Not my thoughts, for once – I subject you to more than enough of those in the Tuesday blog posts. No, this Saturday I wanted to share with you an article Brandon Sanderson wrote in response to his recent, and unprecedented, Kickstarter campaign. In particular, his thoughts about the publishing industry are particularly interesting.
One of the reasons that I respect Sanderson, beyond the fact that he writes such fantastic books, is that he does not fall into the artistic stereotypes. As an author, he does not only pay attention to the creativity and writing. He runs his writing career as a business (and a very successful one, at that), and is unafraid of digging into marketing, distribution, artwork, editing, and production. He is also wise enough to note, as he does in his article, that not all authors started writing so that they could have their own HR department, and that therein lies the reason why publishers aren’t going extinct. They just might need to change a little.
The post highlights a lot of things in detail that I think most people don’t really think through, and even offers some insight into what the sales figures look like for someone as successful as he is. It’s a behind-the-curtain look in a lot of ways at what really goes into publishing a novel, including parts of it that even published authors may not always see, and the whole package is framed with some interesting thoughts Sanderson has about where publishing is going, and where he thinks it should be going.
It set me to thinking about where I want to go with IGC Publishing in the long run, but this post isn’t supposed to be about my thoughts. Instead, I’ll conclude by encouraging you to head over to Sanderson’s website and check out his thoughts on the publishing industry.
IGC Publishing 