Category: Questions

To sign or not to sign with a small publishing house

I share a situation that may be happening in the future with a small publishing house, and my thoughts on whether to sign or not should an offer be forthcoming.


Hi everyone,

As many of you may know, Brass Legionnaire recently won the EPIC eBook Award for Best Action Adventure Novel. And I get an awesome new little award thingie to put on my blog and my book website! Yay! 2013_EBook_WINNER-smWhat I didn’t add earlier is that while at the conference, I was approached by an editor at a small independent publisher. She was very interested in my book, and the award made the series more attractive. She asked me to email her when I got home, so I did. She recently got back to me, and was very interested to read more, so I sent her the entirely finished first and second books of the Steam Empire Chronicles, plus Roma Aeronautica, the short story that I’ve been working on.

I’ll admit, I’m feeling a tad bit nervous. One of the best things that self-published authors have is control. Control over editing, cover art, interior illustrations, when to publish, even deadlines. With a publisher, any publisher, you lose that. I was also worried because of my Kickstarter. Companies don’t like it when you give their stuff away for free (although in this case, the people have ‘technically’ paid for it, and saved the publishing house money as they won’t need to spend as much time editing or revising the novel – theoretically). I’ve also been looking at some of their writer’s work on the computer, and while it has some good reviews, they don’t seem to have a ton of downloads, which worries me to another degree.

The end result is what to do? I’m not sure. I’m going to hold off posting this until I hear some feedback from her. Here’s what I’d love to ‘get’ out of this situation.

  1. I want to keep my cover artist and interior artist because I believe consistency is CRITICAL with a series.
  2. I want flexible deadlines because I’m a teacher and can’t crank sh…er… stuff… out at a ridiculously fast pace.
  3. Money! (duh, but really, a healthy percentage cut or something…)
  4. Marketing assistance – I can do some, more in the summer, but not a lot due to my day job. I’d love some help.

What I don’t want

  1. Going back into edits on both novels
  2. Arguments over illustrations or cover (MY BOOK = MY COVER)
  3. For someone to get me to sign it over then sit on it.
  4. Changing the character/nature of the novel
  5. Being hung out to dry
  6. Watching my sales stagnate.

Let me add some caveats – I’m not a control freak, not am I a crazy person to work with. Just ask my editor, cover artist, formatter, etc. I’ve very low maintenance, but I do want to be listened to and included in the conversation. I don’t want to be talked down to, but I am willing to listen to constructive criticism. I know that Self-Published authors get a lot of flak for being difficult to work with or unprofessional, but I think that publishers often think that their work is superior in all ways, and that they don’t have to listen to people. I’ve found plenty of typos in major publishing house’s work before, so that’s not an issue with just one publisher. I also don’t think the stereotypes about either side are true, as I met absolutely wonderful people at EPICon who would fit either of those categories. I’ve also been looking up and doing my research, and I noticed that this particular publisher was relatively low on the Alexa score rankings, (type in Alexa Rankings and you can type in any website and see their traffic information). So I’m still torn.

Of course, nothing has been offered and therefore this could all be moot!

Lots to think about I suppose.

 

The Illustration Conundrum


To Illustrate or not to Illustrate, that is the (expensive) question!

To begin, I’ve always loved chapter books with illustrations. They breathe life and culture and feeling into a story. Sometimes, I wish to high heavens that Harry Potter books had come with full page illustrations every couple of pages. Not every page mind you, even just one per chapter would have been awesome. Obviously, the style of your book has to lend itself to illustrations. Personally, I think all books could use them in one form or another.

But Wait! You cry. “I have my own created image of what this world looks like, why should someone else make it for me?”

Someone else already has, if the book you are reading has cover art. From the moment you open a book, your mind is building the world that you are reading. The cover (to me) is like the section in a library – Does it have dragons on the cover? Trigger the fantasy imagination component of your mind. Man waving a french flag with a musket? Activate the Three Musketeers and Napoleon memory centers! Illustrations in a book are a way of guiding the reader’s imagination, like mileposts or markers on an old trail. The trail is laid out for you, but you are making the journey. The markers guide you, even shape some of the world for you. But illustrations are expensive, and only the most well paid authors or those with a great amount of extra money to use, those who have won the family/friend lottery (Hey, wanna illustrate my book? I’ll pay you in pizza!) can truly fill a novel book with illustrations. Even Scott Westerfeld of steampunk fame doesn’t have illustrations on every page.

 

So what is a new/upcoming author to do if they want illustrations. There are a few options.

1.) Sell your firstborn (Just kidding!)

2.) Compromise – Have only a few illustrations that are super critical.

3.) Never have any illustrations and pour that extra money into cover art or extra promotional things.

Of these, option two is the best, and really the only option, that makes the best sense if you have the money for illustrations. As a visual person myself, I love having maps in my book. If your story is going somewhere, have a map! They make great interior covers, and can break up a story neatly into chunks if that is what you need. In my book, I have plans for two maps – one of the entire continent of Europe, and the other of my semi-fictional city of Brittenburg.

My plan for Brass Legionnaire is to have two illustrations that are critical to the story and really tie into the theme and idea of my world. Not only can I have them in the book, but I can get enlarged ones as posters and other things to use as freebies and contest prizes. Theoretically I could sell them eventually too, but I like the idea of having control of a limited number of them in really nice form. Those in the book would be black and white, while the promo ones would be full color.

I suppose I could lay down a pretty penny for one illustration per chapter, but maybe I’ll save that for the omnibus (in the far, far future!) Of course, if you want to make it happen, check out my Kickstarter project and donate. I don’t have much time left on it, and I’m sort of sad that it won’t likely happen, but I’m excited to still have the chance to share the book with you guys regardless!

Ciao!

 

Kickstarter


Hi all,

I know it’s the third post of the day, but I’m hoping some of you may want to help me publish Brass Legionnaire. I’m a teacher, so getting the money together to get a good editor, cover artist, etc, can be tough. That’s why I joined Kickstarter, where hopefully some people may be interested enough to chip in. There’s some cool goodies on there you can get if you contribute!

Here’s the link

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/187272667/brass-legionnaire?ref=email
Hope to see/hear from you there!

 

– Daniel