How many authors have started writing their first book while still maintaining a professional career or full-time job?
It’s no easy task, as the brain has to multi-task between each activity. Still, it will keep you sharp as you dig deeper into your subconscious, develop your characters and plot, and work on language skills to refine your work. So, it is most definitely a complementary hobby!
Maybe it’s not surprising that I made George Drake, the protagonist of Siptah’s Legacy and The League of the Sacred Ankh, an insurance broker seeking out a more adventurous life for himself before getting bogged down in the industry’s “rat race.” Other authors often use their professions as a backdrop to their publications, including lawyers, doctors, politicians, and indeed, all walks of life.
From what I have concluded, however, the world of publishing seems no different from that of our insurance ecosystem. There are plenty of sharks out there, and the old idioms of Caveat Emptor (“Let the buyer beware”) or Uberima Fides (“Utmost good faith”) all apply just as much.
If you consider the author a consumer, he needs to find a publishing house to underwrite his book. To intermediate, most publishing houses will only work through brokers, in this case, literary agents.
Like insurance, many ancillary providers help pave the way down this challenging path, including editorial services, creative experts, and even aggregators!
The only key difference is that the publishing arena can only be described in insurance terminology as an extremely “hard market.” Finding that underwriter who might be prepared to take on your risk is sometimes like finding that elusive “needle in a haystack.”
The consumer will, in the majority of circumstances, need to self-insure and self-publish until a broker eventually spots an opportunity to make a decent amount of commission from one of the underwriters prepared to publish the manuscript.
A bit of luck undoubtedly plays an essential part in the overall equation, and leveraging contacts and influencers can equally tip the balance.
As Churchill once said, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal, it is the courage to continue that counts!”