The Word Cloud

Okay, here's the deal; I recently submitted my fantasy novel to about 20 publishers. In the first two days I got two rejections, but today I got a request for a full MS. As you can guess I was overjoyed, but I decided to look into the publisher. Here's what I found out...

Rogue Phoenix Press, based in Salem, Oregon, USA. Primarily e-book publisher, but offers POD providing the author pays the fees (vanity press anyone?) however, if the book sells at least a hundred copies (ebook) within a 30 day timescale, they will offer a POD contract free of charge with no fees whatsoever.

From what I've seen on Google, they take on quite a few authors but I can't really find any really bad criticisms of them (disregarding the POD thing) there was mention that the author has to purchase 20 copies of the POD book, but I can't find any evidence to support that yet.

Now I know that just because they have requested a full MS doesn't necessarily mean they will publish it, but I would like to see what other publishers have to say before I get into an agreement. At what point am I obliged to stick with these guys? Apparently they responded to one persons full MS after a week of him sending it to them! Considering some publishers take months to respond, rock and hard place comes to mind. Anyone have any experience with this publisher, or have any advice?

Damien, you're only obliged to stick with someone once you've signed a legal contract with them. And I would urge you to get advice on any contract you sign.

Rule One of publishing: money flows to the author. But, fundamentally, any publisher which asks you for money is a vanity publisher (as opposed to a self-publishing service, where you get what you pay for: help to self-publish your work) . Of course they respond quickly: they make their money from the writers, and want to get that in as soon as possible. Because they make money from authors, they have no incentive to make money from selling books. With self-publishing so easy these digital days you'd be much better off self-publishing with one of the reputable outfits, either purely e- or PoD as well.

Real publishers take a long time to respond because they won't offer on a book unless and until they've worked out that they think they can make money by selling it, rather than making money from the author. That's also why they only take on a tiny proportion of manuscripts: they're putting their own money on the line, and that's what means a book has been published.

Some discussion here:

http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=123970

But I wouldn't regard 2 rejections as final. Once you've got 8-12 from real publishers, with no reasons given, you can start reckoning that there's something fundamental not yet right with it, and have a re-think.

I know what you mean Emma, I was a bit concerned when I read up on the author fees bit. But saying that, that's only the POD part, the ebook part is completely free (as far as I know)

However with e-books, due to the small amount they sell for (particularly new authors) I can't help but feel that I would be better off doing it on my own and receiving more royalties. I only submitted to the publshers so that I could benefit from their marketing as well as see my book in print, and the usual stuff. If this publisher is primarily ebook would I be better off doing it myself? (seeing how they expect you to do a lot of marketing yourself)

I guess a better question would be: are there any more advantages publishing an e-book with a publisher than there are self publishing

"I guess a better question would be: are there any more advantages publishing an e-book with a publisher than there are self publishing"

The question so many are asking... I was astonished to hear my agent, this last year at York, suggesting that self-e-publishing is becoming the way to go. A vanity publisher like that one isn't actually doing much you couldn't do yourself, and is charging you a fee for the privilege.

The things a real publisher can do that you can't do yourself are editorial help, design, and marketing/publicity/sales. All of them take time, money and expertise/contacts, which is why mainstream, proper publishers aren't going to be folding up their tents any day soon.

I've looked into e-self-publishing for a couple of non-fiction projects of mine, and I am aware that doing it properly doesn't cost nothing either - I'd absolutely have to pay for decent editing, for example, even though I'm not a bad editor of others' work (essentially, you can't edit yourself), and the time spent on promotion has to be costed too, as I'm self-employed.

The other thing to remember is that if one of your interests is in becoming a "published author", for reasons of career or work or prestige, then self-publishing won't do it. But being published by a vanity press won't do it either and, frankly, to announce that a book was "published" by a vanity press, would do any submissions you want to make to proper publishers in the future more harm than good.

But in the end it comes down to how you'll find your readers, doesn't it, and above all how you'll persuade them that your book is the one they want to buy. Be ruthless with yourself: think not about what's interesting about the book - I'm sure there's lots - but why on earth SHOULD someone buy it? How can you get them to understand what it offers, and then to buy what it offers? There's no big publisher putting ads up or paying to be in in-store promotions, and thus promising that it'll be worth it, there's no word-of-mouth or reviews, and if you're going to get your friends to write Amazon reviews you need to do it carefully or it becomes very obvious. So how are you going to make people think that it's worth their time and money?

I'd suggest putting your readers', rather than your writers' head on, and going out onto the net and seeing how it works. How do you come to notice books - how do you decide which to buy? The big mistake self-publishers make is not to do this: not to realise just how much stuff there is out there, and just how hard it is to get yours noticed.

Thanks for the advice Emma! I think what I might do is send my full MS to them and see what happens - they might reject it, but if they make editing suggestions then that's an advantage!

I think I might stick to the self publishing (unless of course I get more requests from other publishers) The only thing I might struggle with is the marketing aspect. I can tell people about it on Facebook and Twitter, ask bloggers to write a review, even create a visual trailer for distribution on blogs and Youtube, but is that really enough to publicise my work?

It's probably still my best option - no point wasting money if I can do it myself for free...

"if they make editing suggestions then that's an advantage!"

Only if they're good suggestions. They may well not be - there are an awful lot of people out there willing to offer advice who really, really don't know what they're talking about, and some of them may be employed by vanity publishers like this one. And besides, since they make their money from writers, not from publishing good books, there's no incentive for them to help you make the book better. Fundamentally, a company like this isn't a publisher. It's a company for making money out of writers, and every person they employ who knows about writing is money off their bottom line. So why would they employ them?

"is that really enough to publicise my work?"

The problem is, publicising isn't enough, is it. You've got to persuade people to actually buy it, beyond the circle of friends, and friends-of-friends. And judging by the conversation I've just been involved in on another forum, about how we all briskly and immediately un-followed a writer whose every Tweet was promotional, and who actually had the nerve to ASK people to re-Tweet his promotional tweets, you have to go about using the social networks in a very sensitive way, and preferably have an established profile as a real person first, IYSWIM, if you're not just to piss everyone off.

I'm currently cooking a blog post about the relative merits of different forms of social networking, ie websites, blogs, Facebook, Twitter etc. I'll let people here know when it's up. Self-publishing is definitely an option to consider once you've exhausted the traditional mainstream route, but you do have to think about why they were not interested. If there are fundamental problems with the book, all the social networking in the world won't create the kind of word-of-mouth (or net) that will persuade people to buy it.

I wish it was that simple, and I could debate for hours about the advantages established authors have over newbies. ( 'Free' review, critique, edits, research, marketing, to name a few.) A lot of writing cracks can be covered up if you have a reader base. I've read books that do have fundamental problems (IMO) - but they still sell to a loyal readership.

However, it is also a truism (celeb books aside) that to become established you've got to write a book that captures the imagination of the agent/publisher in that he/she can sell it in today's market place. Whether the subsequent books hit the same high notes is less of an issue (but still an issue) once you're on the publishing roundabout.

John Locke seemed to find a marketing formula that worked for him even though his books aren't exceptional works. why not copy his technique?

Thanks for all the advice guys. It helps a lot!

Emma, I see what you mean about the feedback they give may not be credible, I think I might just see what they have to say and judge myself whether or not it needs changing. At the end of the day, it is another reader who has read my full MS (in theory) and I can use what they say to identify patterns with other feedback I recieve. I obviously won't take their suggestions to heart, because like you said they are more interested in making money than making a good book.

Debi - That sounds like a great idea and I'll definitely look out for that. There may be fundamental problems with the book, but I think the main reasons the majority of publishers won't touch it is because it's fantasy. It's a sad fact that publishers don't see fantasy as an investable genre (bad english but you know what I mean...) Yet I have thousands of friends/followers on the networking sites that enjoy and regularly purchase fantasy novels (I know that this doesn't necessarily mean they will purchase my book, but I'm just using them as an example)

Once I have exhausted all options of editing and polishing and any feedback I get for improvement, I think I will go with the self-publishing option and hope for the best.

Stephen - Who is John Locke and what is his technique? (I fear I may have revealed my poor intellect... damn) I agree, it is hard for authors starting out. I am just going to have to hope that my book might sell based on customer reviews, word of mouth, tweeting, posting and begging bloggers to feature it on their site...

Yes, fantasy's an awkward beast. John Jarrold's the only agent I know who deals in nothing else - have you submitted to him? Nice bloke. And it's true that it has its own self-sustaining culture and online world, which might make it easier to latch onto and promote your work if you do self-publish.

But there's an interesting piece here from Sally Zigmond (via Jane Smith's How Publishing Really Works) about the temptation to e-publish your work:

http://theelephantinthewritingroom.blogspot.com/2011/12/kindle-rush.html

And I do agree with her - I'm deeply, deeply glad that e-publishing wasn't around when my first manuscripts were being rejected, because it would have been tempting. But it's very unlikely that I would have gone on to write the kind of thing I'm writing now.

I haven't actaully submitted to any agents... (Alarm bells are destroying my ears) I can't believe I've overlooked that avenue! I just went down the list on duotrope and submitted to those publishers!

I am now going to look up some agents, including John Jarrold (after I stop kicking myself) and see if I have any luck there. Are there any websites that offer agent directories? I am aware the W&A listings page is still under construction, and I don't own a copy of the book. Prior to getting the bus all the way to the library, are there any sites I can browse first?

Once again thankyou for the advice and the useful article. You really are an encyclopedia of knowledge! Are you secretly a search engine by any chance? - If so, Google better watch its back!

Damien,
Arriving at this party late (because you seemed to be in safe hands), why not just google agents?
If you put in 'literary agents uk' (or wherever you are), loads come up. You might want to miss off the first few, which may be self-publishing sites, but scroll down and proper agents come up.
Or refine it further, to 'literary agents uk fantasy' and more specialised ones come up.
The world can be yours at the click of a button.

Thanks CW,

I considered this as soon as I clicked 'post' - My mind is all over the place today (Probably not a good idea to submit to agents in this state)

I'm working my way through the results, although there doesn't seem to be that many UK based agents.

Is it worth persuing an agent from another country I wonder...

You're welcome. No reason you shouldn't submit to US agents - you might well find more who handle fantasy. It does tend to be the one thing that otherwise generalist agents (i.e. most of them) don't handle, because it's a slightly off-to-the-side part of the market.

There really isn't a substitute for WAAYB the book - not that I've found, anyway; I've yet to come across a site which you can rely on listing everyone, and work your way through. You then need to cross-check with the agency's own website for more details of how to submit.

And DO be careful when googling 'agents' because the scammy ones tend to be the ones that come out top: proper agencies aren't interested in paying to get up the google rankings because they get quite enough decent submissions without. Some agents don't even have websites - another reason to get hold of WAAYB. So if you don't recognise the name of an agency as being one everyone knows, then please, please, please check them out at Preditors and Editors

http://pred-ed.com/

and/or ask on AbsoluteWrite, as whoever it was did about that Texan publisher you mentioned.

You could also check if they're members of the Association of Authors' Agents. There are some perfectly good agents who aren't members for one reason or another, but their Code of Conduct is a good place to start in checking any agreement that an agency offers you. And their list of members is a handy list of members' websites:

http://www.agentsassoc.co.uk/index.php/

And if you are offered representation, or a publishing contract, then I would say that it's absolutely essential to get it checked out by the Society of Authors' famous fine-toothed-comb contract checking service:

http://www.societyofauthors.org/

And this is a mere click away: http://www.writersworkshop.co.uk/agents-advice.html