Better to Give Away Than Be Invisible

A couple weeks back, I posted the cliff notes of how I got my first book published. On the same day, I put it out there that if aspiring writers wanted to drop me a few questions along the way, I would try to reply to their emails [sarahraymondcunningham (at) gmail (dot) com] either individually or in blog posts.

The number one question I received (from 11 people) was “People like you keep encouraging me to post my writing. But…if I put my writing on my blog, won’t publishers dismiss it because it’s already been released publicly?”

And here is what goes through my head when I read the question:

You are exactly right… if you are writing me from the year 1924…

But, if not, here’s a principle to think about in 2011: It’s better to give away content than to be invisible. If you’re an unknown writer, who doesn’t have 4 million Twitter followers or a megachurch of 10,000 to build instant buzz, the free price tag isn’t your problem. OBSCURITY is.

Something to think about: giving away content is only a bad business deal if people would’ve bought your content in the first place. If you could’ve sold your book for $15 a pop but instead you gave it away, then, yessss you forfeited some profit.

But consider this: if the general public doesn’t know who you are or have a natural way of stumbling upon your specific project, giving away content is no loss at all. They wouldn’t have found it to buy it anyways. Instead, it can be part of your strategy for growing your readership, for creating buzz around your writing, and also, for proving to publishers you have a platform.

Here’s some examples of  how it’s sometimes better to give writing away than be invisible.

• Robert Scoble and Shel Israel’s successful book, Naked Conversations, was written on his blog.  Readers commented along the way.
• Lawrence Lessig created his breakthrough book Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace via a public wiki.
• Neal Stephenson launched a Web site where readers could collectively annotate his novel Quicksilver.
• Cory Doctorow gave away books, but won an audience.
• Amanda Hocking made the best sellers list by selling her e-books online for only $.99 to $2.99.
• Renae deLiz who used Kickstarter to drum up interest in her Womanthology comic book.
• John Green’s latest novel hit number one before it has even been published after he began reading chapters of the uncompleted book on YouTube vids.
• Are you wanting to start writing your own book? Here are some free resources to help you on your way