Hi, Since I'm a novice in the literary world, I needed help in understanding what the following means "I can't represent it but I would like to commission it for a publishing house who let me acquire few titles on their behalf annually as in traditional and not vanity publishing" Thanks!
Be very careful. Why would a reputable publishing house allow a 3rd party to "acquire titles" on their behalf? I'll defer to the more experienced hands in the publishing game around here, like mammamaia and Cogito, but it sounds like a variation on the vanity publishing theme to me, the disclaimer notwithstanding.
Let's break this mumbo jumbo down shall we: "I can't represent' - well thats pretty obvious - they can't represent you. "I would like to commission" - in documentation terms this most likely refers to them taking your document and acting as if it is there's regardless of their ownership. "A publishing house who let me acquire few titles on their behalf" - I have an greement to get good stories without them being put in legal jeopardy by my means. "as in traditional and not vanity publishing" - like in the old days when we had typewriters that went 'ping' and everything. I would re-read to: "I am not able to act on your behalf, legally, because then we would have a contract in place and that might stipulate copyrights and such forth. I would like to take your document and present it as mine though, if that's okay? I have a 'deal' with an unnamed publishing group who operate out of shed and they prefer that I get the stories for them. Legally this keeps them at arms length you see and they can operate with apparent ignorance and impunity. If it makes you feel any better - it's just like in the good ole' days!" As said before - it's not even a well crafted sentence and no reputable person would make such a flagrantly ambiguous structure of double-speak to an aspirant. Its clearly bunkum.
