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The Importance of Writing a Synopsis in the Self-Publishing Era
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Even authors who love to write, who have chosen to make writing their profession, and who are passionate about creating one story after another, hate writing a synopsis. It’s true.
And yet, few of us have become published and continue to be published without writing a synopsis for an agent or editor. It’s one of those items in our job description that we don’t think about when we dream of being a published author.
However, we live in a new world. Independent publishing has grown and overtaken traditional publishing. According to Publisher’s Weekly, which quoted Bowker in 2023, 2.3 million books were self-published in 2021 in the United States alone. While traditional publishers released only 500,000 to 1 million books each year.
In a market increasingly dominated by self-published authors, does that mean we are off the hook? We no longer need to write a synopsis to get published? If self-publishing means bypassing agents and traditional publishers, is a synopsis still relevant? Absolutely, and I’ll share why.
What is a synopsis
Let me take a quick step back to define a synopsis — it is a concise summary of your…