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Enjoy Olga’s two-part interview with The Writing Show, A Small Publisher Bucks the System:

A little while ago, I came across a column by Argile Stox, Unhappy PublishAmerica Authors, posted on UselessKnowledge.com. Indeed, PublishAmerica has a controversial reputation of a vanity press masquerading as a “traditional royalty-paying publisher” to lure unsuspecting authors, and, indeed, some of its authors’ contentions, as presented on numerous writers’ message boards and Web sites, are more than legitimate.

However, a close look at many of the unhappy authors’ complaints yields a sometimes disturbing lack of knowledge and understanding of what publishing entails and what a publisher can and cannot guarantee. And, it seems, these misconceptions are not exclusive to PublishAmerica authors.

As a small independent publisher with experience in working in big publishing, I’m naturally concerned about unrealistic expectations that aspiring authors appear to have — concerned both because these authors are cruising for a bruising and because most small publishers don’t deserve the acrimony that frequently ensues when authors sign contracts without first learning a few things about publishing.

Currently, the U.S. publishing industry releases close to 200,000 titles a year, and this number continues to grow. At the same time, according to Nielsen BookScan, in 2004, 93 percent of all ISBNs sold fewer than 1,000 copies and accounted for only 13 percent of sales. The remaining 7 percent of ISBNs sold more than 1,000 copies, and made up the other 87 percent of sales.

Bookstores buy books from publishers at 50-55% discount off the cover price. Because the space on brick-and-mortar bookshelves is finite, an average book gets its chance in stores for a few weeks, and if it doesn’t start flying off the shelves, its covers are torn off and it returns, destroyed, to the publisher for a full refund and pulping, soon after which the book goes out of print as a dud and another contender takes its place.

For big publishers, it’s a numbers game. They are prepared to give a thousand books a sporting chance and write them off when they fail, as long as they have at least one bestseller that year, which will pay for all the wasted expense of producing and printing and shipping and pulping those failures. Also, sometimes, a book nobody saw coming suddenly makes a splash. That happens about as often as hitting a jackpot. Meanwhile, the system is so rigged that the bookstore never stands to lose money, but the publisher either loses a lot on a book that doesn’t sell, or makes very little per copy. And bookstores don’t have to deal with any publisher that balks at the exorbitant discounts or refuses to accept returns.

Big publishers, of which only several are left in the United States, can afford it; primarily, because they are owned by media conglomerates that earn enough profits from their other holdings to be able to subsidize traditionally unprofitable publishing industry. This is summed up in the old joke still popular in big publishing: “Q. How do you make a small fortune in publishing? A. You start with a large one.”

Small independent publishers that publish books out of love of books, rather than out of a deranged notion that publishing is the way to get rich quick, cannot always afford to throw their titles into this meat grinder, unless they are seriously independently wealthy and need a hefty tax write-off. Unfortunately, it seems that many aspiring authors in search of a publisher base their expectations on the successes of the few bestsellers that make it big, because they never hear about the tens of thousands of other books, most of them published by big publishing houses, which get into and out of print without anybody noticing.

To quote Mr. Stox: “When an individual sits on their derrière for months — years at a time and creates a viable manuscript, and a ‘traditional royalty-paying book publisher’ accepts it, the author expects that the book will be available to be consumed by the general public. An individual does not labor over a manuscript and have it published just for their own edification (the exception would be contracting with vanity publishers). The author desires that the book will be offered for sale at bookstores, and the general public will purchase & read the book.” (Emphasis mine.)

Would that it were so simple. In order for a book to even get its shot at a brick-and-mortar, the store buyers have to make a decision to buy it. With this much competition, and payola being common (did you think the books that are displayed right in the front of your local chain bookstore are stacked there because the store manager deemed them worthy of the honor?), small publishers have little chance of getting their titles into national chains even if they follow all the traditional routes, hemorrhaging money every step of the way. Sure, it happens sometimes, especially in independent bookstores that have “local authors/publishers” sections and the publisher or the author happen to be local, but it’s not to be taken for granted. Booksellers simply have quite enough interchangeable merchandise to fill the shelves, and for a small publisher, to get a buyer’s attention and an order for even a handful of copies is quite a feat.

(You can find a very clear picture of big chain bookstore practices in these two articles, recently published in British newspapers Telegraph and Guardian. They are about bookselling in the UK, but it’s very similar in the United States.)

Any author owes it to himself to try every route available to get his book published by one of the big players. Only after he has exhausted all the avenues into the big presses, should he consider alternative publishing. And when he does, he should expect results alternative to what they would be had he gotten published by a major publishing house — and had his book turned out to be the next Da Vinci Code or South Beach Diet.

Small, alternative publishers come in, basically, two categories: the ones that do things the way big publishers do, only on a smaller scale; and the ones that do things their own way, disregarding general industry practices and trying to foster new ones. The advantage of going with the first kind is that your book is likely to be sent out to the usual book reviewers and included in catalogues for chain bookstores to order from. Will your book actually get reviewed in major book-reviewing venues and stocked by national chains? Given the sheer numbers of competing titles, not impossible, but improbable. The disadvantage is that these publishers are likely to have the same requirement as the big publishers do: your book should impress them as the next big thing, to make them hope that if they take a gamble, it will pay off. The standard definition of the next big thing, of course, is something very similar to something that’s already selling well. They’re hoping for the next John Grisham or the next J. K. Rowling, not the first you.

The advantage of going with the second kind is that your book will not be rejected just because they don’t see how they’re going to sell hundreds of thousands of copies. If they like it, they’ll publish it. They are more likely to appreciate something original and unprecedented. The disadvantage, of course, is that they are frequently boutique publishers and tend to rely on their online sales and, sometimes, book fairs, so the author had better be prepared to market his own book, which is highly advisable even if he wins the lottery of signing up with a big publisher.

With these caveats, and based on what I’ve seen and heard of small-press authors’ common complaints, I’d like to offer a few suggestions that an aspiring author might want to consider before even reading — much less signing — a small publisher’s contract.

Publisher’s Web Site

Start here. The majority of queries we get at our publishing house, ENC Press, make it clear that authors, in a hurry to pitch to as many publishers as possible, don’t do their research. Big mistake. First of all, if a small press doesn’t have a Web site, don’t even bother approaching it. In this market, the Internet is one of the best and cheapest tools available to a publisher, and if he doesn’t have the wherewithal to use it, how likely is he to have the wherewithal to do a decent job publishing your book?

An effective small publisher’s Web site should provide the following information:

The kind of books the publisher is looking for — please take this very seriously; if the publisher is looking for murder mysteries, do not waste his and your own time by pitching him your collection of humorous observations about goldfish.
Submissions guidelines — follow them closely; it’s the first test of your compatibility with the publisher/editor.
The publisher’s self-perception (usually found on the About page) — are you on the same page morally, intellectually, philosophically?
The publisher’s/editor’s credentials — who are these people and what, besides unbridled enthusiasm, qualifies them to edit and produce your book?
The catalogue — what kinds of books do they publish? Hardcovers? Trade paperbacks? Both? Are the prices reasonable? (Compare their price for a, say, 200-page trade paperback with the prices of a few 200-page trade paperbacks at your local bookstore; a small press’s price shouldn’t be much higher.) Do the covers look attractive? Do they offer excerpts, so you can sample some of the books they’ve published? Consider buying a book from them, to see how efficient their customer service is and how well the book is edited, produced, and designed.

Publisher’s Books

Say you have found a small press that, judging from its Web site, might be interested in your book. Say you bought a book from them. Now, what are you looking for?

Did the book arrive quickly?
Does it have an appealing cover?
Does its layout look attractive?
Is its overall visual quality comparable to that of big-publishers’ books, or does it have a decidedly amateurish look to it?
Is it full of typos?
Do you like the content?
Does the content read as though it’s been edited, or just printed out and thrown between the covers?
Was it worth the money?

Publisher’s Promises

Let’s say you liked what you’ve read on the publisher’s Web site, you bought and liked one of his books, you pitched your book to him, he asked to see the complete manuscript, and, several months later, you got an acceptance letter.

Does it read like a cut-and-pasted form letter they send to everybody, or is it personal, personable, addresses you and your book specifically, and makes you feel like you’ve established a personal rapport with the publisher/editor, which you both will enjoy?
Does it sound like the publisher/editor thought your work was absolutely perfect and needed not a single change, or does it contain at least one or two thoughtful suggestions of how you could better accomplish what you’ve set out to accomplish with your book? (Hint: if they don’t have a single suggestion, they don’t know how to read and edit a book. There’s no book in the world a good editor can’t improve even slightly.)
Does it sound like they are trying too hard to sell themselves to you? If it does, however flattering it might seem, that’s a warning sign: they shouldn’t fuss to entice you. Even a very small publisher always has a bigger pool of authors than you do of publishers.
Do they honestly mention their limitations upfront (e.g., they don’t sell through national chain bookstores), or do they make exaggerated promises (e.g., they’ll have your book in all the Barnes & Nobles in the country, which, as you know by now, is not up to them but to B&N)?
Do they mention advances and royalties? Small, alternative publishers typically may not be able to afford advances, but they compensate for it by much higher royalties; big publishers offer advances and sliding-scale royalties that rarely exceed 12.5%. If a small publisher offers no advance (a symbolic advance of $1 is not an advance), and only 10–12.5% royalties, that’s not a good deal.

Publisher’s Contract

Show it to an intellectual-property lawyer who has seen a publishing agreement before. Not a divorce or personal-injury lawyer, just because he’s your second cousin and won’t charge you — an intellectual-property lawyer who has experience with publishing contracts. If you care about what happens to your work, don’t balk at the fee. It’ll be worth it.

Before you do, read it yourself and mark any questions you might have — for both the publisher and the lawyer.

Think about the following:

Does anything in the contract contradict what you’ve read on the publisher’s Web site? If so, don’t be shy, ask the publisher about the discrepancy.
Does it say whose job it is to register the copyright with the Library of Congress? Many publishers do it is a courtesy perk for the author, many others, especially smaller ones that don’t have editorial assistants for this sort of thing, don’t, and ask the author to do it. If, with this publisher, it’s your job, do it before the contract is signed. (As long as you have the receipt postmarked before the contract is signed, it’s fine.)
Does the contract have an expiration date? I.e., are the rights going to revert to you automatically after a predetermined period of time, no matter what? As appealing as that may sound, that’s a red flag. It’s become something of a misguided fashion among small independent publishers to sign five- or seven-year contracts, but a standard publishing contract, written by a competent intellectual-property attorney, expires when the publisher chooses to put your book out of print, and under no other circumstances. The author doesn’t get to terminate it. The publisher doesn’t lease your book — unless he’s not planning to enhance its value much between the time he gets your original manuscript and the time he releases it in book form. And if he’s not planning to seriously enhance the value of your work with editing, designing, laying out, creating a cover, and printing — which is the publisher’s primary job — then that’s very bad news.

Publisher’s Relationship with the Author

Since by signing the contract you are signing away the rights to your work until the publisher decides to let it go out of print and return the rights to you, or the publisher goes out of business, consider very carefully what you are getting into, because you are entering a serious, legal, long-term relationship.

It’s only human, especially after all the rejections from the big-publishing agents and editors, to get excited that somebody found your work worthy of publishing, but don’t let the excitement cloud your judgment. If something about the personal rapport you have with this publisher nags at you, walk away. If the publisher honestly tells you upfront how he works, and what he will and won’t do for you, and it doesn’t sit right with you but you’re just so happy about being offered a contract you can’t help yourself, walk away. Don’t sign the contract and then bug him, after your book is out and you don’t see the desired sales figures, to change the way he runs his business just to please you. Don’t assume that you know more about the economics of publishing than he does, and that he hasn’t done his research before making business decisions. And don’t throw tantrums, demanding to be let out of your contract, just because you belatedly regretted your decision to sign up with this publisher. You are not likely to be let out, and it will ruin the personal relationship between you and your publisher, which is the foundation of small publishing.

It may be better for you in the long run to contain your thrill at having your book accepted, turn the contract down, and continue looking for another publisher, with whom you’ll be more comfortable on a personal level, and/or whose approach is more in tune with what you think a publisher’s role should be. If everything else fails, you can self-publish and market your own book as you please, but at least you won’t assign the rights to your work to someone who won’t do it justice.

Publishers and Self-publishers

If you do choose to self-publish, keep in mind that publishing your book through a vanity press is not self-publishing. It’s vanity publishing. It typically produces very poorly made books that always have the vanity publisher’s logo on them, and booksellers won’t stock them, because they know vanity-publishers’ logos and the quality of their books.

Don’t be confused by terms like POD. POD means “print on demand,” and nothing more. Any print run is printed on demand — somebody has to call the printer and order it, right? — big publishing houses also print on demand (why would they print without demand?), so this term is meaningless and widely misused. There is digital printing and offset printing. Digital is what most small publishers use and what makes sense for a plucky self-publisher to use, because, unlike offset, it can be done in print runs as small as 50-100 copies. Anybody who offers to take your manuscript and, for a hefty fee, turn it into a book, is a vanity publisher. And it’s not the way to go if you want to produce your work the way it deserves to be produced.

But we’ll talk about self-publishing another time.

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Olga Gardner Galvin is the founder and publisher of ENC Press, an independent boutique fiction-publishing house that offers an intelligent alternative to the conveyor-belt approach of mainstream publishing. While not necessarily aimed at the broadest possible audience, novels published by ENC Press offer entertainment, food for thought, and zero pulp.

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