What Hybrid Author Actually Means

When I first started calling myself a hybrid author I wasn't entirely sure what I meant by it. I'd read the definition. I understood the concept. But I hadn't lived it yet, so it was still just a label I was trying on.

Now I know exactly what it means. At least for me.

Some days I write. Some days I blog. Some days I publish something — a post, a product, a piece of the story that needed to exist in the world. Some days I spend three hours figuring out how a piece of technology works so I can operate something I never in my life expected to be operating. And some days I wait. I check my email. I wonder where my manuscript is in the process and whether the editor has gotten to the part I'm most nervous about.

All of that is the job. All of it counts.

When I wrote the first version of this post I was deep in the waiting part — manuscript done, editing in progress, no control over the timeline, anxiety doing what anxiety does. I kept writing anyway. I was already ahead on the sequel before book one came back from the editor. That's either a sign of confidence or a coping mechanism. Probably both.

The hybrid part means you don't get to stop moving just because one piece of the process is out of your hands. There's always something else to build — the platform, the blog, the newsletter, the store, the next book. A traditional publishing house would have a whole team handling what I'm doing more or less by myself.

I'm not sure they could keep up with me. Some days I'm not sure I can either.

But the manuscript did come back. The book is real. And I understand now what I am — not just a writer waiting for permission, but someone who builds the whole thing herself, one piece at a time. 🐉