hybrid publishing

Benefits of being a hybrid author

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There are pros and cons to traditional publishing vs. indie or self-publishing. Why not do both? Pub Crawl has started an excellent series on just this question!

Benefits of being a hybrid author: When to self-publish and when to go the traditional route? Part One: Traditional Publishing

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Julie here! Today, I have Falguni Kothari as my guest on the blog. Falguni is a successful “hybrid author,” with both traditional and self-publishing experience. Her new book, MY LAST LOVE STORY (Harlequin/Graydon House), comes out tomorrow, January 23, 2018. This is Part One of a two part post, so be sure to come back tomorrow for Part Two. Take it away, Falguni!

Never keep all your eggs in one basket. The adage has become more of a philosophy I’ve adopted to navigate various aspects of my life, including my publishing career. So, what or who is a hybrid author? A writer who avails herself of all the publishing opportunities available to her, such as traditional, self and paid publishing, in various combinations, is a hybrid author. She is not turned off by the ever-shifting landscape of the publishing industry, but rather, she slams open doors for herself and charges across the altering, often turbulent publishing landscape, very much a captain of her own ship.

Read the full post on Pub Crawl!

Quick Link: How To Be A Writer: Traditional Publishing To Indie And Hybrid With John Birmingham

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Quick links, bringing you great articles on writing from all over the web.

Joanna Penn, of The Creative Penn, makes sure to cover all her bases. She doesn’t just do post, no she has podcasts – with transcripts. Someday I want to grow up and be her. All her posts are interesting and great and this one is no exception. Check it out in whatever format you want and let us know what you think.

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How To Be A Writer: Traditional Publishing To Indie And Hybrid With John Birmingham

by John Birmingham

Today I’m talking with Australian author John Birmingham about his journey from the dizzying heights of the traditional publishing scene, to deciding to go indie and hybrid and his insights into how the publishing industry has changed. It’s an honest and really fascinating interview.

In the intro, I talk about how we can deal with the political upheaval, and how, as Toni Morrison says, “This is precisely the time when artists go to work.” (Quoted in Brain Pickings).

Plus David Gaughran’s report on what Amazon cares about, and the latest KENP rate, which has dropped again. Remember, it’s your choice to choose exclusivity or to go wide, but if you want a healthy long-term eco-system for writers and readers, then you need to support the other vendors.

John Birmingham is an award winning and bestselling Australian author of science fiction, techno-thriller, crime, urban fantasy, memoir, and nonfiction. His latest nonfiction book is How to Be a Writer: Who Smashes Deadlines, Crushes Editors and Lives in a Solid Gold Hovercraft.

You can listen above or on iTunes or Stitcher or watch the video here, read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and full transcript below.

Read the full post on The Creative Penn.

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If you liked this article, please share. If you have suggestions for further articles, articles you would like to submit, or just general comments, please contact me at paula@publetariat.com or leave a message below.

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Quick Link: What is Hybrid Publishing? Here Are 4 Things All Writers Should Know

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Quick links, bringing you great articles on writing from all over the web.

Have you heard of hybrid publishing? I didn’t until I read the article by Brooke Warner at The Writer’s Dig.   It is a great opportunity for authors who are on the fence between indie and traditional publishing. If that sounds like you, go check it out and let us know what you think.

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What is Hybrid Publishing? Here Are 4 Things All Writers Should Know

Hybrid publishing is an emerging area that occupies the middle ground between traditional and self-publishing and therefore includes many different publishing models— basically anything that is not self-publishing or traditional publishing. “Hybrid publishing” is not a term all publishers or authors in this space use; other terms that describe this type of publishing include “author-assisted publishing,” “independent publishing,” “partnership publishing,” “copublishing,” and “entrepreneurial publishing.” But right now, because it’s a catchall, “hybrid publishing” is the umbrella term I’ll use throughout this book to refer to this middle ground.

This guest post is Brooke Warner. Warner is publisher of She Writes Press, president of Warner Coaching Inc., and author of Green-Light Your Book, What’s Your Book?, and How to Sell Your Memoir, and the co-author of Breaking Ground on Your Memoir. Brooke’s expertise is in traditional and new publishing, and she is an equal advocate for publishing with a traditional house and self-publishing. She sits on the board of the Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA), the Bay Area Book Festival, and the National Association of Memoir Writers (NAMW). She blogs actively on Huffington Post Books and SheWrites.com. She lives and works in Berkeley, California.

The hybrid publishing space is somewhat controversial, in part because it’s new and in part because there’s no universal agreement about what it is. Because hybrid models almost always involve the author paying for some or all services (and always in return for higher royalty rates), some assert that hybrid publishing is the same as vanity publishing. For people who like to think in black-and-white terms, the hybrid publishing space upends their sense of order. Without hybrid, there are’ just traditional publishing and self-publishing. Black and white. You get paid to publish or you pay to get published. The hybrid publishing space is not for black-and-white thinkers. There are a number of models, and in my experience what sets them apart from vanity presses is that they’re run like publishing companies. Many of them have a submissions process, control their own cover design and editorial process, and have publishers calling the shots and curating the lists. There are also traditional publishers that are cutting hybrid deals, in which authors pay for some services in exchange for higher royalties.

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If you liked this article, please share. If you have suggestions for further articles, articles you would like to submit, or just general comments, please contact me at paula@publetariat.com or leave a message below.

The Self-Publishing Debate: A Social Scientist Separates Fact from Fiction (Part 2 of 3)

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This post by Dana Beth Weinberg originally appeared on Digital Book World on 12/4/13. Click here to begin with Part 1 in the same series, by the same author, also on Digital Book World (post will open in a new window or tab).

In the writers’ groups I attend, self-publishing is a touchy issue. I know a number of writers who served their time in the trenches, writing and submitting and rewriting and resubmitting their work over and over again to agents and publishers before that one magical “yes.” It’s not unusual to meet a writer who tried to get published for ten years or more before winning a publishing contract. These writers have overcome significant odds, and they are rightly proud of their achievements. In the same group, there are a number of writers who haven’t yet broken into traditional publishing or haven’t even tried but who have decided to self-publish. Some don’t have the war stories and battle scars from trying to break in, while others do. Despite not having the traditional publisher’s stamp of approval, all of them are also proud of their achievements and expect equal consideration as published authors. It might be easy for the traditionally published authors to maintain their sense of superiority over self-published authors (and, thus, their sense of comfort that they had done the right thing all those years that they waited and tried) were it not also for the token members of the group who have self-published and made a lot of money at it.

Is self-publishing an amateurish endeavor, a means of sharing stories, a strategic move in a writing career, or an entrepreneurial activity? In Part 1 of this blog, I examined the top priorities of the nearly 5,000 authors who responded to the 2013 Digital Book World and Writer’s Digest Author Survey in relation to whether and how they have published their work. Now I turn my attention to the differences in writing productivity for the four different types of authors identified in the survey: aspiring authors, self-published authors, traditionally published authors, and hybrid authors with a combination of self-published and traditionally published works.

The necessary ingredient to success in a writing career is actually writing. So how do our various types of authors stack up in terms of manuscripts completed, whether published or unpublished?

 

Click here to read the full post on Digital Book World.

Click here to read part 3 in the same series, by the same author, also on Digital Book World. (post will open in a new window or tab).

 

The Illusions of Traditional/Self Publishing & The Reality of Hybrid Publishing

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This post by Bob Mayer originally appeared on Write It Forward on 1/23/14.

There’s a lot of heated rhetoric regarding publishing being bandied about on-line lately. Some of it was generated by the CEO of Kensington putting himself out there with some posts that had a large backlash, but overall, people seem to be digging in and drawing lines.

These lines are more blurred than most acknowledge if we examine them carefully.

It would seem to break down with traditional publishing “vs” self-publishing. I’d like to point out where this isn’t the reality and also how Cool Gus deals with these issues as a ‘hybrid’ publisher with a focus on being agile and working as a unified team.

“We treat our authors so well. You need us!” This is the message that Kensington’s CEO recently stated on-line. I also just read an interview from the CEO of Random House/Penguin saying essentially the same thing. This should be amended to: “We treat our top 5% of authors so well.” I don’t know if these CEOs are simply out of touch, being BSed or what, but the vast majority of authors are treated as interchangeable parts at trad houses and even most agencies. Because the top authors are pretty much the only authors these CEOs interact with, they make the illogical leap that all their authors are treated exactly the same way. I’ve seen many current and former Kensington authors come out on various on-line mediums describing a less than great publishing experience, yet not a single author defend the CEO’s statements. I was published by Random House and sold over one million books under the Dell imprint. During my years there I received almost no marketing support and was essentially dumped as the market coalesced. It wasn’t personal. It was business. Reminds me of Denzel Washington’s character in Man on Fire: “It’s just business.”

“We own Author Solutions.” It would appear that RHP’s CEO does not understand the pure hatred for this company among authors. You want to make money off authors? You think that equals KDP? This goes to a deep misunderstanding about authors, especially those with experience.

The Death of the Midlist.

 

Click here to read the full post on Write It Forward.