Ask B & L

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Welcome and Setup

Beth McMullen: Hi friends, I'm Beth McMullen

Lisa Schmid: And I'm Lisa Schmidt

Beth McMullen: And we're the co-hosts of Writers With Wrinkles. This is season five, episode 22, and this is an Ask Beth and Lisa episode. Today we are talking about hybrid authors, not to be confused with hybrid publishers.

But before we get to that , we should talk about how this is the second time that we're recording this

Lisa Schmid: Yes. had a little malfunction

Beth McMullen: So sometimes you get this wild hair that you're going to change recording platforms because this other platform offers you cool stuff that you can do with video, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then it is remarkably unstable. It's like that friend who says to you, "Oh yeah, let's meet," and then five minutes before you're supposed to meet, they're like, "I'm not coming."

That's what it feels like to me. I feel like I feel deceived

Hybrid Authors Defined

Beth McMullen: okay, hybrid authors. Now, the reason that I thought this would be good to talk about is [00:01:00] because in our episode from last week with Jason June, which such a good episode, definitely listen to it if you haven't. It's also up as a video episode if you'd rather watch it.

I know some people like to do that. Jason June talked about hybrid authors, and while I know what that is and Lisa knows what that is, I feel like a lot of people don't know what that is. It gets confused with hybrid publishers, which are a version of self-publishing, an entirely different thing. We are not talking about those.

A hybrid author is a writer who works both traditional and self-publishing paths at the same time. So it's not like a phase or something you do until you get a trad deal or whatever, but it's like a permanent dual strategy. It is purposeful. You're doing it on purpose. I find it actually really fascinating for a number of reasons that we'll get into, but I thought we'd do a little convo about it so that when you start hearing it, [00:02:00] because it is absolutely in the air, you keep hearing about it from various channels, you'll know what they're talking about rather than being like, "Why are they talking about this?

I don't know what the point of this is."

Lisa Schmid: Yeah. And it's a hot topic right now. You're right.

Beth McMullen: It is

Why Hybrid Is Trending

Lisa Schmid: and more people are exploring it b- for the very reasons that Jason June talked about, was that publishing moves so slow. It's so slow, and you can't be nimble and quick on your feet. And there are a lot of people out there that are prolific writers, that are just turning and burning books.

They can just sit down and write a book in six months, and they're ready to go. And the, the publishing world does not move like that. It's glacial. And so if ... It can be frustrating, and you start losing your momentum when you have to wait two years between each book. So

Beth McMullen: It can easily be two years. And then you hear about people whose pub dates get, get bumped, and then it's three years, and you actually don't even remember what the book is [00:03:00] about that you are publishing because it was so long ago. So it looks like... I've been watching it, seeing what it looks like in practice.

I have seen a diff- a few different ways that, that people are pursuing this. 

Common Hybrid Models

Beth McMullen: And one is that, say, for instance, you get a nice deal with a Big Five or a mid-sized publisher and it is a thriller, let's just say. All right? So you're gonna publish that, and then you're gonna do romance as a self-published author because it's easy for you to write romance, and you can bang out four of them a year.

Meanwhile, you're pursuing the thriller path with the Big Five. There are some authors who just do print, like hardcover books for a big or mid-sized publisher, but they keep the e-book and the audiobook rights themselves, and they self-publish those which is interesting 'cause [00:04:00] that's the same book, but you're just splitting the rights.

That's usually people who have a big self-publishing audience already. There are some people who have been getting backlist rights reverted on older trad titles and self-publishing those. So again, this was a trad book, and now the, the rights have reverted to the author, and they're reissuing it as a self-published book.

So there are multiple different ways that authors are going into this. A lot of it depends on the audience they've built, the, the genre they write, but it's pretty fascinating, I think.

Lisa Schmid: Yeah. I like it because it's just something new and different, and as authors, and there's so many authors that a lot of people really depend on their income from their writing. And if they're waiting on traditional publishing to come around that they could

Beth McMullen: Yes.

Lisa Schmid: And so

Benefits and Control

Beth McMullen: that's one of the reasons that gets listed as a benefit really often is this income [00:05:00] diversification, right? So your trad advance is a big, like a, a sum that comes, what, twice in a year maybe? And that's only after you sign that contract, and it can take a year plus before the contract is signed.

Whereas if you're self-publishing, say you're using KDP, which is the Kindle self-pub platform that pays monthly. So it just shows up, and it's yours without any sort of, waiting, so it kind of smooths out your cash flow if you can get the self-pub stuff really moving

Lisa Schmid: Yeah. And there's people, like some of the people I see doing this successfully are people who are doing series, because you start building that momentum and you get those people, waiting for the next book to come out. And the fun part, because as we all know, I'm, like, very involved in a, a ghost series that I love. She just I'm like, "Oh my gosh I'm..." Sh- I'm coming to the end all of a sudden, I'm like, "Oh there she [00:06:00] goes. She just published another book." And it's just like I have a little row of them. And it's fun because I don't have to wait two years, and I'm a fan, and I'm a already a built-in fan, and I talk about it, and now I'm waiting.

And the quality, like you said, the quality is, or we said earlier, the quality is so good these days

Beth McMullen: Yeah, I think if you're one of those authors who can bang out a book in six weeks, and there's lots of them, then why would you be sitting on all of those manuscripts? Because imagine if, say you produce six books in a year, and you have one that's traditionally published, right? So if you were gonna do all six of those traditionally published stacked on top of each other, you'd be 100 years old by the time they all came out.

It's just slow. It's very slow

Lisa Schmid: And the other thing is a lot of people they've published a book traditionally published a book, and then, while they were waiting to get their agent or their trad [00:07:00] deal they had written all these other books. So all of a sudden, like now, they have this audience that with this trad book and they have this backstock of books, manuscripts in their computer.

That's like the perfect way to, just start building your momentum and your audience and your fan base with those books that now can find a home

Beth McMullen: Yeah. It, it's always seemed crazy to me that you were told you couldn't publish something because the traditional publisher either didn't want it or was like, "No, we're already doing one with you," or, "No, this is outside of the genre that your readers expect from you." But I think with self-publishing and all of the amazing opportunities and tools and whatnot that are available now, it's doable.

And if you are producing all of that work, it seems insane not to share it with a loyal audience, like you talking about the ghost book. You're waiting for the next book, and as fast as she can get them out [00:08:00] there, you're gonna gobble them up. Yeah, it does give you more options.

It also, I think it helps you not depend entirely on this publisher relationship, right?

Lisa Schmid: It gives you such creative control. Like, when you're working with a publisher you do have say. You're working with them, but you don't have complete creative control, this gives you complete creative control. It is your baby, and you can make it as amazing as you want to, and you never have to look at your book and think, "Ugh I don't like that," or, "I know there's that mistake," and they told me it was too late. I couldn't change it. You know what I mean? There's

Beth McMullen: Yeah

Lisa Schmid: You own it, and there's there's such a glorious feeling about that, like just knowing that is your, that's yours

Beth McMullen: I find some of the stories that I've read re- lately are about big self-publishing names, authors who have made a huge impact in just [00:09:00] self-publishing, and then a traditional publisher goes to them and says, "We want to publish your book in physical form. We want to produce the hard copy of it, and we're gonna do..."

Trad publishing does, like, bookstore placement, foreign rights, PR. It has a little bit of prestige to it, whatever, does those things well. So you can have somebody who has a book that has been doing gangbusters in the self-pub universe, and then the trad publisher comes along and partners with them essentially to do these other things that maybe aren't as easy for somebody in the self-publishing universe, like that bookstore placement and foreign rights and all of those things.

And that's that's per book. So you've got kind of the model where you're doing one book trad and a bunch of books self, but you've also got the model where you're doing the best of both project by project, which is ... that I find that kind of interesting too, right? Because it lets [00:10:00] you let the trad publisher do what it does well, and then you continue to do what you do well, maintaining that full creative control, faster books.

You're collecting your direct data from your readers, which is amazing. It lets you know what they like, what they don't like, what they want, what they expect

Lisa Schmid: Yeah. The other thing that I've seen several people do that are friends of mine is where, say, their second book didn't get picked up, the option didn't get picked up for whatever reason, and now they have this book that's sitting there, and they've tried to to market it or sell it, and it didn't, nothing...

for whatever reason it didn't get picked up. And they've gone on and self-published, and, done well with it. And the thing is, it's just you don't want that sitting. You don't ever write a book just to let it sit in your computer. There is no way I'm ever writing a book, and if it doesn't sell, I'm self-publishing.

Beth McMullen: It's too hard.

Lisa Schmid: writing a book,

Beth McMullen: It's hard to write a book. And then to be [00:11:00] sitting there and being like they don't like it because my first book in the contract," maybe they didn't try to market it at all, and in their opinion it was a failure, and now they don't want the second one.

But the second one's still a really good book. It's probably better than your first, 'cause you get better as you work on stuff, right? So I, yeah I think it's... There are challenges to this, but I think overall it's nice to have options. 'Cause as an author, for a long time we didn't really feel like we had a lot of options

Lisa Schmid: Yeah. And things have been made so much easier for people to self-publish these days. There's, a million different ways you can go that people can explore. But just services software, whatever. Whatever, it doesn't matter really what your skill set is, there is a way to self-publish. And I think it's important for people to realize that so they can explore those options

Beth McMullen: Yeah, it is way, way less labor intensive than it used to be. Not [00:12:00] that it is still not hard, but it's doable. 

Challenges and Contracts

Beth McMullen: There are challenges, and the challenges might be deal breakers for you depending on how you like to spend your time.

You are essentially doing two jobs. You're running the creative side and the business side, and the business side is all of that stuff like cover design, formatting, ads, metadata distribution, et cetera. So you're doing all of that at the same time. Your life is not just writing the books, it is publishing and selling the books.

So you have to build up all those skills that you will need in order to do that work. And, it's not the kind of thing that's taught if you have an MFA. They don't teach you the business side. Just teach you the writing side

Lisa Schmid: Yeah, it's complicated

Beth McMullen: It is complicated. One other thing to keep in mind is that some traditional publishers put a non-compete or a right of first refusal clause in that will [00:13:00] restrict simultaneous releases in the same genre and category.

So make sure you know what's in your contract before you do something that makes everybody scream there and wave their hands in the air. Yeah I feel like there are people who are comfortable in the business side, and if they are comfortable in the business side and they can produce a lot of work, then this is a really great way to go about building out your career so that you can be a full-time writer, not just have it be a side hustle.

Lisa Schmid: Yeah. And I'm excited to see what Jason June's doing.

Beth McMullen: Me too. He didn't tell us. 

Lisa Schmid: I know we talk about it all the time, but I just love Jason June so much

Beth McMullen: I loved that episode, and I just ... this was like a tiny little bit of it that we talked about. But it just got me thinking. And as soon as it's in your head, you start seeing everybody talking about it, and I just keep seeing it come up. 

Examples and Genres

Beth McMullen: I did a [00:14:00] little search. I was curious about who is doing this sort of hybrid approach really successfully, and I came up with a, a list.

There's a cozy fantasy writer named Rebecca Thorne. One of her books is Can't Spell Treason Without Tea, which made me laugh.

Lisa Schmid: I'd love that

Beth McMullen: but she built up her readership self-publishing and then added traditional deals while continuing to self-publish. She talks a lot about this, so you can look her up.

Rebecca Thorne, T-H-O-R-N-E. I found that most of the people who are doing this well are genre authors

Lisa Schmid: Yeah

Beth McMullen: rather than literary the sort of fiction that needs reviews and that sort of thing to get discovered. But it's good for ... This is good for romance, fantasy, sci-fi, thriller, romantasy, any of those [00:15:00] combos that are

Yeah, cozy mysteries. And I think if you're an author who is prolific and you have an existing platform, this might be a really easy transition for you. Either direction. I know that there are a lot of publishers out there who are seeking out the really successful self-published authors. And what's very interesting in that arrangement is that the authors hold all the cards.

They can say, "I'm just gonna give you print rights. I'm keeping audio. I'm keeping e-book. I'm keeping everything else. You can have print rights for hardcover books." So it really does put the author in the driver's seat if you can manage to get to that level

Lisa Schmid: Yeah, and that's exciting. I'm always when an author's in the, the driver's seat, that's a good place to be

Why Trad Is So Slow

Beth McMullen: I agree, and I feel like the reason [00:16:00] this comes up, the number one reason you hear people talking about it, is just that traditional publishing moves really slowly.

Lisa Schmid: Yeah. 

Beth McMullen: It, takes a long time

Lisa Schmid: sitting, waiting on submission, and you go on submission, and then you forget about it, at a certain point, Then all of a sudden in comes some rejections, and you're like, "Oh, yeah, that's right, I'm on submission right now."

Beth McMullen: No, it just, you have to put it out of your head. I can't remember which kid series it was, I think one of them, and it took them so long to turn my contract around that I had literally completed the first draft of the second book in the series by the time the contract for my first book in that series landed on my desk.

Lisa Schmid: right

Beth McMullen: Yeah, it was epic. And part of that is that publishers don't have enough staff to do all the things they're trying to do, so you end up leaving the editor, who's supposed to be editing your books, wearing 10 [00:17:00] hats, and then stuff just gets lost in the shuffle

Lisa Schmid: I, you know what? I don't think it, that the slowness of publishing has evolved in the last 30, 40 years. I think it's always been super slow. I don't understand it just feels like this one sh- been navigated at some point differently. I don't know why. I just I say that because, and I've talked about this before, my mom was a writer, and I remember when I was, a kid, when I was a teenager, hearing about, she was always waiting for that next check to come in from New York.

I just, I remember her agent's name was Apple, and she'd be like, 

Beth McMullen: that's so 1970s

Lisa Schmid: And so she'd be like, "I need to talk to Apple," it's like everything was always, and she was a single mom. And so that, we were constantly waiting on checks from the pub- and look at here I am, like in the

Beth McMullen: Girl, you took a misstep somewhere. You knew [00:18:00] what was coming and you did it anyway

Lisa Schmid: But I just, I have such vivid memories of that

Beth McMullen: It's great for the publisher, not great for the author, and again, that's what I think is turning this profession into more of a side hustle because people can't live that way.

You're in the 1% of writers who make a kazillion dollars, that's like a tiny percentage of them, it's really hard to just make it all work.

Yeah, and I feel like traditioning- traditional publishing has stayed the same in terms of how long it takes to get stuff done. If not any, i- if anything, it has, is slowed down. It takes longer. But at the same time, the world around it has changed entirely, so it becomes much more glaring, that slowness, than maybe it used to be when things didn't move at this rapid fire rate

Lisa Schmid: Technology has changed. Everything has changed. The services like we mentioned before. So it just makes everything a lot more fluid and [00:19:00] easygoing, and so it shines a spotlight on how things are just, slow. And I think it's reached a boiling point, and I keep seeing, all over social media people are getting more and more frustrated and looking for different avenues, and I think that's why this hybrid platform is really, like a big splash

Beth McMullen: Why not have the best of both worlds?

Lisa Schmid: Yeah.

Beth McMullen: not, right? 

Lisa Schmid: we 

Beth McMullen: Why, should you deny yourself?

Lisa Schmid: Yeah, no, we still love trad publishing, but it's it's nice to be able to mix the two. And, for people who, like you said who need the m- the money, we all do, it, it gives you other options, 

Beth McMullen: And I think just having options is good in everything. S

Wrap Up Hybrid Takeaways

Beth McMullen: o that's our little spiel about hybrid authors. I hope that helped you understand it a little better. 

And the thing is that there's no one way to do it. Everybody's doing it a little differently. So if it's something you think you might wanna [00:20:00] try yourself, then don't feel like you have to follow a formula. You can really just figure out how to make it work for you, right?

Lisa Schmid: Yeah. It's exciting.

Listener Book Shoutout

Beth McMullen: Before we go, we want to do a little shout-out to one of our listeners who had a book come out in June. This is Kate McCarrell-Moore. The book is Walter and Benny: Good Guys, Nature Spies.

Lisa Schmid: It's

Beth McMullen: It's about Walter and his faithful French bulldog, Benny, and they love learning about nature, and they craft projects to keep animals safe, and they read nature books.

But being a nature spy also means more than just watching from the sidelines. It also means stepping in when something's wrong. So when the duo's favorite librarian needs help finding her lost cat, Walter and Benny spring into action, only to discover more people who need their assistance.

I love that, and I love any book that reunites [00:21:00] a cat with its family

Lisa Schmid: And I have to say I know Kate and she's lovely. We were just at Lisa Ridio's book launch last weekend, and I saw the book. It was At Old Haunts. It's super cute book. It's just super cute, and I think kids are gonna love it. It's a chapter book series. And she's just a nice lady, like nice person.

She's a new friend. And,

Beth McMullen: Good

Lisa Schmid: yeah, so just go and check her book out

Beth McMullen: I'm, like you say, bulldog and cat. I'm in. My attention span these days does not really go beyond the average chapter book for a five-year-old, so this is right up my alley.

Lisa Schmid: I know. This will be perfect for you.

Beth McMullen: Seriously, I have turned into like attention span of a flea, and that's actually insulting to the fleas.

Lisa Schmid: I know

Links Next Guest and Reviews

Beth McMullen: I will put a link to this book so you can find it. It'll be in our podcast notes. And listeners, remember, you can find out more about everything we've been talking [00:22:00] about, the whole hybrid author thing, by visiting our podcast notes and the blog at writerswithwrinkles.net.

We will be back next time with best-selling author Gwendolyn Van Draanen, so be sure not to miss that episode. I love her. We went on tour together a million years ago, and she is so fun. So fun, and just fun to talk to. So I'm looking forward to that episode. One more thing, we iron out the wrinkles for free every week, and we'd love if you can help us to keep doing that by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts.

Two minutes, five stars. Super easy. Go and do it right now before you get distracted. If you too have the attention span of a flea, do it now before you forget. 

Final Goodbye

Beth McMullen: And until next time, happy reading, writing, and listening. Bye Lisa.

Lisa Schmid: Bye, Beth. Bye, guys