Publishing your Own

The traditional ways of music or literary publishing are quickly fading. Artists who may have attempted to publish their work in the past took the risk of their material appearing homemade or unprofessional. The Internet access available today has changed the publishing industry forever and sent new artists in a another direction.

Publishing was and is probably the furthest thing from any artist’s mind initially. For the most part, it would have been considered lucky for an artist to be allowed to focus on just their talent. Since most artists are not that fortunate, most of them learn something about publishing when it is time to get their work displayed for an audience to view. Times have changed, most artist today, understand they will have to research the industry in order to be a successful independent artist. These artists do not have the resources to even consider looking for someone to help them publish their work.

For any artist who intends to attain a publisher or for an artist who is seeking resources in order to publish work on their own. The first thing an artist needs to do when seeking assistance from a company is to get a publishing agent in the artists area of interest. In order to get an agent you need to submit a query letter expressing information about the artist and a sample of the artists work. Doing this will hopefully peak the interest of the agent and encourage the agent to represent the artist. Once the artist acquires an agent successfully, the agent will guide them the rest of the way.

Self-publishing is the other way an artist can get their work published. Being an independent artist is a challenging and humble experience. The advantages for artists who choose to publish their work are achieved by cutting out the middleman. When an artist uses a POD (Print on Demand) it allows the artist to keep most of the royalties and own their copyrights.

References:

Craft, Kimberly M.M J.D, Entertainment Media Publishing and Distribution second edition