YouWriteOn.com / New Generation Publishing / Legend Press

Hi Anna;

Re: My novel was accepted early last year. Publication is in April this year.

First of all, congratulations on getting your novel accepted by a 'traditional' publisher. I'll look out for it in April.

It seems you've done well having bypassed the more traditional route of going through an agent first and then having the agent finding a publisher. A process I believe can take upwards of two years (if one’s lucky enough). Perhaps, could you please share with us the timeframe it took you, after you finished your mss, to find the publisher? Also it seems your publisher has been much quicker than other traditional ones, who I understand normally take around 18 months to publish a book. Also, I, for one, would be interested in hearing about your experiences with the marketing and PR end of your publisher's efforts. For I've heard some 'horror stories' from authors selected by well known mainstream publishers.

I would agree with Paul's comments, especially that ... Just being accepted and published by a publisher doesn't mean you have a good book.... For, again, I've read some pretty awful stuff written by authors who reportedly received six figure advances and had been edited and vetted by their mainstream publishers and handlers.

I'm one of the YWO published authors who feels that this was a good deal (for me at least), especially not having to wait years and years to see my novel in print, if I'd gone the traditional agent-mainstream publisher route. I don't begrudge YWO the 40 quid, for the ISBN fee, and the two month publishing time-frame was wonderful. I did my own, re-re-writing, checking, had the book critiqued, professionally edited and beta read, before submission (most mainstream authors do it, or should do it if they want to garner some sales.) I had the covers professionally designed. Sure, I'll have to do my own marketing/PR but some of my mainstream author friends have do quite a bit of it any way, mostly to continue keeping the sales going. The other drawback they tell me is that if the publisher sees a lack of sales or returns from the bookstores, they'll stop publishing the book and are happy to see it fall into their 'back-list' and concentrate their efforts on new projects. The authors are then stuck, at least for the length of their contracts. Their books may then only be found in the used bookstores. Also, I believe the majority of sales are on-line anyway, even if the novel's in real book stores. The reason being that now people are finding it easier/convenient to browse in the on-line bookstores (with the 'look inside the book' feature) and orders above a certain amount are mailed postage free.

I wish you good luck in the publication, marketing and sales of your novel.

Best,
Waheed (Wally) Rabbani
Grimsby, Ontario, Canada
The Azadi Trilogy, Book I: Doctor Margaret's Sea Chest
http://home.cogeco.ca/~wrabbani

WallyR said:

I would agree with Paul's comments, especially that ... Just being accepted and published by a publisher doesn't mean you have a good book.... For, again, I've read some pretty awful stuff written by authors who reportedly received six figure advances and had been edited and wetted by their mainstream publishers and handlers.

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The thing is though, what may be awful to you may be great stuff to another. What's considered 'good' and 'bad' is extremely subjective, and not even the publishing houses always get it right. But here's the thing; most publishing houses have enough experience to know the difference between a saleable book and a non-saleable book. So releasing a title that flops is probably seldom. Just because you don't like the book doesn't mean the book is bad.

WallyR said:

I'm one of the YWO published authors who feels that this was a good deal (for me at least), especially not having to wait years and years to see my novel in print, if I'd gone the traditional agent-mainstream publisher route. I don't begrudge YWO the 40 quid, for the ISBN fee, and the two month publishing time-frame was wonderful.

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Waiting is par for the course in publishing; it's a reality everyone accepts. It's just a slow business. I understand that it can be hard to wait, but then self-publish. If for the fact that you control all your rights and it's your name on the copyright page. A friend of mine wrote a YA fantasy series, and self-published through Lulu. She did some promotion but not a lot; she can't afford expensive ventures, and she's disabled so loads of traveling and work is out of the question. Last year she was approached by a mainstream publisher who wants to re-release the entire series nationally. Now this is like a shot-in-the-dark chance, but I can guarantee you this likely wouldn't have happened if she was published by someone like YWO.

WallyR said:

Sure, I'll have to do my own marketing/PR but some of my mainstream author friends have do quite a bit of it any way, mostly to continue keeping the sales going.

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I think you're misunderstanding your friends here. Yes, many authors participate in marketing and PR, but there is a lot of promotion publishers do that authors simply can't. ARCs, getting reviews, catalogs, these are all things no author can do on their own, and any publisher who relies solely or mostly on the author to promote the book is a big warning sign that the publisher is incapable of doing what mainstream publishers do. You can't get reviews to put on a book that's printed two months after acceptance. You can't get a book into a catalog that's printed two months after acceptance. It's simply not enough time to do the promotion publishers can and do for each of their authors. Promote all you like, but the reality is that you don't have access to the channels that a good publisher has.

WallyR said:

The other drawback they tell me is that if the publisher sees a lack of sales or returns from the bookstores, they'll stop publishing the book and are happy to see it fall into their 'back-list' and concentrate their efforts on new projects. The authors are then stuck, at least for the length of their contracts.

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Good contracts have a clause that allows the rights to revert back to the author in cases like you've just described. So no author is 'stuck'.

WallyR said:

Also, I believe the majority of sales are on-line anyway, even if the novel's in real book stores. The reason being that now people are finding it easier/convenient to browse in the on-line bookstores (with the 'look inside the book' feature) and orders above a certain amount are mailed postage free.

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You may believe that, but the fact is there is no proof to support this, and plenty to support otherwise. Yes online sales are growing, but unless you're published by an epublisher the majority of sales is still happening in stores.

I do wish you luck with your book, and hope you stick around AW.

WallyR said:

Hi Anna;

Re: My novel was accepted early last year. Publication is in April this year.

First of all, congratulations on getting your novel accepted by a 'traditional' publisher. I'll look out for it in April.

It seems you've done well having bypassed the more traditional route of going through an agent first and then having the agent finding a publisher. A process I believe can take upwards of two years (if one’s lucky enough).

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That prt of the process can take days: it's working on a book to get it into a publishable form that takes the time.

Perhaps, could you please share with us the timeframe it took you, after you finished your mss, to find the publisher? Also it seems your publisher has been much quicker than other traditional ones, who I understand normally take around 18 months to publish a book.

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While I don't want to step on Anna's toes, from what I gather from her, it took some years for her to find a publisher, with several near-misses along the way. And the gap from acceptance to release has been around 18 months.

Also, I, for one, would be interested in hearing about your experiences with the marketing and PR end of your publisher's efforts. For I've heard some 'horror stories' from authors selected by well known mainstream publishers.

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I've heard worse horror stories from those published by inexperienced publishers, and by vanity houses.

I would agree with Paul's comments, especially that ... Just being accepted and published by a publisher doesn't mean you have a good book.... For, again, I've read some pretty awful stuff written by authors who reportedly received six figure advances and had been edited and vetted by their mainstream publishers and handlers.

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It's horses for courses, as has already been pointed out. The thing is that mainstream publishing does guarantee that there's been a process of editorial selection, and of editorial guidance, while vanity publishing skips those two essential steps so long as the writer is prepared to pay.

(snipped for brevity here)
Sure, I'll have to do my own marketing/PR but some of my mainstream author friends have do quite a bit of it any way, mostly to continue keeping the sales going.

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You're right--they have to do some. But not all. And those writers who are published by mainstream presses do have the support of a nationwide sales team, full distribution, and proper warehousing facilities to get the book onto book shop shelves across the country; and a dedicated PR team which might not get signings and book tours, but will ensure that all appropriate publications receive review copies and press releases. All a vanity published writer has is himself. To do all that.

The other drawback they tell me is that if the publisher sees a lack of sales or returns from the bookstores, they'll stop publishing the book and are happy to see it fall into their 'back-list' and concentrate their efforts on new projects. The authors are then stuck, at least for the length of their contracts. Their books may then only be found in the used bookstores. Also, I believe the majority of sales are on-line anyway, even if the novel's in real book stores. The reason being that now people are finding it easier/convenient to browse in the on-line bookstores (with the 'look inside the book' feature) and orders above a certain amount are mailed postage free.

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The majority of book sales, for novels at least, are still made in real bookshops. If you check out the Booksellers' Association website you'll find lots of data on that.

I wish you good luck in the publication, marketing and sales of your novel.

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Anna's made her own luck by writing a terriffic book, and spending the time to ensure that it's published properly by a reputable publishing house. She might not top the bestsellers' lists as a result but her book will almost certainly sell well, because it'll be in bookshops, it's got a cracking cover, and all the backup it needs to do that with minimal involvement from her--she'll be writing her next book while her publisher ensures everything happens as it should.

Hi MRL;

Thank you for your quick comments. My responses are as follows:

1) RE: The thing is though, what may be awful to you may be great stuff to another … So releasing a title that flops is probably seldom. Just because you don't like the book doesn't mean the book is ….

No, I wasn’t basing my opinion on just my readings. On those books, I’ve heard the same comments from other friends and we noted that a large number of these books were “flops,” not just a few. Hence, these types of occurrences aren’t ‘seldom.’

2) RE: Last year she was approached by a mainstream publisher who wants to re-release the entire series nationally. Now this is like a shot-in-the-dark chance, but I can guarantee you this likely wouldn't have happened if she was published by someone like YWO.

I don’t get the logic here. Why couldn’t the same thing happen to a YWO published author?

3) RE: ARCs, getting reviews, catalogues, these are all things no author can do on their own …. You can't get reviews to put on a book that's printed two months after acceptance …

My mainstream author friends feel that these ARCs, catalogues, etc., do not do much for their sales. Very few new hard cover books have these reviews and those that do, are mostly quick one liners that all sound the same. I, for one, ignore them while trying to decide whether or not to buy a new book. True, the paperback editions, published a year or so later, do have some serious reviews. But then, YWO or other POD publishers could add them as well, in later editions, couldn’t they?

4) RE: Good contracts have a clause that allows the rights to revert back to the author in cases like you've just described. So no author is 'stuck' ….

The authors are ‘stuck’ until the contract is cancelled (which is not a good thing to do in the publishing industry) and then they have the task of finding another publisher and start the process all over again (if they are able to). I believe most of these authors simply give up on their book, as a lost cause, and move on to the next one. There is no such problem in POD publishing.

Thank you again and good luck in your writing and publishing.

Best,
Waheed (Wally) Rabbani
Grimsby, Ontario, Canada
The Azadi Trilogy, Book I: Doctor Margaret's Sea Chest
http://home.cogeco.ca/~wrabbani

Sigh. I get just as frustrated as the next person at the issues in this business, and there are a LOT of problems with so-called "traditional" publishing. I have no interest in acting as an industry shill. But there's a reason it developed as it did, and I've had enough with the revisionist history. Let me emphasize that I'm not specifically going after Random, or Wally, or any author at all; I truly sympathize with what you've had to deal with. I've been there. But a lot of the stuff brought up here is just inaccurate, and quixotic as it might be, I'm going to take one more tilt at the windmill to explain why.

WallyR said:

Hi Anna;

Re: My novel was accepted early last year. Publication is in April this year.

First of all, congratulations on getting your novel accepted by a 'traditional' publisher. I'll look out for it in April.

It seems you've done well having bypassed the more traditional route of going through an agent first and then having the agent finding a publisher. A process I believe can take upwards of two years (if one’s lucky enough). Perhaps, could you please share with us the timeframe it took you, after you finished your mss, to find the publisher? Also it seems your publisher has been much quicker than other traditional ones, who I understand normally take around 18 months to publish a book.

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This is an example repeatedly used by people who go the vanity publishing route: it's faster. I didn't have to wait a few years to see it! That's true. And the reason they didn't have to wait to see their books is because very, VERY little was done before publishing them. Even at a small commercial (or "traditional," whatever the hell that means) press, the following has to happen before your book gets published:

1. It gets accepted. This is an important step, even for people who think it's a silly hurdle to clear. It's not. Many, many books which authors think are ready to go aren't ready, even in basic terms of grammar and punctuation (I'll come back to this point later). When your book is accepted by a "traditional" publisher (not necessarily an agent, about whom I have considerably mixed feelings), it means that other people ALSO think the book has value, not just you and your immediate family members and friends and the random person down the street who NEVER likes these books but REALLY liked yours, so it's obviously good...

2. It goes through initial edits. An excellent editor, impartial and separate from you and the aforementioned family members, friends, and random people down streets, is critical to the ultimate success of a published book. My first novel made an absolutely absurd assumption about how fast a fully armored and supplied medieval-era army could move from place to place. Was I sloppy, lazy, ridiculously ill-informed? No: in a 115,000 word book, I had overlooked a non-central but important issue in my writing. My editor caught it, we came up with a solution, and the result is a much better book than what would have been the case otherwise. This circumstance is repeated both on large and small issues during the editing process...and that process takes time.

3. It goes through copyedits. This is not the same thing as an initial edit; it is yet another editor, impartial and separate from your first editor, you and the aforementioned "other people," who checks your manuscript carefully for inconsistencies, typos and other grammatical problems. Such things will pop up even if you've reviewed your own work a thousand times--because it's your work, and you tend to make the same errors re-reading a section as you did when you wrote it the first time (there's a scientific explanation for this phenomenon, in fact). The result of this stage is a truly professional manuscript, and this too takes time.

4. The manuscript is typeset and prepared for publication, including design of the cover and inleafs. This is usually done by an in-house or closely affiliated design center which creates a professional look for the book--especially in the design of the cover, which fairly or not is a major driver of book sales. And to be perfectly honest, most authors are not good judges of what a professional-looking cover for their books would be, any more than a typical artist would be a good judge of a spectacular story inspired by his/her art. An author's input is important, but with few exceptions an author's full blown involvement in art design is deeply problematic. This stage, as with stages 1 - 3, takes time.

5. Review copies are sent out to various reviewers, journals, magazines, newspapers and other forms of media. Reviews are also a big driver of sales...and your neighbor's endorsement, while downright, er, "neighborly" of him or her, has absolutely no value to the reading public at large. Unless his name is Stephen King, say. Again, it takes time for a book to be reviewed.

6. The publicist / sales team for the publisher gets to work. It's true that authors are responsible for much more of their own publicity than used to be the case these days, but the idea that publishers do absolutely nothing at all is absurd, even from the publisher's perspective. After all the investment the publisher made in stages 1 - 5, hoping against hope that the reading public will find out about this great, polished book is not a financially smart thing to do--and that's why publishers have sales reps, and publicity teams, and catalogs, and positive relationships with both online and offline booksellers which no individual author can possibly have on his/her own. Again, publicising and selling a book to booksellers takes time.

Put all of this together and I think it's obvious why "traditional publishing" takes time--indeed, must take time. Of course it's frustrating to wait even longer before your beloved book sees print. But it's a lot more frustrating to see a work which could have been good produced in an amateurish, unfinished way, and that's what the vast majority of vanity press books are: amateurish and unfinished.

Finally on this point, all of this is totally, utterly and completely free to you, the author. You spend not one cent for these steps to be taken, unless you choose extra costs (buying bookmarks, promotional materials, that sort of thing). In the main, the money always, and must always, flow to you. Your job was to produce a good and professional book. It is the publisher's job to publish and promote it.

Also, I, for one, would be interested in hearing about your experiences with the marketing and PR end of your publisher's efforts. For I've heard some 'horror stories' from authors selected by well known mainstream publishers.

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I've talked about this above: the "horror stories" you're referring to are far, far less frequently heard with mainstream publishers than vanity presses. There's no comparison. For an example, I refer you to the Absolute Write thread "America, Publish."

I would agree with Paul's comments, especially that ... Just being accepted and published by a publisher doesn't mean you have a good book.... For, again, I've read some pretty awful stuff written by authors who reportedly received six figure advances and had been edited and wetted by their mainstream publishers and handlers.

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This is a favorite claim by many authors attacking the "traditional" route, but be fair: truthfully, how many times have you encountered this? How much of the stuff has been truly awful? How much of it looks like it was vetted by a fifth grader? I'm happy to agree that biographies of Madonna and Princess Di are hardly examples of deathless prose, but even there, do the books at least look professional?

Now take a look at the usual vanity press fare. Again, no comparison.

I'm one of the YWO published authors who feels that this was a good deal (for me at least), especially not having to wait years and years to see my novel in print, if I'd gone the traditional agent-mainstream publisher route. I don't begrudge YWO the 40 quid, for the ISBN fee, and the two month publishing time-frame was wonderful.

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Not from the perspective of producing a truly professional book. See above.

I did my own, re-re-writing, checking, had the book critiqued, professionally edited and beta read, before submission (most mainstream authors do it, or should do it if they want to garner some sales.)

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Again, I mean no disrespect here, but your checking isn't and wasn't enough. In the third sentence of the excerpt from your book on your own website, you're missing a period; in the fifth paragraph, you incorrectly end a quoted piece of dialogue with a period instead of a comma. Is this because you're an unprofessional writer? Clearly not--your work seems very interesting and well-conceived. But it's also not quite ready to go, and I guarantee that YWO didn't do anything to fix those obvious problems. A "traditional" press, with at least two editors, would have had a much better shot at catching those errors.

I had the covers professionally designed. Sure, I'll have to do my own marketing/PR but some of my mainstream author friends have do quite a bit of it any way, mostly to continue keeping the sales going. The other drawback they tell me is that if the publisher sees a lack of sales or returns from the bookstores, they'll stop publishing the book and are happy to see it fall into their 'back-list' and concentrate their efforts on new projects. The authors are then stuck, at least for the length of their contracts. Their books may then only be found in the used bookstores.

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This is a huge oversimplification, and it's accelerating the actual process of books disappearing from the stores considerably. A major publisher will get you into a lot of stores, and your books will often sell differently in different markets, thus leaving those markets at different times depending on circumstances. And most important, you're not required to be at the location yourself to sell your work, as is the case with vanity or self-publishing. Even small presses with limited distribution don't expect you to take loads of books in the trunk of your car and head to gas stations and senior centers to sell your wares, which vanity presses practically require you to do.

Also, I believe the majority of sales are on-line anyway, even if the novel's in real book stores. The reason being that now people are finding it easier/convenient to browse in the on-line bookstores (with the 'look inside the book' feature) and orders above a certain amount are mailed postage free.

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Even if this is true--and I think it too is a vast oversimplification, because there are a number of people who still spend little time online--the essential point is that "traditional" publishing makes its books available in both places. Vanity and self-publishing is almost exclusively online, and that cuts out a big swath of one's potential readership.

I wish you good luck in the publication, marketing and sales of your novel.

Best,
Waheed (Wally) Rabbani
Grimsby, Ontario, Canada
The Azadi Trilogy, Book I: Doctor Margaret's Sea Chest
http://home.cogeco.ca/~wrabbani

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[/quote]

I wish you the same, and I truly mean no disrespect at all for your work. "Traditional" publishing is far from perfect. But I have grown very tired of the illogic and misrepresentations thrown around as fact when it comes to vanity publishing. It's a destructive and unhelpful trend, and it needs to stop.

best way to see if this works?

come back in a year with your results of this brave, new experiment.

WallyR said:

My mainstream author friends feel that these ARCs, catalogues, etc., do not do much for their sales.

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Then how do your mainstream author friends' books get into stores if their publisher doesn't send out a sales team armed with a catalog of their upcoming releases?

True, the paperback editions, published a year or so later, do have some serious reviews. But then, YWO or other POD publishers could add them as well, in later editions, couldn’t they?

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If, and this is a huge "if", they actually sell enough to warrant a second, third, etc. printing. Most POD/self-published/vanity-published/choose your term books don't sell enough to even recoup the costs of the first. One vanity publisher we've discussed on AW ad nauseum has many, many of its authors excited they've "sold" the first book of a series but are crestfallen when the publisher tells them they aren't going to release the second book because of lackluster sales. Many authors in commercial publishing don't see the release of a second book, either; just the nature of the business.

The authors are ‘stuck’ until the contract is cancelled (which is not a good thing to do in the publishing industry) and then they have the task of finding another publisher and start the process all over again (if they are able to). I believe most of these authors simply give up on their book, as a lost cause, and move on to the next one. There is no such problem in POD publishing.

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I'm a little confused on this, so bear with me.

Once a contract terms/times out on a book, the author simply isn't free to take the book to a different publisher. Many commercial publishers won't touch a book that's had its first publication rights sold unless it's willing to take the chance on a reprint based on phenomenal sales. An author jumping from house to house to house with the same book is going to be sorely disappointed, even in POD.

And actually, an author moving on to a second book is how it really should work. While the first is being shopped around or actually in print, it's not good for an author to pin all of their hopes on that first title.

WallyR said:

1) RE: The thing is though, what may be awful to you may be great stuff to another … So releasing a title that flops is probably seldom. Just because you don't like the book doesn't mean the book is ….

No, I wasn’t basing my opinion on just my readings. On those books, I’ve heard the same comments from other friends and we noted that a large number of these books were “flops,” not just a few. Hence, these types of occurrences aren’t ‘seldom.’

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That may be, but compare your group of friends to the buying public. That's still a drop in the bucket, as it were. No book is going to please everyone, yours and mine included. That's a fact of life. However, commercial publishing houses are very good at determining what's going to sell to the general public and what isn't. If they've invested in a book, they have to be sure they're going to get their investment back. So yes, maybe it wasn't yours and your friends' cup of tea - nothing wrong with that. But the publisher believed in it enough.

WallyR said:

2) RE: Last year she was approached by a mainstream publisher who wants to re-release the entire series nationally. Now this is like a shot-in-the-dark chance, but I can guarantee you this likely wouldn't have happened if she was published by someone like YWO.

I don’t get the logic here. Why couldn’t the same thing happen to a YWO published author?

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Because YWO is a vanity outfit, not a self-publisher. In my friend's case, yes she no longer has her first publishing rights. But she still owns her book in all respects. She can easily say yes to a commercial publisher who wants to pick up her book. A YWO author cannot just turn around and accept another publisher's offer while still under contract with YWO. It's highly unlikely a commercial publisher would want to bother with a book that's already under contract with someone else.

WallyR said:

3) RE: ARCs, getting reviews, catalogues, these are all things no author can do on their own …. You can't get reviews to put on a book that's printed two months after acceptance …

My mainstream author friends feel that these ARCs, catalogues, etc., do not do much for their sales. Very few new hard cover books have these reviews and those that do, are mostly quick one liners that all sound the same. I, for one, ignore them while trying to decide whether or not to buy a new book. True, the paperback editions, published a year or so later, do have some serious reviews. But then, YWO or other POD publishers could add them as well, in later editions, couldn’t they?

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With no disrespect meant, what they feel is irrelevant. The fact is all commercial publishers use these things. And they wouldn't still be using them if they didn't work. I'm surprised at the catalogue comment especially though. Being in a catalogue is absolutely vital for store placement; otherwise the store isn't going to know of your book and thus not order it. Pretty much every book I have on my bookshelf right now has reviews on it from a variety of different places and people. True, not everyone is swayed by reviews but the fact is there are those that are. I don't put a huge emphasis on them myself, but when I see an author I like has given glowing reviews to a book, it gives it a little more clout in my eyes. No publisher is going to pass up a potential advertising tool, and I think your friends might be underestimating those efforts.

YWO might, but why bother? Vanity/POD outfits are not respected in the publishing world, so no one's going to really care. Most legit reviewers won't even review a POD book, so any reviews you do get don't do your book much good anyway. Then there is the second edition. No book is guaranteed reprints. Not everyone is Tolkien. So counting on this is probably a bad idea.

WallyR said:

4) RE: Good contracts have a clause that allows the rights to revert back to the author in cases like you've just described. So no author is 'stuck' ….

The authors are ‘stuck’ until the contract is cancelled (which is not a good thing to do in the publishing industry) and then they have the task of finding another publisher and start the process all over again (if they are able to). I believe most of these authors simply give up on their book, as a lost cause, and move on to the next one. There is no such problem in POD publishing.

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It's done all the time. No publisher wants to hold onto a book that is no longer selling, and no author wants their book holed up by a publisher if its no longer selling. That clause is beneficial to both sides. And the reason it is such a task to take it somewhere else is because 9 times out of 10 it's a worthless venture. Very few publishers will pick up a book that's already been published unless there's a solid fanbase. Second publishing rights are not as valuable as first publishing rights. Once the book has run its course, more often than not it is time to move on to the next story. It's not so much of a lost cause as it is just time to move on, and if you've hooked up with a commercial publisher your book likely has done fairly well. Besides, once that first book is published you should have already finished writing another There's nothing I have ever seen in vanity/POD publishing that's valuable that you can't do via self-publishing.

WallyR said:

2) RE: Last year she was approached by a mainstream publisher who wants to re-release the entire series nationally. Now this is like a shot-in-the-dark chance, but I can guarantee you this likely wouldn't have happened if she was published by someone like YWO.

I don’t get the logic here. Why couldn’t the same thing happen to a YWO published author?

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Not to put too fine a point on it--because micropress-, self-, and vanity-published books are viewed by large numbers of people as not ready for prime time. Certainly, some self-published books get picked up by larger houses, but much of the time, if you look closely at these success stories you'll either find a special circumstance--the author had PR contacts, for instance--or an extraordinary number of sales--on the order of thousands within the first year or so of release.

The odds are stacked against books pubbed YWO-style--that is, with minimal production standards, publicity, and distribution. The average book from one of the POD self-pub services sells around 150 copies for just those reasons. And because of the complete lack of editing and editorial gatekeeping, no one is going to consider a YWO-pubbed book a true publishing credit.

3) RE: ARCs, getting reviews, catalogues, these are all things no author can do on their own …. You can't get reviews to put on a book that's printed two months after acceptance …

My mainstream author friends feel that these ARCs, catalogues, etc., do not do much for their sales. Very few new hard cover books have these reviews and those that do, are mostly quick one liners that all sound the same.

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I couldn't disagree more. My publisher is HarperCollins, both my last two books were hardcovers, and those ARCs, catalogs, and so on had a profound effect on my sales. The ARCs generated reviews of my books in PW, Booklist, and a number of SF/fantasy publications--and not one liners, either. The reviews, and also the catalogs and the special booklets handed out at Worldcon and the trade advertising, persuaded booksellers to order and stock my books so that readers could buy them off the shelves. As Old Hack pointed out, the majority of book sales happen in physical bookstores, so for volume sales, you need a balance of online and offline availability. The extensive pre-publication marketing done by commercial publishers (for ALL their books, no matter how obscure) is what makes that balance happen.

I am not an exception, either. I am as obscure a writer as you're likely to find. Even in my own field, few people have heard of me, and my print runs and sales are not large. Yet I received the same care in design, distribution, and the basics (if not the bells and whistles) of pre-publication marketing as HC's most famous authors.

True, the paperback editions, published a year or so later, do have some serious reviews. But then, YWO or other POD publishers could add them as well, in later editions, couldn’t they?

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Reviews are done on the initial edition--whether that be hardcover or paperback--not on the re-issue. And books from YWO-style publishers rarely get serious reviews because reviewers have learned to be wary of them.

4) RE: Good contracts have a clause that allows the rights to revert back to the author in cases like you've just described. So no author is 'stuck' ….

The authors are ‘stuck’ until the contract is cancelled (which is not a good thing to do in the publishing industry) and then they have the task of finding another publisher and start the process all over again (if they are able to). I believe most of these authors simply give up on their book, as a lost cause, and move on to the next one. There is no such problem in POD publishing.

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Plenty of digitally-based publishers have life-of-copyright contracts that don't include adequate reversion clauses. Commercial publishing contracts also are generally life-of-copyright, but tend to have more precise reversion language, which you can often negotiate to be even more specific--for instance, obliging the publisher to take the book out of print once sales fall below a minimum level, after which the author can regain his or her rights. You're much better off with the latter than with the former.

It's interesting to me how advocates of small press- and self-publishing often in one breath accuse commercial publishers of snatching books out of print too quickly if they don't sell, and in the next claim that commercially-published authors are at a disadvantage because their contracts extend indefinitely at the publisher's pleasure. Not only are these positions contradictory, they aren't necessarily true.

- Victoria

victoriastrauss said:

Not to put too fine a point on it--because micropress-, self-, and vanity-published books are viewed by large numbers of people as not ready for prime time. Certainly, some self-published books get picked up by larger houses, but much of the time, if you look closely at these success stories you'll either find a special circumstance--the author had PR contacts, for instance--or an extraordinary number of sales--on the order of thousands within the first year or so of release.

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Couldn't agree more. In the case of my friend, it was the sales that helped get the attention of a publisher. I can't recall the size of the publisher, but still that's pretty major. And she knows just as well as anyone how lucky she was to get that opportunity.

Hi Phoenix;

RE: Again, I mean no disrespect here, but your checking isn't and wasn't enough. In the third sentence of the excerpt from your book on your own website, you're missing a period

Thanks for reading my website and noting the missing period and comma. I just checked my printed book and they are all there. It seems that the website conversion of my word document by the MSPublisher software might have missed them.

Also, thanks for your detailed comments. I see your point that the mainstream books do indeed get a lot of going over by the army of in-house staff and for that reason they should be closer to a perfect product. But it is nevertheless a disappointment when some of these books aren't up to the standard one would expect. I am sure, most YWO authors had their books professionally edited, like I did, and I understand YWO will allow us to edit the books, later, for any discrepancies found by the readers. This is another advantage of POD publishing.

Wishing you all the best in your writing and book publishing.

Best,
Waheed (Wally) Rabbani
Grimsby, Ontario, Canada
The Azadi Trilogy, Book I: Doctor Margaret's Sea Chest
http://home.cogeco.ca/~wrabbani

anneboleyn said:

I've just been reading back over some of these posts (hello, I'm a newbie by the way) and am fascinated/horrified..and relieved.

I cancelled my agreement just a few days ago after the email update. All it said in the contract was you had to give 30 days notice. Well, I had no idea when my book was to be published in order to figure out when the 30 days would be! I didn't pay anything though. Does anyone think I might have a problem here? I'm not expecting a confirmation until after the weekend but I'm a bit uncomfortable if I don't get one; I'd like to know my book is off their system...

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Hi Anneboleyn and nice to see you here. It was weeks before I had confirmation of my termination - the usual timescale for YWO/Legend. The contract says you can cancel on 30 days notice at any time. Did you receive the last email from Legend Press which I posted earlier here? It might be worth responding to that also with Terminate My Agreement in the subject line.

If you didn't receive this let me know and I will forward you a copy as we have our contact emails!

I have found all of the recent posts on this thread informative and fascinating. There's too much for me to pick up on individually but I'm beginning to notice a trend.

1. Those who have their manuscripts turned into books by YWO and its ilk don't appear to realise that there's a huge difference between self-publishing (which can be viable if you're writing a niche publication or something with only local appeal) and vanity-publishing where they pay someone else money to do the job for them and end up with something that is of inferior quality.

2. YWO people never question. They believe Ted (I think that's the guy's name) is an expert on publishing. Is he? I don't know. I don't believe from what I've heard he's a crook but I think he's as ill-informed as the people he deals with. They seem happy to pay to be published. Why? Anybody can do that. YWO publishes anyone who wants to be published. In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.

3. Those who go with YWO are impatient. They admire YWO just because it does the job quickly (tortoise and hare, anyone?) and seem not to care that the end product is shoddy. Waiting can be frustrating--don't I know it--but one needs to stop and think whether rushing into something that everyone who knows anything about publishing--step forward Victoria Strauss--advises against is wise.

4. Those who go with YWO forget that being 'published' by YWO doesn't validate their writing abilities whatsoever or helps them develop a writing career. No-one who is published by YWO seems to discuss writing as such, nor do they understand what editing means. They say they get people to read through their manuscript for errors but a real editor understands what makes a manuscript readable which is something else entirely. I'm not sure what a beta-reader is but I'd rather have an experienced editor to go though my work with a thick red pen. I've read plenty of vanity-published novels where the spelling and punctuation is pretty good but the writing is still usually prolix and dull, the dialogue wooden, the plot cliched, the characters stereotypes; the whole thing lacking originality. Some are better than others but most are not be up to traditional publishing standards.

6. People who are happy with YWO have a very skewed idea about traditional publishing. They have no idea that such publishers and agents are swamped with submissions from the good, the almost good, the poor, the unreadable, the deluded and the downright insane. They can only publish a small percentage of them. They have so many scripts to read it takes a long time.They haven't the time or the energy to write soothing, encouraging letters/emailsopr make friendly phone calls explaining detailed reasons for rejection. (If you get one, though, rejoice even if it is to say no!) Experienced agents and editors can usually tell from the covering letter alone whether the fat script beneath it is worth opening. They are not indifferent, uncaring or rude people. They are busy people. Yes they can make mistakes but not often. They'd soon be unemployed.

5. And finally. I find that those people who have nothing but praise for YWO are not interested in reading other writers or the way publishing and book-selling works. It's very much part of the same process. The reason why a publisher's catalogue is so important to book shop book buyers is that they can see what's coming up a year ahead and make their choices and order in enough quantities. ARCs are essential. Big chains don't sell in tens, they sell in their hundreds and their thousands. (You have to have worked in a bookshop as I have to see how certain books fly off the shelves and others stick there gathering dust.) YWO supporters don't want to see the whole picture objectively.

In their counter-arguments I get a whiff of Hamlet's "the lady doth protest too much."

Traditional publishing ain't broke. It doesn't need fixing.

Anna,
For those new to the writing world (not necessarily to writing) YWO provided a supportive environment for. on the whole, constructive criticism, and somewhere to display their work and see whether it was well received, or any good. That worked well. Then the publishing fiasco came along and suddenly Ted went quiet, rarely responding to questions either on the forum or by email, leaving many confused and abandoned.

There were a chosen few who went through the system efficiently, but those left behind became despondent with both Ted and YWO, including myself.

I feel sad that YWO will not be the same. It was a good community, but now all that are left are those who got published.

Random knows what it was like, he was one of them, until eventually he managed to get Ted's attention and was able to get published.

It was all done on "he who shouts loudest" and those who were more polite or tolerant were ignored.

I know all this has been said before, many times. But the fact it the YWO community was good and the fact that it will no longer be the same is a great shame.

Anna Magdalena said:

I have found all of the recent posts on this thread informative and fascinating. There's too much for me to pick up on individually but I'm beginning to notice a trend.

1. Those who have their manuscripts turned into books by YWO and its ilk don't appear to realise that there's a huge difference between self-publishing (which can be viable if you're writing a niche publication or something with only local appeal) and vanity-publishing where they pay someone else money to do the job for them and end up with something that is of inferior quality.

2. YWO people never question. They believe Ted (I think that's the guy's name) is an expert on publishing. Is he? I don't know. I don't believe from what I've heard he's a crook but I think he's as ill-informed as the people he deals with. They seem happy to pay to be published. Why? Anybody can do that. YWO publishes anyone who wants to be published. In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.

3. Those who go with YWO are impatient. They admire YWO just because it does the job quickly (tortoise and hare, anyone?) and seem not to care that the end product is shoddy. Waiting can be frustrating--don't I know it--but one needs to stop and think whether rushing into something that everyone who knows anything about publishing--step forward Victoria Strauss--advises against is wise.

4. Those who go with YWO forget that being 'published' by YWO doesn't validate their writing abilities whatsoever or helps them develop a writing career. No-one who is published by YWO seems to discuss writing as such, nor do they understand what editing means. They say they get people to read through their manuscript for errors but a real editor understands what makes a manuscript readable which is something else entirely. I'm not sure what a beta-reader is but I'd rather have an experienced editor to go though my work with a thick red pen. I've read plenty of vanity-published novels where the spelling and punctuation is pretty good but the writing is still usually prolix and dull, the dialogue wooden, the plot cliched, the characters stereotypes; the whole thing lacking originality. Some are better than others but most are not be up to traditional publishing standards.

6. People who are happy with YWO have a very skewed idea about traditional publishing. They have no idea that such publishers and agents are swamped with submissions from the good, the almost good, the poor, the unreadable, the deluded and the downright insane. They can only publish a small percentage of them. They have so many scripts to read it takes a long time.They haven't the time or the energy to write soothing, encouraging letters/emailsopr make friendly phone calls explaining detailed reasons for rejection. (If you get one, though, rejoice even if it is to say no!) Experienced agents and editors can usually tell from the covering letter alone whether the fat script beneath it is worth opening. They are not indifferent, uncaring or rude people. They are busy people. Yes they can make mistakes but not often. They'd soon be unemployed.

5. And finally. I find that those people who have nothing but praise for YWO are not interested in reading other writers or the way publishing and book-selling works. It's very much part of the same process. The reason why a publisher's catalogue is so important to book shop book buyers is that they can see what's coming up a year ahead and make their choices and order in enough quantities. ARCs are essential. Big chains don't sell in tens, they sell in their hundreds and their thousands. (You have to have worked in a bookshop as I have to see how certain books fly off the shelves and others stick there gathering dust.) YWO supporters don't want to see the whole picture objectively.

In their counter-arguments I get a whiff of Hamlet's "the lady doth protest too much."

Traditional publishing ain't broke. It doesn't need fixing.

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This sort of thing is really, REALLY common among vanity/self-pub presses along with many micropresses that use the POD business model. It's all about getting YOU, the author, to shoulder the majority of the financial burden and for the publisher/printer to take little or no risk, since they don't do any publicity and try to encourage the author to buy their own books for resale.

When that fails they pull out the usual mantra of the Big Conspiracy To Keep The Little Guy Down, the "we're saving trees!" argument and then finally the "We're changing the WORLD!" discussion.

After years of reading on this board and having my own bad experiences in publishing, I can truthfully say that nothing much has changed. There ARE no such things as "traditional publishers", there are only those that will put some money into your book and those that won't. And those that won't are usually the first to suggest you buy their editorial services; their advertising services or offer you a great deal on purchasing your own book for family and friends at a GREAT discount...

But time does have a way of changing a viewpoint... all the "happy" YWO authors are invited to come back in a year and show off their successes and we'll see who was correct...

M.R.J. Le Blanc:
Because YWO is a vanity outfit, not a self-publisher. In my friend's case, yes she no longer has her first publishing rights. But she still owns her book in all respects. She can easily say yes to a commercial publisher who wants to pick up her book. A YWO author cannot just turn around and accept another publisher's offer while still under contract with YWO. It's highly unlikely a commercial publisher would want to bother with a book that's already under contract with someone else.

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Just to clarify, my understanding of the YWO/Legend Press contract was that if an author found that another publisher wanted to pick up their book, then YWO/Legend Press would agree to terminate their contract to allow the author to do so. I'd assumed that this was what the 30 day termination notice period was there to allow, but having not read the whole contract, I can't be certain. If that is the case, then in theory if an author got noticed because of their efforts, they should be free to go with that new publisher.

MM

This is the part of the contract re termination

. Author Rights of Cancellation

This Author may terminate this agreement at any time and for any reason as long as a 30-day e-mail notice is given to the Publisher. Email notification of termination of agreement by the Author should be sent to [email protected] and add ‘Terminate my Agreement’ in your email header. If you have achieved publishing success elsewhere through YouWriteOn free publishing, please let us know in your email as we will do our best to help promote your book further.

Old Hack said:

Do you have a physical address for YouWriteOn? If so, you could send a letter there via registered post which would give you something a little more solid, to show what you'd done.

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{{{{personal information redacted}}}}

Finchlark:
This Author may terminate this agreement at any time and for any reason as long as a 30-day e-mail notice is given to the Publisher. Email notification of termination of agreement by the Author should be sent to [email protected] and add ‘Terminate my Agreement’ in your email header.

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Thanks for that, Finchlark. To be honest, I'd send a signed letter by registered post in addition to the email, solely because there can be some question as to whether an email is sufficient to terminate a contract under English law, whereas a signed letter sent with proof of posting and receipt will always carry greater evidentiary weight.

Is there any provision in the contract that states what happens after termination (i.e. payment of outstanding royalties, making clear that all rights and obligations cease as between the parties on the date of termination)?

MM

That address looks like a house address to me. And the email is a personal one. Not very encouraging or porfessional.

Is there any provision in the contract that states what happens after termination (i.e. payment of outstanding royalties, making clear that all rights and obligations cease as between the parties on the date of termination)?

MM[/quote]

Nothing about terms on or after termination. Only states royalties will be paid 1st April and 1st October each year. There's nothing about failure to comply on the part of the publisher either.

Anna Magdalena said:

That address and email numbers looks like a private adress to me. Not very encouraging.

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Agreed but that is YWO address

That's what I meant, petec, spelling error notwithstanding!

I've found that same address here. I can't find any others on the internet. But that link of mine does also give a phone number, just in case anyone wanted to phone and find out if it was the right place to write to.

WallyR said:

Hi Phoenix;

RE: Again, I mean no disrespect here, but your checking isn't and wasn't enough. In the third sentence of the excerpt from your book on your own website, you're missing a period

Thanks for reading my website and noting the missing period and comma. I just checked my printed book and they are all there. It seems that the website conversion of my word document by the MSPublisher software might have missed them.

Also, thanks for your detailed comments. I see your point that the mainstream books do indeed get a lot of going over by the army of in-house staff and for that reason they should be closer to a perfect product. But it is nevertheless a disappointment when some of these books aren't up to the standard one would expect. I am sure, most YWO authors had their books professionally edited, like I did, and I understand YWO will allow us to edit the books, later, for any discrepancies found by the readers. This is another advantage of POD publishing.

Wishing you all the best in your writing and book publishing.

Best,
Waheed (Wally) Rabbani
Grimsby, Ontario, Canada
The Azadi Trilogy, Book I: Doctor Margaret's Sea Chest
http://home.cogeco.ca/~wrabbani

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While I appreciate your respectful and polite tone, we're talking about the enormous pitfalls of POD, not the potential "disappointments" of traditional publishing. I've been not just disappointed but downright horrified at the vanity press stuff I've seen, and I hope this wasn't the result of "professional" editing, or someone's selling a bridge to someone else. I think you would be surprised how many POD authors have their work "professionally" edited in any case. They (like you) are impatient, right? Why waste time with editing? They've already written spectacular, error-free books!

Moreover, you're not supposed to wait for readers to find "discrepancies" in your book. By the time that happens it's already too late; you've then established yourself as a less than professional writer. And more to the point, this represents a major misunderstanding of how publishing works: books are not a collaborative endeavor by the time they arrive on the bookshelves (or, in the case of YWO, some Internet site). Readers are consumers; you are providing them a product, a form of entertainment. Every mistake you make, every error you miss, jars your readers from their enjoyment of the entertainment they've bought from you. Make enough such mistakes--and it doesn't take a whole heck of a lot--and your readers will not only close the book and stop reading, they'll never buy your books again, and if they're particularly annoyed, they'll make sure to tell all their friends (maybe even some strangers!) not to buy anything by you either.

All of which returns us to the basic premise: the only advantage to POD publishing is that you control the whole product (and as I previously mentioned, this is itself a shaky "advantage" at best). But a POD book does nothing to further your career, it does nothing to communicate your vision to a wider audience, and it all costs money--when you already should have done your job by pouring your sweat and tears into the book itself. If you want only to hold a printed copy of your work in your hands, perhaps to distribute it to a few friends and family members, I might suggest Kinko's as a cheaper option than YWO. I won't say more on this topic, because it's evident to me that you've got your mind made up. But make no mistake: POD just isn't real publishing under current circumstances, and personally I would want more for my work. That's not snobbery--it's a fact backed up by people more experienced than me on these boards. I'd advise you to consider the recommendations borne of that experience before spending more time and energy on something which simply isn't what you believe it to be.