The Road to and of Literature

INTRO

This is not just for unpublished authors or publishers. It's reading, thinking, and discussion for everyone. Read and consider all of it even if you do not think that one part applies to you. You may find yourself learning things you never even thought of before.

AUTHORS

There are many ways to get published, many publishers to do it with, and no clear path to go about actually doing it. Just as you write the words of a novel, so too is publishing like a subjective form of art. What one publisher says is a story that needs serious editing is what another calls the next classic. Who do you listen to and who do you publish with?

It depends on what you want and need. And it is critical that you understand that “one man's trash is another man's treasure” because you will, with enough time and experience, find that feedback from different readers and publishers will clash.

Some authors need local marketing and are willing to pay for it. Others need an online presence and have to find ways to build it. Some want to reach a specific audience and need help finding it. Still more want to fuse social movement with their own writing as in the case of saving dolphins or old growth forest.

Every author has a specific list of interests. For new authors, it is usually nothing more than improving their writing and getting their name "out there" somehow. But whatever the case may be, authors are always concerned with feedback. That's one reason why I'm currently working on creating a way for authors to post story drafts and receive reviews through Kaeru Digital without losing rights to their work or being sealed behind the iron curtain of publisher lock-in.

Take it from an actual publisher. You should use one that fits you. But be careful. Pay close attention whenever dealing with publishers because you will want to make sure that you maintain full IP and control over your work. Otherwise, you may find your book flying off into success while you stand helplessly below on the ground.

PUBLISHERS

You're caught in the middle between the people who write and the people who read. There's no list of rules to follow. Sure, you want to be certain that you don't publish some book that's full of spelling and grammatical errors but the content...it's subjective. You could say that this character is two-dimensional or that plot point is too cliché. You could point out an info-dump or criticize a development that happened a tad too quick in an effort to, in your mind, help the author bring their work to golden success. But that would mean that you're an editing publisher.

Put simply, there are different kinds of publishers. You could be of the editing variety or of the marketing variety. You could even be of the sales variety.

There are a lot of other publishers out there and you need to distinguish yourself. Furthermore, there are a lot of authors out there and they all have their own individual expectations of you. What do you do? Focus on one thing and abandon another? Offer editing more than marketing or marketing more than editing? Perhaps even discard the two and focus on providing the books for sale?

It's all up to you and everyone will generate their own opinion of you based on what you do. Is that good or bad? It's neither. You might fit some of their needs, all of them, or maybe none at all. Provide the best service that you can because that's your whole job. Focus too much on profit and you will lose sight of the writers and readers – the people that really matter.

READERS

There are a billion and one books out there today and no single means of buying and reading them. You could choose to acquire physical books from a local store or a chain store. You could get them online as ebooks or even purchase digital copies for reading in your web browser. And each one of those choices provides you with a unique library of titles because some books are only available through one means and not the other.

But just like an author or publisher, you have wants and needs. Maybe you want a physical book because you can't afford an expensive electronic device. Or maybe you want only ebooks because you hate having stacks of paper laying around your house. Maybe all you want is to read them on a normal monitor because that's all you can do.

You have certain desires when it comes to the books themselves. Maybe you love books written in first-person or maybe you loathe books written in present-tense. You have books that you love but a friend or family member hates. You have your own views and opinions.

Your situation is unique to you and there's no guarantee that there are any authors or publishers that provide all that you want. So you keep searching for new books in your preferred medium. Maybe you love what's coming out this year or maybe you find newly published works to be boring and unoriginal.

You may be a reader, but you're just as important as the authors and publishers. And unless those two groups start caring about what you care about, you won't have anything to buy and read.

CONCLUSION

So here is a discussion not just for one group but for everyone.

If you are an author, what is it that you need? What do you look for and why?

If you are a publisher, what kind are you and why?

If you are a reader, what do you look for in both books and publishers? Do you look for flashy book covers? Do you look for ebooks that you can read on an e-reader device?

For everyone, how does the wants and needs of others effect you? (i.e. How do you think the needs of a publisher effect you as a reader?)