News These charts detailing publishing routes may be of interest to you.

[CarolMS]

Jane Friedman (janefriedman.com) has updated her charts detailing the basic differences between various publishing options. You might want to check them out. (Wish there was a prefix that was just "Publishing.")

 

[PCFrontier]

Hi Carol, thanks for posting these charts, a useful quick summary. Pete has covered these topics as well in the Huddle and podcasts.
Best wishes for New Year. Paul C

 

[CarolMS]

Hi Carol, thanks for posting these charts, a useful quick summary. Pete has covered these topics as well in the Huddle and podcasts.
Best wishes for New Year. Paul C

Right. @AgentPete is a fountain of information, isn't he? I just thought I'd post these charts because it might be useful to have an at-a-glance side-by-side view of a subject that seems to have more and more ins and outs as every day passes. (What a sentence! HaHa!) Such things are especially helpful for those of us who are more visual types with not-so-great memories for all the details.

 

[AgentPete]

Thanks for this, Carol.

Important to note that this is a cross-section in time of how the publishing landscape looks… for the moment. It’s far from a static situation.

Even more important… some of the options on the list are far better than others. “Hybrid” and “paid” are both highly suspicious categories. Jane’s grouping of them together with “self- publishing” incorrectly suggests that they are somehow on par with each other: equal alternatives / options from which the author can choose. Tldr: avoid “hybrid” and “paid”, they will take your money and you won’t see much in return. Mostly a new name for vanity. And yes, some of them do have a page on site with glowing endorsements from customers/authors… Mostly very naive people, unfortunately.

And finally, of ultimate importance… don’t get side-tracked by all these seeming options! The publishing process is actually predicated on one thing and one thing alone – the relationship between you the author and your reader. Concentrate on creating compelling stories and addictive prose, that’s by far and away the most important thing… without which nothing else really matters.

 

[CarolMS]

And finally, of ultimate importance… don’t get side-tracked by all these seeming options! The publishing process is actually predicated on one thing and one thing alone – the relationship between you the author and your reader. Concentrate on creating compelling stories and addictive prose, that’s by far and away the most important thing… without which nothing else really matters.

Oh, yeah, doesnt that make sense! Fortunately, I'm not personally trying to choose one route over the other at the moment, since I'm still focused on getting my MS in final shape (still needing to chip a little off that word count, you know), and also still planning on at least giving the traditional route a gung-ho try. I just like to share resources when I come across something that might be useful to others. Thanks for reviewing and providing feedback on JF's charts. Very helpful!