Yeah, not die while trying. Like, dying while writing. Maybe. Dying while doing something else is okay too.
I'm no Web savvy geek,but as far as I understand,if you have a website,and it gains popularity (or, 'hits',as the kids are calling it),you can incorporate advertising onto it,and create income from that. Could one feasibly,perhaps like a modern day Dickens serial, self publish online,and if your site becomes popular,get advertisers on board,and make an income that way? It would be a sort of self publishing strategy which could bring income and bypass the Big 5 completely. And of course,once they see the numbers,they will want a slice of the pie and offer you a bigger package to continue the story with them. Assuming,of course,that publishers have no problems with taking on sequels,if the original work is no persons land.
Interesting, very possibly something that could happen in the future. A lot of people read online, are connected permanently to the internet, and read ebooks anyway. It`s all there, all the ingredients. It`s getting the hits, that`s the tricky part. Perhaps one way is to follow the video game community. Quite a few make videos based on their playing of a particular game. What if the writer were to create a video based on their reading of their book? Would it be enough to build a following? That`s what you need to do, build a following.
I think publicity is the thing with everything nowadays. I'm sure publishers want the authors to go out and sell their new novel. It's one type of advertising. And if the author is charismatic,it will pay dividends. Interestingly,having just spent a few years in the music industry,I followed Ed Sheeran's rise to fame. The record company picked him up precisely because he was willing to work hard,and he already had a track record in writing and performing without the need of a record contract in the first place. Essentially,he'd done all the work himself,so the record company had an almost nurtured artist ready to go. When people came in with demos,I had to tell them:don't wait for the record company to do anything for you...do it all yourself,and then they'll come to you. Maybe we expect the publishers to 'discover' us and make our widest monetary dreams come true,when it's us who need to create that ourselves. Of course,you then have the self publishing dilemma...
Unfortunately I`ve never been very good at advertising myself. I guess it`s ok if you are, as you put it, "charismatic", but not everyone is, and quite often it`s the very talented that are not. Of course you have to work your butt off to get the novel done in the first place, let alone anything else.
Yeah, not all authors are good with people, or crowds, or "putting themselves out there". So doing one's own publicity could be a disaster. Also, let's not compare the recording industry and book publishing too closely. A song take a few minutes to passively listen to - a book can take days of concentration, not to mention cost differences. It takes different strategies to get people to buy them.
That`s very true. Completely agree, and even if there is change it will move slowly, that`s for sure.
I was trying to look it up, but I can't remember what his pen name is, something Indian sounding. I'll check when I'm back at work.
'Of course you have to work your butt off to get the novel done in the first place' That's the bottom line right there,no pun intended...
The problem is the "if it gains popularity" part. I'd say that the sheer volume of competition for web viewers is probably orders of magnitude larger than the volume of people competing with you for the attention of agents and publishers. I used to participate in a forum for bloggers, because I was hoping to discuss hobby blogging, as in blogging-as-a-hobby. Almost every single participant was blogging for money and utterly focused on getting viewers and Getting Rich From Blogging Woohoo! They worked hard, they were obsessed, and a tiny tiny percentage of them made a few dollars a week (as in, maybe enough to buy one hamburger a week) from their blogs.
I can honestly believe this, the idea is almost always better than the realty of it. There`s a forum for just blogging? What am I talking about, of course there is.....
My case worker says I have a rich inner life -- complete with pixies, conspiracies, and deep-sea species. Th'hell I nee'money for??
