Guest Speaker: Erik Hanberg

In class last week, we had author and self publisher Erik Hanberg come in and speak with us about the struggle and accomplishments of self publishing throughout all the changes of the internet. Erik Hanberg may not be a household name such as J.K Rowling and George R.R Martin, but he has certainly made a name for himself. Erik started publishing his novels in 2010, and has been publishing a book pretty much every year. It was interesting to learn about all the different career opportunities that Erik has had, he is very much a self starter. He even asked to create one of his Universities websites and claims he didn't know how to make a website at the time! He seems to be very confident with how to get your name out there, how to start publishing, producing or promoting your own content. Some of the interesting facts that he mentioned when it came to publishing his novels, were how Amazon impacted self publishing. I never knew this but Amazon promotes books on costumer reviews and does not prioritize books that were published through a corporation. This was a huge impact especially since it was more convenient for some to publish books online then to pay for someone to publish them. It was a pleasure to have Erik come and talk to us in class, I still would love to be able to ask him more questions: such as his opinion on how the internet has made it so convenient for freelancers and this new form of self promoted work. Which I strongly think it has, what about you? Comment below!