The Need for Good Storytelling Never Changes
The evolution of books and publishing has proven there will always be a place for stories
When I reflect back to when I started writing, I’m in awe of how much publishing has changed over the years.
There were dozens of large and medium-sized publishers back then. If you didn’t know how to approach them or get a book published, you could buy a large dictionary-sized book called The Writer’s Market (it still exists) listing all the publishers and agents.
An author then had to search through the pages to find publishers who accepted submissions for the genre they wrote. After that, the long process of writing query letters, mailing (yes, mailing through the post office) them to publishers, and waiting for rejections began.
It was a publisher’s game. It was kind of scary and intimidating for a writer. It felt a little like playing the lottery and hoping you weren’t wasting your time and energy to win the big publishing contract.
Then, gradually, things turned around with the advent of self-publishing options. Writers began to have new opportunities to publish their work themselves directly to places like Amazon.com’s KDP program or Smashwords. Then ebook distributors who used to distribute only for the big…
