Motivational Monday -- Authors Are Not Your Competition [Link]

by Angela Ackerman

Most industries are competitive. Athletes go head-to-head for the medal or trophy. Car companies vie for market share as do grocery stores, restaurants, and delivery services. Reality TV show contestants duke it out for prize money, prestige, and in some cases (ugh) roses. And our favorite retail Godzilla, Amazon? They compete with everybody.

Know who isn’t your competition? Authors.

Sure, on the surface, it appears a competition is taking place. After all, look at the sea of books on the market, the sky-high submission piles. Think about how we need to list comparable titles when we pitch our work to agents and how past book sales and current platform numbers carry weight acquisitions decides which author will receive a contract offer.

Is it true that agents only take on certain clients and publishers only publish certain books? Yes. But the “I’m competing against other authors” idea is a sacred cow leftover from a time when keeping authors divided suited a publishing monopoly (that has thankfully been broken).

Other authors aren’t competition, they’re ASSETS.  Here’s why.

Read the full article: https://writersinthestormblog.com/2021/01/killing-publishings-sacred-cows-authors-are-not-your-competition/