Join us for this (rather extended) talk about different publishing models in the romance world. We talk hybrid, small press, vanity presses, and independent publishing, and weigh a few of the pros and cons across the board. Long answer short, however you choose to pursue publishing, you're doing great sweetie!

Questions/comments/concerns/something you want to rage about? Email us at ragingromantics@nopl.org ♡

Books/authors we talk about:

• American Dirt by Jeanine Cummings
• From Blood and Ash (series) by Jennifer Lynn Armentrout
• Mink
• Alexa Riley
• Jesmyn Ward
• Cape May by Chip Creek
• Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud by Anne Helen Petersen
• Tessa Bailey

General links:

• "Bad Romance" (Jeong, 2018) (The Verge article Jen mentioned)
• "What is an indie author?" (Alliance of Independent Authors)
• "What is Hybrid Publishing? Here Are 4 Things All Writers Should Know" (Warner, 2016)
• "Hybrid Publishing: Everything You’ve Always Wanted to Know" (Probst, 2021)
• "How to Get Your Book Distributed: What Self-Published Authors Need to Know" (Friedman, 2017)
• "How to Publish an eBook" (Alliance of Independent Authors, 2021)
• "The Shaky Future of Self-Publishing and Romance"(Bloom, 2018)
• "Why Would Anyone Sell A Book For $0.99?" (Bloom, 2021)
• Reddit about Ruby Dixon and Amazon
• "Black authors are on all the bestseller lists right now. But publishing doesn’t pay them enough" (Grady, 2020)
• "The Disadvantage of Market Saturation" (chron.com, 2020)

KDP:

• Kindle Direct Publishing
• Royalties in Kindle Unlimited
• "How Authors Get Paid in Kindle Unlimited" (Adrienne C., 2021)
• "Why is Amazon Banning Thousands of Authors?" (Bloom, 2018)

More info on vanity presses :

• "What is Vanity Publishing?" (Doppler, 2020)
• "Why it’s a bad idea to pay a vanity press to publish your writing" (Snyder, 2005)
• "Vanity Press: How to Dodge Scams and Self Publishing Companies to Avoid" (Allan, 2022)
• "Self Publishing Vs. Hybrid Publishing Vs. "Vanity Publishing"" (Hawk, 2021)
• Quora "Why are "vanity press" publishers viewed as such a bad thing?" (see discussion from Andrew Chapman specifically)

Victoria Aveyard tiktok (@victoriaaveyard), website, and instagram (@victoriaaveyard) - lots of information on what the nitty gritty is like!