Small/Independent Publishing Needs Networking

It’s Saturday afternoon. My good friend Mike Baltar visited me today, and we went out together to a local coffee shop, HOLY COFFEE.

Positives:

  1. It’s local
  2. The coffee wasn’t bad
  3. It’s not that far from my house
  4. Really nice seating
  5. Free wifi

Negatives:

  1. Unobvious store front — it might be part of a church?
  2. Christian music seemed a little loud

I didn’t have any problems writing there. I finally started making some progress on chapter 2. Any progress is good progress at this point.

We didn’t stay too long. We came back to my house and participated in the Water Dragon Publishing bi-weekly meeting. I relayed some ideas and thoughts I’ve had about independent publishing for a while, and the ideas were well received. We just have to have some follow through.

My thoughts, in a nutshell:

We need to build a plan for networking across different small and independent publishers. We need to establish a pattern, apply it, and spread the word. Individually, we all have a small reach. Together, we might be able to extend to a wider audience. This is especially true with the collapse of marketing through social media.

“Hold up, Brian. What do you mean by ‘the collapse of marketing through social media?'”

I mean, it’s all shitty, now. It was shitty before, but it’s gotten worse. The algorithms on both Twitter and Facebook suppress user generated content, especially if it looks like an advertisement. If you want to advertise there, you need to pay those platforms some money, otherwise your engagement will be nearly non-existent.

Also, Twitter and the Meta platforms are all rancid, both politically and morally. I’ve already talked about that.

You can advertise on BlueSky, but with about 30 million users, it’s still a relatively small (but growing) platform. There is no algorithm to suppress you, but there isn’t much to help your voice spread beyond the breadth of your current followers. There’s a couple of feeds that might help, but I don’t think it’s something you can rely on.

What we need is networking at a higher level. We independent and small publishers to cross pollinate. We need to support each other, ethically and effectively.

I’ve got ideas. Maybe their unrealistic dreams, but it’s something I’m going to work on.

If you’re reading this and you’re a small or independently published author, and you’d like me to review your book and post my honest, no-holds-barred review here, let me know. You don’t have to give me your book. I’ll look at the blurbs and buy it, if it seems like my cup of tea.

One thought on “Small/Independent Publishing Needs Networking

  1. I’ve been thinking about this as well, since I just released a book and have been trying out different promotions. The only thing I’m seeing move the needle is paid advertising on mailing lists like Bookbub or Written Word Media, and that’s not breaking even. Now I admit I’m not running Amazon ads at the moment and I really don’t want to give money to Meta associated companies, so I can’t say how they are reacting.

    There are groups out there like Liminal Fiction where associated authors are centralized on one website. I saw a lot of cross pollination in earlier days on Facebook. But as they changed their polices and organic reach died, the groups faded. I’m not sure anything has taken their place, such as Discord channels. Or if it has, I haven’t found it.

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