This week on the People’s Guide to Publishing podcast, Joe and Elly examine the pros and cons of different publishing paths for authors. A listener wrote in to ask the age-old question of whether they should try to find a traditional publisher or go ahead and self-publish. We have an obvious bias, but we did our best to treat the question objectively, because there are a bunch of benefits and pitfalls for both.
On this week’s episode of the People’s Guide to Publishing podcast, Joe and Elly report back from the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association’s 2021 trade show. The event was back to being in-person for the first time since 2019 and everyone was excited to see each other! And excited about books! We learned some things and came away with some observations about what’s going on in the publishing industry.
P.S. We’re running a quick Kickstarter right now for Dr. Faith’s newest book: Befriend Your Brain is a de-swear-inated edition of her bestseller Unf*** Your Brain, suitable for humans 10+ who want help freaking out less.
This week on the People’s Guide to Publishing podcast, Joe and Elly tackle a reader question about the exciting world of contracts! Someone wrote in to ask how to handle a contract for a book with multiple authors collaborating, or an author and illustrator working together on a project like a kids’ book or a graphic novel. We walk through a few different scenarios and how you might handle them with the goal of having a clear, fair, and consistent contract. Also, we say the word “contract” a lot to desensitize you, because these helpful little documents don’t have to be as scary as most people think they are.
This week on the People’s Guide to Publishing podcast, we conclude our series about intellectual property with a conversation about bootlegging and what that means for most book publishers in the US. What do you need to worry about? What do you definitely not need to spend time fretting over?
Today on the People’s Guide to Publishing podcast, Joe and Elly tackle the topic of licensing. This is the key business concept for any publisher to understand and consider. Licensing is sort of the engine fuel that makes the industry and your piece of it work; publishers license work from authors to put out as books and then sometimes go on to license different editions and formats. Here it is broken down in a way that will help you see your part in that ecosystem a little more clearly.
This one is part of a 3-part series – you can also check out our episode from last week on intellectual property.
A lively cultural history of Bigfoot myths in the Pacific Northwest by Seattle resident David Norman Lewis. Drawing on local legends and newspaper reporting, Lewis gets at the truth at the heart of these sightings. Includes four local hikes where you can step onto the paths where Bigfoot has been sighted.
This week on the People’s Guide to Publishing podcast, Joe and Elly talk about intellectual property, what it means for authors and publishers, how to manage it, how to increase its value, and how to protect it. We definitely don’t make any juvenile jokes in this episode.
This week on the People’s Guide to Publishing podcast / vlogcast, Joe and Elly consider the term “indie author” and how various forces have tried to co-opt the meaning of independence when it comes to writing and creative work. No punches are pulled as we encourage you to think critically about what you value about independence and whether or not you actually are getting that from the company selling it to you.
This week on the People’s Guide to Publishing podcast, Joe and Elly report back from Las Vegas Market—a giant trade show for the gift market. We talk about what “gift” means, why book publishers might attend such an event, what it was like, and some of the logistics and costs involved. Not mentioned, but deserving of a shout-out are Vegas’s bikeshare system and Tacotarian, two discoveries that turned our trip from a slog to a delight.
This week on the People’s Guide to Publishing podcast, Joe and Elly consider the recent news that giant publishing conglomerate Hachette is buying one of the last of the large independents, Workman. We talk about what the acquisition means for the companies involved, for other publishers, and for people who buy books.