There is a debate waging in the book publishing world over self-publishing vs. traditional publishing that borders on a religious war.

The two camps say they are the way to nirvana, and if you follow their one true way you will achieve enlightenment and success as a writer.

The self-publishers will tell you that you will make more money in the long run with self-publishing. However, the self-publishers don’t like to come out and tell you that in order for the self-publishing nirvana to work, you have to have a lot of work to publish. If you have one book that you want to publish, self-publishing might send you to Starbucks a few times a month.

The traditionalists will tell you that for your work to be considered legitimate in the real world, then you have to go to the big 6 and let the gatekeepers bless your writing. What they gloss over is that you have to already have a large following before the big 6 will even look at your work. The big 6 are more interested in your Twitter following than the quality of your writing.

Both sides need to grow up and realize …

Writing is a business.

While writing can be a reward in itself, you can’t eat the warm-and-fuzzies. If you want to pay your mortgage and send your kids to the right schools, you have to make your writing make you the most money it can. Period. Depending on where you are in your writing career, this can mean self-publishing or traditional publishing, or something entirely different.

Writing is writing. You have to build an audience, write a lot for that audience, then mobilize that audience to profit. You can be a blogger or a book author, it does not matter.

When I launched this little digital imprint of mine, I knew what my monetization strategy was going to be. I did not start down the path and then decide how to make money from it. I know that if I stick to the strategy that I will make a living from my writing.

On day zero, I knew how I was going to make a living with my writing. Do you know how you are going to profit from your writing?

In the coming weeks I am going to spend a lot of energy working on and writing about my implementation of the 3 P’s.

I hope you stick around and follow along as I get this micro-imprint off the ground.

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