: Re: Are the most successful authors like Stephen King and Jk Rowling all trade-published? I mean are the most famous authors usually trade-published or are there some self-published others that are

@Bethany377

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Usually they are. Writing and marketing at that level is very difficult. You have to do more than one job well. The self published people that I know about are either niche (not mass market) or networked well within their field to piggy back to success. That last comment is not a derisive comment. If there is a wave, by all means surf it.

The point here is that to be famous you have to enter the main stream consciousness. It's very difficult for word of mouth alone to get you past all the gatekeepers and into the public eye. Not impossible, but if you do something well and it is noticed then enough people will swamp onto that idea that it's not as likely to work the next time, even for the initiator.

If you don't go traditional publisher, you still need a way to grab attention and you'll have to do all of the work. Traditional Publishers are attention grabbing machines with proven success of maintaining and providing material for that attention. They are built to do it for the long term (mostly), whereas an individual author on their own will have to become a publisher (in addition to becoming a writer) to succeed. Even if you don't go traditional publishing, you'll find yourself managing all of the duties (or all of the people who perform those duties for you) to be successful.

Editor
Proof Reader
Layout +/- cover & art
Publicist +/- social media
Marketing
Printing
Legal (Rights)
Translation/Foreign Communication

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