Books Are Like Calculators

 

I read a few articles on traditional versus self-publishing in February's Writer's Digest.  The conclusion was: go with hybrid publishing, which is traditional plus self-publishing.  Of course that's easier said than done - getting that traditional book requires good timing, dynamite/clean writing, luck, a passionate agent with contacts, etc.  So I suspect self-publishing will end up being most of our initial options.  Then if we sell thousands, prove interest, we may be picked up by a publishing house. 

 I'm hearing about limited sales for those who typically would have made more.  I suspect that technology coming along at a fast clip is doing to publishing what it did to the calculator...lots of choices out there, some of the cheaper ones are of poor quality... but always cheaper and cheaper.  Would you rather build or buy a calculator that is intimidatingly large and costly or a tiny one that has engineering and graphing features?  It's the same with books, it’s so easy to do print on demand and e-pubbing now that yes, there's a glut of poor writing out there, but the product is cheaper because of that.  I have a little calculator that was a free giveaway…sound familiar?