Submitting to Independent Publishers

After submitting queries to agents for RIVER BOTTOM BLUES for the best part of a year and getting nowhere (when I did get a response, other than a form rejection, most felt that my crime novel involving blues musicians would appeal to a small niche), I began seeking out small pubs. Three different pubs showed an interest, but the one I chose had an acquisitions editor that proved to have an affinity for the blues. Even though the protagonists are blues musicians, it is foremost a crime novel. Not being a spring chicken any longer also played a part in me getting off the query go-round and getting it done. Distribution to brick and mortar stores will be very, very slight. They'll promote, promote through internet sources and the book will be available on all the usual online outlets and be available through Ingram, but placement on book shelves will be limited. Advances are slim, if any. As long as you up for that, and you don't mind plenty of promoting on your end, go for it. Some small pubs have good distribution, but so many of those also require agent submissions.

Agents are in the business to make a buck and they'll certainly try to place your book with a publisher that can make everyone can share the wealth--or make a buck or two. Those publishers have distributors aimed at getting you book shelved.

Pros: Agents can submit to the big houses, and they have existing relationships with editors. They know the legalities of the contracts and what you might get on the market, so they'll push for a bigger advance, better rights, royalty rates, etc. They have the ability to sell to foreign and film markets to earn you even more and expand your readership. Some edit (mine does) and can help polish your book before submitting to give it the best chance it can get. They watch your back to make sure you're not being taken advantage of. They can guide your career and answer questions. And there will be questions.

Cons: They tale 15% of what you make (but I feel they earn you far more than that overall). They're pickier about the books they take on since they want great book they feel they can sell for a lot (it's business after all) so it can be harder to get an agent than a publisher. Um... I'm very pro agent so it's hard to think of cons

It also depends on what you want and the type of career you want. If you want to see your books on all the big name bookstore shelves, and want the prestige and bragging rights of a big publishing house, an agent is the way to go. On your own, you can't really approach those houses. But if you have a smaller title with a smaller possible market, and you want a more personal relationship and don't care about wide distribution, a smaller publisher might be a good route.

For my first novel, I used a very small publisher. The publisher/editor worked closely with me to get the book in very good shape. It took about 18 months from acceptance to publication. She gave me 25 of my books to do with as I pleased. The publisher was a member of SPAN (Small Publishers of North America) ; that was in 2003. I don't see this publisher listed now.

BUT even though I gave her a short list of whom to send ARCs to for review, I'm not sure if that was done since I never received any word on it, though I asked her and she said she did. My book also wasn't in any library or book catalogues. Promotion-wise it was up to me. No advance, royalties of 15% of net.

Something else to consider is self-publishing/epublishing vs going with a indy publisher. You might be able to earn more for your work doing it yourself. Depends on what you want to do, naturally.

I can only talk as I find, so as I manage to land a good 3 book deal with a small independant that I can't fault, and has been working their butts off for me I'd recommend the small independant any time.

My feet are well grounded and I readily recognise that getting in with the big boys to start off with is mission impossible, in fact getting in with any reputable publisher is almost mission impossible these days, so I consider myself well off.

Actually, there is another consideration that people who go with a small publisher need to examine, and that is succession. Often small presses, micro-presses, Epresses, and presses that only utilize POD technology for their lists are one-person-shows.

What is an author to do if that person gets hit by a car? Or, what if they get sick? How old are they? Are they planning to retire in 2, 5, 10 years? If it's a small, but successful publisher how is it structured? Who owns it? Do the employees share ownership? is it family run? Or does one person own the company and run the show? None of those options are bad, but the last option could be troublesome if that person is suddenly unable to do their job.

You may think, oh well they'll just sell to someone else. No. It's not nearly that easy and it's a consideration that authors should understand.

Stefan de Freres said:

My feet are well grounded and I readily recognise that getting in with the big boys to start off with is mission impossible

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Every large publisher publishes hundreds of books by previously unpublished writers every year.

Which isn't to say that a large publisher is the right place for every project, by any means--just that if your project seems right for a large publisher, don't hesitate to pursue that goal.

Similarly, many projects are better suited to small presses or regional publishers or university presses. And other projects still are best suited to self-publishing. A lot depends on the particular nature of the project and the audience to whom it would appeal.

IceCreamEmpress said:

Every large publisher publishes hundreds of books by previously unpublished writers every year.

Which isn't to say that a large publisher is the right place for every project, by any means--just that if your project seems right for a large publisher, don't hesitate to pursue that goal.

Similarly, many projects are better suited to small presses or regional publishers or university presses. And other projects still are best suited to self-publishing. A lot depends on the particular nature of the project and the audience to whom it would appeal.

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It doesn't appear to make much difference if you go with small or large publishers these days of ebook and global distribution of print copy agents, but my own choice was made because I write Australiana fiction, so chose an Australian publisher, not because I couldn't get in with the big companies, or couldn't be bothered to try to.

All the traditional publishing methods are going out of style and soon there will be no use for hardcover or paperback books at all.
Sad fact, but true, as I for one still love walking out of a bookstore with a new book in my hand to take home to read in my armchair.

When I used to write in a more gobally read genre I was with one of the big companies, but as anyone would expect when you're a little fish swimming in a big pond, you're just another number in the crowd, but with a small publisher they work harder with you because they NEED your books to sell well.
Therein lies the difference between big and small as much as anything else.

I've never been a world class top seller, never will be unless every other writer quits the business leaving my books the only ones available but I've managed to earn a decent living from the industry for many years, and at my age, 60, I have no ambition to set the world alight any more.

Big are just far harder to get in with no matter who you are, so never turn your back on the small guys, and never view them as the 'sepping stone' for your writing career as it can come back to bite you on the bum, and that was the point I was attempting to make here.

Better $50- $80 grand a year income through small publishers than trying for ages to get into the big ones with no income to my way of thinking, and if you can earn the $50-80 grand per year you're doing well as a writer these days with so many books being produced globally, no matter how good or bad they may well be.

Just curious, but is it really possible to get fifty thousand dollars from a small publisher? I'm just wondering what the print run would have to be. Or are you thinking of having multiple books out at once? It seems that most of the e-publishers bring in an average of a couple of thousand, right?

In any case, I don't think anyone would argue that fifty thousand a year is worthwhile. I could write for a living on that much, so I'd be more than pleased with that. I'm just wondering how realistic it would be to expect that much even from a small press. Getting a large publisher isn't easy, either, but wouldn't normal expectations, even with a large publisher, be much less than fifty grand a year?

kaitie said:

Getting a large publisher isn't easy, either, but wouldn't normal expectations, even with a large publisher, be much less than fifty grand a year?

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In the US, yes, that would be a really excellent income for a midlist author with a major publisher. This poster is in Australia, about whose publishing industry I know basically nothing, so can't comment on that.

kaitie said:

Just curious, but is it really possible to get fifty thousand dollars from a small publisher? I'm just wondering what the print run would have to be. Or are you thinking of having multiple books out at once? It seems that most of the e-publishers bring in an average of a couple of thousand, right?

In any case, I don't think anyone would argue that fifty thousand a year is worthwhile. I could write for a living on that much, so I'd be more than pleased with that. I'm just wondering how realistic it would be to expect that much even from a small press. Getting a large publisher isn't easy, either, but wouldn't normal expectations, even with a large publisher, be much less than fifty grand a year?

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Oh yeah, it totally is. I'm with a small press for one of my books (The press is LOBSTER PRESS and my book comes out in the fall) and some of their titles have sold +50K copies. Additionally, many of their titles have been translated into dozens of languages (they have a very active foreign rights department) and so that would be additional revenue streams for the author.

ETA: I just noticed that you were talking "PER YEAR" while I was talking "PER TITLE." Just to clarify, the titles that sold +50K units mentioned above, did not happen in one year (I think all of them have been for sale for +2 years now, maybe +3) so perhaps earning $50K a year with a small press would be quite rare indeed.

I also know a couple people published with a micro press that operates on POD and eBook basis, and they've seen sales in the tens of thousands (units). There is a spectrum among small presses and micro presses. Some are amazing and get excellent sales, while others ... don't. ETA: I think you're right though, that the "Average" epublished book earns a couple thousand dollars.

kaitie said:

Getting a large publisher isn't easy, either, but wouldn't normal expectations, even with a large publisher, be much less than fifty grand a year?

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I have heard the figure of $20K to $30K touted as being the "average" that a commercially published book earns. But I'm really not sure where that figure came from originally, and if it's accurate.

I know details on advance averages for first timers, but I don't really know what an established writer could expect. It's an interesting question. I imagine it must vary quite a bit.

I also didn't think of foreign rights, though is this something the average small press handles?

kaitie said:

I know details on advance averages for first timers, but I don't really know what an established writer could expect. It's an interesting question. I imagine it must vary quite a bit.

I also didn't think of foreign rights, though is this something the average small press handles?

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I'd say you're right about that. I also don't know if a lot of small presses dole out advances under the same "rationale" that larger presses do. Where the larger presses tend to give advances that reflect what kind of sales they expect, smaller presses seem to hold on to their money and pay out royalties rather than advances. That might just be what I've observed and not really the norm.

As for foreign rights - that is an important thing for authors to consider. If a small press wants those rights, they should have a department that actively tries to sell them. And a lot of small presses do. But there are other small presses and micro-presses that take those rights and just hold them. Hoping that a book scout will approach (and from time to time they do). Most of the time 'foreign rights' hare handled by the authors agents though (if they have an agent, obviously).


ETA: There are people on AW who have been published by very well regarded small presses and also by the major players in the industry - FLUX and DAW for example, or SHADOW MOUNTAIN and ACE/ROC . I'd be very interested in hearing their experiences in terms of sales/foreign rights/advances (how they compare) ... etc.

swhibs123 said:

ETA: There are people on AW who have been published by very well regarded small presses and also by the major players in the industry - FLUX and DAW for example, or SHADOW MOUNTAIN and ACE/ROC . I'd be very interested in hearing their experiences in terms of sales/foreign rights/advances (how they compare) ... etc.

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Flux sold the French language rights to my series. As often happens with foreign rights, I made more from those than from the domestic US English language rights.

kaitie said:

Just curious, but is it really possible to get fifty thousand dollars from a small publisher? I'm just wondering what the print run would have to be. Or are you thinking of having multiple books out at once? It seems that most of the e-publishers bring in an average of a couple of thousand, right?

In any case, I don't think anyone would argue that fifty thousand a year is worthwhile. I could write for a living on that much, so I'd be more than pleased with that. I'm just wondering how realistic it would be to expect that much even from a small press. Getting a large publisher isn't easy, either, but wouldn't normal expectations, even with a large publisher, be much less than fifty grand a year?

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Allow me to educate you on the Australian system then if I may.

First of all, yes, I was talking about having multiple books paying royalties at the one time, but that's not the mainstay that goes into easily making up the kind of annual income.

We have a government funded Arts Council that gives artists, and authors etc. financial grants, my own this year being $50,000, which is the maximum under one grant system, but then there are other systems through the Arts Council for promotion of works to the artist/writer concerned
Then publishers can also receive grants from them to go toward advance royalty payments etc.
The minimum grant to an author is $10,000 for the year as a newbie writer if they are considered worth helping out by the Arts Council, but only if they consider the writer has something of a future.

Adding my own grants together without ever selling a single copy of any book I get published can amount to up to $65,000 per year, so it's not hard to achieve those sorts of incomes over here.

You must be an Aussie citizen and reside in the country to begin to qualify though, and there are a lot of do's and don't's, plus all sorts of catches invovled, but if you play the game right you are fine.
No grant money is handed out to a publisher for books from overseas, only Aussie produced.

Some people kick up about the grant system, but most believe art of various forms should be encouraged.

Just adding this bit because I'm laughing away here to myself....

Now you can all understand why I don't need to go hunting for the big publishers, but even if I did do I probably wouldn't end up much better of money wise, and I'm also in a niche market with my work which most non Aussies wouldn't get at all, it's all to to do with the way we Aussie country folk talk and do things, as I see one poster in another thread was poking fun at.
My books sell mainly to Australians due to the humour elements and political incorrectness etc.
They also enter into subjects on the more serious side that only apply to Australia and our system.
Australia, The lucky country, is the catch phrase here, and it certainly has been for me.
Oh, and if you don't believe what I have said here, just go into the online Australian Arts Council website and read up about it all for yourself there.

Stefan de Freres said:

We have a government funded Arts Council that gives artists, and authors etc. financial grants, my own this year being $50,000, which is the maximum under one grant system, but then there are other systems through the Arts Council for promotion of works to the artist/writer concerned.

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Goodness! Do we?

mccardey said:

Goodness! Do we?

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You mean to say that you didn't know about it?

Good God, I thought every Aussie writer or artist did lol.

Get you fingers onto your keyboard and get into the Arts Council grant application site under Literary.

You have to apply before a given cut off date each year or you miss out.

This is the URL for the login page to help you: https://online.australiacouncil.gov.au/grants/f?p=103:100

Stefan de Freres said:

You mean to say that you didn't know about it?

Good God, I thought every Aussie writer or artist did lol.

Get you fingers onto your keyboard and get into the Arts Council grant application site under Literary.

You have to apply before a given cut off date each year or you miss out.

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I'm very thick about things monetary. But I've found the site - I'm looking into it. So that's a start....

mccardey said:

I'm very thick about things monetary. But I've found the site - I'm looking into it. So that's a start....

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Good luck to you.
It's well worth the effort if you qualify.

That's where small Aussie publishers come into their own too, they will often direct you to these sorts of things because They want you to succeed so they stay in business by having more decent writers to choose from on their books.

Just a bit of fairly useless trivia for you ...
Per capita, Australians buy more books per year than any other country population.

Stefan de Freres said:

It doesn't appear to make much difference if you go with small or large publishers these days of ebook and global distribution of print copy agents, but my own choice was made because I write Australiana fiction, so chose an Australian publisher, not because I couldn't get in with the big companies, or couldn't be bothered to try to.

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Are there no big Australian publishers? I was sure that Australia has the same big publishers as the UK and the USA.

All the traditional publishing methods are going out of style and soon there will be no use for hardcover or paperback books at all.
Sad fact, but true, as I for one still love walking out of a bookstore with a new book in my hand to take home to read in my armchair.

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That's not true at all. Electronic formats are growing in popularity; but print books still make up the majority of books sold and I sincerely doubt that they'll ever disappear completely.

Better $50- $80 grand a year income through small publishers than trying for ages to get into the big ones with no income to my way of thinking, and if you can earn the $50-80 grand per year you're doing well as a writer these days with so many books being produced globally, no matter how good or bad they may well be.

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I know very few writers who could earn that much purely by publishing with the smaller presses.

Stefan de Freres said:

Allow me to educate you on the Australian system then if I may.

We have a government funded Arts Council that gives artists, and authors etc. financial grants, my own this year being $50,000, which is the maximum under one grant system, but then there are other systems through the Arts Council for promotion of works to the artist/writer concerned.

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Ah. So it doesn't matter what size your publisher is, because you're not earning your income from your publisher but from your country's grants system. Which renders much of your arguments about large vs small redundant.

Kmarshall said:

I've been looking into submitting to smaller, independent publishers. What are the pro's and cons v. agents. I'm somewhat wary. Smaller houses can mean smaller distribution. Am I limiting myself? How do you know? Some like Sourcebooks and Shadow Mountain sell great. Others are mainly epublishers or it's hard to track their sales. Belle Books looks promising to me, but I have concerns.

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"Independent" just means any house/imprint that isn't part of one of the big media conglomerates, so it can mean anything from a well-established advance-paying publisher who will get your books onto the shelves of stores, down to a one-man-band micro-press doing POD and/or ebooks on a royalties-only basis. Agents will definitely deal with the former; the latter, not so much. You have to assess each indie on its own merits, looking at its client roster, sales record, and so on.

Are you submitting to smaller presses because you have a niche product? Or because you have been rejected by agents? Or some other reason?

swhibs123 said:

Actually, there is another consideration that people who go with a small publisher need to examine, and that is succession. Often small presses, micro-presses, Epresses, and presses that only utilize POD technology for their lists are one-person-shows.

What is an author to do if that person gets hit by a car? Or, what if they get sick? How old are they? Are they planning to retire in 2, 5, 10 years? If it's a small, but successful publisher how is it structured? Who owns it? Do the employees share ownership? is it family run? Or does one person own the company and run the show? None of those options are bad, but the last option could be troublesome if that person is suddenly unable to do their job.

You may think, oh well they'll just sell to someone else. No. It's not nearly that easy and it's a consideration that authors should understand.

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I'm interested in this point. It's something I'd never considered before. I think I assumed that it would be relatively easy to sell. How do you determine this kind of thing? would it be inpropper to ask the owners? I see that there are several small publishers that are run by one person. I've been submitting my work to a few epublishers and they seem to be mostly one person operations.

Anne Lyle said:

Are you submitting to smaller presses because you have a niche product? Or because you have been rejected by agents? Or some other reason?

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I am submitting to small publishers becasue I was rejected by agents. I think I assumed that maybe finding a home with a smaller press that I might be able to make an agnet take a longer look at a future query. Now I'm getting the impression from this, and the other thread that is currenly discussing indipendent presses, that maybe that is a mistake? The opinions and informaition on this topic seem to be so contradictory.