I’ve decided to divide the subject of this newsletter/blog.
Initially, I intended to write about Regional and Small Publishers and Oklahoma Small Publishers.
Dead Man Writing: Publishing Pugilism Round Two deals with Small Publishers (SP); Round Three’s subject will look at Oklahoma Small Publishers; and Round Four will delve into Self-Publishing and Hybrid Publishing.
Splitting the subject decreases the length and your valuable reading time.
If you’ve gone several rounds with a Traditional Big House Publisher (BHP), you might have decided to throw in the towel. I’ve spoken with a few writers who have given up the writing craft because they were pounded round after round and finally knocked out by a BHP or two.
When a writer submits to a BHP, a lowly paid intern or bottom-of-the-ladder newly hired editor often handles the manuscript.
If a writer survives the first round of editors and the manuscript goes to round two, the heavy-weight editors in the corner offices are now in the ring, and a roundhouse knockout punch may be delivered before the round ends.
The punch-drunk writer may try again with another BHP—and again and again and again until, finally, the writer has no fight left.
All publishing houses started as small or regional publishers. As the Small Publisher became successful, the house grew or was absorbed by an established BHP.
I don’t write to produce a best-selling, multi-million dollar Hollywood movie novel. I write to tell stories to a specific audience of eclectic readers.
After dealing and publishing with two of the five BHPs in 12 books, I ventured into self-publishing and recently became interested in small Oklahoma publishers.
This Dead Man Writing looks at the Pros and Cons of Small Publishers.
SMALL PUBLISHERS
A national small publishing company has under $50 million in turnover and/or publishes 30 or fewer books annually.
A regional or state small publisher has much less revenue turnover and publishes ten or fewer books yearly.
A regional or state publisher may halt all submissions for up to a year because its publishing plate is full. More on this in DMW: Publishing Pugilism Round Three
A Small Publisher specializes in a specific genre or category. An SP may also be restrictive in the story's language, theme, and content.
All states have Small Publishers, concentrating on writers of that state or books about that state. They rarely take writers’ submissions from other states as they emphasize promoting the writers within their states.
A few will take submissions from non-state writers if the book is about the SP’s state.
Read the submission guidelines diligently as your writing life depends on it.
Almost all small state publishers reject a submission without a read-see because it doesn’t meet their criteria.
PROS OF A SMALL PUBLISHER
1. NEW WRITER WELCOME MAT
A Small Publisher will risk taking on a new, unpublished writer if the story is worthy of publication.
An SP is often more enthusiastic about the unpublished writer and willing to hedge its bets on a writer who has written a good story or non-fiction book. A BHP generally wants a writer with some track record.
BHPs often troll the SPs’ sales lists, looking for a writer with national selling potential.
In other words, the Small Publisher does the job of a BHP by publishing well-written novels by unknown writers and establishing a reading audience.
Agents are not necessary with a Small Publisher as the writer is not dealing with corporation-mired legalities and dozens of editors, assistant editors, cover designers, interior designers, sales forces, et cetera.
2. AUTHOR INVOLVEMENT
A Small Publisher welcomes author involvement in turning the hard-worked manuscript into a saleable finished product. You won’t find that with the BHP, as DMW Publication Pugilism Part One points out.
A BHP may have dozens of people involved in turning your manuscript into a hold-in-your-hands hardcopy.
A Small Publisher might have two or three at most working to publish your book. Often, the writer deals with only one person.
A Specific Point of Contact is necessary to successfully transform your manuscript. SPoC generally works with and responds to the author.
At the BHP, the editor works for and answers to higher-ups, which takes time, and even the higher-ups will have to work with marketing, the art department, et al. The writer will have no input during this process and is left outside the publishing ring.
The Small Publisher often wants and encourages YOU to be involved at all stages of publication. You and the SP are a team working toward a common goal: Publishing your book. The SP doesn’t rely on or worry about supporting the foundations of corporate structure.
You are the SP’s sole interest, and the harder you work alongside the SP, the better the relationship and the better the finished product: Your Book.
3. SMALL PUBLISHERS ARE PROFESSIONALS
A Small Publisher is a dedicated professional who aims to get your book (fiction or non-fiction) on the market. You make a bit of money, as does the SP.
Best reward is the pride that wafts over you as you hold your published book.
A Small Publisher is a Professional. Don’t think a Small Publisher will publish anything you’ve typed on your comp screen. You send an SP shit, the shit goes into the same toilet the BHP would flush it down.
Because an SP takes on maybe ten titles (or fewer) a year, compared to thousands of titles the BHP has on its publishing fight card, an SP gives your book extra attention and dedication.
You and the SP are business partners. With a BHP, you’re just another brick in the wall, usually unrecognized by the corporation automatons.
In his early days of publishing, Stephen King visited Viking Press headquarters. He had two best-selling horror novels, both sold to movie studios, had made Viking a few million dollars, and King was on the verge of becoming the mega-author-on-steroids he is today.
No one in the Viking offices knew who Stephen King was when his agent introduced him around. They only knew that some horror writer was making the corporation Big Money. King was the Big Money at the bottom line of the sales ledger. That was it.
You won’t have that experience with an SP.
Sometimes, owners of SPs are authors themselves and belong to state and regional writing groups. You’ll meet them at writing conferences, not realizing they own an SP because they are down-to-earth and friendly, and you don’t have to pay extra to sit next to them at the conference’s head banquet table as you do celebrities and BHP execs visiting the conference. SP owners are people and writers like you and me.
Because they have a stake in your book, they become personally involved in ensuring your book has the best attention as it is published; the SP gets behind your book to sell your book to the market.
4. ECCENTRICITY
Many Small Publishers specialize in certain stories and genres, concentrating on obtaining books for a particular audience.
Some BHPs won’t touch the most eccentric works because they’re too weird, too far out of the mainstream, or too upsetting for corporate editors. Plus, eccentric books won’t sell to a large group of readers. The Bottom Line is the Bottom Line.
The eccentric writer can find a publishing home with a Small Publisher, welcomed as a long-lost black sheep relative.
Finding that SP for your eccentric novel takes a bit of research, but your efforts will pay off when you find the SP that wants your Invisible-Alien-Vampires-from-Mars-Who-Marry-Only-Visible-Earth-Woman-to-Produce-Invisible-Alien-Vampire-Children-on-Mars novel.
CONS OF A SMALL PUBLISHER
Working with a Small Publisher is affable, self-fulfilling, and intrinsically rewarding.
After falling in love with that Small Publisher, you may discover, as in any relationship, that the SP has disadvantages.
Not their fault. Just the nature of the beast of a Small Publisher.
Consider the Cons of a Small Publisher. If you can live with the disadvantages, jump on the SP bandwagon and bang your drum loudly.
1. LITTLE TO NO AUTHOR ADVANCES
A BHP will pay you an advance against royalties after everyone’s signed the corporate contract for publication. The advance against royalties could be a few thousand dollars. Sometimes, the advance is five-figure or larger if everyone on the editing board and the marketing department agrees you have a great book that will sell thousands upon thousands of copies to make them money.
After the agent’s commission fee, the advance is money in the writer’s pocket, a way for a writer to pay the bills, maybe quit that day job, and keep writing.
Some well-established writers don’t take advances. They don’t have to. They have money in the bank and know mega-royalties will be directly deposited to pay their bills as they continue to write.
A writer who takes the advance doesn’t receive any royalties until that advance is repaid in full by the writer’s royalties. If a book’s sales don’t generate enough royalties to repay the advance, the BHP says, “You and your book are not a profitable commodity. So long, see you later.”
John Grisham experienced this when his first book A Time to Kill failed to sell.
Rarely does the author have to pay back the advance if the book fails, as the advance can be written off as a bad investment at tax time by the BHP.
Don’t expect an advance from a Small Publisher.
If you do receive an advance, it won’t make your house, car, or grocery payments, and you can’t quit your day job. Maybe you can get TWO large lattes at Starbucks.
An SP doesn’t have the deep financial pockets of a corporate BHP and often will not offer an advance as it may not receive enough royalties in sales to repay itself the advance.
This is just good ol’ common sense business practice so the SP can stay in business.
The Plus Side of this Con?
An SP often offers a more generous royalty than the BHP.
2. SMALLER MARKETING RESOURCES
SPs don’t have direct access to or a massive marketing department for the Big Box Book Stores.
You won’t walk into Barnes & Noble, Walmart, Books-A-Million, et cetera for a selfie of you and your book on their shelves.
SPs sell through their websites and Big Box Websites like Amazon, IngramSpark, etc. They promote their books at book fairs and writers’ conferences, sometimes at anime cons, renaissance festivals, or local community events.
If an SP has an advertising budget at all, the budget is emaciated. Don’t expect to see your book hawked on billboards, streaming services, and other multi-media sources as you do King and Grisham.
The Plus Side of this Con?
SPs often have good relationships with smaller booksellers, local and/or regional books stores, and specialty houses that welcome the New Author and will promote the New Author’s book.
3. Eccentricity
Yes, this is listed as a Pro.
Sometimes, an SP’s strength is also its weakness.
Your book may be so specialized it will only reach those truly interested Fanatics, and that number may be quite small, translating into microscopic sales.
Such eccentricity has a small audience, smaller sources in which to promote, and smaller—much smaller—royalties. You can buy FOUR double lattes at Starbucks with the royalties you receive from Fanatics.
Some SPs specialize in Eccentric works and are more adept at promoting your book. The number of SPs specializing in Eccentric works is minuscule.
Some SPs won’t touch your Eccentric work with a 39-and-a-half foot pole because it’s too Eccentric.
ALL THAT SAID
Small Publishers love books. They will take a chance on an unknown writer with a well-written book to help that writer become known, even if only in a regional sense.
Some of the great writers of the 19th and early 20th Centuries were only known regionally for years and published by small presses in their hometowns.
The Internet Universe has thousands of book-selling and book review sites. Many BHP-published authors cross-punch their traditional writing careers by using SPs and/or self-publishing to regain the creative control they give up to the BHPs.
J. A. Conrath is a prime example of such an author. He occasionally publishes with a BHP, has a large online following, and makes good money self-publishing his stories.
Ben Franklin: A self-published author printed on a small press he created, and we’re still reading his words over two hundred years later.
Your goal as a writer is to be published, to have your novel in the hands of a reader, and then the novel after that and the novel after that . . . .
I don’t write to be a Best Selling Author. That’s a lofty dream. Though a dream from which I wouldn’t run if such a dream chased me.
But I won’t sit around waiting for the blessings of a BHP.
Actions speak louder than words.
The Loudest of Actions are your published Words.
I write to put my stories in the hands of readers, even if only a few hundred at a time.
If that few hundred like my tale, they spread the Word.
Then a few more hundred people are reading my tale—and so it goes.
The best way to get stories in the hands of readers is through a Small Publisher who believes in you and your tale.
If the journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step, then the journey of a thousand book sales begins with that first book sale.
A Small Publisher eagerly, madly, and personally wants to help you achieve your first book sale.
Next Dead Man Writing: Publishing Pugilism Round Three—Oklahoma Publishing Companies.