Writing, including publishing, is extremely competitive no matter where you go. So much so that if you want to go the the traditional path of publishing houses and can be discouraged by;
- the long hours of unpaid or low paid work (you get paid for a story, not while writing one),
- the low chance of being selected by a publisher (very few people get picked from a slush pile, most have agents and even then you might not get picked, they also reject you for any reason in the world),
- the average 10% royalty rate, 15% if you’re lucky (the rest go to the publishing house),
- the idea that not many people would even buy your book (in Australia at the moment, print runs are an average of 3000 per book, most don’t sell out),
- you have to take the constructed criticism of a lot of people who simply do not like your book (never mind all that hard work you put in adding meaning and subversive ideas) over and over again,
- the fact that you don’t have creative control of your work and publishing houses are going to change your story to make it commercially appealing and,
- the average of a year that it takes to get a book out onto the market ( don’t know why it is takes so long).
then you are not meant to be an author. But if not, and/or you desired to go it alone and self publish then you are meant to be a writer, as nothing is going to stop you.
Stephanie Haggarty 