My only comment is the observation that for someone so apparently open, and forward thinking, why is he not contactable to ‘speak’ to? Too important? A guru one must only listen to? The central thesis (at first glance) is that the idea of careers (or regular employment for up to a working lifetime) is out the window/ old hat/ irrelevant in this age of expansive freedoms of choice/responsibility – is surely not new? In the 1970’s as a school leaver, college student I decided (and told my girlfriend / future wife) I would never follow a career but simply do what interested me for as long as it interested me wherever possible. As a film student I co-produced a short film that won the Don Quixote award at the Cracow (Poland) short film festival. Sometime broke, I had to work at not very exciting jobs (steel tube cutter at a dangerous factory – but amused myself at my machine post reading ‘Platform for Change’ by Stafford Beer (advisor to President Allende of Chile before he was assassinated – a Cybernetics professor who was a close friend of Bucky Fuller (an American you might have heard of) Caught reading by the company bosses they demanded I be sacked on the spot but was saved by my line manager who said, ‘‘But he’s got the highest production figures in the factory!” I went on (late 70’s) to become a news photographer, then cartoonist, then News graphic artist, culminating in 18 years and 22 international awards as graphics editor of The Daily Telegraph London I resigned when new owners took over to pursue another idea: writing and illustrating my own stories, setting up my own publishing company, editing, designing, producing to print-ready, printed in China and sent to a UK warehouse, persuaded 60 indie bookstores to pre-order, sold more copies at a first signing in Waterstones (a chain) than any author in their concurrent book festival – became a favourite in that chain and sold 9,000 copies at £15 (this a is a hardback kids book of 176 pages with 80 illustrations) in four years.
My pseudo-publ. co. was accepted as legit by the Publishers’ Association and the Independent Publishers Guild, receive UK Trade & Industry grants to exhibit at Frankfurt and Bologna Book Fairs, – the book was invited to Hollywood twice, made a Book of the Year by the Lovereading4kids website here in UK, sold to South Korea and China, where sales brought my Paper sales total to 32,000 worldwide. My second book, a Gothic Ghost tale /historical mystery sold as a trade paperback 3,000 at £10 here. Both were stopped in their tracks by a new MD of Waterstones, who banned all-day signings by non-famous authors and included me despite my pleas I had put £140,000-worth through their tills at my signings In parallel to this I was illustrating for publishers (non-fiction) including the Penguin Group, Hachette, Osprey military (catered in the main for American gun enthusiasts (3 series - Weapon, Duel and Raid plus various books including ‘Killing Bin Laden’) – plus 90 issues of a Great Battles series for a Russian partworks (before 2014). Plus illustrating cutaways for major architects herein the UK of historic buildings.
All this is to show that I pursued the concept of move where the interest takes me and never work for an employer but with an employer for as long as mutually beneficial. If not, work for yourself (ie I learned every aspect of the publishing operation from design to marketing in the couple of years before launching my first book. So your advoccacy, while being entirely valid, is not actually new. All it takes (and took for me back then) is a decision to pursue one’s goals / interests / heart? wherever it leads and to hell with the consequences. Cheers. Alan. Your can pore through a couple of my blogs here, if the whim takes you.
I would love to know a little more about the publishing process and what was better going with Author Equity. As far as I can tell as a self published author, this new strategy leverages advantages from using publishers and freedoms only traditionally seen in self publishing.
Well, Jorge, whoever Seth is – he’s still probably too important to respond – or plain just doesn’t want people to speak to him? And there was I thinking communication was a two way street!
I had forgotten about this post because I deemed it unimportant (an impetuous response).
Hello and to Seth.
My only comment is the observation that for someone so apparently open, and forward thinking, why is he not contactable to ‘speak’ to? Too important? A guru one must only listen to? The central thesis (at first glance) is that the idea of careers (or regular employment for up to a working lifetime) is out the window/ old hat/ irrelevant in this age of expansive freedoms of choice/responsibility – is surely not new? In the 1970’s as a school leaver, college student I decided (and told my girlfriend / future wife) I would never follow a career but simply do what interested me for as long as it interested me wherever possible. As a film student I co-produced a short film that won the Don Quixote award at the Cracow (Poland) short film festival. Sometime broke, I had to work at not very exciting jobs (steel tube cutter at a dangerous factory – but amused myself at my machine post reading ‘Platform for Change’ by Stafford Beer (advisor to President Allende of Chile before he was assassinated – a Cybernetics professor who was a close friend of Bucky Fuller (an American you might have heard of) Caught reading by the company bosses they demanded I be sacked on the spot but was saved by my line manager who said, ‘‘But he’s got the highest production figures in the factory!” I went on (late 70’s) to become a news photographer, then cartoonist, then News graphic artist, culminating in 18 years and 22 international awards as graphics editor of The Daily Telegraph London I resigned when new owners took over to pursue another idea: writing and illustrating my own stories, setting up my own publishing company, editing, designing, producing to print-ready, printed in China and sent to a UK warehouse, persuaded 60 indie bookstores to pre-order, sold more copies at a first signing in Waterstones (a chain) than any author in their concurrent book festival – became a favourite in that chain and sold 9,000 copies at £15 (this a is a hardback kids book of 176 pages with 80 illustrations) in four years.
My pseudo-publ. co. was accepted as legit by the Publishers’ Association and the Independent Publishers Guild, receive UK Trade & Industry grants to exhibit at Frankfurt and Bologna Book Fairs, – the book was invited to Hollywood twice, made a Book of the Year by the Lovereading4kids website here in UK, sold to South Korea and China, where sales brought my Paper sales total to 32,000 worldwide. My second book, a Gothic Ghost tale /historical mystery sold as a trade paperback 3,000 at £10 here. Both were stopped in their tracks by a new MD of Waterstones, who banned all-day signings by non-famous authors and included me despite my pleas I had put £140,000-worth through their tills at my signings In parallel to this I was illustrating for publishers (non-fiction) including the Penguin Group, Hachette, Osprey military (catered in the main for American gun enthusiasts (3 series - Weapon, Duel and Raid plus various books including ‘Killing Bin Laden’) – plus 90 issues of a Great Battles series for a Russian partworks (before 2014). Plus illustrating cutaways for major architects herein the UK of historic buildings.
All this is to show that I pursued the concept of move where the interest takes me and never work for an employer but with an employer for as long as mutually beneficial. If not, work for yourself (ie I learned every aspect of the publishing operation from design to marketing in the couple of years before launching my first book. So your advoccacy, while being entirely valid, is not actually new. All it takes (and took for me back then) is a decision to pursue one’s goals / interests / heart? wherever it leads and to hell with the consequences. Cheers. Alan. Your can pore through a couple of my blogs here, if the whim takes you.
https://alangillilandillustration.blogspot.com/2016/11/portfolio-page-one.html
Each blog post is a different illustration type - field.
https://alangilliland.blogspot.com/2024/04/agents-dontcha-luvvy-luvem.html
Each post is a personal reflection of my day’s interest.
I would love to know a little more about the publishing process and what was better going with Author Equity. As far as I can tell as a self published author, this new strategy leverages advantages from using publishers and freedoms only traditionally seen in self publishing.
Well, Jorge, whoever Seth is – he’s still probably too important to respond – or plain just doesn’t want people to speak to him? And there was I thinking communication was a two way street!
I had forgotten about this post because I deemed it unimportant (an impetuous response).
Ordered!
Just pre-ordered! Big Seth fan here 👋