Adhemar Lampaert
asked
Samuél Lopez-Barrantes:
What was your experience with Inkshares like? Do you feel that they promoted your book enough and that their help in publishing it was necessary? I'm thinking of publishing my book with Inkshares but I'm not entirely sure that they are a good publisher since they are so new and haven't published that many novels yet. But I could be wrong about that so I wanted to ask your opinion to get a better view on things.
Samuél Lopez-Barrantes
Hello Admhemar,
My experience with Inkshares was incredible. I do, however, have to mention a caveat: I was incredibly lucky to be the first funded novelist on the website, which meant I benefited from a lot of attention I would not have received otherwise . I guess the question is, what is your alternative? If you are consider the self-publishing route, I would 100% recommend Inkshares. Depending on what kind of genre your book is, they have received a lot of attention from sci-fi/fantasy readers and have a thriving community that seems to be quite supportive. You are going to have to do a lot of self-promotion, no doubt, but it does add to the allure if you have their website as a platform. They were amazing in helping publishing my book, and I was able to work with an editor from FSG as well as do some really cool design things with the novel that I would not have been able to do with a more mainstream publisher. As far as being a "good" publisher, sure, they're not the big five, so if you think your novel is capable of getting a massive print run, FOR SURE try and find a literary agent. While the profits per sale would not be as good as Inkshares, you would most certainly receive more promotion possibilities if you ended up at one of the big houses. Inkshares' publishing model has changed since I published with them (when I was there I had to raise 10k in 3 months; now it's more about getting enough readers) so you have to ask yourself how many people you can realistically get on board, as finding a few hundred readers as an unpublished author is definitely not an easy task.
My experience with Inkshares was incredible. I do, however, have to mention a caveat: I was incredibly lucky to be the first funded novelist on the website, which meant I benefited from a lot of attention I would not have received otherwise . I guess the question is, what is your alternative? If you are consider the self-publishing route, I would 100% recommend Inkshares. Depending on what kind of genre your book is, they have received a lot of attention from sci-fi/fantasy readers and have a thriving community that seems to be quite supportive. You are going to have to do a lot of self-promotion, no doubt, but it does add to the allure if you have their website as a platform. They were amazing in helping publishing my book, and I was able to work with an editor from FSG as well as do some really cool design things with the novel that I would not have been able to do with a more mainstream publisher. As far as being a "good" publisher, sure, they're not the big five, so if you think your novel is capable of getting a massive print run, FOR SURE try and find a literary agent. While the profits per sale would not be as good as Inkshares, you would most certainly receive more promotion possibilities if you ended up at one of the big houses. Inkshares' publishing model has changed since I published with them (when I was there I had to raise 10k in 3 months; now it's more about getting enough readers) so you have to ask yourself how many people you can realistically get on board, as finding a few hundred readers as an unpublished author is definitely not an easy task.
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