Abby & Kelsye
What if you could control your own publishing fate? What if there were no gatekeepers narrowing and guarding the path to publishing success? What if authors held the power?Once upon a glorious time, publishers and editors took emerging writers under their wings. They gave then time, guidance and cash as they developed their craft and strengthen their work. Publishers were willing to invest in the growth of the artist, then promote their work tirelessly, knowing that eventually, over the years, all this investment would payoff as the writer matured and created a name for herself.
Not familiar with that approach? Today, traditionally published authors clamor for resources, attention and support for their books. Emerging writers often feel they have no shot at all. Unless a book is a likely best-seller, there are few big publishing houses willing to take it on. More and more, the response seems to be not ?how can we help you? from the publishers, but ?what can you do for us.?
A writer may no longer relegate herself to the role of artist only. Yes, her book must be polished, engrossing and well-crafted, but that?s not all. Now she must enter the entire industry of bookselling if she actually wants her creation to end up in the hands of readers. She must act as editor, designer, marketer, publisher. She has to build a webpage, learn how to tweet, get speaking gigs. Very few writers can fill all of these roles well.
And no writer should have to.
Equipped with just a little bit of knowledge, plus access to the resources and help she needs, there is no reason a writer can?t achieve her publishing dreams. And she doesn?t have to do it alone. That?s why we created Writer.ly. The online marketplace connects writers directly with the services and experts needed to finish their books, get them made and get them sold.
Our co-founders Kelsye Nelson and Abigail Carter met at the Seattle Daylight Writers meetup. For four years, grouped around worn wooden tables on the second floor of Caff? Vita on Pike Street, they watched first hand and some of their peers cracked the publishing code and others crashed and burned. A pattern soon became clear. Those that were able to get help ? to hire editors, to find good designers, to get help with marketing ? were the ones that were able to find success, be it through self-publishing or by finding an agent or getting a publishing deal. Those that tried to do everything on their own failed.
As Kelsye remembers?
After finishing our writing session, the daylight writers were all sitting around the tables bemoaning the difficulty of getting our books out. One young man complained about the cost of hiring an editor. A woman said she just doesn?t have any extra money lying around to get professional quality art work for her covers. How sparkling clear it all became at that moment.
Very few writers are only writers. Most have professional trades or other skills that pay the bills. The young man that couldn?t afford an editor happened to also be a great illustrator. The woman that couldn?t afford a designer had taught English for years and was an excellent editor. Within our own writing group, we had designers, editors, marketers, website developers ? a whole industry!
We could have simply traded services within our group and let that be it, but why stop there? If we could provide the marketplace infrastructure to the entire writing and publishing industry, we could impact so many more people. It doesn?t need to be hard. There is no reason why writers in Seattle, in New York, in Osaka, in Nairobi need to struggle on their own.
If writers work together, we can control the marketplace. How powerful we?ll be!
Abigail agreed. For sometime, she?d been imaging how the industry would shift, how instead of writers attaching themselves to a publishing house, they would instead build teams of specialists that centered around the writer. These publishing support teams would be nimble and specialized, working together on each individual author?s publishing projects.
In Abigail?s words?
After publishing my book, The Alchemy of Loss: A Young Widow?s Transformation in 2008, I received very little in the way of marketing support from my US publisher, HCI. After the book was published, I received an email from a woman who specialized in ?Blog Tours? and coaxed $500 from my publisher to pay for one. I called two bookstores and set myself up with readings and contacted a friend of a friend at a local NPR station and managed to get a radio interview. That was the full extent of my book?s promotion. The publisher never told me I was meant to market my own book, so I didn?t know and never learned all the book promotion avenues until years later, after it was too late.
Kelsye pitched the marketplace idea to the Founder Institute, an incubator started by Adeo Ressi, and was accepted into the program. Very quickly, she identified Abigail as the right partner with whom to build Writer.ly. As a best-selling author, and with her vision of writers building customized publishing support teams, Abigail provided the perfect match for Kelsye?s drive to empower every writer to achieve their dreams while building the marketplace infrastructure that will revolutionize a global industry.
Eight months later, Writer.ly launched.
We are so pleased to see the first connections happen ? a designer for a magazine in New York, a copyeditor for a short story in Seattle, a book coach for an aspiring author in San Francisco.
Writer.ly meets every writer where ever they are in their publishing journey. We dedicated ourselves to providing the right help at the right time, and supplying all the encouragement, belief and knowledge we can to help writers achieve their goals.
It?s a great time to be a writer.
We believe in you. We believe in your dreams. We can?t wait to read your book.
Happy publishing, Kelsye & Abby
Source: http://www.writer.ly/blog/?p=21
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