HYBRID AUTHORS – WHY THE INCREASING TREND?

You’ve all heard of a ‘hybrid author’, right? Authors who publish via both the traditional and indie routes? After months of debating whether it would be the right decision for me, I have jumped on the bandwagon of the ever increasing number of hybrid authors.

Let me tell you why…

My debut series, Vengeful Love, was published by Harlequin’s Carina Press earlier this year. I loved the experience. From getting the deal and starting up a relationship with my editor, to seeing the finished product. But, as a debut author, I didn’t have my next deal lined up before the series was released. I found myself in a dilemma—readers were calling for my next book and, though I had a complete manuscript, the traditional process meant it would likely be 12 to 18 months before my next novel would be released (although some digital only imprints will publish on shorter timescales).

Therein lies the main motivation behind me becoming a hybrid author. TIMING. If I put out an indie title, I can choose my own timeline. I can give readers what they are asking for, and keep momentum between traditional deals. Timing is a huge positive associated with indie (or self-published) releases. But it was not the only thing I had to think about.

My greatest reservation was that I would not be handed a readymade TEAM of editors, designers and marketeers. I would have to find my own team and how would I know if they were any good? Actually, it was not as difficult as I thought. I asked my indie author friends for recommendations. Most editors will provide a free sample of work and designers have a catalogue of covers you can use to help you make the right decision. It is actually great to be able to FREELY MAKE DECISIONS about your book.

Perhaps my biggest concern, is that responsibility for marketing now rests solely with me. Whereas traditional publishing houses have a loyal following of readers willing to take a chance on their books, indie authors must work very hard to build their own BRAND. (That said, even with traditional publishing, authors these days are required to market themselves heavily through social media and other channels.)

PRICING and ROYALTIES. I am grouping these two together because I consider them related. In terms of pricing FLEXIBILITY, the traditional route leaves an author with little or no influence over the retail price of a book. The reverse is true of self-publishing. Indie authors can set their own prices and utilise mechanisms such a price PROMOTIONS and Kindle Unlimited (i.e. free to subscribers of Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited library in return for royalties). Royalty percentages are also significantly higher for self-published authors. However, indie books are commonly priced lower than traditional books. This, together with more regular price promotions, tends to mean the average retail price of a book is less for indie authors.

Related to pricing and important to remember, is that an author choosing to self-publish will have initial EXPENDITURE for covers, editors etc. whereas a traditional publishing house would generally assume these costs.

Another consideration is access to PLATFORMS. While most platforms (e.g. Barnes and Noble, Amazon) and formats (ebook, print, audio) are available to indie authors just as they are to traditional publishers, there is significantly more work for one author to spread him/herself across multiple platforms, whereas traditional publishing houses are already set up to do this. Also, while physical stores may sometimes pick up self-published authors, they are much more likely to acquire traditionally published paperback books.

Finally, let us consider READERSHIP. While traditional publishing has loyal followers, these days there is a huge indie-supportive readership out there, a community traditional authors may not find themselves part of.

Let us put all this together in a visual and see which route scores best.

Category	Traditional Publishing	Indie Publishing
Time from writing to publishing		X
Building a team	X
Choice of covers, artwork and marketing strategy		X
Ease of establishing a brand following	X
Ability to set prices and flexibility to utilise price promotions		X
Royalties		X
Initial expenditure	X
Ease of access to multiple platforms	X
Readership – brand loyalty / indie-supportive community	X	X

In summary, you can see both the traditional and ‘new-age’ routes have positives and negatives. Looking at this table, it may not be difficult to see why many authors are choosing to combine the benefits of both routes and become hybrid. Perhaps the greatest benefit is that there are two tranches of readers, those loyal to traditional publishers and those supportive of indie authors. Even acknowledging some crossover, being hybrid affords authors access to a much greater readership by combining both.

My first indie title and standalone novel, Scarred by You, releases on 24 October 2016. For more details, follow me here:

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POOR COUSIN

I’ve just returned from a two-day meeting that brought together about 250 participants from the Canadian world of words. The idea behind the gathering was to take stock of where the Canadian publishing industry stands in order to see where it’s going. The participants were to consider new and innovative ways of supporting writing and writers, in all their forms.

I was excited at the prospect of being in a room full of people who love words as much as I do. I looked forward to learning from the experience of others and sharing my own as a hybrid (indie/traditional) writer.

We were assigned a table and stayed with the same eight to ten people for the two days, and while I got to learn about the people at my table, I didn’t meet any other writers. Looking at the participants list, there didn’t seem to be many writers. And while there were many (many, many, many) small literary publishers present, there was only one big publishing house represented. Where was Harlequin? Simon and Schuster? Penguin? And what of the smaller genre publishers like ChiZine?

Where were the organizations like SF Canada and Crime Writers of Canada?

Literary short fiction publishers abounded but there were no publishers of short genre fiction, like On Spec Magazine. And we have wonderful, well-published science fiction and mystery writers in this country—Robert Sawyer, Giles Blunt, Louise Penny, Guy Gavriel Kay—were they invited but didn’t come? Were they not invited?

I would have been interested in hearing what some of those folks had to say. I did hear the opinions of a number of writers and small publishers in the plenary sessions and at the microphones at the end of each session.

As it turns out, nobody was all that interested in my experience as an indie writer. In Canada, it seems, indie publishing may be the wave of the future but right now it’s still rather gauche.

I may be generalizing unfairly, but it seemed to me that there was a whiff of elitism in the room. I lost track of the number of times people spoke about the value of literary fiction and poetry (both of which I like just fine, thank you) in enriching the Canadian discourse. I actually considered going up to the microphone myself and making a point about the value of genre fiction in enriching pocketbooks as well, but I ran out of nerve. Besides, nobody actually said anything negative about genre fiction or indie publishing. It was more subtle than that. It was interrupting me when I brought up a point about indie publishing or corrected a misconception, and deflecting the discussion back to literary fiction and poetry. They were willing to be polite but really didn’t think what I wrote and published was important.

After a while, I felt like the poor cousin invited to the mansion for Christmas dinner: nice, until you realize you’re a charity case.

Am I being overly sensitive? Is this a chip-on-the-shoulder type of thing? If so, maybe I should just build a bridge and get over it. I am, however, interested in learning if other people experience this type of bias. Is it different in the U.S.?

My latest crass, commercial venture is a short story, “The Verdant Gene,” in the Fiction River anthology, Moonscapes.

 
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