My (kindly) 12-year-old daughter\u2019s two favourite insults for me at the moment are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou\u2019re lucky! You remember the dinosaurs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou\u2019re famous! You\u2019re the before photo in a men\u2019s fitness magazine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the latter \u2013 hmph. I\u2019m a man of steel, and have the blood results to prove it. On the former? Well, yes, I\u2019ve kicked around a lot longer than my 12-year-old know-it-all, and it IS true that back in the day, getting published involved this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Step 1 Write an excellent book<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Step 2 Buy a physical (!) directory of agents. Pick some names at random.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Step 3 Send a submission pack out. Wait. Then either win or lose<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There was not meaningfully a self-pub option. There was no meaningful self-pub option.\u201d Absolutely no one thought I should have a Twitter profile or a website or anything of the sort. My job description was: Write good books<\/em> and (a long, long way short of that requirement) Be available for 2 weeks of publicity around launch<\/em>, though even then most books got no publicity at all, so for a lot of authors, that requirement was rather easily met.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And these days?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Well, the list of requirements can seem endless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Twitter. Insta. Facebook. BookTok.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mailing lists, reader magnets, Bookfunnel, autoresponders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Marketing plans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you\u2019re self-pubbing, then the list gets more extensive yet. Facebook ads. Amazon ads. Amazon attribution. Canva. Dashboards. Image libraries. Promo sites. Newsletter swaps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019ve not even touched the edge of what people are told they ought to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So \u2013 and here roareth the dinosaur \u2013 what\u2019s actually the least you can get away with? How much of this stuff is really necessary and how much is just a breathless Internet trying to eat your life?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The answer depends, of course, on whether you\u2019re trad or self-pub, the requirements for the latter being significantly greater.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The lazy trad author<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n You need to write a really excellent book<\/strong>. No shortcuts there. Not with book #1 and never afterwards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When you\u2019re starting out, you are likely to want \/ need a course<\/strong> to build your skills and a manuscript assessment<\/strong> to develop your manuscript itself (and also for a basic reality check in terms of quality.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Obviously, we sell those good things, so I\u2019m hardly unbiased, but I think it\u2019s a rare author who engages seriously with a good course or manuscript feedback who doesn\u2019t come out much improved as a result. I\u2019m not saying that these things are essential \u2013 just that most of you will find them very useful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You also need a competent submission pack<\/strong>: a query letter to 10-12 well-chosen literary agents, a good synopsis, 10,000 (ish) words of good opening chapter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because the knowledge of how to do these things competently is much more widely disseminated now, I\u2019d say the basic quality standard has certainly risen. It\u2019s harder, these days, to get an agent with a lousy query than it was. Even so: what matters is the book. The rest of it is still not crucial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And \u2026?<\/p>\n\n\n\n And nothing. No Twitter account? I don\u2019t care. No FB, no Insta, no stupid TikTok? Fine, I don\u2019t care. Agents won\u2019t either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n No mailing list? Well, I\u2019d advise you to have one, but you can always do that later and it\u2019s a good-to-have. It\u2019s not essential. It\u2019s certainly not something you need<\/p>\n\n\n\n Website<\/strong>? Well, yes, you should probably have one, but I don\u2019t care if it\u2019s one page long and not very informative. If you spend one afternoon on Squarespace, you\u2019ll do fine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yes, publishers would love you to have a YouTube channel with 1,000,000+ views in the last year, but who cares? What matters is the book, the book, the book, the book. It\u2019s not really a secret that lots of authors are introverts who love marketing as much as they love pushing plastic picnic forks into their toes, and publishers are happy to work with said introverts. It\u2019s the book that matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These days, honestly, the chores facing the Modern Lazy Author (Trad variety) are not really more onerous than they were 20+ years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Somewhat Lazy Indie Author<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n You can\u2019t actually be a lazy indie author \u2013 or, rather, you can: you\u2019ll just be one with rather modest book sales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So the things you need to look after are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n A splendid book<\/strong>. You can\u2019t sell rubbish. The book still matters most, most, most.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A copy edit<\/strong>. I don\u2019t mind if you seek out low budget options (a very picky friend, for example), but you can\u2019t sell a badly edited book these days. I do honestly think that a manuscript assessment<\/strong> will help almost any first time indie author, simply because quality is the overwhelming objective here<\/p>\n\n\n\n A book cover<\/strong>: hire a pro. Spend what you need. Fuss over this. Get it right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A website<\/strong>: keying off that book cover in terms of look and with a really good, functional newsletter signup page. Again, half a day on a popular website builder is plenty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A mailing list<\/strong>. You can\u2019t not do this. You need a reader magnet, a mailing list provider (I suggest MailerLite) and a delivery service (Bookfunnel; there\u2019s no real contest here.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Use of book promo sites<\/strong> around launch. This is simple. An hour or two is all you need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A Facebook author page<\/strong>. I don\u2019t mind much how inert it is. Busy and popular is better, of course, but I don\u2019t bother and I do fine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n