Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Choosing a Publisher

I am very pleased to announce that my book, Eye Contact, has sold to Decadent Publishing. I wrote Eye Contact last year and had been trying to figure out where it belonged ever since. I am thrilled to have it at Decadent. Isn't the cover pretty?

Anyway, I'm sure there will be more posts about it as it gets closer to publication. For right now, its very early.

But that led me to think about a question that plagues all writers, especially in the e-world, where do you send your books? How do you pick a place for your books?

For me, it has become a question that makes me a little bit nutty because I've been thrilled with my publishers, each one has offered a very different experience from the others. It's almost had to become a question of listening to my gut and hitting send.

Do you go by sales? By editors? By exposure?

How do you make your decision?

Oh! And Happy Thanksgiving!

7 comments:

nerinedorman said...

I've got a short list of small presses I will submit to, my choices based primarily on distribution, presence and cover design. There are a number I'll avoid as though they carry the plague, purely from the poor quality of their covers. These days when people browse online, a striking cover already does much to grab potential readers' attention.

But, depending on whether I've written with a particular small press in mind, I first run through the agent mill to see if I can possibly get representation for bigger publishers and, failing that, start submitting to my shortlist of small presses until I home the project.

I prefer not to keep all my eggs in one basket, so to speak.

JoAnne Kenrick said...

Hi Rebbecca! I am loving the new cover xx Good luck with the release!

Distribution and presence, reputation and cover design are all important factors that should be considered when choosing a publisher, in my opinion. I mean, what good is it having a brilliant book when you have a sub-standard cover or are only stocked in estores that no one uses. For example, in a perfect world, your book should be available in the Kindle, Nook and Sony stores -- they are the three major ereader devices these days. On a basic level, you should at least be available in BooksonBoard, AllRomance and Amazon Kindle IMO. If you are not, you are loosing out on sales as much as a bad cover will kill your sales.

*sigh*
Being an author isn't about writing a good story anymore. Now we have to be great business people, too, and designers and PR! So of course it helps if your publisher already does a lot of that -- a nice leg up :) so to speak!

Rebecca Royce said...

Thank you ladies, you bring up some good points and all things I try to think about.

Sandra Sookoo said...

There are times when I target specific pubs just for the chance to work with an editor. I have three editors that I'd love to have work on my projects. Next is cover art then distribution. After that, it doesn't much matter to me. I've had really bad editors and even worse cover art. Those two things I care about strongly.

I will say in 2011 I'll be even picker as the state of e-pub quality declines.

Rebecca Royce said...

I haven't seen the state of e-pub quality decline. Interesting!!

Unknown said...

Congratulations Rebecca!
The cover looks great.
All the best,
RKCharron

Annie Nicholas said...

Lovely cover. I can't wait to read this one. I've heard the reaction from our CPs and know it's fantastic.

As to publishers, at first, anyone who'd take me. Now? I'm not so sure. The publishing industry is changing so much and so fast. I'm kind of sitting back and watching at the moment.