Publish, self-publish, give it away, perish?

November 9, 2009 at 6:53 am

I just returned from a gathering of neighborhood friends where I found myself, on a Sunday, engaged in some stimulating conversation about - you guessed it – books.

Writing books, promoting books, what choices are the best ones to make these days.

Luckily, they hadn’t read my “The Zen of Book Publishing” that I posted a few days ago so as new writers, they were excited and optimistic. Excitement and optimism happen to be two of my favorite things.

Even in this flux-y world where no one knows the story’s end.

What I told these friends was not to get too attached to the traditional publishing model for their book. Explore all options and don’t put all your faith in getting published the old fashioned way. Keep widening your platform so that no matter what route you go, there’ll be an audience waiting to read your book.

Isn’t it comforting to know that on a certain level, you can control your own destiny? Whether or not that audience you’ve built likes and passes along your book is the part you can’t control. You can only hope for this.

Formulas work for marketing things but things have to be embraced for the thing to flourish.

I hope you enjoyed that last sentence as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Write from you heart, then get out your hammer and nails and craft that platform. Or my famous last words, if you can’t do it yourself, find someone who can.

Once the platform’s in place, your fancy dancing can begin.

Maestro, strike up the band, there’s a new author in town.