I met David Gaughran at a conference about ten years ago and he had a similar message. The mechanics of publishing had already become effortless and virtually costless so that you could focus all your budget, and effort, on marketing. If you're already famous, of course, your marketing has a headstart.
I guess that was always the value of a good trade publisher. More than the process of publishing and distributing, their great service is that they know how to market a book. Or they did. Now I wonder where that whole industry is headed.
It's getting a lot harder for traditional publishers these days. In the past they could pay to have their books displayed prominently in bookstores, and could secure reviews in print media. Those options count for a lot less now.
The problem for self-publishers is that the number of new books is going up exponentially. The only effective marketing is to write for very specific genres and try to stand out there -- still very hit-&-miss, and it's distorting the available content as general fiction (or even broad genre fiction) has no chance.
I met David Gaughran at a conference about ten years ago and he had a similar message. The mechanics of publishing had already become effortless and virtually costless so that you could focus all your budget, and effort, on marketing. If you're already famous, of course, your marketing has a headstart.
I guess that was always the value of a good trade publisher. More than the process of publishing and distributing, their great service is that they know how to market a book. Or they did. Now I wonder where that whole industry is headed.
It's getting a lot harder for traditional publishers these days. In the past they could pay to have their books displayed prominently in bookstores, and could secure reviews in print media. Those options count for a lot less now.
The problem for self-publishers is that the number of new books is going up exponentially. The only effective marketing is to write for very specific genres and try to stand out there -- still very hit-&-miss, and it's distorting the available content as general fiction (or even broad genre fiction) has no chance.