Non-Traditional Pathways to Getting Published
By Victoria Fortune
If you are an aspiring novelist, you’ve most likely fantasized about seeing your book on display in bookstores. Perhaps you’ve imagined meeting with your editor over lunch at some swanky New York restaurant, a book tour with readings, fans lining up for your signature on their copy. In today’s quickly evolving world, however, this traditional approach is becoming more the exception than the rule.
Publishing is a brutal world, as one author on a panel about Non-Traditional Publishing noted at the June residency for the Newport MFA program. The traditional route to succuss--being published by one of the “Big Five” houses--has become even more cutthroat with the consolidation of major publishing houses, all looking for the next best-seller. But a quickly evolving industry offers new options for those willing to consider alternatives to what was once considered the only respectable avenue to publication.
Independent Publishers:
Small and independent publishers focus on a niche market, and “offer writers an alternative to both the hard-to-get Big Five deals and the often headache-inducing process of self-publishing,” according to TCKpublishing.Tim Weed, an instructor at the Newport MFA and panel member, published his coming-of-age historical novel Will Poole’s Island with namelos, a publisher of high-quality books for children and young adults. Like many small presses, they were willing to work closely with him to shepherd the book through the revision process, which may not be the case at the big houses.
Independent presses don’t do much in the way of promotion, so it is up to the authors to market their books, which may require hiring a publicist. “You may not sell as many books, but you can often have a more enduring book,” Weed noted. Small presses represent fewer titles and invest more in each one, typically keeping books in publication longer than major publishers.
Amazon:
Author Anne LeClaire published numerous best-selling novels with Ballantine Books before having trouble securing a deal for her 2017 novel The Halo Effect. When she received an offer from Lake Union Publishing, Amazon Publishing’s book club fiction imprint, she decided to give them a try. She found working with them to be such a positive experience that she published a second novel, The Orchid Sister, with them in 2019. The quality of the editing was great; they know how to promote and work hard at it. The downsides: a smaller advance than major publishers offer, and the book isn’t sold in independent bookstores, but Amazon’s customer base offers exposure to a vast audience. This article by Jane Friedman on her experience publishing with Amazon offers additional detail about the process.
Audible:
Audiobooks, “the fastest growing format in publishing” according to Writer’s Digest, offer writers exciting new options. Panel member Katie Moulton, a writer, music critic, and recent addition to the Newport MFA faculty, just published her memoir "dead dad club: on grief & tom petty" exclusively on @audible. When her agent submitted the book to print publishers, she got lots of kind rejections and an intriguing offer from Audible to go straight to audio. When she let go of the notion of the traditional path to publishing, and the image of her book on bookstore shelves, she realized that the audio format could be the perfect vehicle for her story that “focuses on relationships, memory, and writing about pop music.” She reimagined the story coming through people’s ears instead of through words on the page and brought in a musician friend to create a score, which made the process a collaborative one and further enhanced the story.
For writers willing to look beyond the traditional path through the major publishing houses, there are many new paths to success.
