The Publishing Quadrants of Modern Authors
There Wasn’t One Made for Me (So I Built My Own...)
There’s a secret nobody tells you when you step into this world of publishing:
Not every writer fits the publishing models we’re handed.
Traditional. Indie. Hybrid.
Choose your path. Hurry up and wait. Follow the formula, and success may come.
But some of us are the quiet rebels, the system-builders, or the slow bloomers. We don’t just need a new path. We need a new model. For a long time, I tried to fit myself into the known publishing quadrants:
Traditional Publishing: Gatekeepers, prestige, contracts, but very little control over your career or readers.
Indie Publishing: Fast output, algorithm-chasing, “publish or perish” energy tied to third-party platforms.
Hybrid Publishing (the old definition): A mix of Traditional and Indie; some control, but still dependent on external systems.
Each quadrant offered something valuable. Each quadrant demanded a price. And somewhere deep inside, I ALWAYS knew:
None of them would let me build what I truly wanted.
Because I wasn’t just trying to “churn and burn” a bunch of stories. I was trying to build a world — one that I owned. One that could grow slowly and sustainably, without being yanked around by algorithms or trends. One where my readers were my readers.
Not Amazon’s.
Not TikTok’s.
Not META’s.
Mine. Built slowly, in trust. I was so excited when the latest new author hybrid began emerging quietly, almost invisibly:
The Direct-Sell Author Hybrid: Authors who kept one foot in Amazon’s world and one foot in their own storefront like Shopify, Squarespace, or a Lemon Squeezy add-on.
For me, it represented a step closer to freedom and for some authors, it’s enough. But it split focus for me because this quadrant (though new) still tied authors to retailer-controlled platforms that they didn’t fully control. For many of these new hybrid “Direct-Sell” authors, they just added an extra shingle onto their current websites as an alternative to purchase. And deep down, I knew:
I didn’t want halfway. I didn’t want to build a house where half the rooms still belonged to someone else. I wanted total ownership. Not just “publishing my own books” but owning the entire world they lived in. That’s why I stepped fully into the fifth quadrant:
eCommerce Publishing: My own Shopify store with a Direct relationship with readers. Direct control of sales path, product funnels, pricing, storytelling, and customer experience. Freedom to build slowly, sustainably, and soulfully — without asking permission.
This is the simple sketch I started carrying in my mind:
The eCommerce Author publishing model didn’t exist in the advice books or writer courses. It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t trendy. It wasn’t algorithm-approved. But it was mine. It was the place where I realized I could:
Have total control of my customer data, sales paths, and receive payment in 2 days, allowing me to make a consistent and sustainable living as a creative with a much smaller audience.
Focus on my slow-build writing emphasis and build out my storyworlds with depth at my own pace.
Connect with my audience in an authentic way using story-selling methods that fit my personal strengths, introverted nature, and principles.
Create deeper reader experiences with collectible special editions, premium POD Print books, and branded merchandise.
And slowly, deliberately, fiercely —it became my rebellion. The rebellion wasn’t walking away from traditional or indie publishing, per se. It was walking away from:
Dependency.
Invisibility.
Creative burn-out.
Forced extroversion.
The idea that you have to be “picked” or “viral” to matter.
That you can’t make a reliable, sustainable living as a full-time writer.
If you’re like me and felt like you’re trying to build something that doesn’t fit the current models or that industry blueprints leave no room for your kind of voice, your kind of storytelling, your kind of empire…
Just so you know, you don’t have to fit the model. You don’t have to follow the noise. If you’re building your quiet empire — on your own terms — I’d love for you to walk with me and share what you’re doing. Let’s write our own stories in this new publishing model.
If this post resonated, you can support this work as a paid subscriber. Quiet rebellion, sustained together.
I guess I’ll be asking you some questions in the near future. Years ago, I published a couple of digital books through my then website. I believe it was direct (I don’t remember how I had it set up). I moved away from self-publishing because I realized I would have to do more marketing than writing. And I hate marketing.
Now, instead of trying to monetize my fiction while I’m growing my audience here on Substack, I plan to sell a hybrid line of what I call Cine Novels (screenplays as a standalone literary format). I am going to modify the scripts to give them more poetic prose. I don’t really want to sell through Amazon. I just want to sell them digitally. I wish I could remember how I had it set up in the past. But I don’t. I guess I’m going to have to do research. But your article gave me a starting point. Thanks.
That hit the spot.
...or maybe scratched the 'itch'.
Either way, Alicia, my heart tells me this is, in reality, the 1% I've been looking for.
The world I've been building since 1990 is nowhere near the scope I've wanted it to be, but I've tried all the other quadrants you talked about...but not the e-commerce one.
I want the full control, but also learn how to develop the traffic to discover more of my readers around the globe.
Thank you for posting.
I think you're new superpower is 'HopeBringer'