Anne here. When I was trying to decide what to blog about today, I glanced through the list of topics sent in by wenchly readers over the years, looking right back to the earliest of those lists. So many of those early questions were from aspiring authors asking about the publishing process, how to get an agent, tips for catching an editor's eye, which conferences were you most likely to meet good editors —and many more.
Those were the days of relative certainty — there was a process for getting published, a clear pathway, with steps. Now there are so many ways to get published that the difficulty is in choosing which one to take -- to seek traditional publishing, or to go with a small digital-first press (many of which are unproven) or to self-publish.
There's no longer the hierarchy there was: many major traditional bestsellers are also self-publishing and publishing through small e-presses — witness the wenches.
And there are no experts: what works for one writer might prove a dismal failure for another. Trickier still, what works well for the first book by an author might not work for the second or third. So many writers I know are trying everything, flinging all kinds of books — like literary spaghetti thrown at various walls, to see what sticks.
It's just as tricky for readers, I suspect.
The thing that traditional publishers did that authors could not was to distribute the books, getting them into bookshops across the country, across the world, getting them into the places where readers could buy them.
With the advent of e-books, distribution is no longer the big issue: anyone can upload a book to the web and pretty much anyone in the world can buy or read it (unless there is a geographical restriction agreement in place.)
The issue now is visibility. With half the world and their dog (this is mine) writing and uploading their stories, the e-book market is utterly swamped with every kind of book -- well written, badly written, in every genre you've ever read and plenty more you've never even heard of.
How to choose? It used to be that a publisher was a gatekeeper — their imprint on a book was a guarantee of quality. A book might not be to your taste, but it would be well-written and well-produced. Now e-published books — whether self-published or put out by a digital-first-press — vary widely in the amount of care and attention each book is given in preparation. I've seen self-published novels published to an immaculate standard (better than some traditional publishers) and I've seen sloppy, slapdash, ill-edited novels published. And again, how is the reader to know?
Visibility is all. Because of this, authors (no matter how they're published) are under more and more pressure to promote and market their books themselves. And market. And market. So we're all madly tweeting and FBing and Tumblring and Wattpadding and blogging and making a lot of noise. To what effect? We don't really know. Everyone's looking for The Key.
Currently the hot topic for author promotion is newsletters. At the Romantic Times Convention the other day I'm told authors were advised by marketing experts and publicists not only to have a regular newsletter, but to put them out more frequently — not just monthly (as many do) but weekly. Or even more often.
I'm guessing there was a collective sigh from the authors in the audience. But it's not only people at RT who are being told this — it seems to be the current marketing advice to a wide range of authors — some wenches included. As well as contributing to the word-wenches newsletter, I have a newsletter of my own, but I usually only send out one or two issues a year, generally to announce the publication of a new book (The book on your left will be out in June) or some other particularly newsworthy event.
So now I'm wondering — and I'm asking you readers to help us out here, please.
Would you like weekly newsletters from your favorite authors?
Do you subscribe to many author newsletters?
Do you actually read the newsletters you currently get? (I confess I don't — I often just register that author X has a new book out, order it, and then delete the email.)
What attracts you in a newsletter?
Someone who leaves a comment will win a prize from me. And if you'd like to subscribe to my newsletter (she says shamelessly) it's on the left-hand column on my website. And the word-wenches newsletter subscription is at the top of this page.