Traditional Publishing Is an Inadequate Gateway for Authors
Indie publishing is the game-changer
As someone who sent out both query letters and manuscripts to agents and publishers for over twenty years, off and on, and who has Indie-published my own work since 2014, I know one thing without question. Needing to get your book published in the traditional way is no longer as valuable for a writer’s psyche or profit.
Publishers, in particular the Big 5 (Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin Random House, and Simon & Schuster) are seen as the gatekeepers for what books get an audience in the great wide world out there. They decide who and what we read, and when. They have screeners (usually people in their early twenties with MFAs) who are equivalent to the old-time over-the-transom readers — these people choose which books get pushed up the ladder to the junior and senior editors. The editors decide which books to assign for actual publication.
In addition, most traditional publishers never take in unsolicited manuscripts. They receive book proposals from the middlemen, literary agents who often rely on their own screeners to decide which incoming prospects should be evaluated.
(This article shows smaller presses open to unsolicited manuscripts, however, though not always, and both monetary…
