In this episode, I talked with Sarah Giffrow, an expert in helping small businesses with their online presences. If you weren't aware, I worked for Sarah's business, Upswept Creative, for a couple of years, and witnessed the similar workflows and software used for publishing, website design, and digital marketing.

It's not a galaxy-brained take to say that the tools that make up those workflows seem increasingly hostile to users—and I'd venture to say both the environment and the economy as well. Completely divesting from every problematic platform isn't realistic for most people's work, but as far as I'm concerned, that's no reason to give up.

Both Sarah and I do our best in this conversation to find a balance between “you have no choice but to succumb to your billionaire overlords” or “smash your phone with a sledgehammer and run into the woods.”

Hopefully, it empowers you to try to nudge your ethics and your tech use into closer alignment.

Writing is often a solitary activity. Writers spend their days living, and talking with imaginary people, inside our own heads. Existing in that wind tunnel and never coming out of it is not the healthiest way to move through the world (or around the outskirts of it). But, it can be difficult for a swath of people notorious for introversion to brave conferences, networking events, or new writers’ groups.

A lot of folks don’t even know where to meet other writers. But, like anyone else, writers need to connect with friends and colleagues. We need people who can relate to the experience of navigating complicated inner worlds and an even more complicated industry.

We need people to help us celebrate our writing successes and offer condolences for when we hit craters. We need networks that keep us grounded without pulling us down. Community, or as my guest Jessie Kwak puts it, constellations.

Jessie joins the podcast for a second time, this time to talk about her latest book, From Solo to Supported.

In this episode, we discuss many of the subjects covered in From Solo to Supported; everything from how to meet other writers, conversation starters for conferences, and how to navigate giving and receiving feedback.

In today’s interview, David tells us more about Lake Drive’s mission, publishing practices, and unconventional financial model. David also offers his takes on how to determine what works for you when it comes to choosing a publishing path and gives some platform-building insights for authors.

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• Publishing Disrupted - Podcast - Apple Podcasts
• Hyponymous Literary
• Free 30-Day Plottr Trial
• Hybrid Pub Scout's Bookshop.org Shop
• Lake Drive Books | Spirituality, Self Help, Wholeness
• IBPA’s Hybrid Publishing Criteria

Hybrid publishing has a bit of a nebulous definition at the moment, but as authors are becoming more disenchanted with traditional publishing and discovering how grueling self publishing can be, they’re becoming more relevant.

Since it’s been the standard for such a long time, people are used to the traditional publishing model. They expect that:

1. Publishers pay for everything
2. Authors get advances and royalties
3. Publishers take care of book promotion and marketing

But here’s a few problems (among others):

1. The “everything” that publishers pay for has a big asterisk attached to it, even in trad
2. Advances and royalties are more underwhelming than ever (or maybe “less whelming”?)
3. Book promotion and marketing mostly falls on the author now (see point 1)

I’ve seen a lot of talk about hybrid publishing being predatory and no different from vanity presses, and in some cases…sure. But when you don’t have a major corporation paying all the up front costs, there are some practicalities to consider. Namely, who’s going to pay for all these professionals to do the work of making a book?

If you listened to the show before, hopefully you’ve gotten the message of how hard ghostwriters, editors, designers, marketers, and other publishing professionals work to create the best book possible. And that work needs to be compensated. But, authors, obviously, should get the best deal possible for their work, too.

So where does that leave us?

How do we bring books into the world while making sure it’s fair to everyone, especially when everyone who isn’t a CEO of a major corporation has such a tight budget? And how do you, as an author, know the money and effort you spend on the publishing side is going to get you to your goal?

The Independent Book Publisher’s Association (or IBPA) has tried to set up some standards for hybrid presses in the last several years. At last look, these are what the IBPA says a good hybrid publisher should do:

1. Define a mission and vision for its publishing program.
2. Vet submissions.
3. Commit to truth and transparency in business practices.
4. Provide a negotiable, easy-to-understand contract for each book published.
5. Publish under its own imprint(s) and ISBNs.
6. Publish to industry standards.
7. Ensure editorial, design, and production quality.
8. Pursue and manage a range of publishing rights.
9. Provide distribution services.
10. Demonstrate respectable sales.
11. Pay authors a higher-than-standard royalty.

As you may have noticed, there’s considerable wiggle room in there for these definitions (for example, you as the author are...