A fascinating post by Judith Tarr, over at Book View Cafe, about publishing and the midlist author.
It’s scary and disturbing; also thoroughly optimistic. That’s the breaking-away-from-Stockholm aspect — eg, self-publishing gives the author options.
Though those options are always changing. It’s amazing how fast.
The sands, as the article says, are shifting. They always have been, but it’s getting faster. So fast that advice we gave or took six months ago is already outdated, and last year’s Must Do is this year’s Oh God Don’t. — says Tarr, in response to this article by Kathryn Rusch.
And you may know that Tarr practices what she preaches: you’re aware of her kickstarter project for a space opera? Because she wanted to write it and no publisher was interested? Her project was in lots of ways a great model for how to run a kickstarter proposal for a book.
Though I should add here, that, while I’m glad to have options, my agent has never tried to get me to write anything in particular, and I can’t imagine letting a publisher force me to write five books a year. (Srsly? Who could do that even if they really really needed to?)
So, anyway, important to keep half an eye on the state of publishing and options within the field. I can see I need to add Book View Cafe to my regular schedule.
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