Publishing is profitable when several good stories are available, not a single great novel. The marketplace for a writer works best they are proficient and prolific rather than great and slow. Publishers and agents are not seeking the next Hemingway, rather the next mid-list, non-bestselling writer that can produce good content quickly with the potential of growing an audience. Any publisher will be more profitable with a dozen such authors as opposed to one who makes the bestseller list once a year.

If this doesn’t make sense then consider the fact that backlist, older titles selling a few hundred copies continuously, are much more profitable that one author who manages to sell thousands of copies every year. As the older backlist titles continue to sell the single bestseller will run its course in a couple of months and then the publisher must wait another ten months for the next one. Those ten months of nothing are more costly than a constant stream of steady backlist sellers. The key is to write often, write well, and never worry about making it great, just be steady and remember success is being good many times over rather than great only once.

The best method is to start slow, test several ideas, and then evaluate the results. Patience is important; it is rare that results follow a couple weeks of marketing activity. As you gain confidence add more items to your marketing list and again evaluate the results. Authors who market their own writing have the luxury of time while authors under contract have huge time constraints of which they have zero control. Even if you are under contract keep in mind that doing some of your own book marketing is smart.

Marketing your writing is never ending and incorporates many pieces that work together to meet your personal goals as an author. It is okay to set your expectations high but it is also important to be realistic. Goals can be reevaluated and reset the same as any part of your marketing campaign, as long as your progress is forward. It all begins with information and time, followed by a plan, testing and revising, goal setting, finally execution and patience. The key is to begin the momentum.

If you think James Patterson ignores new writers coming onto the scene with the launch of a new novel you would be greatly mistaken. He is a master of the market and knows exactly what readers want. To the point he no longer writes his own novels but creates the stories, characters and provides his co-author with a strict outline. That is mastering the genre and it begins with his intense curiosity of all writers in his varying genres including suspense, mystery, young adult and now children.

Occasionally I receive emails from subscribers of my newsletter explaining they love the content but just have too much to read to keep up. There is a tremendous amount of information about publishing and book marketing, let alone reading category titles. Writers have to sift through and decide what is important. From my standpoint everyone needs encouragement and industry knowledge. Eliminate the fluff and stick with what is important but most of all read your competition.

The next step is to research the web sites, Facebook pages and social media of the notable authors in your genre, observe how they market to you, the reader and fan. Again you are making mental notes on what attracts you as both a fan and writer. The point in this exercise is to observe and research your competition in both bookstores and social media. These are your laboratories for learning the business and how to market yourself and your writing. The more you become a frequent visitor the sooner you will begin to see the subtleties in how the authors and industry react to the overall market.

Writers wanting to become authors must understand the very basics of the marketplace regardless of how they publish. This is especially important if the plan is to publish independently. The more you observe and research the better informed you will become and the better able to make wise, cost efficient decisions. In publishing you do not want to be seen as someone publishing in a manner that is well off the map, you want to remain consistent yet different from your competition. Being too unique can become a negative and not necessarily a positive for your career. Start to observe and research and over time you will be amazed at how much you learn.

Many large publishing companies have been guilty of marketing bad books but overall the writing quality is much better than the average independently published title. To restore consumers trust in independent authors they need to improve the editing of their work and begin the process of raising the standard in the industry. Good independent books exist but are rarely discovered simply because the marketplace has developed an overall negative market perception.

The author is the brand, never the publisher. Consumers who purchase your book(s) are customers. Bad writing reflects on the author, not the publisher, and will forever be linked to that person. It is time for writers to accept responsibility for the work they produce and focus on the quality of their writing. The reading public deserves the ability to trust that the books being published are well written, well edited, quality titles. Any published book is in essence a recommendation of that author and the consumer should be able to trust the quality of the writing in every published title.

The best description of quality is storytelling. Does the writing turn pages and leave readers wanting more? Even nonfiction must provide a good story by sharing information that readers feel compelled to read and answers questions they are searching to discover. Both fiction and nonfiction, children’s and young adult all demand that the writing be edited and meet a certain minimum standard.

All writers feel their work is the best and that is one reason editors exist, to bring them down to earth. Objective, third party evaluation of one’s writing combined with the sharp eye of a professional editor is a minimum for publication. Editors are not always right in the mind of the writer however more often than not they make the correct evaluation. Make the right choice and select an editor that will help you become a quality writer.

While book publishers have a responsibility to focus on developing quality writing so to does the writer have a responsibility to understand that lack of quality reflects negatively upon them which will forever be linked to their name as an author.  Writers that capitalize on this demand have one very important advantage over their competition and that is an editor.

Friends and family who are not professional editors do not count since quality writing demands editorial expertise. Bestselling authors often praise their editors for helping make them a better writer which is the job of a good editor. The growing demand for creative content is based solely on the quality of the work and that requires editorial assistance at every level of writing. To succeed in the new era a writer must first develop the quality of their writing.

The responsibility of the small and independent press in this new era is to focus on publishing more quality writing and not get enamored with producing a large number of mediocre titles in a wide variety of categories. The book publishing industry will thrive only if the small and independent companies realize that the focus needs to shift back to the quality of the writing and development of talent as opposed to producing large numbers of new books.

Consumers of books want to be entertained, informed or enlightened and will forever be drawn to the quality of the writing. Those publishers, who succeed in the new era will nurture talented writers, publish only when the writer is ready, never push writers to meet unrealistic deadlines, and will better control the quality of the work they publish at every point in the process. A thriving book industry must turn away from production and concentrate on the writing and editing.

Fear of failure is understandable but it must be overcome if you wish to succeed as a writer. If you write often and devote as much time as possible to improving your craft you cannot help but get better. Writing is a passion and the first hurdle is to accept the fact that not everything you write is going to be terrific let alone marketable. Rather than discard work that you may not feel is good enough, save and readdress at a later time.

Criticism helps writers get better so avoid feedback from family and friends who will only tell you what you want to hear. Seek out writers groups and critique groups and listen to the opinion of others. Success rarely happens overnight and critical acclaim takes time but successful writers persist and learn from mistakes. The biggest mistake a writer can make is to allow criticism to drive them from pursuing their craft. Write as often as possible, welcome and accept criticism, continue to study and improve your work and never forget to identify yourself as a writer.

The next question to ask when evaluating any book marketing service: Can the service be measured for success? For example, paying to have emails sent to a list of subscribers is meaningless. The author has no way of telling who the emails will be going to, or whether the subscribers consider the emails spam, or whether the emails are actually being received by the intended subscriber. This is one example but if the service and results cannot be measured then it is not worth the price. If the service seems too good to be true, the reconsider and if guarantees are being made then the service is a scam.

There are many more questions and methods of evaluating book marketing services but I strongly encourage anyone to seek professional advice before agreeing to purchase an expensive program. Advice can often be acquired with an email but for little money you can get a professional evaluation of an expensive service before wasting time and money. Publishing is a fragmented business without a single industry source of validity or approval so the best recommendation is seek professional guidance before making critical and expensive book marketing decisions.