Publisher Offers On Spinward Fringe and Comments On The Industry

I've been self publishing for the better part of a decade and I'm still learning about promotions and the publishing industry. Even my experience with a comic book company (that was very good at self promo thanks to a shameless CEO), and a design / promo firm didn't give me half the modern tools I have now.

While promoting a book is something I can do, it's still something I have to continue learning about from experimentation, observation and consideration. The lesson I've learned is that there's always some new way to get the word out, and it's important to decide early on how much effort you'll put into each method.

Now it's not just the self published authors like me who are left to do their own promotions. The vast majority of published authors don't get book tours, speaking engagements, television appearances, or advertising booked by or paid for by their publishers. It's all up to them. The few publishers who still dole out significant advances seem to expect the authors to spend most of that on promotions. Even an award winning novelist I had the chance to speak to at length a while ago flatly told me that the publicist his publisher assigns him works seemingly half heartedly until the book comes out and then promptly disappears, leaving him to find opportunities to promote the book himself. Good thing the novelist in question is exceptionally good at building buzz.

I just turned down a third offer from a publisher who wanted to publish the First Light Chronicles Omnibus and the first three Spinward Fringe books. It happened early last week, first there was an enthusiastic phone call and then some details in an email. They wanted the International book, ebook, film, television and audio book rights. In response I sent them my sales numbers for the last quarter and didn't hear back. I called them the next day and eventually got to speak with the person who had originally gotten in touch with me only to hear her say that their authors didn't make a quarter of what I did and it would take two years for them to republish the re-branded books. As it is I barely make a living on what those books earn, to hear that I would have to pull them off the market and stop writing full time just so I could get publishing credit for work that already has a following wasn't encouraging.

The conclusion? The Spinward Fringe Series will remain independent. All three offers on those books have been insulting, so I'm doing another editorial pass on the whole series with a couple of proof readers so they can stand up to and surpass publishing standards. If a publisher makes an offer on something else, say a horror novel, then they're welcome to it but the Spinward Fringe series is staying right where it is.

It seems to me that published authors are do it yourselfers to practically the same extent as I am these days, and with the difficulty publishers are having with adjusting to the arrival of the eBook, I wonder where their laziness and backwards thinking will take them.

RL

[How important is it that your books come from a well known publisher? Is a logo important to you when you're book shopping?]

Spinward Fringe: Publisher Offers $3,500 US For Rights

Some writers dream of a publisher coming along and saying; "Hello! We want to buy your book! We'll publish them, you can do signings, get recognition for your work and be eligible for awards!"

To be honest, I wouldn't mind. Despite my love of being independent, able to do whatever I like on the page and release what I like where I want, when I want, the living isn't fantastic. I'm very thankful for the income and support I have, don't get me wrong, but even with stable EBook sales on one website (Mobipocket my books aren't actually popular anywhere else), I'm barely making a living. Amazon sales are nonexistent (literally, I sold one book last week. Hope you're enjoying that Jason! Thanks for picking it up!). Aside from that I haven't been able to get a single vendor for IPhone EBooks to pick up the First Light Chronicles or Spinward Fringe series. Most of them just ignore my emails.

Now, I'm not belly aching, like I said, I make a very small living that's provided to me by Mobipocket customers and a couple of donators to whom I'm so thankful I can't put it into words, you make it possible to do this full time. I'm just explaining what was behind me responding to an email from a publisher yesterday (after the announcement that my science fiction books took the top 4 spots in Mobipocket's Science Fiction section yesterday, again, thank you Mobipocket and even more; thank you readers!!).

I replied to their email and got a call from one of their account reps, who put the offer on the table. I thought that was a little unussual, to be honest. Normally an offer on a book or a series takes a bit longer, or so I thought. According to him that's not the way it works though, and after a little prodding I got a little more info and eventually he even sent me a proposal contract.

For legal reasons I won't post the publishers name or the contract online but I can tell you that the publisher was not in the US or world top 10, and I'll give you the gist of the contract:

They offered a $3,500.00 US dollar advance on the entire Spinward Fringe series that included Freeground, Limbo, Starfree Port (actually in the First Light Chronicles Series, which the publisher didn't seem to notice), Resurrection + Awakening (they refferenced the ISBN assigned to the combined book available through Amazon.com, so I'm assuming they consider this one volume, not two books), and Triton. The royalty they were offering was also very, very low but would grow as they sold more books to a size that I still thought was really very low, but not quite as bad. The contract included printed books, EBooks, Television, Film and all other resulting merchandise, so I'd really be selling all rights and control.

I would also be obligated to work with an editor on the existing work (how much revision they wanted wasn't mentioned), and they'd take over branding, the covers (which could be a good thing), and publicity.

You know, I'm not in great financial shape, it's true, but after looking at the contract I wouldn't give them the rights to ONE book for those terms, let alone the WHOLE SERIES! Not only that, but I would be surrending a great deal of creative control and if I'm not mistaken I'd have to submit the book I'm working on now (Spinward Fringe Frontline), to them for approval, editing and then they'd probably drag their feet on getting it to press and into Ebook format IF they wanted to publish it at all. People waiting for it now would most likely not see it for a year if it hit the market at all.

Aside from all that, I'd probably get that advance check and not see any more funds for a very long time, so I'd probably have to get a full time job again, which would take a lot of time away from my writing. Suffice it to say, I told politely told them that I wasn't interested and haven't heard a so much as a peep from them since.

Now, I realize that conventional publishers invest a lot of money in a book, that new authors are very high risk, and a lot of books that seem to do well still lose money or take a very long time to turn a profit. I'm not completely new to the publishing industry and I'm aware that offers, big and small, don't come often especially if the author doesn't have any kind of agency representation.

So, I'll say it now;

If there's a publisher or agent out there who can personally offer or get me a real, fair deal for the sale of any of these books and/or exclusive rights for development or publishing then I'll be happy to consider your fair offer. I'm a reasonable person, all I want is to see these books remain accessable to the public, reasonably priced, to maintain the creative freedom I need to tell a good story and I want to make enough to write full time, pay my bills and taxes. If they want to saddle me with an editor who can help me tell an even better story, or maybe suggest some good technical tune ups and tricks, that's fine too. I'm always looking to improve my craft.

I don't want awards, I don't want a mansion on the hill with two Ferrari's in the driveway, and I don't want someone to hold my hand while I'm writing or suggest sweeping revisions that make my work fit conventional moulds, even if it'll make the books more marketable. I get emails from people who enjoy my work on a weekly basis, I sell just enough to survive and have a couple of people who have so much faith in me that they donate some of their hard earned money, and I have the most intelligent, emotionally invested editor I could dream of.

Spinward Fringe Frontline will be out in April, the momentum, the story, and the readers demand it. You'll see that book on Mobipocket, maybe even on Amazon.com.

RL

P.S.

I'm all right with not being wealthy, I'm also all right with never getting another offer again as long as I have the support of my readership. I owe everything to them and truly believe that if I remember them I'll make the right decisions creatively and monetarily. Please voice your opinion of this situation below, I'd like to hear your comments.