Most authors see having their debut novel published in hard cover as the ultimate prize and worry that paperback originals may be overlooked, causing their budding career to fizzle right out of the gate.
Moonrat has a different take on it. I found the essay helpful in clarifying my own publishing goals.
Never had a hardcover aspiration.
ReplyDeleteAnd I get testy when one of "my" authors becomes successful enough to be promoted to hardcover. I know, yay because their career is solid and they'll be writing the stories I love for many years to come, but because I won't buy hardcover, I have to wait an extra year for the paperback release, and I can't tell you how many people in that year will go out of their way to tell me every detail and ruin the sense of discovery that makes books worth reading. Nothing worse than turning a page and thinking, "Wow, that would have been a really cool twist... if I hadn't been told about it beforehand."
Or maybe that's a sooper seekrit guerilla marketing technique. I bought a hardback a couple months ago as a result of that fear... o.O