The New Era of Storytelling

Publishing Sharing Your Story

The dream used to be that, if you could only find a publisher, your book could be printed and you would become a famous author. Time and effort was dumped into query letters and submissions to agents and publishers in the hopes that anyone would be willing to help you make your dreams of publishing come true.

But that was before. Things are different now.

Today, publishing houses are being more and more selective of the authors that they are willing to represent and publish while, at the same time, they try to maintain a crumbling business model.

This can leave a lot of aspiring writers to feel frustrated and forlorn that they will ever see their books in print and on the shelves of a bookstore.

The good news is that it has never been easier to not only print copies of your books but to also advertise yourself easily, effectively and, most importantly, cheaply. This means that getting your story published is achievable but also only the first step in sharing your story with the world.

Printing your book is as simple as creating a KDP account (through Amazon), formatting your story and setting a price. Amazon will make your book available for purchase on their platform and you can even order copies at cost for your own promotion. But that’s not all!

The same platform can allow you to create an e-book of your story for people that want to read on their Kobo’s and Kindles. And that is just for people that want to read your work.

There is a massive cultural shift away from print media; whether it is news, magazines or books, many people are choosing to leave those on the shelves and are opting for Audio. Podcasts and Audiobooks are becoming more and more popular as people want to listen to content, often while they are busy doing other things.

Converting your story into audio is not difficult but can be another long process. But why wouldn’t you want to make your story available to more people? ACX (another Amazon platform) allows you to connect with voice artists or to record and sell your work through Audible.

Once your work is ready to be shared, social media has given authors the ability to not only promote themselves but to also engage with their audiences in real time. You can share your progress, create side-plots for your characters and get feedback from the people that are already excited about your work. And when you are ready to share your next piece, you can let your audience know that they can now go out and buy your story.

All of this seems like a massive undertaking after all of the effort of writing your book in the first place. But fear not! Let’s take a lesson from TikTok.

With the ease and availability of these new technologies and platforms, more and more people are abandoning the concept of a professional product and, instead, just sharing their work. Dances in hallways, podcasts from bedrooms, and silly videos shot from the living room on your phone have become not only more common but also more accepted.

All of these changes point to a new paradigm of storytelling. Being published used to be the end goal but now it is only the beginning. The growth and storytelling potential that writers have access to now verges on magic and who knows what the next shift will be?

So share your story. Figure out what works best for you and just go ahead and do it. You don’t need a publisher, or an agent or someone else’s permission to tell your story. You just need some time, effort and a will to take on endeavour of passion.

But you’ve got this. You’re a writer.