We at Hylas Publishing have worked hard to promote other people’s books over the years. But it is becoming more and more apparent that self-publishing is the route or the future of publishing in general. But does that mean that Publishing companies are dead?
“Is the Publishing Industry Dead or Just Re-Inventing Itself”
We would like to think that the right answer is a little of both. If history is a good indication, those publishing companies that hold to the old ways will die. Over time they will find themselves losing customers and when the time comes, they will surely lose most ground.
Kodak is a great example of this. Back when digital cameras were just coming about, Kodak believed it was a fad. They believed that it would quickly die off and people would go back to film cameras. And even when it was apparent they were wrong and other companies were jumping ship, Kodak still held on to that belief. Riding it all the way to oblivion.
And just like Kodak, many large scale publishers will fall prey to the same fate. But many will get the clue and start to shift to digital and offer their potential writers more incentives to go through them then to do it on their own.
Think about it! Years ago, you couldn’t publish and be successful without a publishing company. Just the logistics alone made it so that self-publishing was non-existent. But now you have writers like Hugh Howey who stand against publishing companies and promotes self-publishing as the future.
So What Does this Mean For Us?
Well, we at Hylas Publishing will be shifting our service from a more traditional role as a publisher and will start to look at ways to help with the self-publishing platform. We will not be looking for ways to ‘cut’ into profit, but instead look at providing service for those who are looking to do it on their own. However, what we are finding is that most people need help with this.
Kindlepreneur.com is a great site that discusses this aspect of the game and we share in their zeal. According to the author of that website, authors forget to transition from the pen to the market. They fail to realize that authors don’t sell book, but marketers do. What the author is saying is that for a book to succeed in self-publishing, the author needs to become a marketer and basically perform the role that traditional publishers performed, way back in the day.
And do you know how to do that? In many cases, book publishing and marketing isn’t about “if you write it, they will come.” That only happens in the movies.
So, where to begin?
If you want more information on how you can self-publish and thus self-market, contact us. We would be more than happy to point you in the right direction. We believe in good karma! But if you want to focus more on your writing and leave the marketing to us, then we can do that too. Just contact us through our contact page and we will be more than happy to setup a skype meeting or at our office building and look at your submission and perform a ‘digital’ release of you book.
We at Hylas Publishing want to keep with the times and have seen what Amazon Kindle has done to the market. And like most companies that survive such dramatic changes in the market, we are adapting to fit your needs. Let us know in the comments what you think!