Free Listings Offered by the Publetariat Vault

Currently there’s a promo for listing at the Publetariat Vault (discussed here on SPR).

Normally this service is $10 per 30 days, but if you sign up between now and October 25th, you’ll receive 4 free listing periods, 120 days total listing time, to try out the service. Just go to http://vault.publetariat.com and create an account, entering the promo code Oct120 in the registration sign-up form. Follow the directions provided on the site to create your listing(s). When you publish a listing you will be asked to provide your PayPal payment information, but no charges will be made to your account for the first 120 days. A week before the end of the free, promotional period, you will receive an email notification reminding you to cancel your listing if you wish to avoid any charges.

This comes on the heels of a great piece by Publetariat’s April Hamilton, titled Self-Publishing: Future Prerequisite, outlining how self-publishing will increasingly become a sort of testing ground for authors – a more-reliable process than the current query system. From the post:

As we all already know, a manuscript’s content is only one piece—an increasingly small piece, unfortunately—of the decision-making puzzle when it comes to convincing a publisher to make an offer. When the editors, marketing wonks and other decision makers get together to consider which manuscripts to acquire, Risk is the name of the elephant in the room and mitigating risk is the key to a sale. When you approach an agent or editor with a quality manuscript, you may convince them you can write but you’re doing nothing to reduce their fears about the eventual book’s performance in the marketplace. If you can approach those same people with a book that’s already in the marketplace and already has a fan base, you’ve already answered the question of how the book will perform post-publication. You’ve reduced their antacid intake by half and given them some very good reasons to invest in you and your book.

The Publetariat Vault hopes to be a meeting ground where publishers and agents can come to see how authors are performing in certain genres. Though there are those who self-publish to avoid the mainstream publishing arena, there are many more using self-publishing as a stepping stone, and it’s possible that the Vault becomes a central resource for discovering writers who have found success self-publishing.

With the new FTC guidelines, perhaps there needs to be a disclaimer on this post. Though I’m in touch with the people at Publetariat, I receive no compensation for this post. Feel better, FTC?