Encouraging Unknown Writers
My name is Rachel, AKA Ami Rahman, and I want to tell you a story.
Anglo Saxon Chronicles, Nordic Sagas or Greek Fables, have stayed with us for a reason. At some point they moved from storytelling by the fireside to written forms.
Traditional Publishers have brought us many things since the Gutenberg Press made The Bible available to the masses, but are we losing something to an industry which focuses on commercial viability?
Genres aren’t solely there to help readers find what they want. Categories help Publishers define writing to push it through a tried and tested system, which may well mean we are simply getting more of the same.
I’m not against Traditional Publishers. Who wouldn’t love an advance to write a novel and have an experienced team handle the marketing? To get that far, however, you would have to have an academic ability. Traditional Publishers are impatient about grammar and use of modern language and an imaginative manuscript could be dishearteningly lost forever, through their rejection.
I don’t think the readers of the last few generations are as fussy as publishers might have us believe.
When I studied Journalism, in the mid-nineties, I was told that language would change considerably in a couple of decades. It was asserted, correctly, younger people would change it through the use of text messages. How we lol’d.
Our long gone literary idols probably turned in their graves like rotisserie chickens during this transition. I think it made a wonderful opportunity for the less academic to spring up and speak their truth without scorn.
Enter The Self-Published Author!
With so many platforms available there are few reasons why you shouldn’t say what you like, in the way you wish. If you go to press, you could end up in British Library Archives! Your story will be there for future generations!
It’s not difficult for you get into Paperback or Hardcover. Platforms like Amazon guide you, step by step, through eBooks and hard versions and offer templates. They operate Print on Demand services, which means a book isn’t printed until purchased and printing costs are covered by buyers.
There are thousands of writers out there with YouTube Channels, who give informative, practical, free advice. With their help you can publish from the comfort of your home.
It’s a route I would recommend to any frustrated writer. Whether you wish to share your memoirs, advice or a ripping good yarn that’s been floating around your head, or would like to have your poetry in a book on your coffee table, its well within your means to make it happen.
What are you waiting for? Stop being the person who says, “I’ve always wanted to write a book.” What you have to share is of value to like-minded people.
By the same token, if you are a reader wishing to find undiscovered stories and authors, why not Google more book platforms? Get out there and surf!
If you like what you find, you can leave honest reviews for lesser known authors and other readers.