The Traditional Publisher's weakness

A little word today on the Traditional Publisher's weakness:

It's interesting to read about the transformation of the publishing industry over the last few years. One thing I am picking up over and over is where there are weaknesses in the traditional publishing model, we, as writers, can exploit them and turn things on their head to make them work for us.

An example of this is the Trad's lack lustre approach to the digital age and the potential it holds. While we all long for a traditional book deal with that giant advance (although don't forget, you don't start earning royalties until the advance is paid back through book sales), the way to build a brand for ourselves and create a catalogue of our published work is to go down the self publishing route first - specifically with eBooks where the financial outlay and risk is minimal.

And why wouldn't we, when the potential to earn more and keep the investment running over a longer period of time with a digital rights contract with Amazon is readily available to us? It's a steady and predictable revenue stream to base our future writing endeavours on.

But, as with anything, for all the love we may have for Amazon in redefining the publishing model, sadly it does have its weak points too. We'll look at some of these in my next post.