownership of the gate and everything inside.

But at what point does this kind of venture become more like traditional publishing than self-publishing? After all, we are developing contracts, establishing content guidelines, and distributing royalties. I’ve concluded that it doesn’t matter when we cross that line because the line is increasingly arbitrary. The labels are becoming irrelevant.

One of the advantages of having access to many means of publishing means that you don’t have to write to a target audience if you don’t want to. You can write the book that you want to write — the story that needs to be written — and then find your target audience.

When you put your book out into the world, you want editing, design, marketing and the validation that comes from people enjoying your work. Increasingly, those are at our fingertips in a number of innovative configurations. You may not have an audience of tens of thousands. But amongst the billions of people in the world, you probably have an audience of at least hundreds. What is important is creating exceptional books and getting them into the hands of people who will appreciate their meaning and value, no matter how you do that.

Becca Spence Dobias is the Project Manager for Writing Bloc, an independent author community. Her debut novel is forthcoming from Inkshares.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

"traditional" - Google News
February 13, 2020 at 11:06PM
https://ift.tt/38l9XQy

What is the difference between traditional publishing, self publishing? - San Bernardino County Sun
"traditional" - Google News
https://ift.tt/36u1SIt
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update

Bagikan Berita Ini