Things you need to know before signing.
1-Is the company a POD (print on demand) or do they do actual print runs? If they are POD kiss bookstore shelves goodbye except if you are lucky and get in a local bookstore.
2- Marketing and promotion, what are they going to do for your book.
3- Why no advance? No advance typically means they have no faith in your book (could be wrong in this case but I am speaking in generalities)
4- Review copies, how many and to where are they going to send it. Why do you have to pay for galleys?
5- Distribution, through who, to what extent.
6- Why can't you sell your copies, people have no right to tell you what to do with your own personal property. If they are so worried about 5 less sales directly to them it means their sales are very low.
7- Promotion, what are they going to do to back your efforts and how much do they expect/require you to do. If they say all, run! Without their support, sales will be greatly minimalized.
8- Family, after my dealings with PA it gives me an icky feeling. Publishers are a business not a family circle and should be treated as such. It gives you a false set of trust and loyalty. Makes me want to ask, what are you hiding?
9- What and from what source are their expected sales?
10- Editing, level and scope. How long are they going to spend on your book. If they only give you a few days to run through it, they don't care about quality.
11- book format, is it trade paperback, hardcover, paperback, mass paperback.
12- support, who do you get to talk to, is it one person, is it a nameless e-mail (such as author support)?
13- Talk to the editor who would deal with your book. Make sure you have one editor and who is willing to work with you through the whole process.
14- Cover art, are they using clipart and photoshop or is there an actual artist creating it. Costs anywhere between 1000-5000, typically at least.
15- Cost of buying rights.
16- What rights are you exclusively granting? Printing rights is a no brainer, but what other rights are you signing away. Movie, radio, dramatic, e-book, audio, foriegn, library - all these things you have to weigh and consider. ( I think you meant these as subsidary rights so if that is what you meant ignore this one.)
17- Net sales is not the same as Cover sales. You will never know what will be counted as net sales because they detract all of their expenses first. So if the book is cover price at 20, it costs 5 dollars to print, they had to give a 50% discount for the book to sell, then it cost another 2 dollars shipping it, you are only getting paid for 3 dollars of the actual coverprice, which would be 30 cents a book. (Obviously this is a blanket figure and probably wouldn't be so little if the book costs that much.)
18- Cost of book, what is the coverprice going to be?
19- Percentage of discount given to bookstores. Standard is anywhere from 45%-55% Sometimes even higher! But never lower.
20- Return policy, do they have one? If they don't, kiss bookstore shelves good bye.
21- Royalty Statements. Ask to see a sample so you can know what to expect. If it tells you little to no information, request in contract that they give you detailed ones, or go elsewhere. If they say they do not have access to the information, they are full of it!
That's all the ones I can think of. Perhaps someone will come up with more.
New companies are hard to deal with because they haven't developed those all important relationships with distributors and bookstores, make sure they are working hard to get your books in bookstores otherwise you might as well be self published. If handled right it can be good to go with them, but they have to be working their butts off to make a good impression on the industry.
Good luck, I hope this helps. It doesn't mean they are bad to go with, but you should excercise caution and ask a whole lot of questions and keep everything they send you in case they don't follow through.
Sara
Oh and one more thing, if it isn't on the beware and backgrounds thread, ask there, if anyone has dealt with them and had a good or negative experience, chances are you will find them there!
