Publishers and Agents

I am still relatively new to this whole selling my words for profit thing. I released my first novella September last year and got my first novel out into the world last month. I am always trying to learn the newest trends and work out the right language so that I can fit in. Like most things, it feels a little like high school. Except we are all the nerdy kids, it is just some have more experience than others.

A lot of authors are introverts. People who do not deal well with dealing with other people. It is why we read. Reading is a solo activity. Writing is a solo activity. Publishing takes a village, and you quickly discover your years of ignoring humanity for whatever reason you have are now going to work against you. You need to be able to speak about your work, yourself, and your plans for the future. We might have the perfect words all put together after a few edits, but conversations are generally live. No edits or re-shoots for you.

So the introverts, like me, realise they need people on their side. The first thought for many writers is "I need a publisher and an agent." Those are the traditional ways of getting noticed by the right people. Like many of you, I have lists of publishers and the someday dream. My someday dream is quickly coming up, though. In about six weeks I want to start working on something for publishers to look at. Thus my search of find a publisher begins.

I have been doing some research today and quickly discovered a few interesting things 1- many many many romance publishers. Like 4x more than all other genres combined (so my list of 84 dwindled to about 10 really quickly) 2- it is hard being the new kid. not too many of them take work from new authors or authors without an agent. 3- royalty rates are low. Lowest I saw was 8%. Most averaged out at about 20-30% (after they take out amazon's share blah blah blah so your share is 30% of $6 made on a $20 sale) 4- rarely did they offer any marketing. Some even ask that you add your planned marketing stratergy with your submission

This last one is the most important to me (yes, more important than the royalties) because my whole reasoning for getting a publisher and an agent is the marketing aspect of the business. There is only so much I can do, and my efforts are minimal at best. They - in theory - have access to greater audiences and resources. I am sure there are publishing houses out there that do includes a marketing strategy, but they were not the publishers I was looking at.

So, where does this leave me? Well, it seems that the publishers I am willing to work with and are willing to take my submissions are just doing the work I already do myself. The easy part. Most of them are already using Amazon Kindle and a CreateSpace type system. It takes me five minutes to publish on Amazon Kindle. So why do I need to give someone part of my royalties for clicking the upload manuscript button? Again, I am sure some of the larger publishing houses who work with the well-known authors offer more but for my place in the publishing world, all the publisher offers are minimal at best.

So, what does this mean for me? I do not want to pay people to do the work I can do myself. It just seems counter-productive, when I need all of my royalties to put into the next book and marketing strategies. I think I might look at competitions instead. If I van get a few awards attached to my name, then maybe I can get a foot into those ever elusive doors of publishers who work for their cut of my profits.

#writing #author #publishing #takecontrol