Ebooks are here to stay. Amazon enjoys overwhelming dominance among book retailers. Indie has matured into the preferred publishing model for authors.
These developments, among many that have turned the book industry upside down in recent years, are widely known. Yet publishers, and even most indie authors, continue to employ obsolete practices that no longer make sense in the post-analog publishing world.
The other day I was conversing with a friend and reader about how Leftist authors get ample support from converged publishers and media outlets, while non-Leftists must largely go it alone. Yet these converged institutions are almost entirely wedded to the dying trad publishing model.
We agreed that a more effective support structure for dissident authors of speculative fiction was needed. Soon we started brainstorming about what a publishing company designed to take maximum advantage of the current industry landscape would look like.
If I had the resources and inclination to build the perfect speculative fiction publisher from scratch, here’s the plan I’d follow. Note that this is purely theoretical, since ideally I’d have needed to start implementing this plan five years ago.
The groundwork
Before I even considered calling for author submissions, my first step would be to start building a platform. The centerpiece would be a blog devoted to speculative fiction. I’d enlist two or three other like-minded guys with solid writing and editing skills to contribute. We’d keep a strict schedule of publishing multiple posts per day, seven days a week to build a readership while cross-promoting on social media. The initial goal would be to get 100,000 views per month before moving to the next stage.
As the blog’s readership grew, I’d keep an eye out for commenters with writing talent. Those with the most promise would be recruited as contributors and kept in mind for later consideration as authors. I would also cultivate an email list to keep readers apprised of news, contests, and giveaways.
The structure
With the initial team assembled and the blog’s audience at the requisite size (100,000 monthly views and 10,000 newsletter subscribers), for which I’d allow roughly five years, I’d begin putting the actual publishing operation’s structure in place.
This hypothetical publishing house would have at least three imprints right off the bat–one for each main category of fiction we’d publish. I’d forego analog-era genres like science fiction and fantasy since
trad publishers have effectively killed those labels in the reading public’s mind. Instead, our operation would be divided based on far more useful Amazon categories. Each imprint would have an editor chosen from the original collaborators.
As mentioned above, the future editors would have been recruiting and curating talent over the previous five years. Their goal would be to have five authors apiece, each with five-book series already written and ready to go.
The launch
The initial launch would consist of all three imprints releasing the first book by each of their five authors. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Extensive preparation would be necessary prior to launch. Pre-launch support for each title would include the following:
- Each author would have built his own platform, to include regular blogging and social media presence. The publisher’s blog would help with promotion.
- Each author would also have built up a personal mailing list–again, with publisher assistance.
- The publisher would have worked to build mutually beneficial relationships with several best selling indie authors. Mailing list trades would be arranged so that every launch title would be promoted by eight best selling authors not signed to the publisher via their mailing lists.
- At least 35 advance reviewers would be recruited for every launch title through the publisher’s and authors’ email lists.
As a result of all this preparation, each book would launch on KDP with 35 reviews. Each book would be assigned different subcategories. Cross-promotion by authors with #1 best sellers in each book’s Amazon categories would teach Amazon’s algorithm to promote the book to likely buyers.
Just as importantly, each imprint would have its own separate KDP account and email list. The publisher would not cross-promote books from different imprints on the same mailing lists, whether those lists belonged to the publisher or allied authors. These measures would prevent a book’s “also boughts” from becoming too incestuous, i.e. dominated by other books from the same publisher/authors in different categories.
If this plan is implemented properly, each book should reliably attain a #1 rank in at least one of its Amazon subcategories.
The future
Remember how I said that all fifteen original authors would need to have five books each ready to publish? After the launch of their first books, the successive titles in each author’s series would be released every month, following the same formula outlined above. Each book could reasonably be expected to reach #1 in at least one subcategory. Meanwhile, the authors keep writing one book per month.
After a few months, all of the initial fifteen authors would be established enough to effectively promote new authors in the same categories. At that point, the editors would start scouting new authors from submissions, social media, and Amazon.
At that point, you’d have a publisher capable of reliably taking a new author from relative obscurity to consistent #1 best selling status. The cultural benefits of such an operation cannot be overstated.
the Soul Cycle is everything that sci-fi, including the new Star Wars movies, should be trying to emulate.
