Dapper Hooligan said on the other thread he got it by screwing his maths up. He was guessing at 10% of a $5 list price, and misplaced the decimal point. I'm pretty certain Jason's just picking a small number for hyperbolic effect. I've never run into it as a concept anywhere else.
Well, now that we've thoroughly established just how horrible I am at math, I believe someone said something about noodles?
Okay guys, I am going to try not to be SUPER mean right now, but I am about to give you all some real information as I have dabbled in the publishing industry for quite some time now, and I find our definitions of a REAL traditional publisher to be different. By definition a traditional publisher is simply someone who buys the rights to your book (which one should NOT give away to just anyone.) Of course some traditional publishers are going to give you 30-40% royalty, BECAUSE THEY ARE INVESTING HARDLY ANYTHING! Because they post a book on their website, this somehow makes them useful? No. Please try to stick with me for a second and absorb the information I am about to provide before getting keyboard happy. A REAL traditional publisher like Random House, Penguin, etc, they are going to back your book with REAL marketing dollars. Buy ads on websites & social media websites, get blurbs from famous authors, etc. They are going to provide REAL investment in your book in exchange for its rights, a cash advancement, and yes, VERY LOW ROYALTIES for first time authors. Lessthanthree I CAN ASSURE YOU, uses a third-party POD agency called Lightning Source (NOT INGRAM.) Pretty much, they submit a file to this company who places it in all distribution channels, then they set a wholesale distro percentage, then provides you with royalty. Guys, you could do all of this yourselves and get 40-60% royalty like I AM, but without giving away your rights. Lessthan basically just took the rights to your book, posted it on their website, and is taking a cut from your bank, but I guarantee most of your buyers are friends and family anyway. They are not investing any real capital into your book. How do I know this? Because I OWN a traditional publishing company, and utilize the same techniques. All you have to do is create an LLC, and basically create your own Pub company to reap these benefits. I can go on and on about this and delve into so many Publishing tactics if your really interested, but I promise you, very few of us on this forum are signed by a big traditional publisher. And for us who are signed to a "traditional publisher" most of them are just self-publishing agencies in a costume...
1: You sound like you're trying to sell us something. 2: Royalties are generally 6-10% on softback and 10-15% on hardback copies, that's less than 40-60%, yes, but I'd rather get 10% off of 10,000 copies sold at 10$ each than 60% of 10 copies sold at 5$ each. 3: Some of us probably could do everything a publishing house does, but there are also a lot of us that can't. Some of us, even if we had the ability, don't have the means to try, therefore a publishing house is a good fit. 5: Yes, some 'publishers' are just printers with a facade, but common sense and research is pretty good at weeding these mooks out. 6: If you own a publishing house, a) are you accepting submissions, and b) if so, what's your contact info?
Funny you should mention Penguin - I have two books with them. So try to stick with me for a second before you get too keyboard happy... There are a lot of different versions of traditional publishing, yes. It's a stupid classification invented by self-publishing cheerleaders and too often used to pull the worst of all possible publishing models and jam them into one nightmarish but totally unrealistic scenario. So, for example, some "traditional" publishers like Penguin only offer about 7-8% royalties on print books. Still nowhere near your mythical 5 cents a book nonsense, but definitely lower than one might find with smaller "traditional" publishers. Someone who's unscrupulous with the facts might combine that royalty rate from Penguin with the fact that some other "traditional" publisher doesn't offer advances, and some other "traditional" publisher only sells a few hundred copies of most books, and some other "traditional" publisher gives royalties on net, not cover price. And then that unscrupulous person would say: Traditional publishers only give you 7% of the net price of books, don't pay advances and only sell a few hundred copies of their books. Bullshit, obviously, and that's why we're here to get to the truth. Let's start with: You have no idea what services Less than Three press provides to its authors. But there's someone in this thread who does know, so why don't you ask her instead of telling her? We could go on to discuss the different kinds of publishers lumped under the "traditional" umbrella, and maybe look at the pros and cons of different kinds of publishers and the pros and cons of self-publishing. But you're going to need to ease off a bit before I'm willing to invest that kind of time in you. If you have a genuine interest in exchanging information and experiences, I'm down for that, but not if you're just going to be making up numbers and randomly bursting into ALL CAPS.
I hope you're going to take a good look at his editing and formatting services before you commit to anything...
I was referring to the claim above from Laurin Kelly who said she received 30-40% from a traditional pub. As for me receiving submissions, why would you want to submit through me? Honestly, you can get AMAZING royalties on your own. If you need information on this I can help provide information. I created my own publishing company for the royalities. If I went through a self-pub they would basically be the middle man for something I could do myself. So I created an LLC as a pub company so Lightning Source would allow me to publish through them. It is a lot to learn and type, but trust me, a lot of what I just said is pretty spot on... If you have questions, let me know.
As long as he's willing to offer an advance, it doesn't really matter what goes in the book, it's not going to be my real name on the cover.
Yes, yet another dude telling me that my experiences are not in fact my experiences. It must be a day that ends in "y". ETA: Looks like the ban hammer has been utilized. Thank you mods!
If your numbering here was a subtle horrible at maths joke, you may have 20,000 internet points. I believe they're exchangeable for extra royalties at Jason's publishing house.
I wish I could say it was intentional. :/ I guess we should probably get back to the OP. I'm a little surprised no one mentioned getting feedback. Maybe enlisting some beta readers or a critique partner to see if @Dodgy Dan 's manuscript needs just a bit more polish, maybe?
also if he was a returning banned member - his ahem.... 'grasp'.... of the publishing industry and disdain for LT3 seems pretty reminiscent of another gladly missed ex member
I think it might be nice to get back to @Dodgy Dan's OP. First, @Dodgy Dan, two congratulations are in order. First for finishing your WIP, and second, for completing four edits. That is a major accomplishment that many would-be writers don't achieve. You had the confidence to do that, so you have the confidence to make the next step. I have a great deal of sympathy, because in Oct 2015, I reached the end of a twenty year journey with the "The Eagle and the Dragon." There was nothing sweeter than writing that very last sentence. Then came the OMG, what do I do next? And like yours, mine was 240K words, too long by more than twice for a first time writer. You are in the same place. Relax, we will help you find a way to get this out. You did not mention how much help you had in your four revisions. If you haven't engaged beta readers (outside of friends and family), I recommend as many as you can get. I had about 30 or 40, many of whom were following my last 30 or so chapters in nearly first draft. They were extremely helpful, and I cannot say enough as to how much, especially @jannert. Also others that nudged me to finish the chapter in work so they could find out what happened. It gave me a sense that, hey, this might work after all. Also, for a first time writer, I recommend a professional editor. If you haven't had professional writing courses (I hadn't) and don't know about character arc, the three act outline, etc (I didn't), then you need to engage an editor who does. This can be expensive, or you might be able to engage a writing instructor at a local community college to do this for a much more reasonable price. The whole point is, whether you self-publish or traditionally publish, you want your work to absolutely sparkle. You will not get a second chance to make a good first impression, either route. A good editor can also help you navigate the traditional route, how to write a query, where to find agents, etc. That is not an easy route, because agents get around 400 queries a month, and wind up accepting about a ten per YEAR. It is a difficult field to break into, but if that is the route you wind up choosing, put on your asbestos underwear, don't worry about rejections, and plan on sending out hundreds of queries over the next year or two, before you get a bite. It is a hard route, but those who have successfully navigated that route, and land with a good publishing firm, find that they have a major marketing force behind them to get their book out to the public. But be careful of very small publishing houses. I have a friend who trad-pubbed with a very small outfit (eLectio, not vanity but miniscule and way off his genre); he has gotten almost no support, and after several years his total sales are a fraction of my self-pubbed book sales after just 9 months. If the publishers can be picky, so should you be, also. I tried the traditional route for about 4 months, and sent out about 40 or so queries, got one request for the full manuscript. Although that was ultimately rejected, she was helpful enough to give me a critique, which resulted in a rewrite of the first three chapters, and a major improvement... I sent her a courtesy copy when I self-published. I went that route, because as you can tell from my avatar I have a few miles on me carcass. I am coming up on 70, and didn't want to spend a major chunk of my remaining creative time, writing query letters. So again congratulations, stick around and we will help you whichever route is best for you. just, above all, don't rush to get it out. Make sure you make it shine like a dime before you approach agents or self-publish. Good job!
