If you are an aspiring novelist, I found a really interesting article you might want to read.
WARNING: Upon reading this, both pie-in-the-sky optimists and self-doubting pessimists will cry at its dream-crushing sentiment. However, even-keeled realists will find this extremely revealing and monumentally beneficial.
http://www.milwaukeewritersworkshop.com/content/advice-writers-who-want-be-authors
Thanks for the post, Pat. To me, this is a small-press guy exhibiting small thinking. I’m sure that, from where he’s sitting, this is how the business looks, but I also have a strong feeling that it’s not the only valid perspective. There’s not any mention of agents as people to help market a book for example, or the e-book route that many writers are now taking. And selling books at county fairs? I’m just not going to do that!
A couple things…
Agents don’t do much to market your book. It’s the publishers’ marketing departments that do 90% of the marketing. And the other 10% is the responsibility of the author.
Also, the guy selling his book at the county fair is not a novelist, but a guy who wrote a book. Huge difference.
Lastly, the author of the article never claims small presses are the only path for newbie novelists but, as you pointed out, from his perspective, the best path.
As for me, I would think a solid career path for any unknown novelist would be to send hundreds of queries in hopes of finding an agent willing to take a shot repping your novel to the big boys. Once that option is exhausted (and that depends on the aspirations, tenaciousness and tolerance for rejection of the individual), submit to a small press that will do all the publishing work for you and offer some (minimal) marketing. If you still get no takers, you can be the sales and marketing director for your self-published novel.
Each step down (big house -> small press -> self-publish) seems to be a stepping stone back up to the next level. The ultimate goal, then, becomes the development of a huge, dedicated fan base that will seek out your books, thus allowing you to come full-circle: self-publishing your next novel and retaining the bulk of the book’s cover price.