In an Editorial article on my freelance writing blog, Write a Book: Old and New Ways to Get Published, I wrote:
If you’ve written a book, or are in the process of writing one, you have a choice to make: will you publish your book the old way, that is, go the traditional publishing route (get an agent), or will you publish your book yourself?
For new authors, who want to make a career of writing books, I recommend the traditional publishing route. Write your book, get an agent, sell your book, and learn how publishing works.
Yes, it's slow, and frustrating, and it may break your heart, BUT you will have a deep understanding of the challenges and rewards of publishing.
While you're shopping your book proposal around to agents and publishers, there's no need to twiddle your thumbs. There are new ways to DIY publish now (I talk about Print on Demand in the above article), which means that while you're selling your big book, you can turn out lots of little books and publish them yourself, either via POD or as ebooks, in various formats.
Apropos of which, Ken Auletta, author of the wonderful book Googled, wrote a gossipy article for the New Yorker, Publish or Perish: Can the iPad topple the Kindle, and save the book business? which you should read:
The industry’s great hope was that the iPad would bring electronic books to the masses—and help make them profitable. E-books are booming. Although they account for only an estimated three to five per cent of the market, their sales increased a hundred and seventy-seven per cent in 2009, and it was projected that they would eventually account for between twenty-five and fifty per cent of all books sold. But publishers were concerned that lower prices would decimate their profits.
So, dear author (published or aspiring), fire up your word processor and start tapping the keyboard. Wonderful things are happening. Choice is always great, and you get to choose how you'll publish. But the writing comes first, so write. :-)
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