Big Five or independent?

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PrairieWoman

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Here's a stupid question: I'm a new author, and my debut romance is attracting interest from both a small publisher and a Big Five ebook imprint (which is asking for revisions and is suggesting a series). Depending on contract details, is it better to go with a Big Five? Do I need an agent? Thank you!
 

Aggy B.

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It kind of depends on which small pub and which Big Five imprint.

Unless there is something horribly wrong with the Big Five contract or absolutely spectacular about the small press, I would go with the Big Five imprint, but even that has no guarantee of success for your book. (It does usually mean more resources and experience though.)

If you want an agent, now would be the time to send a query with the subject line "OFFERS OF PUBLICATION RECEIVED for My Fantastic Novel Title". Make sure you name where the offers are coming from. Only query folks you really want to work with (because now is not a time to be looking at agents you aren't sure about).

If you aren't interested in getting an agent, you don't have to have one, but they can add a lot of value to contract negotiations that more than makes up for the 15% they get as payment.
 

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First, congrats! Second, there are very few truly stupid questions.

If you are considering a Big Five arrangement with some revisions, you'll probably need an agent. A good one can help you navigate contracts, rights, advances for better terms than you'd probably get on your own. A Big Five contract tends (but not always) to be more lucrative than small press.

Can you write a series? Always a good question, whichever you choose.

Re: the small press. Have you researched them to near-doxxing? Not all small presses are equal. Some are friendly little powerhouses I'd be thrilled to work with. Some are toxic waste dumps. Not only look them up in AW's 'Beware, Recommendations & Background Checks' forum, but see if they're listed at Preditors & Editors. Find out their business locale and see if they've initiated or been the subject of lawsuits. Have the principals had previous bankruptcies or other business failures? Do they fly off the handle in social media? Are their other books selling, are their other authors happy?

These are all things to check out BEFORE you say 'yes' to a publisher or agent.
 

PrairieWoman

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Thanks very much for the replies! The small publisher has a good reputation and if I hadn't received encouragement from the bigger company, I would have jumped at the offer. But as a newbie, I was looking for confirmation that a Big Five was a better way to launch a career.
 

aruna

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First, congrats! Second, there are very few truly stupid questions.

If you are considering a Big Five arrangement with some revisions, you'll probably need an agent. A good one can help you navigate contracts, rights, advances for better terms than you'd probably get on your own. A Big Five contract tends (but not always) to be more lucrative than small press.
.

Not necessarily. Big Five contracts are almost always for only 25% royalties. Small publishers usually offer much more -- up to 60%. If they can match that with good promotion, it can work very well.

Thanks very much for the replies! The small publisher has a good reputation and if I hadn't received encouragement from the bigger company, I would have jumped at the offer. But as a newbie, I was looking for confirmation that a Big Five was a better way to launch a career.

I had that choice too: HarperCollins offered a digital contract at the same time that a small e-publisher did. I went with the indie, and haven't regretted it for a moment.
 

aruna

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Also, it's very unlikely that you'll find an agent for a digital-only Big Five contract. I know I didn't -- they just weren't interested. Do the Big 5 publisher offer an advance? If not, it might not be as easy as it sounds. I had the Society of Authors look over the contract and offer suggestions for change.
 
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PrairieWoman

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The small publisher has a sliding scale that starts at 30% of list; the Big Five will likely be 25% of net but could be higher because there likely won't be an advance.
 
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(grin) I qualified it because I have seen one or two stupid questions on writing forums over the years.

Aruna is right, in that the type of Big Five imprint vs independent can be critical. Aruna has a great publisher. A friend of mine in Australia published a very good fantasy through a Big Five digital imprint (via agent); her sales have been okay but not great. Other agents I know refuse to look at Big Five digital imprints for fantasy and science fiction, because their sales are still unproven. This includes Tor's digital novella venture, BTW, a fact that boggled my little mind.
 

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I'm with a small press for 35% on digital. However, remember to do your math: 20% or thereabouts from a large house who's willing to do specific things to market and promote your book can be a lot nicer than 35% of not much.

An agent, if s/he's worth the commission, will negotiate for you, and have a lot more pull on contract terms than you can ever have by yourself. Most big houses are reputed to want to stick to their boilerplate contract, but even houses who "never" negotiate actually do. With agents. Not with the likes of puny us.

That said, a bad or lazy or uncommitted agent is worse than none at all. I've had two--believe me, you really don't want to go there.

I've also heard of some writers who've sold to big houses, where the advance is all the money they've ever seen from the book. That said, a decent advance may be more than you'll make on that title from a small press at 35% over a number of years.

May your work find favor (sounds as though it already has)!
 

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You can get a rough idea of Amazon e-book sales from different publishers at salesrankexpress.com - it might be a good idea to type in the two publishers and see how their books tend to do. You could also look at the last few releases from each publisher to see how they've done.

Overall, I don't think the e-imprints of the Big 5 are doing as well as one might think they would do. At the same time, they're almost certainly more stable than most e-pubs.

There are a handful of e-publishers that I would work with in preference to an e-only imprint from the Big 5, at least right now. Samhain for sure, and for me, writing m/m, Dreamspinner and probably Riptide. I haven't tried all the other e-pubs, obviously, but I think I'd try the Big 5 imprint over any other e-pub.

But it's not a clear choice, to my mind.

ETA: Maybe add Entangled to the list of e-pubs I like better than Big 5 e-imprints. I've enjoyed working with them, but haven't seen sales results yet. And they only work if you're writing very trope-driven books, I think.
 
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For romance, you may have more options than for science-fiction and fantasy. Possibly less money, though.

Take my friend in Australia. Her book could be considered an urban fantasy sweet M/M romance. Her Amazon numbers on salesrankexpress are not that good, about where I'd put sales of similar works from Dreamspinner or Loose Id. But because she published through a Big Five SFF digital imprint, she gets a different kind of readership, different marketing, and different reviews than if she'd published it as a romance. She may not be earning quite as much per-book, but her longterm *opportunities* seem much greater with the Big Five imprint. I don't know if she got an advance - knowing her agent, I suspect so, and that it was a good one. That already lifts the book out of range of most romance e-pubs, who tend to offer tiny advances if at all.

It's all in the comparisons. My agent won't touch my friend's Big Five imprint: she says we can aim even higher by slanting the work toward a mainstream print fantasy willing to offer a strong advance and better marketing support.
 

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It depends on what you write: a genre that is "dead" in NY (print) has a higher chance of doing poorly to just okay--and you're selling a handful of copies at 25% net. Going epub or self-pub will net a larger profit even if you only sell 500 copies.

I'd also say that not all Big Five digital first imprints are the same. Look at their releases for the last six months and track their sales. Googling to see the response on Goodreads, Amazon, and blogs can be another guage of the imprint's prominence amongst readers (and reaching the right readers).
 

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FWIW, I've had a fine experience working with a big-5 e-first imprint. Much larger exposure than with my other publisher and better sales.

YMMV, of course.
 

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So if you guys could chose between, say, Samhain as an e-pub and Forever Yours (Hachette e-imprint), which would you chose?
 

aruna

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An agent, if s/he's worth the commission, will negotiate for you, and have a lot more pull on contract terms than you can ever have by yourself. Most big houses are reputed to want to stick to their boilerplate contract, but even houses who "never" negotiate actually do. With agents. Not with the likes of puny us.
)!

HarperCollins did negotiate with me on the digital contract. The Society of Authors made some suggestions to improve the contract, and HC agreed to every one of the changes except one. (They negotiated with me, not with SoA!)
So if you do go with the Big 5 one, make sure you have someone knowledgeable look over the contract. You don't have to accept the boilerplate.
 
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My agent took on a no-advance contract from Loose Id, and would have done the same for Samhain if the latter's interest had been more solid. I'm well aware how rare that is, and very grateful. But it does happen.

So yes. An agent's help is not impossible in this situation.
 

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My agent was ambivalent about representing my m/m - she said she'd keep an eye out with the bigger publishers, but if I stayed with the e-pubs I'm already with she didn't think she could do enough to justify her 15%. (And, I assume, the 15% wasn't enough for her to be super-interested in getting a piece of the action).

I'm happy to keep working with e-pubs without an agent. If you aren't reasonably confident about reading and understanding a contract, I guess some help would be good, though.
 

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There are still not a lot of reputable agents dealing with M/M romance. More than there were 5 or 10 years ago, certainly. That's been one of the tradeoffs with me seeking a Big Five route for the fantasy M/M/F novel: trimming out most of the explicit bits. If the agent can't place it and I self-publish, I'll do so with the more graphic version.
 

PrairieWoman

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Thanks!

For someone who is flailing in the dark, I really appreciate the responses to my 'stupid' question. Obviously there are no easy answers and you've given me a lot to think about.
 

amergina

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So if you guys could chose between, say, Samhain as an e-pub and Forever Yours (Hachette e-imprint), which would you chose?

It really depends. I don't know that much about Forever Yours. I do know Samhain gets good results for its authors. It's certainly a publisher I have my eye on placing books at. They do all the things I like to see e-pubs do.

I did get an advance for my Intermix (Berkley's e-imprint) books. It wasn't huge huge, but it also wasn't a token. I'm glad I did have an agent for that contract, though.

Interestingly enough, my agent encouraged me to be less coy about the m/m sexual attraction in my otherwise mainstream fantasy novel.

The industry is changing, which is pretty much the norm in publishing!
 

brainstorm77

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My agent took on a no-advance contract from Loose Id, and would have done the same for Samhain if the latter's interest had been more solid. I'm well aware how rare that is, and very grateful. But it does happen.

So yes. An agent's help is not impossible in this situation.

How does the agent get paid in a situation like this?
 

Cathy C

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Also remember to look at the fine details. A 25% of list price can actually be MORE than 60% of net, depending on what's removed from the list before paying royalties.

I agree that some small presses give more love than some Big 5 imprints. It all depends on what you want. :)
 
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