|
It's hard for anyone to succeed in any business. Just notice the number of small business of every type that open and close at the local strip mall. Obviously, any small business needs enough money to get by while they are building up a clientele. One rule of thumb is that you should have one year's expenses available.
I can think of several ways that a small publisher could handle things so they need less up front money. One way is having the author, editor and others work on a percentage basis, i.e. each person gets a percentage from each book sold. Another way would be to pay piece work rather than have permanent employees. Or some combination there of.
I would also say that role of a publisher may change a bit in the future. I would not be surprised if we see more publishers like Baen in the future that are more focused on offering a consistent selection(call it genres, styles of books, whatever) for the readers, while handling all the non writing duties (ranging from editing, art work, publicity, social media to connect with the fans, various gimmicks to introduce readers to a new writer, etc...) for the authors.
|