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As I mentioned in my last post, entrepreneurs are creators in the world of business, and today’s authors are also more and more entrepreneurs.
Authors today aren’t content to let a literary agent discover them and hope to be published one day in the future and let publishers do the kind of magic they supposedly did in another era. Today’s authors explore for opportunities. They invest personal time and money in exploiting new ideas and discovering untapped markets they can realize. (Capitalize here means to make money.) Except for a few authors – a small percentage among the millions of people who write – there’s never been real money in books. Still, people still want content, though fewer wish to pay for it, and more of them tend to want it in newer forms. It’s up to authors/entrepreneurs to take advantage of whatever opportunities they can uncover here.
Neither do publishers have the luxury of waiting for authors to knock at their doors (or literary agents, either) – that is, authors with innovative minds, who are talented writers and industry leaders looking to build attention for their work and methods. Publishers should give them that attention, working with them actively to develop a forum for their ideas, rather than waiting for a book to succeed. Publishers should become intellectual venture capitalists.
How long before this happens? Many big-media observers would like a return to the days of paper, and they publicize any announcements or findings from publishing organizations that seem to imply that e-book sales are slowing. As if that will stop the tide of overall change.
There will be slowdowns, but change is happening, and wishing it away won’t lead to a return to how publishing worked before (nor how authors did, either). But if you as an author are ready to be as nimble in your approach to publishing as you have learned to be diligent in building your fan base and expanding your marketing platform, and if publishers are willing to throw away old ideas of doing business and embrace new ways to build business together with authors, then the new age of the author and the new age of the publisher will be upon us.
In our next series of posts, we’re going to look at how you can better determine what your big idea is, and how to uncover your goals.
