I am just pointing out some of the drawbacks of that logic because other people come to this thread to see if this is a publisher worth using or not. It's important that those people see positives and negatives. Yes, they might be willing to take a book that won't be accepted by the more well-established publishers, but there are negatives to that as well that must be considered to make an informed decision.
Absolutely. In no way is Rogue Phoenix Press, or any small epress that I know of, the way to stardom or even a stable paycheck, unless one is a porn whiz. One does not have a book picked up by a small epublisher and feel 'I've made it'. One has to sign a big publisher multi-book contract with many many figures in the advance section, to be able to say it. *Sometimes not even then, see Harry Conolly/David Wingrove examples below.
Or to be a self-pub whiz of the million-selling type.
One does not have a book picked up a by small epublisher and feel 'I am now a pro'. One has to sell a string of somethings at least to people the rang of Darkfuse, Journalstone, and now Crossed Genres too, or, if non-advance payers, then the top of those - Samhain, Carina - in order to be able with all honesty to say that one is perhaps becoming a pro.
My point was, attention whoring aside, that in my experience Rogue Phoenix Press never tried to scam me, never even tried to ignore any of my requests or be slow in communication, but instead behaved like a perfect little epress of their level. The level of 'not being a star', and of 'not really being an industry pro either', but the level of 'hit-and-miss-yet-honest' publishing.
There is no industry in existence that rewards excellence a 100% of the time. There is no manager school in existence that teachers managers how to make the right choice and recognize the future trend a 100% of the time. This is why not every song ever recorded and distributed is a hit, and not every genre book published by the big six is a hit, and not every summer movie invested in by Hollywood studios is a hit.
Everyone is hit-and-miss on a certain level. The higher level people have better polished 'successes' and 'failures', the lower level people--shoddily packaged 'successes' and 'failures'.
We all know music bands who started with tiny short-lived labels and badly recorded music played with cheap instruments and more gusto than technique. Thank you, tiny short-lived labels. Some of those bands grew into mainstream legends, others into minor sub-genre legends, and a third type forever remained on the neighborhood-jamming stoners level. Some of the tiny labels existed for a year, others grew into multinational money-machines. (And then the Internet came, but that's another story.)
Popular trends also change. A magnificent cool jazz album recorded in 1962 will take the world by storm. An even more magnificent jazz album by the same people, recorded in 1967, will be ignored, because the public's fickle tastes have shifted to a rock-funk trend. Sometimes, even when the industry recognizes and rewards excellence, the public itself does not; not even because the product is not objectively excellent, but because suddenly no one cares. Case in point - Harry Conolly's kick-ass Twenty Palaces "Jim Butcher meets Dashiel Hammett" series, or David Wingrove's bombastic Chung Kuo "Game of Thrones in the China-dominated cloned-assasin future, written a decade before Martin even began his first outline of political intrigue" series. Conolly and Wingrove started strong, and then the market changed and they got the ax, although the quality of their products was only getting better and better. Not to mention various objectively awesome horror masters like Graham Masterton, Shaun Hutson, Robert McCammon, Ramsey Campbell, and even the mighty Peter Straub, who all peaked very early, when the horror genre was peaking as well, and later, as they got better and better, their sales got tinier and tinier. Good thing Straub has a friend called Stephen King, with whom he collaborates periodically and then gets better paychecks.
You may be awesome, but not be recognized as such by the industry giants. You may be awesome, and be recognized as such by the industry giants, and still be ignored by the public. You may suck, but suddenly become a smash hit due to disturbances in the
force zeitgeist.
I suggest one thinks of Rogue Phoenix Press not as a huge label which will make one a star with jet flights from packed stadium to packed stadium, but as of that provincial little label organized by three stoners and their dad in south Norway, who are willing to distribute one's Indonesian disco-death metal demo even though Sony Music never replied to one's enthusiastic query. Or, one can stow the demo away into a drawer and continue working until one is ready to record a hit album, if the time ever comes. Or, perhaps remaining with this label forever and recording a new album twice a year for the limited underground fan-base is all one wants and needs. Every city has jazz, blues, and heavy metal enthusiasts who continue perfecting their strand of the craft, recording almost professional albums from time to time, refusing to try and become commercially successful, instead aiming to please themselves and the 200 other people who care about such things. Depends on temperament, I guess.
Anyway, I have things to finish writing this week, and writing sprawling replies in this thread is a frighteningly satisfying way to procrastinate, and I really must stop. I'll revisit this thread in like September, or something
I get sucked in too easily, especially when there's stuff to be done...