Yes, of course I poached Chuck Wendig’s brilliance from his article of the exact same name. But, to my credit, I did change my title slightly to reflect my amazing originality.
In a similar fashion to Wendig (God I am a poacher today), when I first came across the term ‘hybrid author’ I pictured something a little less than normal. For me, it was a science fiction writer with wings, a thick outer armour, an extra set of hands and the ability to never sleep. And I don’t know, maybe yellow eyes and vivid green dragon scales.
Realising my interpretation might be a tad fantastical, I sat down and did a bit of critical and creative reasoning (a.k.a terribleminds via google) and figured out that hybrid authors are pretty f—– brilliant. Not only have they figured out that the publishing industry is changing at a rapid pace, but they have taken steps to take advantage of this.
Hybrid authors publish their work through both traditional means and less than savoury means – sorry – self-publishing. In short, these hybrids use a combination of different publishing methods to bring their work to the zombie masses – and benefit from it enormously.
For example, author SR Johannes tells us over at The Self Publishing Centre, that she is using both traditional and self-publishing to her advantage. Her words are full of nuggety gold chunks that are sure to inspire:
“Now, authors don’t have to pick a path. It does not have to be one way or the other. They can do it all.
Yes. Yes we can do it all. She even managed to score herself a literary agent with a commercial-friendly novel. I wouldn’t even know where to start on that one!
One thing I’m dying to ask SR Johannes is… what’s the secret to snagging yourself a literary agent or publisher in the first place?
I will definitely have a go at self publishing one of these days, but if I’m being honest, I still dream about being published by one of the Big 5. And not because I want my stories ‘to go out into the world to be read by other people’ (that actually terrifies me, who really wants that??) but because I want my friends to be jealously impressed #NothingButTheTruth.
I’m concerned the reason why my novels are being rejected by both agents and publishers is because ‘they’re not good enough’ (or perhaps they check out my blog, then they back the f— away) and what right do I have to self publish books that aren’t good enough for the big fish? But as the literary agents like to tell us in their form rejection letters: ‘the publishing game is completely subjective’.
Let’s be honest, wouldn’t you rather let the readers themselves decide if your novel is wonderfully awesome or tragically bad? I think they deserve that honour – they are the ones reading the books and feeding the market after all. Yes, yes, I know the market is being flooded by grammar-less trash, but there are some gems out there!
Like Andy Weir’s The Martian, which was originally self published before it was picked up by Crown Publishing and went on to achieve commercial and Matt Damon glory . I mean, it could happen to us right?? Um… so yeah… Andy Weir’s novel is like the Moussaieff Red diamond to our cubic zirconias.
But if writers didn’t continue to dream and conjure, the world would surely be the poorer. We would have no Samwise Gamgee, no Ronald Weasley and worst of all, like hell, we’d have no Samwell Tarley!! And that’s where I draw the line. Under no circumstances are you allowed to give up and deprive the world of your future yet-to-be-written unsuspecting bumbling hero that everyone loves and who is totally unappreciated by the world and deserves his own movie.
And cats! We would have no cats!
OK that makes no sense, but here’s some cats for you that do a very good job of showing us what authors really look like:
What a traditionally published author thinks they look like:
Hey, I’m so profesh
What they actually look like…
Coffee, all the coffee
What a self published author thinks they look like:
I believe I can fly…
What they actually look like:
I believe I can touch the sky…
What a hybrid author thinks they look like:
I am a brave soul conquering the mostly-unknown
And that’s it. Because hybrids actually look like that
The Cat's Write 
Leave a comment