Paul Grondahl, the director of the New York State Writers Institute and a master of dealing with the ways of writers, once said: “You cannot expect publishers, in tweed, to be fixed in amber.”

I can picture my first Simon & Schuster editor in chief’s face back in 1990. My Touchstone paperback had just been resold by S&S into a quality paperback edition. That month, my executive editor wanted me to share my good news. I was sent upstairs to visit the editor in chief on my next book ideas. He looked up and asked, “Young man, why are you here? My secretary is out on a coffee run.” Boy have things changed. My John Wiley and Sons publisher came to his offices with a motorbike following behind him up the elevator.

“Writers have to evoke an interest before the sometimes-fossilized editors and their impatient audiences,” Grondahl says. “There is more competition of voices out there than ever.” Garnering interest takes more than compositional skills, however. “Creativity and hard work are essential,” Grondahl says, “but so is the financial acumen of the writer.”

Grondahl says that independent publishers can offer a richer royalty rate “if the author is willing to do the work of getting their books on seats and in libraries.” But how will new voices be heard in such a crowded market?

“You cannot earn a living without realizing that the internet gives writers new ways to join new revenue streams,” says Joshua Schwartz, the founder and CEO of pubvendo.com. “The internet is no longer a subset of publishing. It is the central nervous system.”

“The larger the publisher, the less they might know about these new ways,” he says. He explains how he can customize an ad book campaign in a more measurable way than the print advertisement used by the old guard. In contrast, his internet ads cost a small fraction of a book sale.

Of course, what hasn’t changed is that you have to have well-written content that appeals to many. For this new world to work on your behalf requires brevity and a range of fine writing skills. Arthur Klebanoff, the owner of scottmeredith.com, offers this warning: “In the end, the book business is about the writers of consequence, the writers that climb the pyramid of steady sales and impact over decades.”

There may be more books out there than ever, but look at the list of writers represented by Scott Meredith or those represented by The Writer’s House. There is a pyramid out there for about a thousand years. Some things about book writing never change.

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