Writers in the Storm

Susan Spann

The explosion of independent publishing houses in the U.S. and abroad makes it vital for authors to investigate publishers carefully before signing a contract. While even diligent research can't ensure you’ll avoid every possible problem, here are some questions to ask before you accept a traditional publishing deal:

1. Does the Contract Require You (the Author) to Pay for Anything?

If the  answer is "yes," this is not a traditional publishing house, and probably not a deal you should sign. Traditional deals don’t require the author to pay for anything, either out of pocket or by allowing the publisher to recoup expenses before calculating the author’s royalty share.*

This applies not only to publishing costs but also to marketing – legitimate publishers don’t require authors to pay the publisher or an affiliated firm for marketing services.

Traditional publishers also don’t require the author to purchase any finished books. (Most allow you to do so, but a traditional deal never involves a mandatory purchase.)

*Note: some “hybrid” presses offer authors a cost-sharing arrangement under which the author has more control and receives a higher share of the profits; however, this is not a “traditional” deal—have an agent or lawyer review any hybrid contract before you sign.

2. Does the Publisher Make Any Claims About Success, Sales, or Reviews?

No legitimate publisher can or will promise any author success (financial or otherwise). Any publisher that promises you sales (or good reviews) is not a legitimate publishing house. Also, beware of publishers whose websites contain statements like: "Make extra income writing books!" or "Become a bestseller with us!"

Run, don't walk, in the opposite direction.

3. How Long Has the Publisher Been in Business?

This isn’t necessarily a deal-breaker, but it's an important point to consider. The longer a publisher has been in business, and the more books it produces, the better you can evaluate the publisher's history of contract compliance, distribution, sales, and successfully published works.

It's OK to take a chance on a newer publisher if you choose...but only if all of the other factors align with industry standards. Also, be aware that working with newer publishers is a risk, because publishing houses have high failure rates (among other reasons). Make sure your contract contains appropriate protections and termination rights.

4. How Much Publishing Experience Do the Publisher’s Owner & Editors Have?

Many independent publishers open with great intentions, but little or no experience in traditional publishing, sales, and distribution. This creates enormous risk for the publisher and the author. Before signing with any publisher, ask about the owner and editors’ industry experience. Remember: inexperienced publishers often have more difficulty negotiating contracts and complying with legal obligations--not from malice, but because they don't have experience running a traditional publishing house.

5. What is the Publisher’s Reputation in the Industry?

Never, ever sign with a publishing house unless you've researched both the house and the publisher/editor with industry watchdogs like Publisher's Marketplace, Writer Beware, and Preditors and Editors. Pay attention to what you see, and don't sign with any publisher unless you can confirm its legitimacy with industry watchdog sites.

Also, talk with 2-3 of the publisher’s other authors before you sign. If the authors won't speak with you honestly (or tell you the contract won't let them talk), move on.

You and your work deserve a press that gets glowing reviews from authors and the industry. Don’t settle for less.

6. Have You Seen the Publisher's Other Books?

Go to a bookstore (or Amazon) and find the books the publisher produces. Hold them—or look at them on an e-reader if the publisher is a digital-only press. Consider the font, the production value, the covers, and ask yourself: will I be proud if my book comes out like this? If not … you have your answer.

7. How Are the Publisher's Books Distributed? Where Are They Sold?

Many small presses don't have elaborate distribution arrangements. They may or may not have books on bookstore shelves. Find out where the publisher's books are sold, and use that information to evaluate whether the press can support your work the way you want it to. There is no “right” answer, incidentally. Distribution is a business decision every author has the right—and the obligation—to make individually.

8. How Many Books Does the Publisher Release Each Year?

Generally speaking, the more books a publisher releases annually, the fewer resources the publisher has to dedicate to each individual book. Moreover, many publishers give the lion's share of their time and resources to A-list titles by authors who already have a substantial following. That said, the answer to this question is not a deal breaker. It’s simply another business point for authors to evaluate.

9. Does Anything Else Seem...Odd?

Trust your instincts. They're better than you think. If anything seems "off" about the publisher, remember: you're better off with no publishing deal than signing a deal you later regret.

10. Has an Agent or Attorney Reviewed Your Contract?

Navy regulations don't allow a compromised captain on the bridge...and every author is compromised when it comes to evaluating his or her own publishing deal. Consult a lawyer or an agent before you sign, especially if you're not fluent in legalese.

I can't promise these tips will save you from a deal you regret, or protect you against every predatory or inexperienced publisher. That said, they will at least give you a start in evaluating a publishing offer or deal.

*Disclaimer: This post does not constitute legal advice or create an attorney-client relationship between the author and any person. It is intended for educational purposes only. The author does not represent or warrant that this post contains all information required to protect you when choosing a publishing house, escaping a swarm of killer bees, or trying to avoid a shambling horde of zombie lawyers. Your experience, legal rights, and candy

Have you ever run into a 'run don't walk' publisher who fit the above description?

Do you have any publishing law questions for me?

*     *    *     *     *

About Susan

Susan Spann is a California transactional attorney whose practice focuses on publishing law and business, and is also the author of the Hiro Hattori (Shinobi) mysteries, featuring ninja detective Hiro Hattori and Portuguese Jesuit Father Mateo. Her fourth novel, THE NINJA’S DAUGHTER, released from Seventh Street Books in August 2016. Susan was the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers’ 2015 Writer of the Year, and when not writing or practicing law, she raises seahorses and rare corals in her marine aquarium.

Find her online at http://www.SusanSpann.com, on Twitter (@SusanSpann), and on Facebook (/SusanSpannBooks).

Revisions have always been my favorite part of the writing process. That’s when my geek side takes over and I color code scenes and lay them out and analyze story threads and add the details that pull everything together. A control freak’s happy place.

When the editorial letter for book 2 came in I was giddy. I ordered new sticky notes in fun colors. I bought a batch of yellow note pads (I edit long hand) and a box of purple pens to go with the purple binders I’ve been using for this story. Then I printed out all 300 pages. I. Was. Ready!

I rocked chapter one and two. Blew through the first 100 pages even with quite a bit of rewriting. The story was coming together.

And then something wicked happened … I lost my confidence. For every change I made, I second guessed the entire manuscript. I worked on one page for an entire week. Five days on one stinking page. I wrote two paragraphs, deleted four. Wrote one paragraph, flipped through 60 pages to quiet a nag and ended up rewriting an entire chapter.

The voices in my head said I’d broken the book. Ruined the story. I was doomed.

So I did what I always do … I got feedback. And the feedback fed my crisis – loved it vs. nope, not working. We’ve all been there, right? But I’ve always been able to weed out the bits and pieces that felt right and move on.

Except this time. I was doo-doo-doomed!

In a fit of desperation, I whined to a writing friend that I was about to make s’mores on the manuscript bonfire. Her advice: “Trust your gut. You didn’t get where you are on accident. You know better than you think you do!” My response: *laugh-crying because scroll back through the previous two paragraphs*

My gut was as fickle as my creativity. And it wasn’t just with writing. I’ve been very busy triple guessing everything. And I do mean everything. Parenting decisions? Yup. Life choices? Of course. What to cook for dinner? Oh dear lord, I’ve got nothing!

Triple guessing is second nature to me. And I’ve had plenty of “this is crap” moments when it came to my writing. But I always managed to write myself back into a happy spot.  

Except this time. What was different? Pretty much everything, actually. That’s helpful, right? Revising on contract, major personal life upsets, a very unsettled political climate, to name a few. My gut was curled up in a corner hugging a stuffed animal, pretending to be in a sunny, remote vacation spot. And as much as I wanted to join my gut in that alternate reality, life and deadlines weren’t going away.

I reread my friend’s advice over and over – “You know better than you think you do!” Maybe she was just blowing hot air up my flannel pjs, but I needed to latch on to something positive so why not this?

First I had to quiet the doubts and there was only one way of doing that … unplug. An awesome writer’s retreat in a soul-refilling location – yeah that. Nope, not that. I unplugged from social media, logged out of email, turned off all news notifications, waved my family off for the day, and spent the next few hours going through my editor’s notes and the manuscript.

And there it was – the story I wanted to tell. Without the distractions of external and internal noise, the story found its way back to the surface.

This is where I give you the lessons-learned and lay out the handy-dandy take away. I wish I could. I wish I could say that I’ve learned what not to do or what to do better in the future. But the truth is, I’ll have another “this is crap, I’m doomed” crisis with the next manuscript or the one after that. Because we’re writers and we do these things to ourselves.

Doubts will always color our manuscripts. Feedback will always be mixed. Every story will have moments of brilliance and hours of despair. When those moments hit, I’ll be looking at this sign and listening to my gut …  

What gets you through those times?

*      *     *     *     *

About Orly

Orly Konig is an escapee from the corporate world, where she spent roughly sixteen (cough) years working in the space industry. Now she spends her days chatting up imaginary friends, drinking entirely too much coffee, and negotiating writing space around two over-fed cats. She is a co-founder and past president of the Women’s Fiction Writers Association, and a member of the Tall Poppy Writers. She is rep’d by Marlene Stringer, Stringer Literary Agency LLC.

Orly’s debut, The Distance Home, will be released by Forge on May 2, 2017.

You can find her on on Facebook, on Instagram, on Goodreads, or on her website, www.orlykonig.com.

 

Emily Cavanagh

For the past ten years, I have written steadily and quietly. While my friends, family, and colleagues all knew I wrote, only a few close writer friends knew the extent of my writing life. Only a handful of people knew that I had written four unpublished novels. When I would somehow let this slip in conversation, I would receive looks of marvel, looks that made me inwardly cringe. What others viewed as a major accomplishment, I viewed with embarrassment. After all, I’d been trying unsuccessfully to get an agent for years. Telling people that I kept writing despite anyone recognizing my work felt like admitting publicly to my failure as a writer. Without the external approval of an agent or publisher, I couldn’t take myself seriously as a writer, beyond a narrow circle of writing colleagues. (This need for approval speaks to many things in my life, but let’s just stick to writing, shall we?)

When I finally signed with my agent in November 2015, everything changed. Not just because I was suddenly on the path to publication after all this time, but because signing that contract allowed me to change the way I viewed myself. With my agent as my ally, I could finally take myself seriously as a writer. I sprang into action and in a matter of months set about creating the outward appearance of a writer. However, looking back, I realize that my own unwillingness to take myself seriously may have impacted my slow journey to publication. If I could go back and do it again, here are a few things I would do earlier:

Build a website

What on earth would I put on a website? That would have been my question two years ago. But I found the process surprisingly enjoyable. And while my website started small, it’s been easy to build on as I get ready for my first book to release. I took a free class at my local library on using Weebly (which is very user-friendly, and if you’re at all computer literate, you could probably figure it out yourself), and within two weekends had created a basic site. I included a synopsis for several of the other novels I’d written, and when my agent was shopping around my manuscript for THE BLOOM GIRLS, an editor at Lake Union checked out my website, requested to see one of the manuscripts I’d included, and I ended up signing a two-book deal. If I hadn’t built the website, that second book likely wouldn’t be coming out next spring.

Scrape together the money to go to a writing conference where you can pitch directly to agents.

This is how I ultimately got my agent. After pitching my manuscript at a Writer’s Digest conference, I was referred to my agent, Marlene Stringer. I’d put off going to one of these conferences for years, because they were too expensive, requiring travel and hotel accommodations. Yet I wonder if I would have sped the process along if I’d gone to a pitch conference earlier. Having the chance to pitch your book directly to an agent removes you from the slush pile and it also allows you to demonstrate yourself as a professional (articulate, serious about your craft, ready for all of the other challenges publication will bring). This is something you just can’t show in an email query. If you make it to one of these conferences, do your homework first. When I sat down to give my pitch, I knew it backward and forward. I’d practiced it a hundred times, by myself and for an audience. That came across when the time came to deliver it to an agent.

Get yourself some business cards, for goodness sakes! You never know when you’ll need one.

Again, this was something I was embarrassed to do before signing with an agent. A business card? What for? When I pitched at the above conference, another agent asked for my contact info, and specifically asked if I had a card. Uh, no. Instead I scrawled my name, number, and email on a piece of notebook paper which is a lot easier to lose track of.

Creating a business card is really simple and inexpensive. And it looks a lot more professional than a post-it note.

Try to get a few pieces published in smaller local outlets or start a blog.

But I don’t time for this, I’m busy writing my novel! And what the heck would I blog about? Yup, that’s what I was thinking. But how long would it have taken to write a short piece for the local paper? I would have made some contacts that could have helped me, and I’d also have a few more credits on my bio. Once I started my blog (which I admittedly only update on a monthly basis), I discovered I actually enjoyed this kind of writing. It was a nice break from fiction and allowed me the chance to write in a different voice. Plus, unlike novel writing, you can publish lots of blog pieces in a short amount of time, which means people are reading your work on a regular basis (even if it’s just ten people all related to you!).  Blogging was my first step out of the writing closet I’d been in for so long. People I’d known for years were reading my writing for the first time. While I felt like I was totally exposed and in one of those dreams where you enter gym class and realize you forget to get dressed (the first post was entitled “Playing Kickball Naked”), the more I wrote, the more comfortable I got. Now I find that I enjoy writing these pieces and love getting feedback from readers.

Network with other writers

I’m now a member of several different groups on Facebook where writers can pose questions, offer promotional support, share ideas, and network. Again, this fell into the “I don’t have time for this” category. While discovering some of these groups requires a little bit of legwork upfront, you then have easy access to a group of writers who are going through the same struggles and have experience they can share, which may even lead to potential opportunities. As someone who isn’t crazy about the idea of interacting with strangers online, I’ve found that having a virtual community of writers is invaluable. Writing is a naturally solitary and lonely experience. Having people to talk to (even people you’ll never meet in real life) offers a respite from wandering around in your own brain with imaginary characters.

The sooner you can take yourself seriously as a writer, the more likely others are to treat you the same way. As Richard Bach said, “A professional writer is an amateur who didn't quit.” The difference between a professional and an amateur, may start with the way we view ourselves as writers.

So, WITS readers, do you agree? Do you have any other tips for unpublished writers?

*     *     *     *

About Emily:

When she's not working as a middle and high school English teacher, Emily Cavanagh writes contemporary women's fiction . She lives with her husband and two daughters on the island of Martha's Vineyard. Her first novel, THE BLOOM GIRLS, releases March 14. You can read more about her life and work at www.emilycavanaghauthor.com or follow her on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter.