Our world seems to be moving faster,
and that isn’t just my age talking. The technology cycle has shrunk from 18
months to seven months in the past decade. That means a software update, a new
piece of hardware, or even a new entry in the market comes every seven months.
With those kinds of changes it is easy to feel that you can’t keep up.
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| Maggie McVay Lynch |
is also impacting publishing in a big way. We’ve already seen how e-books have changed publishing. Now close to 50% of all e-books published in the U.S. are self-published or small press titles. Fifty percent! That is incredible and frightening. The number of books produced every year has grown tenfold in the past decade--from about 50,00 to over 500,000 new titles every year. Everyone, traditional and independent publishers are competing with a vengeance. They are lowering prices. They are cutting print runs. Some are even cutting print contracts for anyone who hasn’t already proven her books sell well. But here's the thing, NO ONE knows what works in this new environment. Everyone is experimenting.
Just when you think you have the
system figured out it changes. Agent or not? Contract or not? Free books or not,
and for how long? Low price or regular price? How many books a year do you need
to do to get anywhere—traditionally or self-published? Whatever the answer was
two years ago is not the answer today. Whatever the answer is today will not be
the answer two years from now. It is changing… and quickly.
At this point some writers simply
give up. It’s too hard. It’s too scary. It’s too time consuming to keep on top
of it. So what do you do? You band together with others so that one person
doesn’t have to know everything. Business people know that teams bring together
a variety of talents and a good team fits the adage: “The sum of the parts is
greater than the whole.” You need people on your team who know different things
than you do, people you can trust and work with for your entire career.
Traditional publishing has always been a team effort—editors, cover designers,
blurb writers, marketers, schedulers, technologists. Independent publishing needs to follow the
same model. It is no longer self-publishing. To survive it needs to be team
publishing.
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Team publishing is where you decide
what you do well AND what you have time to do, then delegate the rest—either
through paid work or trades. Team
publishing can be authors joining together to share some of the burdens. Those
teams range from marketing teams to full publishing cooperatives. Marketing
teams agree to always share the marketing burden, to always cross promote each
other, to experiment together and to share knowledge about what works and what
doesn’t. Publishing cooperatives, like Windtree Press and Book View Café,
bring authors together to publish under a common press name. They also share
the burdens and the knowledge of how to format, edit, do covers, and
distribute. Members might swap editing for cover design, or marketing
coordination for formatting, or purchase shared services from a virtual
assistant at a discount, or simply hold training sessions to help all members.
To keep up in today's publishing
arena, find yourself a team. Make sure the members are diverse. If they are all
like you it isn't helpful. Then set up how you will work together. Commit to
the long haul together. Yes, it's hard work but all of you will be better for
it. Keep learning. Keep researching. Keep moving ahead even when you don't have
all the answers. The team that can stay together and remain committed will do
more than survive, they will thrive.
Author
Bio
Maggie Lynch has never
missed a chance to learn something new. With degrees in psychology, counseling,
computer science, and education she has had opportunities that have taken her
around the world, including Europe, Australia, and the Middle East. Her current
publishing credits include five non-fiction books, a number of science fiction
short stories, and seven novels. Now able to spend full time journeying into her
imagination, Maggie writes romance and science fiction under the name Maggie
Jaimeson, and young adult fantasy under the name Maggie Faire. You can find her
at http://maggielynch.com
4 comments:
I first heard of writer cooperatives from Bob Meyer a few years ago. That route seems the way to go in this ever-changing writing world.
Great post, Maggie!
Thanks, Maggie for sharing your views with Romancing The Genres' readers. Whether a writer is a part of a formal 'team' like a cooperative or has an informal team of writers with a shared goal, working along with others can make the job easier. I've found your book to be invaluable. Now to get that Review up at Kobo!
Maggie, I agree, writing isn't a lonely endeavor any more. It takes a team to get a book published and then a team to help spread the word.
Great post!
Thanks Sarah, Judith, and Paty. I agree that whether you join a formal group like a cooperative or engage in an informal group of friends, it is important to make it a team effort. No one person can know everything or do everything in publishing.
I like the formal group because it keeps me and the others accountable. When I know I've promised something to a group, I'm much more likely to complete it on time than I am when I promise it only to myself. That's also why I make my "coming books" public. It's a way for me to keep myself moving forward when the writing gets tough.
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