help needed with epublishers

Isis ~ I sent you a private message on this topic.

1. Check which publisher is listed in Fictionwise to avoid a start-up with few followers.

2. Check the backgrounds check forum here on your shortlist.

3. Preditors & Editors site - check that too.

Then, head to the site itself and see if they would be a good fit for you. If their site looks unprofessional, perhaps they are too.

Kerry

http://www.erecsite.com/SALES.html

These are epublishers so I am not quite sure about what you mean by 'in stores'. Samhain novels go to print and a typical book might get in some stores, the rest have little or no print presence in stores, but some offer print for order online. They all use online distributors as far as I know, but Ellora's cave doesn't give them a discount so they are often a bit over-priced.

Isis234 said:

And another question; once one have an offer in, how long can you have a publisher waiting before accepting or rejecting it without the offer expiring?

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Congratulations on having such a lovely "problem"! I won't respond to the "which one is better" question because that would be a bit unprofessional, but I'd like to offer some insight into your last question.

From a publisher perspective, any reasonable publisher should be willing to give you around 2 weeks to respond to their contract offer. A publisher saying they need an answer immediately and can't wait should be a warning flag to you because, in most cases (I'm sure there are exceptions) no publisher should have much reason to need an answer so immediately they can't give you 2 weeks to make a decision about who to contractually bind yourself to.

If you're waiting to hear from other publishers, the best way to do this is to contact Publisher X and Y who still have your book and to let them know that you have an offer on the table, but that Publisher X and Y are your first choice of publisher and you'd love to hear from them first. Ask them if they'd be able to give you a response in 2 weeks.

At this point, most publishers will either say "yes, we'll look at it and get back to you in that time" or "we're not interested, good luck!" If they tell you that 2 weeks isn't enough time (and sometimes it wouldn't be) then you have a choice to make as to what to do.

Last, any time you submit the same manuscript to multiple publishers and it gets contracted, as soon as it's no longer available, send an email immediately so those publishers don't allocate editorial resources (time and money) to reading something that's unavailable!

Anyway, good luck and congratulations!

Your own personal priorities are important, too. I think it's hard to say which epublisher is "better" because it depends on what your goals are, and what you're expecting/hoping to get out of your publishing experience.

Some places might take time to mentor you and hold your hand, but offer a smaller financial return. Some might offer the potential for much higher sales, but will be large enough that you could get lost in the shuffle. Also, some epublishers are well known for certain niches, and if you don't fit that particular niche, you may find much smaller success than someone who does.

My advice is to make sure you know what things are most important to you--covers? editing? sales? support?--and see if you can find information about the things most important to you. And maybe even ask authors who are published there if they're willing to share their experiences. Ask the ones who are still writing there, and maybe one or two who haven't published anything there lately.

Having a lot of offers is really, really exciting! But even a few days caution on the front end could save you years of heartache later on.

Good luck!

Have you read any books from the publishers with offers? Review their offerings, and read some blurbs and perhaps buy at least one book from them.

Reading their offerings will give you an idea of whether the books they're publishing fall in the subgenre you're writing in ('erotic romance" is awfully broad, and some publishers seem to do better with different subcategories of that - contemporary, fantasy, sf, menage, etc.). Buying a book or two will give you an idea of their service and whether the formatting is any good.

And do check erecsite, to get an idea of the numbers.