I’ve been following In Treehouses for a while – a magazine that inspires freedom business – and noticed Thom had launched a new publishing house called Mountain & Pacific. I decided to put some questions to him about what’s happening in micro- and self-publishing, and how to stand-out in a crowded world. I’ve pulled out some quotes below but be sure to check out the full interview over on The Fetch Blog.
“With a computer, you can now be your own publishing house. You can commission work from yourself, you can ship it to the world, and you can build a business around it – all on a personal level.
In essence, micropublishing combines the intimacy of blogging with the professional approach of a traditional publisher.”
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“Publishing houses are, amongst many other things, curators. If they publish something, it’s got a stamp of approval that gives a reader confidence.
But now that self-publishing is a legitimate destination in its own right – not just a backwater for the desperate and delusional – how do readers know where to look? Amid all the writers rejoicing that they can publish to millions, very few people are considering the reader.
One of the aims of a micropublishing house is to improve the quality of the work you produce. As I said before, micropublishing combines the intimacy of blogging with the professional approach of a traditional publisher.
When you set your own high standards, readers come to trust you. It’ll take time, and it won’t be easy, but that’s all you can do – establish trust and earn permission and build your small tribe of dedicated readers by publishing exceptional work.”
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“Before the internet made it easy to start a business as an individual with minimal overhead, things were more clear cut. Artists went to workshops and sought out patrons and publishers. Entrepreneurs started businesses and went to networking events.
Now, artists can build an audience online by starting a one-person business. And entrepreneurs can take the risk of funding out of the equation by doing the same. They’re vastly different approaches, but have started to look the same from the outside.
Now that it’s hard to tell at a glance whether an individual is approaching things out of love for their craft (the artisan) or out of trying to grow their business (the accountant), they’ve started to be lumped together online. The artisans read the same blogs as the accountants. They start worrying about conversion and click-throughs and building their business more than their art.”
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