Looking for some advice on the topic of what to do when you have a finished novel and have no idea what comes next. Where do you begin to explore options about getting published? Any tips of what to look out for and what to avoid?
The options are you can seek out a traditional publisher, but if you’re tired of their endless rejection letters, you can pursue self-publishing as an option. Some people prefer that because the author owns 100% of the copyright. You can seek out vanity publishers to do the job for you - but you’d have to pay ridiculous amounts of money and they also usually take about 90% of the money you cash in on book sales, or you can seek out websites that allow you to publish the book yourself. That’s where your computer skills kick in, convert book to epub and that sort of thing. So, essentially I would start by doing a little search about it all on google, then figure out the option you want to pursue. Also, If you pursue the vanity publishers option, beware because they’ll plague you with endless nuisance calls and will refuse to stop, even if you ask them politely and threaten legal action. However, they deliver what they promise and what you pay them for. Just don’t expect them to go away after you’ve purchased a package or two with their company. They’ll stroke your ego and ask for excesses of £30,000 so they could convert your incredible idea into that Oscar winning Hollywood blockbuster. Then they’ll continue to plague you with endless calls again when you refuse. But at least your book receives more attention than it could do if you’d gone down the traditional route. Perhaps.
Are you suggesting that with traditional publishing the author signs away some portion of their copyright rights? I have never heard of that. I just grabbed four books off my desk. One is an Edgar Rice Burroughs title for which the copyright has expired. The others say that the copyright belongs to the authors -- by name.
I should have clarified that I am, at least initially, looking to go down the traditional publishing route. I appreciate the feedback though @dbesim
@ShannonH good luck in your search for a traditional publisher. In that case, I suppose the cover letter could be important and summarising your work. Keep it brief but interesting since most of these publishers have a ton of other submissions to go through on a daily basis. Don’t be too bugged by the rejections, however, since a lot of people get them. And if all else fails, you’ll always have the self-publish route to consider. @SapereAude yes, it’s whoever publishes it owns the copyright. If it’s the publishing company, then they own the copyright based on an agreement between publisher and the author. The author has to consent to the fact that the publisher will own full rights to the author’s work. Usually.
To clarify, and this is me throwing out the question: when you traditionally publish, the publisher retains the copyright based on the original terms, and if they continue printing multiple editions they'd continue paying whatever royalties are due per book??? But my understanding is if it goes out of print, the copyright returns to the author.
The only books on my bookshelves for which the publishers own the copyrights are some pulp western novels that are series written under contract by a stable of ghost writers, all creating stories that appear under the name of an author who may or may not have ever existed, and who may or may not have written the first (or first few) books in the series. A publisher may obtain the copyright to a book as part of the contract negotiations with the author but, absent the author agreeing to surrender their copyright, it's certainly not a "done deal" that the author won't own the copyright to their own book unless they self-publish. That said, a first-time author is obviously in a weaker position in negotiating than, say, Anne McCaffrey at the height of the Dragon Riders of Pern series, but the principle remains the same. The copyright belongs to the author unless he/she agrees to surrender it -- and that should only be done for compensation.
It depends on the terms of the contract. My great-grandfather was a professor of law. My grandfather was his student. Both always stressed "Read the fine print." Never just sign a contract without reading it -- every ... single ... word.
If you want to go traditional, you'll need an agent. Keep in mind that for virtually everyone, the first book that you complete, it's not going to be good enough to attract any attention. The average author writes 6 complete novels before they get agents to take them seriously.
When I completed my first novel, I decided to try submitting to publishers who accept unsolicited manuscripts. There are actually quite a few that do. You can find some handy lists on Google, and then visit their websites one at a time and see if they look like a good fit for your work. But - be prepared to spend a lot of time browsing and not so much time submitting. A lot of these publishers are looking for very, very specific works, and more than a few end up being vanity publishers. The vanity ones are usually pretty easy to pick out. They can be clever, though. Best thing to do is remember that if it sounds too good to be true, it definitely is. Getting published is rare, and not at all easy. If there's any doubt, just search the internet for, "is X a vanity press/publisher?" I only kept track of the publishers I submitted to, so I could cross them off the list when I'd inevitably be sent a form letter of rejection, but if I had to ballpark it, I'd say I only submitted my book to 1 out of 20 publishers I researched. I started out with only Canadian publishers, but as the list grew shorter and shorter, I started submitting to American ones, some in the UK, and I think even one in Australia. It was a lot of work, but ultimately I only submitted to 9 publishers. I received just one personalized rejection. They liked the idea, but suggested that the structure didn't work well and that it needed a developmental edit. At that point I realized I had been submitting too early, and stopped. I thought it was done, and was excited to get it out there, but it does need more work. I put that one aside, wrote a new one, and am still in the process of editing. This time I got a couple more readers to provide feedback as well. It will be far more polished than the first. I still plan on going back to it, but this is the one I will try to sell in the next couple of months. This time around, I am going to try the agent route. Sure, they'll take probably 25% of whatever you get if they're able to sell it, but they're going to do all that work that I hated doing, and they don't need to do so much research. They already know which publishers are going to be interested in your book. They have contacts. If they like your work and believe in it, they will do what they can to sell it. After all, they don't get paid if they're not able to. I do not yet have any experience submitting to agents, but that is what I would recommend. I'll probably start researching various agents/agencies in the next few weeks.
I know you're speaking hypothetically here, but just FYI the industry-standard commission is 15%. If someone were to ask for 25% it's probably a rip-off.
I've seen this notion before. I don't think people who've successfully gone the traditional route have had an 'at least initially' mindset. If you're not all in, and ready to spend years making submissions while writing more novels to try and submit, it's a lot less likely to happen. There are really hungry, really hard working people out there. I'm being a downer. There is a chance you'll snare an agent in a few months... but I say play the lottery instead. It's the same thing with self publishing. It likely won't succeed either if the author doesn't fully commit to it and instead just poops his first poop (with an amateur cover and no marketing) onto Amazon.
