I couldn’t believe when I read this article over at the Chicago Tribune, how the dinosaurs are still weighing on a publishing industry that has long since passed them by.
The article suggests that writing non-fiction is too much trouble, takes too long and is bound to lose you big money…even numbers like 1-year and $100K in debt are thrown into this misguided article.
If this article had been published in the 1980’s or even the 1990’s I would have largely agreed, but starting in the 21st century the traditional publishing industry has been toppled as self-publishing and alternative publishers (Amazon) have ripped apart an inefficient monopoly breathing new life into the possibilities for writers.
In fact, if you are a writer writing non-fiction, spending 100’s of thousands and taking years to come out with a book then you are either writing about the wrong thing, not researching and writing as efficiently as you could be or are chasing your tail spending more time trying to convince the Dinosaur publishers to give you a shot.
Truth is that the publishing industry has changed massively over the last few years, many writers and entrepreneurs have gone the route of selling non-fiction, information books and ebooks on their own, spending a few thousand dollars, a few months effort and releasing their own information products on their own schedule successfully.
Not only do we help people in this area, we have 9 such products ourselves (12 if you count our spin-out, back-end written products like our home study course and membership sites)
If the writer of that article doesn’t want to write, great – less competition for the rest of us. It is wrong to influence others though without full disclosure of the “New” publishing models that make it so much easier, faster and less risky/more rewarding to get non-fiction books to market.
What’s your take on this…let us know by leaving a comment.
