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LazyDay Publishing

eqb

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So to rephrase my question, why the hell would you submit your clients' work to an untried publisher, run by people with no experience in the field? If you know of some great advantage to LazyDay, tell us. Because right now, they look like a billion other gormless startups that might vanish in a couple months.
 

epubagent

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Ms Hernandez,

Please don't take this wrong, but I am puzzled on how an agent is going to make a living off of sending their clients to small epubs when the general sales figures are around 200 or less.

Not to put you on the spot with your clients, but how does an agent justify this type of publication from a business standpoint? I mean, you do have bills to pay I assume...

No, this is not a full-time income which is why I still keep my day job. I don't do this for the glitz or glam, I assure you and I knew this when I decided to represent authors in digital pubs. Most of my clients are with the larger romance epubs, Ellora's Cave, Samhain, Loose Id whose sales figures are much higher than the smaller epubs and continuing to grow.
 

eqb

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And just so you know: I see far too many newbie writers who are desperate to get published, they fall in with the first outfit that expresses interest in their work. Six months or a year later, they are heartbroken, because that publisher vanished. Not a scam, but someone who just couldn't do the work. You, as an agent, should help guide them past these pitfalls.

So if you are steering clients to LD, you must see something promising there, beyond the usual, "We are good folks and want to give you a chance." If you know of these advantages, please let us know.
 

epubagent

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And just so you know: I see far too many newbie writers who are desperate to get published, they fall in with the first outfit that expresses interest in their work. Six months or a year later, they are heartbroken, because that publisher vanished. Not a scam, but someone who just couldn't do the work. You, as an agent, should help guide them past these pitfalls.

So if you are steering clients to LD, you must see something promising there, beyond the usual, "We are good folks and want to give you a chance." If you know of these advantages, please let us know.

I started replying to your rephrased question post and saw this one so I'm replying here for both. Hope that's okay.

Yes, there are many publishers who start out today and are gone tomorrow. Many are start-ups and I always steer my clients' works to the publishers with the stability and longevity needed to ensure a profitable career. I'm not steering clients to LD or any ONE publisher.

Some of my clients have contracts with Ellora's Cave, Carina Press, Loose Id, Dreamspinner Press as well as Noble Romance, Silver and Decadent Publishing. Some of their stories fit better with the smaller presses (novellas) or niche publishers (male/male with DSP) than with their larger ePubs (or have been rejected by their current editor for one reason or another) and being able to place them elsewhere has proven lucrative for them.
 

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No, this is not a full-time income which is why I still keep my day job. I don't do this for the glitz or glam, I assure you and I knew this when I decided to represent authors in digital pubs. Most of my clients are with the larger romance epubs, Ellora's Cave, Samhain, Loose Id whose sales figures are much higher than the smaller epubs and continuing to grow.

But still pretty low, and not growing terribly fast at least based on my data set.
 

thothguard51

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No, this is not a full-time income which is why I still keep my day job. I don't do this for the glitz or glam, I assure you and I knew this when I decided to represent authors in digital pubs. Most of my clients are with the larger romance epubs, Ellora's Cave, Samhain, Loose Id whose sales figures are much higher than the smaller epubs and continuing to grow.

Thank you for the answer on this one and the other. Glad you got the out clauses added. Hopefully, your and your clients won't have to use them anytime soon...
 

eqb

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Yes, there are many publishers who start out today and are gone tomorrow. Many are start-ups and I always steer my clients' works to the publishers with the stability and longevity needed to ensure a profitable career. I'm not steering clients to LD or any ONE publisher.

But you are submitting your clients' works to LD. You and LD have both said this. Why are you submitting *anything* to a publisher with no track record, and no experience? Could you please explain why?
 

brainstorm77

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Some of these posts seems like they should be in The Perkins Agency thread?
 

epubagent

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But you are submitting your clients' works to LD. You and LD have both said this. Why are you submitting *anything* to a publisher with no track record, and no experience? Could you please explain why?

As of this posting, I've made one submission to LD which has yet to be accepted or rejected by them and it was made because my client and I agreed to send this particular novella to smaller epubs. LD was among them.
 

mscelina

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LOL--my thought exactly again.

Here's what's relevant to this thread: this publisher has no publishing track record and no credentials to offer that would inspire a writer--much less an agent!--to submit to them at this point.

The rest--like why an epublished writer would need an agent--should go to the Perkins thread so we can be confused by it there.
 

brainstorm77

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As of this posting, I've made one submission to LD which has yet to be accepted or rejected by them and it was made because my client and I agreed to send this particular novella to smaller epubs. LD was among them.

What made the agency decide to dedicate an agent to e pubs?
 

brainstorm77

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LOL--my thought exactly again.

Here's what's relevant to this thread: this publisher has no publishing track record and no credentials to offer that would inspire a writer--much less an agent!--to submit to them at this point.

The rest--like why an epublished writer would need an agent--should go to the Perkins thread so we can be confused by it there.

Yeah :tongue I need to clarify my post better. After I saw you posted, I was like Geez!
 

jennontheisland

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Most authors I know who have agents don't use them for epubbed works of novella length, only for novel length work that's going to NY print houses. They say their agents don't find the investment of time compared to the royalties worth it. They also say their agents prefer not to represent work that isn't going to get them paid up front.
 

jennontheisland

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As of this posting, I've made one submission to LD which has yet to be accepted or rejected by them and it was made because my client and I agreed to send this particular novella to smaller epubs. LD was among them.
There are other smaller epubs who've been around longer.

Other than the facts that they are in business and accepting submissions, why did you include them on the list?
 

epubagent

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There are other smaller epubs who've been around longer.

Other than the facts that they are in business and accepting submissions, why did you include them on the list?

Yes, there are and those that allow for multiple submissions were on the same list and received the submission at the same time as LD. The decision was not made lightly. It was a project the client had shopped around for a while and could not place. Rather than see it a shelved, the decision was mutually made to submit it to smaller ePubs. Newer pubs were selected simply because the others had already been approached and turned it down for one reason or another. That's really all I can say about the decision.
 

M.R.J. Le Blanc

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But LD is an untried publisher run by people with no experience. How is this beneficial at all? Where's the value? Maybe she could have placed it some other time, maybe it just needed more work. Maybe it wasn't saleable and meant to be shelved. What good comes from sending a client's work to an inexperienced publisher?
 

jennontheisland

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Yes, there are and those that allow for multiple submissions were on the same list and received the submission at the same time as LD. The decision was not made lightly. It was a project the client had shopped around for a while and could not place. Rather than see it a shelved, the decision was mutually made to submit it to smaller ePubs. Newer pubs were selected simply because the others had already been approached and turned it down for one reason or another. That's really all I can say about the decision.
If the client had already shopped it to established publishers, why would the client need you to send it to untried ones? Were you not involved in the previous attempts at selling?

Was the "current publisher" who passed on the novella an epublisher? Had you sold the works with the current publisher to them, or had the client?
 

epubagent

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If the client had already shopped it to established publishers, why would the client need you to send it to untried ones? Were you not involved in the previous attempts at selling?

Was the "current publisher" who passed on the novella an epublisher? Had you sold the works with the current publisher to them, or had the client?

No, I was not involved in the previous attempts. It was a project the client had prior to my representing them. The current publisher does not accept novella-length and that was the reason for them passing on the project. Yes, I sold the works with the current publisher to them.

Novellas are just difficult to place and the client brought a list of pubs to submit to for me to add to the list of pubs I had already created.
 

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If I made a list of my best estimate of best-selling epublishers to least selling, there would be about 50 epublishers higher on the list. That is why it seems an odd choice. Shouldn't an agent specialised in epublishing start at the top of that area?
 

jennontheisland

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Novellas are just difficult to place and the client brought a list of pubs to submit to for me to add to the list of pubs I had already created.
From what I've learned, not with epubs, they're not.

So, this was an old project that all the other publishers had refused? And you're looking to sell it to someone who has no sales record?

This seems like a waste of time for everyone involved.

I still don't see why you'd bother trying to sell something to Lazy Day. You've given no reason other than the other established publishers with proven track records don't want it.

If people who know how to sell books don't think it's a viable project, what makes you think Lazy Day could possibly sell it?
 

mlhernandez

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The restrictive option on future books, I'm afraid is one the terms EC will not budge on.

Nothing to do with Lazy Day but...

Just wanted to say I'm kinda surprised about that. I'm an EC author and it only took one email to Raelene to have the option clause modified to one that only requires a first look at future works in a series. I know lots of other authors who had no problems negotiating their contracts, especially that option clause.
 

Dee Carney

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Nothing to do with Lazy Day but...

Just wanted to say I'm kinda surprised about that. I'm an EC author and it only took one email to Raelene to have the option clause modified to one that only requires a first look at future works in a series. I know lots of other authors who had no problems negotiating their contracts, especially that option clause.

QFT.

I don't know anyone who had a problem getting that clause removed, myself included. I don't have an agent either.