Self-Publishing or Traditional Publishing? Which is the Right First Step for YOU? Win a Free Book to Help You Decide

The list of million-seller "indie" authors is growing every day. Self-publishing has not only become mainstream—it's edgy and cool. Persuasive blogs by self-publishing stars like Joe Konrath, Dean Wesley Smith, David Gaughran and Kris Rusch have inspired a staggering number of new writers to self-publish in the past two years.

Publishing your own work is a way to save yourself from the sometimes-horrific treatment of authors by "legacy" publishers (the indie term for the old guard) who have acted greedy and desperate as the e-publishing revolution shakes up their world.

Indie publishing has also become a successful road to traditional publishing superstardom and major Hollywood deals for authors like E.L. James and Hugh Howey.

And this week, an indie even made it into the august pages of the New York Times Book Review.

But self-publishing is not an easy road—and a number of factors are making it more difficult than it was a few years ago—as I wrote in last week's post—so I urge new writers to carefully weigh their options. There are alternatives that aren't making so many headlines, but may be better for you personally.

I often hear from new authors who are feeling pushed into self-publishing by "experts" who tell them they are being foolish to query agents and small publishers. Or even that all publishers "hate" writers.

Yes, some traditional publishers and agents have behaved very badly recently, especially ones who used to rely on the mass-market paperback and have seen their markets evaporate. The must-read Passive Voice blog is full of hair-raising stories about publisher/agent bad behavior.

Some self-publishers have behaved badly too. The review-buying scandal of last summer is still having repercussions.

But John Locke's scammy review schemes and Harlequin's rotten contracts shouldn't sour you on either route. Authors on both paths still have highly successful careers.

So you shouldn't be looking at the rotten apples when you make your publishing decisions. You should be looking at yourself. Your own personal goals--and skills--should matter more than following trends.

Some people dream of running a mom-and-pop business. Others thrive working at a big corporation. Still others prefer to work for a local small business with only a few employees. None of these paths is wrong. It's about what suits your personality, and only you know which path is right for you.

All publishing roads are going to take patience, hard work, and the ability to deal with setbacks.

In order to make an informed decision, it's important to educate yourself about all publishing routes. If you're a beginning writer, you should be reading Agent Rachelle Gardner and the Query Shark as well as Konrath and Dean Wesley Smith.  (And BTW, learning to write a great query and synopsis is just as important for indies, since you'll have to query reviewers and learn to write great blurbs)

Read The Passive Voice, but also subscribe to the free Publisher's Lunch newsletter. Another must-read is Being Human at Electric Speed, the blog of former Writers Digest publisher Jane Friedman (which includes a weekly state-of-the-industry post from Porter Anderson.)

Don't let fourth-hand information on writers' forums push you one way or another. Absolute Write tends to be the comfort zone for a lot of people going the trad. route and the Kindleboards are home to some enthusiastic self-publishers. They are both great resources, but take any advice from individuals there with several shakers of salt. (Especially if they're cranky. As a general rule, I think it's safe to assume people who are in a chronic state of rage probably don't have all the answers.)

When you publish a book, you're entering an industry, so you need to know all aspects of it. Whether you go the traditional or indie route, you're starting a business, and you need to be aware of the marketplace. Things have changed a lot since the Kindle was introduced five years ago and you don't want to make a decision based on out-of-date information.

As I said on the blog last week, new retailers like Kobo and the newly-improved Smashwords are opening up the market. It may be more difficult to get your book noticed than it was at the beginning of the indie revolution, but a lot of self-publishers are doing very well. Friend of the blog indie author Saffina Desforges recently had three of her books in the top three spots in thrillers in the UK, and Catherine Ryan Hyde, my collaborator on HOW TO BE A WRITER IN THE E-AGE…AND KEEP YOUR E-SANITY has seen her career soar since she started self-publishing the books she had previously only been able to traditionally-publish in England.

And I should point out that the decision isn't really "either/or." An increasing number of top-tier authors like Saffi and Catherine are moving to the "hybrid" model, with an equal number of self-and traditionally published titles and a career aided by an agent/manager. The two "roads" are merging.

Consider the following:

1) Most self-publishing successes like Konrath, Eisler and Locke have agents.

2) The majority of self-publishing superstars started out traditionally published—with a strong platform built in partnership with their Big Six publishers.

3)  A lot of the biggest names in "self-publishing" sign with traditional publishers as soon as they get a good offer.

4) Indie publishing (small press or self-publishing) can be a dead-end in the traditional world if you don't have spectacular sales, so be wary of using self-publishing as a way of "getting noticed" by the trads.

There's a reason I put "FIRST STEP" in the title. Going from trad. to self-publishing is easier than going from self-publishing to trad., unless you have big sales. Like 20,000-book sales. Agent Janet Reid wrote a must-read post on the subject in October. She points out, "Publishers love debut authors, cause they're easier to pitch to retail accounts. It's easier to launch a career than revitalize one."

5) Other more "traditional" alternatives to the old Big Six paradigm are appearing all the time.

• The new Amazon imprints are offering more lucrative contracts than the Big Six right now. 
• There has been lots of innovative thinking from agents recently, in both the US and the UK, as Porter Anderson reported in this week's Writing on the Ether. Agents are becoming managers who help authors self-publish and traditionally publish at the same time. 
• New small digital publishers are springing up every day.  They usually offer at least a 50% royalty and also help with promotion to your target market. For a great list of some of the new digital publishers (with ratings!) check out Patricia de Hemricort's blog Publishing a Book is An Adventure. 
• Big Publishing is opening its doors to unagented work for the first time in decades with new digital imprints from HarperCollins and Random House . (Not to be confused with  Simon and Schuster's new experiment in vanity publishing--which is something to avoid.) 

So what does all this mean to the new writer?

It means the most important thing is to keep your options open, because what's true today may not be true tomorrow.

And how do you do that?

1) I urge new writers who aren't schooled in business to consider querying agents and smaller publishers before taking the self-publishing plunge.

I know—I can hear the groaning from everybody who's read the stories that all agents have horns. But the horror stories you've heard are about agents have been desperately clinging to the old paradigm. Most of those won't be around much longer. The agents who are succeeding in the new digital world are learning to be managers of the hybrid career. Having somebody on your side who knows the ropes can make or break a career, especially if you're not a born negotiator.

Here's what Porter Anderson had to say after attending London's FutureBook conference this week:

"If anything, the digitally enabled rise of self-publishing is emblematic of the transformation that agents, like publishers, are having to contemplate. And if there’s a single term for what agents do up ahead, “manager” seems to be part of it."

(But check them out at Writer Beware and don't sign away any rights or "in perpetuity" contracts.)

Yes, some books in some genres can't get an agent's interest no matter how well written, but everything's cyclical. A few years ago, chick lit was poison to agents, but recently I've seen a lot of them asking for it. And lots of small romance publishers were eager for it the whole time.

2) Take a good long look at your own goals and talents.

Self-publishing is about becoming a small business owner. Were you born with the entrepreneurial spirit? Do you love playing with numbers and marketing statistics? Are you a self-starter who prefers working alone? Then you're a born indie. (And you might be interested in the post today at the Writers Guide to E-Publishing about how to set up your publishing business as an LLC.)

But if the thought of balance sheets, market analysis and accounting fill you with loathing, opening your own publishing business could be a nightmare.

A huge amount of a self-publisher's time is spent in promotions and marketing. Yes, traditional publishing involves putting in a lot of marketing time, too, but you'll usually have some guidance and help. If you're indie, you're on your own.

As Self-Publishing advocate Ruth Ann Nordin said last week at the Self-Pub Authors blog

"If you don’t feel like doing all the work that self-publishing requires, then you probably should pick another business to go into because it’s harder to do this than a lot of authors will tell you." 

She also says in one of the comments: "I hate the blogs that preach overnight success. It’s doing so many authors a disservice. Those blogs make it sound like all you need to do is publish a book and watch the sales come in. If it was that easy, we’d all be hitting the bestselling charts."

But she also adds: "...if you don’t mind doing all the work, then I think it’s one of the most worthwhile professions a person can have.  If you love it, it’ll be worth it."

Running a small business can be bliss for people who are bottom-line-savvy self-starters with a lot of patience. It also helps to have some capital saved up.

But if you work better with enforced deadlines, moral support, and a team to urge you on, consider alternatives:

• Consider a small digital press in your specific niche. I'm very happy with my boutique press. My editor works with me on every aspect of my writing and book marketing. And I'm not alone. A literary author I know has recently signed with JMS books, a LGBT press which does promos and helps with target advertising and has got him a great collection of reviews many Big 6-ers would envy. 
• Join an authors' collective: Indie authors are banding together to hire editors and designers and do joint publicity. I was just followed on Twitter by an interesting one called Indie Visible
• Start your own affinity group. Author Claude Nougat is actively working on starting a new genre, Baby Boomer Lit, and has formed a Goodreads group to promote it. This is the kind of innovative thinking that will drive the new publishing business.
• Keep your eye on the new digital imprints from the bigger publishers.

But before you join any small press or collective, make sure you read some of their titles and contact their writers in order to make sure they are 100% legit and professional. And always check with Writer Beware.

Finally take the current market into account. Does your genre sell better in ebook or pbook format? Indies depend on ebooks for most of their sales.

• Right now, mostly adult genre fiction (especially thrillers, romance and erotica) and nonfiction books with a specific niche sell best as ebooks.
• People who buy pbooks (paper books) are more likely to buy literary (or literary women's) fiction and children's books.
• Children's books are finally starting to sell as ebooks, (up 300% in the last year) because of the new tablet technology. The black and white Kindle of a couple of years ago was no place for a children's picture book. But on the iPad or KindleFire, it's fantastic. Still, children's books do best in hardcover.
• Romance writers do best as self e-publishers. A survey last May said romance (especially erotic romance) did better than science-fiction, fantasy or literary fiction. 
• Young Adult books are popular in both formats, and they are still the darling of agents and trad publishers. At the last writers' conference I attended, all the agents represented YA. Only one would even look at adult fiction. So if you write YA you've got a great array of choices.

Whatever path you take as you start to publish, it's important to keep in mind that you'll have a much better chance of making a career out of your writing if you do two things first:

1) Establish a strong online platform in your genre

This doesn't mean making a lot of writer friends you chat with. You do want to network with other writers, but don't count on them as your core readership. Your fellow authors are not your audience unless you write how-to-write books or novels about writers. Network with people who read your genre. That means it's much better to blog about films or review books in your genre than it is to blog about fighting writers block and how to write a query letter.

2) Build inventory

It's hard to start a business. And it's very, very hard to start a business when you have only one product to sell. There's a classic Saturday Night Live skit from the late 1970s about a pathetic mall store that sells nothing but Scotch tape. It's hilarious. Fred Willard's clueless, doomed optimism is pure comic genius.

But do you want to be that guy?

WIN A FREE COPY!

If you're just finishing up your first or second book and all of this feels overwhelming, let me remind you that Catherine Ryan Hyde and I have written a handbook for beginning writers called HOW TO BE A WRITER IN THE E-AGE…AND KEEP YOUR E-SANITY.

Between us, we've got experience with Big Six publishers, small presses, boutique digital presses and self-publishing. We don't favor any one road and provide lots of advice for authors on all paths.

In honor of the holidays, Catherine and I are running a promotion this week of HOW TO BE A WRITER. We are giving away:

THREE FREE PAPERBACK COPIES OF HOW TO BE A WRITER IN THE E-AGE 

plus

THREE FREE E-BOOKS OF HOW TO BE A WRITER IN THE E-AGE--for Kindle or Nook (and they come with free updates.)

Anybody who would like to be eligible for the free give-aways, just mention "free book" in the comments and your preference of pbook or ebook. If you go over to Catherine's blog and comment on the give-away post, you'll get your name in twice. The contest will go until 9 PM next Saturday, December 15th. Winners will be announced on this blog next Sunday.

Oh, yes, and I have a little bit of news of my own. NO PLACE LIKE HOME, the fourth Camilla Randall mystery, is now available for purchase ("Likes" always appreciated.) And the boxed set of the first three Camilla books is now at a special holiday reduced price of $2.99. (also available at the reduced price in the UK.)

It was suggested to me that I ask people to nominate this blog for WRITER'S DIGEST'S 101 BEST WEBSITES FOR WRITERS. If you felt like nominating us, Ruth and I would be ecstatic. Submit an email with the subject line "101 Websites" to writersdigest@fwmedia.com to nominate http://annerallen.blogspot.com/ .

So what say you, scriveners? Do you aspire to a hybrid career at some point, or are you aiming to be 100% indie or 100% traditional? Do you have an entrepreneurial spirit? Or would you rather work with a team? Don't forget to say "free book" in the comments if you don't have a copy yet and you'd like to win one.

NEXT WEEK: We'll have a guest post from romance novelist and uber-blogger Roni Loren with some solid advice on using social media to promote your work. 

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Beware the Seven Deadly Writing Scams

We first ran into Lila Moore's scam-alerts at The Passive Voice. We visited her new watchdog site, PopularSoda.com and were impressed with all her savvy advice. Indie publishing has generated lots of new money-wasters and scams. Popular Soda adds an indie-focused viewpoint to other author-advocate voices like Writer Beware and Preditors and Editors. Whether you're traditionally published or indie, the following tips can help you avoid wasting your money, creative property, and time. 

Seven Deadly Scams

by Lila Moore

These days, writers face a range of scams from mildly annoying to lethal. Deadly scams are ones which can destroy your bank account, your credibility, or your ability to profit from your work. Not all of these scams are perpetrated solely by malicious outsiders: some of these scams only work because the authors themselves are complicit and some of these scams are perpetrated by the authors themselves.

Here are the Seven Deadly Scams-- and how to avoid them.

1. Investing in Internet Points

Internet points can be anything from fake Twitter followers to a bump in your Klout score to more incoming links, or even paying to publish your work on a website highly ranked by Alexa  To be clear, these are not things which encourage audience participation or even simulate the appearance of it. These are simply number bumps.

So what's so bad about this? It's backwards. Why would you pay for the appearance of engagement instead of actually engaging your audience? 

You're spending real money to fill a stadium with cardboard cutouts. 

An inflated number of Twitter followers does not create an equal increase in sales. A higher Klout score does not upgrade your level of fan devotion. It is mistaking the menu for the meal. The numbers don't really matter: readers do. And if you're providing value, connections, and fun for your audience, the numbers will follow.

2. Paying for Fake Book Reviews

There's been a lot of discussion about paid positive reviews since the NY Times' "The Best Book Reviews Money Can Buy".  For me, part of the shock was realizing that fake reviews can and have been effective. 

Positive, paid-for reviews worked for top-selling authors like John Locke. As a beginning author, you don't have the luxury of millions of sales and hundreds of fans. Being exposed for scam reviews can quickly catapult you into ebook notoriety.

Your career might benefit from the scandal. Or it may take a dive and never recover.

Using fake reviews can kill off your credibility quickly*, and you’ll also lose the perks of real feedback: readers get a full understanding of your work, and you, as a writer, benefit from new opinions on your writing.

It doesn't make sense from a moral standpoint, but it also doesn't make sense from a monetary perspective. 

Positive reviews are expensive (they can be $100 each!) and there's no guarantee that you'll recoup the cost in sales. Take that money and put it towards editing, or a trip to a writing conference, or creative writing classes at a local college. Investing in yourself will help you grow as a writer; paying for positive book reviews only guarantees growing the reviewer's bank account.

(*Editor's note: Lila has a great post today with examples of real scam reviews and how to spot them. Also note: paying for negative reviews of "rival" authors is even worse. It's not just morally reprehensible but can destroy your career if you're found out. Beware ALL review mills.) 

3. Giving Away First Rights for a Cheap Prize

Writers (or anyone, really) can be dazzled by flashy graphics and promises of publication, monetary prizes, and the glory of winning an award. However, you need to make sure the award is worth winning. Prizes can range from simple publication on a website to a thousand-book print run. That print run sounds like a pretty good prize. The shout-out on the website is not.

Here's why: First rights are incredibly important in publishing. Many large publications will not accept work that has already been published elsewhere, and a post on a blog counts as "elsewhere". If you're entering a contest or submitting to a publication, you need to be okay if that story never garners anything more than a token payment (if that) and an appearance in an unknown journal.

This seems pretty above-ground, so where does the scam fit in? First, some companies are intentionally misleading about what rights they are using. They may claim you will retain all rights to your work. This is impossible: you cannot be published and still retain first rights to the writing. Some journals have both print and electronic editions, which effectively means you're giving up both first rights and first electronic rights in one go. Some publications request all rights, which means you can never again profit from the piece and the publishing company will own it. Despite this, certain publications use overblown rhetoric to persuade you to sign over your rights for a few shekels and a smile. 

Be smart. There's no downside for the publisher here: they can continue to profit from books, back issues, anthologies, and website traffic while giving up virtually nothing. Make sure you know exactly what you're giving up and what that means for the future. Aim your sights high and readjust a little lower if you're not getting any hits; don't start at the bottom and hope to climb to the top by....

4. Crowing about Cockamamie Credentials

Let's say a website calls itself innovative and groundbreaking, and claims to be one of the best places to publish. Let's say you fall for the slick marketing and submit. And let's say you get in, and let's say you put this credential in your official author biography.

What does that credential get you? If you're lucky, you might gain some respect and publicity. If you're not, you might end up worse off than if you never mentioned it. Flaunting credentials from an untrustworthy publication will make you look green at best. At worst, you'll signal to editors of established journals that you didn't research past publications before submitting, and there's no reason to believe you researched their publication, either.

Take a tailored approach to finding a suitable publisher: google the name of the publication with the word 'scam', read a few back issues, and look at the benefits to publishing there(avoiding Scam Number Three). If it seems like a good fit, then full steam ahead! But it's not worth winning space in an obscure journal just to see your name somewhere.

Some writers submit to these new or nameless publications because they simply want to take what they can get. But this exposes a logical inconsistency: If this is your best work, why aren't you submitting it to major, established, or reputable publications?

If it's not your best work, why are you-- 

1) not trying to improve it? 

2) attaching your name to writing which doesn't accurately represent your abilities?

5. Pyramid Scheme Publications

Pyramid scheme publications are an interesting case, both because they've found a new form recently, and because they're not technically doing anything wrong. In the old model, like the well-known poetry.com scam, all submissions were accepted for publication. However, you'd have to pay for the book, for the inclusion of your biography, for a certificate, and for copies for family and friends. The scammer banked on your ignorance of the scam.

In the new model of pyramid scheme publications, they're still after your money, but more than that, they want your assistance in building credibility. Here's how it works:

They promise tons of exposure (but usually little to no pay) for publication in their new venture. Reviews are mostly positive, so you submit. Once you're accepted, you buy the issue and send the link to your loved ones. After all, it's only a few dollars. Because of your acceptance, you leave more positive reviews.

So where's the scam? The positive reviews were written by people just like you: writers with a vested interest in seeing the publication succeed, not independent readers who enjoy the content. When you encourage your friends and family to each drop a few dollars on the electronic version, you artificially inflate its sales figures, contributing to the revenue without seeing any benefit yourself.

To be sure, there are certainly reputable publications* which have strong marketing components and happy authors. But there is a world of difference between a publisher's selling books based on content and a company's relying on a growing stable of newbie authors to hawk the product like Cutco knives salesmen .

Before submitting, Google around and try to answer this question: is the publication praised by unbiased, independent readers or is it kept aloft by the efforts of naive new authors in a writing round-robin?

*Editor's Note  I want to expand on what Lila says about REPUTABLE anthologies. Donating a free story to certain anthologies can be very much to your advantage. Charity anthologies, like the Indie Chicks Anthologies and the Literary Lab anthologies  can offer great opportunities. Nobody makes money on these and all proceeds are donated to a specific charity, but they can be fantastic showcases for your work. Showcase anthologies can also be put together by author collectives or small publishers. If you're a beginning writer and some well-known authors are contributing to the same anthology, this can be a great way of reaching a much wider audience

6. Paying for Poor Publicity

There are sites which charge thousands for ebook marketing with no discernible result. These online marketing efforts can usually be grouped into three categories:

1) high prices for free services, 

2) poorly targeted marketing efforts

3) spam activities. 

Let's go in order:

There are many, many ways to promote yourself for free online. 

• You can send out press releases to free databases. 
• You can create social media accounts to make connections and promote yourself. 
• You can ask book review blogs to take a look at your work. 

You can pay to have those things done, of course, but make sure you're not paying hundreds of dollars for someone else to upload your press release to those free databases.

Additionally, it doesn't make sense to pay to market yourself on Twitter if you have no intention of going back on Twitter once your publicity stint is over.

Poorly targeted marketing efforts tie back into the previous scam: You don't want to market to other authors. Unless you're selling a book of writing advice, other authors are not your optimal audience. Not only are they in the same boat, they might be in a different genre. 

Tweet-blasting your romance novel will not help if you're not reaching any romance readers. Some marketers promise exposure on dozens of blogs. Quality outranks quantity here.

A horror novel which gets a nod from a popular horror site will probably fare better than a horror novel mentioned on two dozen pet, beauty, or health food blogs (unless you're writing about a supermodel who rescues kittens and turns them into protein shakes). (I'm totally reading that book!--ed.)

Any of the above actions can be considered spammy if they're poorly executed. You might not have control over the delivery, frequency, or placement of ads. If a reader keeps getting unwanted information and ads about your book, they're going to start associating YOU with spam, even if you're not the one sending it out.

7. Indiscriminately Working for Free

Publications which expect free work are sometime snarkily called "for-the-luv" businesses. In the most malicious cases, a business-minded individual finds free workers by appealing to the authors' Higher Calling and Pursuit of their Personal Truth. It's fine to have such a lofty view of writing, but like I've said before, if you want to make money from writing, you have to treat it like a business.

And that means writing for free strategically.

As you may have noticed, this is a guest post. I wrote this for free. However, I only turned up on Anne's radar after my guest post on Duolit was picked up by The Passive Voice. Part strategic. Part luck. Part good writing, and part good timing.

So what's the benefit for me if I guest post for Anne? First, I'm making a connection with a real person. And yes, I will probably get some Internet points for this. But the connection came first. This is actual engagement, the meat and potatoes to fake Internet points' Diet Coke.

Internet points aren't the only previous Scams related to working for free. Low-budget startup publications also seem to think that free work is a fair trade for seeing your name on their site. Taking an internship at a reputable publication can benefit your career. It doesn't have to be a Big Six publisher-- even a respected regional publisher or local newspaper can net you some contacts and meaningful work experience. But that brand-new, non-paying, no-name publication that wants you to write and sign over the rights for five articles before letting you know if you got the job?

Hell no.

Another Editorial note: If you're going the traditional route, be aware the old traditional scams are still out there. Here's my post on how to avoid bogus agents who prey on authors who are trying to break into traditional publishing. 

Lila Moore is a freelance writer and copy editor based in New Orleans. She has copy-edited a wide range of materials, from national advertising campaigns to cookbooks. Besides her passion for editing, Lila loves ebooks and founded PopularSoda.com to encourage professionalism and high standards in self-publishing. Lila previously blogged about writing-related scams for Duolit. And on the Passive Voice  

NEWS! On Monday, October 15th, Anne will be visiting the Readers Guide to E-Publishing site (RG2E).  She'll be talking about the setting of her sp-o-o-o-o-ky comic mystery, GHOSTWRITERS IN THE SKY,--the Santa Ynez mountains of California (AKA Sideways Wine Country.)

What about you, scriveners? Have you run into any of these scams? Do you have other scams to report? Can you offer any exceptions to these rules like the charity anthology?

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Who Are the Big Six? What Does “Indie” Really Mean? Answers to Not-So-Dumb Questions You Were Afraid to Ask

There’s much talk on the Interwebz about “Big Six, “small presses” and “indie publishing.”  But a lot of newer writers aren’t quite sure what these terms really mean.

None of us wants to sound dumb, so we usually don’t ask.

So I’ll pretend you did. (And thanks, Yumi, for asking about the word “indie” in the comments last week.)

Here’s a quick guide:

The Big Six

These are the six multi-national corporations that control most of the Western world’s publishing.

1.     Simon and Schuster

2.     HarperCollins

3.     Random House

4.     Macmillan

5.     The Penguin Group

6.     Hachette 

Two are American: Simon and Schuster and HarperCollins, (although Harper is a division of Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp, so it’s pretty international.)

Two are German: Random House is owned by Bertelsmann and Macmillan is owned by Holzbrinck.

One (Penguin) is British

One (Hachette) is French.

Some people include the Canadian Romance giant Harlequin when they’re talking about “big publishing” (which I guess would make them the “Big Seven.”)

Most books you see in stores come from the Big Six/Seven. They have hundreds of imprints with familiar names like Little Brown, Knopf, Viking, NAL, Pocket, Scribner, St. Martins, Dutton, Avon, William Morrow, Crown, Tor, Zondervan, Grand Central, Dell, etc. but they’re all owned by one of those six corporations.

In almost all cases, you need an agent to query the Big Six. There are a few exceptions, like Tor/Forge/Tom Doherty—which is a division of MacMillan—and some children’s divisions of the big houses.

Five of the Big Six—all but Random House—have recently run afoul of the US Department of Justice because of their attempts to keep the price of ebooks artificially high. A lot of people think this means the Big Six are doomed.

I’m not so sure about that. Multinational conglomerates tend to be rather good at hanging onto their trousers in a crisis.

But there’s no doubt the ebook revolution is changing the face of publishing. Most of the changes the Big Six has come up with recently have NOT been author-friendly, but maybe they’ll learn from their mistakes. (We can hope.)

Mid-Sized publishers (sometimes called “small” just to confuse you)

This covers a lot of territory, from university presses to big international operations like Canada’s Harlequin(see above) and the UK’s Bloomsbury (which has branches in London, New York, Berlin, and Sydney.)  

When mid-sizers are successful, they tend to be bought up by the Big Six. (Thomas Nelson, the largest independent Christian publisher, was bought by HarperCollins in 2011.)

There are many dozens of mid-sized houses. They often address particular niche markets. Here’s a sample list—by no means comprehensive

• Kensington: Most genres except sci-fi and fantasy 
• Llewellyn: New Age nonfiction and mysteries (under their Midnight Ink imprint)
• Chronicle Books: Art, food, pop culture (and some illustrated fiction like Griffin and Sabine.)
• Perseus Books: Travel and other nonfiction genres. 
• Workman Publishing: Tends toward the literary. Imprints are Algonquin, Black Dog & Leventhal, Storey Publishing, Timber Press, Artisan Books, HighBridge Audio, Fearless Critic.
• Sourcebooks: Formerly a publisher of financial guidebooks, it’s grown to include fiction in all genres in the last decade. 
• Sunset: Gardening, cookbooks and how-to
• Poisoned Pen: (Maybe on the cusp of small and mid-sized.) One of the largest mystery publishers.
• F + W Media/Writer’s Digest Books: How-to 
• Dorchester: Genre fiction. Now in bankruptcy. It was the premier mid-sized independent publisher of mass market paperbacks until 2010, when it suspended most paper operations and went to ebooks only (see below.) Its financial difficulties have given it a “not recommended” stamp from most writers’ organization. 
• Titan Books: UK publisher of movie and TV tie-ins as well as graphic novels. Took on Dorchester’s crime fiction imprint, Hard Case Crime
• Houghton Mifflin Harcourt: Textbook publishers (merged with the Irish company Riverdeep in 2008)

Most mid-sized publishers want agented submissions, but not all. Kensington still accepts unagented queries for all their lines (snail mail only.) Check websites for submission guidelines. Midnight Ink no longer accepts unagented queries, but some Harlequin lines do. Right now, they include Harlequin Heartwarming, Kimani Press, Harlequin Historical Undone, and Nocturne Cravings .

Here’s a database of midsized and small publishers compiled by Canadian thriller author Jack King .

NOTE: Mid-sizers tend to pay smaller advances and lower royalties (that includes Harlequin.) They also tend to be the most financially precarious. So expect some of these to go the way of Dorchester if they don’t keep up with the times.

Retailer/publishers

Amazon is a bookstore that has become a book publisher. It has a number of lines in different genres:

·       Amazon Encore: Reprints of self-published and out of print books

·       Amazon Crossing: Books in translation

·       Thomas and Mercer:  Thrillers

·       Montlake: Romance

·       47 North: SciFi

·       New Harvest: General Fiction—which will be published in conjunction with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (see how convoluted this all gets?)

You need great sales as a self-pubber to be approached by Amazon’s publishing wing, but agents are also selling directly to Amazon.

Amazon has some of the most author-friendly deals around, BUT other bookstores are reluctant to carry their products because of the obvious conflict of interest.

Other online retailers like iTunes/Apple may follow suit.

Brick and mortar bookstores are also producing their own books. This isn’t new. City Lights in San Francisco has had its own publishing wing since 1955, but with POD technology, this may become a trend that will help bookstores stay alive.

Independent Ebook Publishers

These are new publishers like Ellora’s Cave and Samhain Press (with more start-ups all the time.) They publish primarily ebooks and usually appeal to a particular niche.

Expect to see more and more of these.

Because ebooks have low overhead, they can be more author friendly and often provide some marketing help for their authors. (Samhain is branching into print, although the bulk of their titles are ebooks.)

These generally do not require an agent for submissions. But because this is a new industry, check them out thoroughly and try to get referrals from satisfied clients.

Small Presses

These are sometimes called “indie presses.” (Ten years ago, this is what people meant by “indie” publishing, but now self-pubbers have kind of taken over the word.)

There are thousands of them. It’s hard to find useful listings because the number is never stable. They spring up and get knocked down like a literary version of Whac-A-Mole.

Some, like Beacon Press, GrayWolf, and Copper Canyon Press are prestigious and have been around for decades.

Some are regional and publish books specific to one area--like guidebooks and local history.

Others address niche genres, like Canada’s SciFi publisher Edge , and noir mystery publisher BleakHouseBooks, or New England Cozy specialist Mainly Murder Press.

They tend to focus on poetry and literary fiction, so if you're a literary writer, you may find your home here. Poets and Writers has a great database of literary small presses. For more general list of small publishers, check the Writer's Resource Directory, curated by author (& friend of this blog) T.K. Richardson. It's a great resource for publishing info in general. 

Small presses are usually labors of love and nobody gets rich, but they’re often a good way to break in to print and lots of authors are very happy to stay with a small press where there is a more personal interaction with editors.

Authors are responsible for their own marketing and there’s generally no advance, but higher royalties.

These publishers generally don’t want to deal with agents—writers should query the editors directly. (Remember to check for submission guidelines on their websites.)

But beware: Check them out thoroughly with sites like Writer Beware and Preditors and Editors and if they’re not well-established, contact other clients before you sign. And always have a lawyer or publishing professional look at the contract before you sign.

Micropresses

These are a tiny version of the small press—usually one or two-person operations, generally oriented toward the literary. They often publish chapbooks of poetry. They operate on a shoestring, and are usually run as a hobby.

Often these are run by authors who are essentially self-publishers who also take on a few colleagues and friends. A micropress can be a friendly, supportive place for a writer to start out. But beware: they can also be clueless and unprofessional. There’sa horror story at Writer Beware this week about a writer who had her book rewritten without her permission by a “publisher” of this type.

Some of these can be a great first step into publishing, but look for red flags. Grandiosity, unrealistic promises, negativity about the industry, and bad spelling/grammar on the website are tell-tale signs.

Vanity Presses

These are publishers who make their money from services to authors rather from sales of books.

Before ebooks and POD (print on demand) technology, vanity presses were mostly pricey self-indulgences—although every so often a vanity-published book like 1990s phenomenon The Celestine Prophecy made it to mainstream readers.

Two of the best known of the traditional vanity presses are Vantage and Dorrance.

But as prices came down and self-publishing took off, the line between real publishers, printing services, and vanity presses has blurred. A lot of authors are taken in by vanity publishers posing as real publishers.

But others successfully use vanity presses as printers for self-publishing and--with a lot of promotion--make the bestseller lists with books like The Christmas Box and Legally Blonde. 
               The problem is, most vanity publishers overcharge for services so their books are too pricey to be profitable for the author. And there can be other problems. For instance, PublishAmerica ties up the author’s copyright for seven years. 
              But vanity publishers are not all scammers, and they can be useful for books that aren't produced to be profitable, like family histories and recipes, memoirs and poetry collections.

Here are some of the best known vanity publishers

·       PublishAmerica (aka Independence Books)

·       Tate Publishing

·       AuthorHouse (which has many imprints)

·       XLibris

·       iUniverse

·       Ivy House

·       Trafford Publishing

·       Poetry.com

Indie Publishing

True DIY publishing. You do everything yourself or hire somebody to do it for you. You can do this several ways:

·       Get help from a publishing facilitator like Smashwords or BookBaby, who for a flat fee will code your ebook and upload to different retail platforms and keep track of royalties. They also offer inexpensive cover design and other services.

·       Get shepherded through the process by an agent. A number of agents are actually helping authors become indie publishers these days—usually existing clients. Some industry purists consider this a conflict of interest, but the agented authors I know who have published through their agents have nothing but good things to say about this.

·       Hire your own private editor, cover designer, and coder and keep complete control.

NOTE: “Complete control” does not extend to Amazon. Author-friendly as it is, the ’Zon has glitches that can’t be controlled by anybody, apparently. Ruth Harris has been trying to get Amazon to post the correct book cover art on her Amazon author page for six months now, to no avail, and Saffina Desforges had her bestselling thriller Sugar and Spicedisappear from Amazon.co.uk for over a month with no explanation—when you’re selling an average of 10,000 books a month, that’s a hefty price for some glitch.

If you’re an indie publisher who wants your books printed in hard copy as well as electronic form, you’ll need the services of—

P.O. D. Publishing Service Providers

These are printer/distributors who use print on demand technology. This means that instead of having a huge print run for your book that has to be stored in a warehouse, the book is only printed when it is ordered.

Most small presses use these providers, too.

The primary POD providers are:

• CreateSpace: Owned by Amazon. Printing with them gets you on Amazon, which owns a huge share of the book market
• LightningSource: Owned by Ingram, the biggest book distributor in the US. Ingram supplies bookstores, so if you want to see your book in your local bookstore window, LS has the advantage.
• Lulu.com: The only printer I know of that doesn’t charge upfront fees. So even though they keep 20%, I’m putting them in the service provider category rather than with vanity presses. They'll sell your books on their own site (not terribly customer-friendly) and post them to Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other online retailers worldwide.

For a great comparison between Lightning Source and CreateSpace, small press owner Robin Sullivan has a great analysis on her blog Write to Publish. 

***

The ebook revolution is rapidly shifting the old publishing paradigm, and nobody’s quite sure what’s coming next. Much of what I’ve written here will probably be obsolete by next year.

But that doesn’t mean we should ignore the old guard. They may have life in them yet.. I think educating yourself about the industry as it is now will help you make decisions about what path might work best for you in the future. One of the best ways to learn about the industry is to subscribe to Publishers Lunch, a free newsletter from Publishers Marketplace.

Yes, publishing companies do seem to merge and change partners like square dancers on speed, but they’re still very much with us. And they're learning to adapt with the changing times. (Some are learning faster than others, and I have no doubt some will fall to the e-revolution.)

As I said last week, learn everything you can and don’t let anybody bully you into making a choice you’re not comfortable with. 

We live in an age when authors have more choices than ever before, and if you don’t like the choices you’re being offered right now, wait a few weeks and something new is bound to pop up!

What about you, scriveners? Did you know the names of the Big Six? How many mid-sized publishers can you name? (Let’s add some to my list. I hardly scratched the surface here.) And if you know of a great small publisher or ebook publisher, do leave that name, as well. If you’ve had experience with them, good or bad, we'd like to hear about it. Any additions, subtractions or caveats welcome. 

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E-Book as Query Part 2: 10 Tips for Spotting Bogus and Predatory Agents.

As I reported last month, the self-published e-book is fast becoming the query of choice for many New York literary agencies.

Rather than slog through mountains of slush, agents are closing their offices to queries and shopping for new clients in the Kindle bestseller lists.

Why not? That’s where they’ll find unrepresented authors with proven sales numbers, which is what more and more publishers require. Successful indie authors know how to write what sells, plus they’re savvy marketers—a win/win for agents and editors alike.

Whether it’s a win for writers remains to be seen.

Big name, prestigious agencies have taken to Kindle-trolling. Noah Lukeman (author of The First Five Pages) made deals for two formerly self-pubbed first-time authors last month, although he’s been closed to queries for some time. And über-agency Trident Media Group has signed at least five indies this year.

These agencies seem especially interested in the international bestseller lists—probably hoping to reel in the next Steig Larsson or J. K. Rowling. (And it helps that UK agents are showing little interest in Kindle sales—UK publishing apparently lives in some time-warp Dickensian reality.)

So it’s a heady time for successful indie authors.

Imagine: here’s you, first-time author, who no doubt self-pubbed after years of rejection—having a nice cuppa at home in Claxby Pluckacre, Firozabad, or even here in San Luis Obispo, CA—when the phone rings and it’s someone from NEW YORK. It’s that call: the offer of a contract and soon-to-come book deal (with maybe a tantalizing hint of a film option.) Opportunity has knocked: fame and fortune and glory to follow. Your dream has come true.

Only thing is: this person may not actually be an agent. Not the kind who sells books to real publishers.

Just the way agents see gold in them thar Kindle hills, so do the scammers.  

The words “I’m calling from New York” are dazzling, and most international writers don’t know the difference between a prestigious agency in Manhattan or some con-person calling from the 24-hour Denny’s in Rochester (New York is a big state.) And even a lot of North Americans can be temporarily blinded by the idea of a New York agent.

So beware. There’s a big chance this call will never lead to seeing that dreamed-of print book sitting in your local bookstore window.

It might be best to go back and finish your tea before making any decisions.

Here are some tips to keep yourself grounded if/when you get that call.

1) Be skeptical if your Amazon sales are not huge. Real agents are looking for superstars, but scammers are just going down the list looking for pigeons.

2) Ask what they like about the book. Agents read books before they make offers. A scammer will only quote blurb copy.

3) Ask where they plan to submit your work. If they are unable to name names and particular imprints, be wary. They may not be crooks, but they’re also not likely to be good agents. An effective agent will personally know editors that are looking for your type of book.

4) Find out how long they’ve been in the business. Nothing wrong with new agents—in fact they’re often the best—because they need clients and they’re hungry. But you want to make sure they’re well-connected. If they never interned or worked at an established agency or publishing house, they probably aren’t going to be able to sell your book.

5) NEVER agree to pay up-front fees, even if the fees are just for “copying and mailing.” This is a recycled scam from the 1990s. Bogus agencies would sign thousands of clients and charge them each $250 or more per quarter for “copying and mailing.” But they never made a sale. Some unsuspecting writers lost as much as $3,000 before they caught on.

NB: In the old days, some smaller agencies did legitimately charge “mailing fees” or “copying/processing fees,” (after they put your book out on submission) but everything’s done electronically now, so this is 100% bogus in the electronic age, at least on this side of the pond.

6) Be wary of agency websites with “testimonials” from happy clients. This isn’t done in the publishing business. Agencies do not advertise for clients. A good agency’s “testimonials” are their sales. (And if you see obvious grammatical mistakes on the website, run. Some bogus agencies seem to use bad grammar on purpose, maybe to weed out the savvier writers.) 

7) Check client lists. If there’s no client page on their website, you know you're in scammer-land. Agents don’t keep client lists “confidential.”  If they represent a literary star, they’ll scream it from the rooftops.

8) Check recent sales. Even if somebody in the agency can claim to have represented Stephen King or Nora Roberts, if they haven’t made a sale in the past few years, they won’t have the contacts to sell your book today. There's a fast turn-over in editorial departments.

9) Pay attention to where their clients have been published. If they’re all at the same handful of presses—none of which you’ve ever heard of—this is very likely a vanity publishing outfit. This is a common publishing scam these days: the agent “sells” your book to one of several “imprints” of a publishing company—which he owns—charging an agent’s cut of 15%. Then (his) press will charge you to print the book, or require you to buy a certain number of copies at inflated prices.

10) Check them out with respected writers’ watchdog groups:

• Writer Beware 
• Preditors and Editors 
• Absolute Write 
• QueryTracker 

    

However, as I said above, not all agents who contact a successful indie author will be bogus. They may very well be big-time, big-name industry superstars.

So you can put down the tea and pop open the champagne, right?

Uh, maybe not.

Some Kindle-trolling agents are asking that indie e-publishers take their books off Amazon as soon as they sign--that’s ALL of your books, not just the one the agent wants to rep.

This means you have to give up your income and remove your briskly-selling, successful books from the marketplace while the agent shops your new manuscript around.

And that may take years.

If you’ve ever talked to an author whose work is on submission, you’ll know this can be a soul-crushingly long, slow, and miserable process, with no guarantees. I’ve been through it with three different agents. And not one of them made a sale.

Meanwhile, you’ve lost all your sales momentum and brand recognition. If you finally do get a contract with a Big 6 publisher, your marketing plan will have to start over at square one when your book comes out—two to four years from now. (Yes, the publishing industry still moves at a horse-and-buggy pace.) Plus you’ll have a much more expensive product to sell.

And chances are there will be no bookstore window to put it in. Bookstores are dying off  faster than any of us expected.

The marketing thing is no big deal for the agent or publisher: writers are expected to do all our own marketing these days—or so they keep telling us.

But it’s going to be a big deal for you.

So even if an agent is for real, I strongly suggest you resist any requests to remove all your inventory from the marketplace. Maybe some agents can make a hiatus in your career worthwhile, but be aware they’re asking you to take a huge gamble.

Most of us are stuck in the old paradigm of “I need an agent to be a REAL writer.” (I’ve got to admit I still send off the occasional query myself after I’ve polished up a new ms--ever the deluded optimist.)  But this is a whole new publishing universe, and agents are still trying to figure out how they fit into it.

But if you’re an indie author with good sales, you fit in just fine, and you might want to stay right where you are. As exciting as it feels to be wooed by the people who once spurned you, don’t welcome all comers with hugs and kisses.

When former Big Six editor Ruth Harris guest blogged here a couple of weeks ago, she advised all authors to have a lawyer look at any agency contract before signing. I was surprised at her lack of trust, but since then, I've discovered that many of today’s agency contracts have become downright predatory. They can leave you destitute and enslaved, while the agent owns your book and even your characters--for lifetimes to come. Scary stuff.

I’ll be blogging more on the subject of some of the dangerous new agent practices over the next few weeks, so stay tuned.

Do any of you know Kindle writers who have been approached by agents? How would you react if it happened to you? Do you have any scam-agent horror stories?

Announcement: My friend and mentor Catherine Ryan Hyde, author of Pay it Forward and so many other fantastic, award-winning books, is offering one of her limited intensive workshops on the weekend of June 25^th at her home in Cambria CA. It will concentrate on dialogue. This is a fantastic chance to work one-on-one with a great American author (which looks great in your query letter!) Contact her at ryanhyde (at) cryanhyde (dot) com.

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Do You Know How to Spot a Bogus Literary Agency? 8 Red Flags to Watch For

I’m working on a couple of new projects—watch this space for exciting developments—so I’m running a New! Improved! version of an oldie-but-goodie. The original post garnered a visit and an approving nod from agent Janet Reid—the Query Shark herownself.

******

I belong to the generation of women who were told we were more likely be shot by terrorists than find husbands. Several decades later, we’re all writing books about our fabulous single lives—as desperate now for literary representation as we once were for the white dress/gold ring thing.

I haven’t seen statistics about the comparative likelihood of being shot by a terrorist vs. finding a literary agent, but given the global political climate, I’d say odds heavily favor the terrorists.

Maybe we can fantasize that someday we’ll be shot by a terrorist who works for Curtis Brown.

We can’t blame agents. We’re in this situation because there are less than 450 members of the Association of Author’s Representatives while most of the 230 million of us who own computers have at least one novel in progress in the files.

If as many Americans bought books as wrote them, our situation wouldn’t be so dire—so if you really want to increase your chances of publication, buy more books.

With such vast herds of us overpopulating the planet, it’s inevitable that we’ve attracted our share of predators.  

In order hang onto your dwindling cash reserves during this soul-crushing process, keep an eye out for these red flags:

1) The agency advertises aggressively. Be wary of agents who advertise. When I finished my first novel, a librarian friend forwarded me an intriguing ad from an agency soliciting submissions. He’d found it in a highly regarded literary magazine. I visited the agency’s charming, positive website and almost fell into the trap until I Googled them. They appeared on the “THUMBS DOWN AGENCY LIST” at Writer Beware. This agency refers unsuspecting writers to their own pricey editing service and sells books only to their own vanity publishing company. They’ve changed their name, but they’re still in business.

Do the math: agents don’t have to advertise. We’ll find them no matter where they hide.

2) They badmouth the publishing industry or other agencies, and claim to be “different.” Publishing is a business that relies on networking. Anybody can call herself a “literary agent,” but the successful ones generally learn their trade by interning for more established agents or working at a publishing company. Putting down their mentors would be just plain dumb. And if they haven’t worked with/for other agents—beware. They may mean well, but they probably won’t have the contacts needed to make sales.

3) They charge “mailing fees" up front. This has been a popular scam for decades. Bogus agencies sign thousands of clients and charge them each $250 or more per quarter for “copying and mailing.” But they never make a sale. I’ve seen heartbreaking letters from writers who’ve lost as much as $3,000 before they caught on.

Small agencies may legitimately ask for copying and mailing fees AFTER they’ve sent out your manuscript—usually every quarter—but in the 21st century almost all submissions are done electronically, so I’d worry about any agency that’s still partying like it’s 1999.

4) They refuse to forward rejection letters. Most agents send on your rejections every quarter or so. Some scammers “submit” manuscripts to a publishing house in a mass mailing addressed to no particular editor. Those are not real submissions. They go into recycling without a response. You are not actually being represented. Move on.

5) No client list on the website.  If there’s no client page on their website, give them a pass. Agents don’t keep client lists “confidential.” If they represent a literary star, they’ll pound their chests and bellow about it.

6) You can find no record of recent sales. Even if somebody in the agency can claim to have represented Steven King, if it happened in King’s pre-Carrie days and she hasn’t sold anything since, don’t go there.

7) You can’t find them listed at any of the commonly used databases for writers. If the agency isn’t listed with AgentQuery or QueryTracker, go check the forums at Absolute Write, the lists at Preditors and Editors, and the tireless watchdogs at Writer Beware for any reports of scamming or bad faith. All of these organizations volunteer their time to weed out the bad guys who are preying on fledgling writers.  Membership is free for all these sites.

You can also check the Association of Authors Representatives, but as Janet Reid pointed out—an agent does NOT have to be a member of AAR to be legitimate and even top-notch. New agents have to work for a certain number of years before they’re allowed to join—and it is the newer and hungrier agents who are reading queries from new writers and actively building their lists.

8) They charge a “reading fee.” You know this, right? It’s not just about the money. Unscrupulous agents can actually hurt your career, since publishers consider these tactics unethical and won’t do business with them. At best, they’ll sell you worthless editing advice. If you have to pay somebody to read your book, it’s not ready for publication.

If you’re a newbie, DO pay a qualified freelance editor or book doctor, but never with a promise of publication attached.

Victoria Strauss at Writer Beware had a great guest post on February 11 about all things scammy in the literary world. from Marian Perera, in her review of Jenna Glatzer's new book, The Street-Smart Writer. 

Don’t forget: Google is your friend. Check ’em out.

How about you, fellow scriveners—anybody have a tale of agent scams to share?  

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