A writer makes you while you make them an author

For a moment, just think about the Harry Potter series, originally published by Bloomsbury and penned by J.K.Rowling. If Rowling, the author, earned in billions, her publishers also earned like her, in fact possibly more than Rowling.

Something that was rejected by many publishers was picked by Bloomsbury. Obviously, Bloomsbury took a risk by investing in a new writer as they believed in Rowling’s idea and their own business and professional skills. Just imagine if they had not done that, maybe we would not have seen Harry Potter at all or seen it differently.

The other way around, if some other publisher had given a chance to Rowling’s idea, the major earnings would have gone to that publisher.

The Harry Potter concept was unique and every unique concept has two possibilities: a huge success or a huge failure. Someone was required to take a risk and Bloomsbury won it.

That was the time when traditional publishing was purely traditional. Nobody had access to social media profiles, writer’s reach, online reviews and not even Amazon’s sale rankings that rarely conveys anything about the quality of a book. Nothing. All that was there was a pure gut feeling to invest in a concept and take business risks.

But in recent times, the traditional approach has also witnessed a change. More than your talent or skills, what matters is how many followers you have on a social media profile, how much market you can generate yourselves, your social media perception and how much money you can spend on the professional services yourself in order to minimize the investment of the publisher.

Even top publishers are avoiding taking risks these days, while the fact is every business has a risk and those who are avert to it should not actually be in the business.

They are ready to associate with a writer who has been successful even if his proposals are similar to the one that brought him success, but are reluctant to bring new ideas to the market.

Traditional publishing is changing and the problem is traditional publishers are not accepting it that they are changing while they still want to hook up with that one writer who has the potential to make them a billionaire.

Just asking for a manuscript or proposal in twelve Points, Double Space, Times New Roman does not make one a traditional publisher. A true traditional publisher is the one who believes in the content of a writer and bets on it without gauging the writer’s reach in the society or a virtual social network.

A writer looks at traditional publishing because a good publisher can help them with providing that desired reach and professional expertise, not merely for getting a book printed and distributed in the market under a brand.

Likewise, a publisher needs that one writer who has capacity to change their account books drastically in green.

Both writers as well as publishers need each other.

This article is not to teach publishers as they certainly know their jobs better but to remind them that while they are changing with the time, they need to keep in mind ‘it is a writer that makes you while you make them an author’.

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