Further Thoughts on The Summit (Patreon)

This is a bit of an infodump on my thoughts regarding publishing and self-publishing so you don't have to read the whole thing if you don't want to but I thought I'd share anyway ♡I've been mulling over everything I learned from that authoring Summit the other day and I've also had new emails come in from the host offering different services.Anyway it's just made me reflect and think about how many people are passionate about being a writer and how many people are passionate about helping writers while being a writer themselves yet for some their focus to make money seems to be being that point of contact to help other writers out and how confusing that is to me because one I've often never heard of these people and two I've never heard of their books either so to me when you make statements about being one of the leading professionals I can believe you to a point but I also feel weird because if you have all the tips for success I feel like I would see you and know you more? I'm not saying they're not successful —they probably make a decent living— but I just can't connect the two pieces of being an author and writing stories, books etc and then being a business person who helps other people do the same thing. Mostly if you're a fiction authorNow I'm not talking about people like Judy Blume or Neil Gaiman who are on Masterclass for example who help other authors and writers with their process and so forth. I more mean the people who have written a book or maybe are in the process of writing a book but their biggest hustle right now is to help people with self-publishing. I'm finding that self-publishing is a huge industry which is fair and it's wonderful that there are so many points of contact out there to help people navigate that world but I find there's very few and far between people who will give advice about traditional publishing which is where I want to head. Granted, most of the points of contact I come into without actually researching are in fact these self-publishing helpers.Another thing that surprises me as well is people putting a price on the resources they're providing. I don't mean that there shouldn't be a price on it what I mean is I've seen in the past year or so an insane amount of cost for several different people and several different services and I just want to know who their audience is and who has that kind of money to spend to publish a book —or rather to make steps towards publishing the book because paying that money to these people for their services doesn't guarantee success in publishing. One prime example: one individual who said they typically sell their resources services for $5000 USD to get 6 months of access, but offered them for a limited time at $1,997 USD and then teased that the 60% discount was crazy. Yes I agree with you that it's crazy on two points! One that there's no way I have $5,000 sitting around to put toward getting only 6 months of access to something that I have no other person vouching for other than yourself and secondly that yes you would make that offer of that discount haha but I know it's probably a good business practice because he's still making a lot of money off of the discounted people who rush in and take the offer and when people buy and it's not discounted he's making a ton more.I'm sure there's value in what he's offering don't get me wrong but I don't know whether it's that much value or not because I don't know anyone else who's ever used it. I concede I'm a Canadian so I don't know a lot of American people in publishing/ who are authors so that could contribute there but still.It is also a similar feeling I had when searching for an editor last year I had a number of people who charged a very large amount of money for their services and a select couple of them who also seemed very snobby in addition. The kind of people that gave you the vibe "you can't afford me but if I were to take a cost I'll settle on this still large amount". I'm sure they are fine editors but not the type of business partner I want to have. I want to feel a little bit of trust in this person as a person not just as a business. I want to feel we're mutually on the same page when it comes to what we want out of this business transaction but I also learned I don't want it to feel just like a business transaction. This process of being an author is actually very personal and when you have other people looking at your work you want to know that any criticism or feedback that's coming from them will be given in a way will be helpful but not very hurtful. For me this means finding people along the way who I can work with that feel friendly and genuinely caring and business seems to slip away into the background in my mind as we interact.

Anyway in summary it's just going to show me right now that my decision to try the traditional publishing route feels right for me right now and it just means there's a little less guidance that's presented to me outright. I have to go in search. This is a path I'm fine to take a journey on because it's something that has been with me since childhood and I know if I am to honor that childhood dream I've got to put in the steps.

Okay maybe less running like Bilbo in his "Hobbit" era and more like when he sets off at the beginning of Fellowship of the Ring with a walking stick LMFAO

Brittany xoxo