Why I read so many blogs and what I’ve learned so far

It all started because I couldn’t get a broad enough view from inside Australia, either by reading what was available from the Australian industry or talking to those in it. I grew frustrated because all I heard was the same views again and again, but I was working for e-pubs based in the U.S. I was freelancing as an editor, administrator and writer; selling novellas (six before I stopped submitting them); and reading the mainly U.S.-based e-pub market news, as well as blogs and articles by traditionally published and e-published authors based world-wide. I started having trouble believing what I had heard over fifteen years of listening to advice at every Australian workshop, bookshop, convention or book launch I attended, which was:

• To get novels published, you first have to have short stories published;
• To be considered by an Australian publisher, you had to have a recommendation from a reader, whose opinion the publisher recognized; this from at least two editors I had phone conversations with. (When I looked up those readers, they were authors doing assessments on the side, and you had to pay for your assessments.)
• You were not a ‘real’ writer unless you had a publishing contract from a bricks-and-mortar publishing house.
• To get an editor to look at your work (without above recommendation) you should attend conferences and workshops and talk to them so they had a face to match with the name in the slush pile.

And then there were the attitudes, which used to be:

• Writing adventures for roleplaying companies wasn’t ‘real’ writing;
• Neither was writing romance;
• If it’s not literary or deeply meaningful, it doesn’t have value;
• If you didn’t publish Australian-first (or only) you were betraying ‘your’ industry.

Maybe that was how it used to be, but things are changing fast. It was interesting to hear a traditionally published, author recently say that traditional publishers in the U.S. were about a year behind the curve and starting to catch up, but that Australian publishers were two years behind. Was she right? Who knows?

Nowadays, the publishing industry everywhere is making moves to adapt. Markets that seemed firmly locked shut are opening up to non-agented, unsolicited, and non-recommended submissions from new authors, but there is still the idea that ‘the best advertising for your novel is a book on the shelf’ (in a bookstore). I don’t understand this, when the advice I’m finding from dozens of successful authors blogging about their revitalised career as an independent publisher is that ‘the best advertising for your novel, is your next novel [so get writing]’. Change is in the air, and everyone is trying to keep up —regardless of if they are an author, agent, editor or a publisher.

Reading these blogs are a result of me wanting to get a bigger picture than I could get by asking the established ‘experts’ in Australia, I research as broadly as I can and try to understand this ever-shifting world. Along the way, I have found a number of traditionally published, independently publishing and ‘hybrid’ authors who talked about their recent, current and on-going experiences. All of them say one thing everyone needs to remember:

THERE IS NO RIGHT OR WRONG WAY TO GO ABOUT BEING PUBLISHED, ONLY THE WAY THAT IS RIGHT FOR YOU.

So, what I have taken away from all the blogs I’ve been fortunate enough to read and industry experts I’ve had the privilege of listening to is this:

• While I might not be considering traditional avenues right now, or perhaps being very sceptical of how beneficial they are for me, those avenues will be perfect for others.
• I might not yet be seeking an agent, but an agent might be the best way to go for another writer—and I know of more than one who have wonderful agents working with them.
• Some authors will prefer to go purely traditional, others purely indie, and more than a few will combine the two avenues to their benefit. No one is right or wrong in the method they choose.
• The world of publishing is changing and everyone in it will need to adapt;
• The reader is king and therefore content is king;
• If you independently publish, get an editor or at least have another set of eyes go over your work, have professional artwork, constantly hone your writing skills using every method available to you, regularly produce new work for public consumption;
• If you traditionally publish, get at least another set of eyes to go over your work, constantly hone your writing skills using every method available to you, regularly produce new work for whatever markets you care to target;
• Create, or become part of, a writing community—or several, if that suits you;
• Take the risk (be it submitting to an agent, publisher or editor, or independently publishing); and
• Believe in yourself.

Now, stop procrastinating, turn off your internet and go finish your book, short story, poem, play, game script, adventure, whatever. How can anyone get to read it, if you don’t finish it and get it out there?