I’ve been thinking about the self-publishing route, but I’m a little intimidated by all the work involved in marketing, financing, and other business-related matters. It seemed so much easier to just send a query to a publishing agent that could find a publishing house, but I’ve spent enough time in college to know that most of those agents do not have even half a full deck. For now, I think I’ll see how this community grows. I’d love to help out in any way I can, but I’m really not sure where to begin past the writing phase.
As I’ve said here and in the other thread, I fully believe the future of publishing is crowd funding and direct to consumer like Comicsgate. But to do that you have to build a base. Right now, the path to that is YouTube an similar platforms. The marketing is your performance and engagement then self promotion when the time comes to an audience that has grown with you. The financing is the crowd fund, and then if you’ve done your research you will know the printing costs and fulfillment costs. That all goes into your crowd funding goal. Then you sell sell sell, hit your mark, and fulfill.
As writers, our costs are lower than comic artists, because outside of possibly hiring an editor, you don’t have to pay anyone else but yourself and the printers/fulfillment center. Starting out I wouldn’t expect anyone to get fancy cover art, unless that’s a conceivable stretch goal you think your customers are willing to go for.
That is the future I see, and am striving to create. I see no other way to do it in this day and age. I’ve got over 30 books to get to, so it’s now or never, and with crowdfunding you can get this done faster. No more playing the traditional rules. Fuck em.