YOU Choose Your Path
Like many of my writing friends and clients, finding a path to traditional publishing can be fraught with peril. More and more are choosing something different: hybrid publishing, self-publishing, even starting up their own publishing imprints to publish their own work.
One friend who writes middle-grade novels and who had done everything you’re supposed to do to perfect your manuscript, query letter, synopsis and agent research, finally gave up on traditional publishing when this happened to her:
“I got a copy of my book printed and gave it to my neighbor’s son. He had always been my ideal reader—a reluctant boy who rarely reads. A few days later, my friend sent me photos of her son unable to put the book down! He read it in the kitchen, and it the car on the way to school. He then re-read it! It’s one reader; but it’s why I wrote the book in the first place.”
She decided then and there that her story had value (which I’d known all along!) and she wasn’t going to wait on a fickle, unpredictable industry. She’s in control.
It’s a hard choice; there’s a significant financial investment and you have to market your book yourself (but then, you often have to do that even if you’re traditionally published…) It’s not easy, but it is an option. Anything to get your story into the hands of your ideal reader.