Dzanc Books focuses on literary fiction. It is interested in great writing even if there isn’t a clear marketing niche for a specific manuscript.
Book Publisher Info
Leave a reply
Category Archives: Publishing
More on Agent Assisted Publishing
Amazon offers a White Glove publishing service. In this program, your agent works directly with Amazon to publish your book.
I wrote not too long ago about agent-assisted publishing, and this is just another incarnation of the same process. You might end up walking this road if the traditional publishers reject your agent’s efforts to place your book. But again, you end up with the agent as your book’s advocate.
On this road, you don’t travel alone. That in and of itself can be a boost to your passion. The fact that it can also boost your career sweetens the deal.
Barnes & Noble is Good for Amazon…and Readers
Leonard Riggio, the original founder of Barnes & Noble, is considering buying up the stores and taking them private. He’s thinking about the move because bookstores are still a sound business.
One of the biggest surprises in the constant battle between brick-and-mortar stores and the e-giant Amazon is that after Borders failed, sales of e-books immediately fell. Analysts think it’s because with fewer opportunities to browse, readers just aren’t going to buy as many books.
Congratulate your local bookstore owner with a cup of coffee, a chocolate truffle…and a new sale.
Agent-Assisted Publishing: The Latest Shift in Traditional Book Publishing
Lately the news has been covering quite a number of agent-assisted books that have sold well. Agent-assisted publishing might sound repetative…after all, doesn’t an agent get authors published with traditional houses?
Yes, and nowadays agents are doing more. If they are unable to place a client with a publisher, they might funnel that client into their own publishing unit. The agent doesn’t become the publisher; they simply help the author self-publish.
The benefits to this kind of self-publishing are many. Agents have long done much more for authors than simply sell their books. They are fantastic advocates with the media and (when appropriate) colleges or other organizations that might offer paid speaking engagements. The agents can often boost sales for the author in a way that the writer could not do himself through regular self-publishing methods.
Book Publisher Info
Daw Books Inc accepts manuscripts directly from authors. They accept sci-fi and fantasy novels and prefer lengths of about 80,000 words.
New Self-Pub Book Market: Penguin’s Book Country
Note: Penguin’s Book Country operates separately from their other self-pub arm Author Solutions.
Book Country allows self-published authors to sell their works through their website. There are the usual marketing packages authors find at many self-pub companies but there is one difference: authors keep 85% of the royalties. This is higher than both Amazon and B&N.
Publisher or Self-Publisher? The Boundaries Blur
These days, only folks who cling to old notions of what used to be turn their nose up at self-published books simply because they weren’t backed by a big house. Now the boundaries between the two kinds of publishing are dissolving even more rapidly as traditional publishers, including some of the biggest in the world, enter the self-publishing arena.
Confused? It’s easy to see why. But Simon & Schuster has Archway Publishing while Penguin Random has Author Solutions (and the much maligned AuthorHouse). So if it’s self-published through a company that is part of a big publisher, is it still self-published?
For now, yes. The manuscripts aren’t vetted by anyone; some authors don’t even bother with editing before hitting the print button. And for now, the publishers aren’t likely to look more kindly on any author who approaches them and admits to using the self-pub arm at their company (unless of course that author has managed to sell well on his or her own).
Remember that self-pub is still self-pub. The big publishing house is looking for the same thing as the other printers: a check. The ground is turning to liquid beneath their feet and they’re trying new things to keep afloat. There’s nothing wrong with that, and if it helps them continue on with the old methods, great. Just be aware of what you’re getting…and what you’re not.
Amazon Dukes It Out with Overstock.com; Indie Booksellers Lose
On Friday, Amazon began offering discounts that have never before been seen even on its own site. The move is supposedly a response to Overstock.com’s full frontal assault, which consists of discounting books to match or beat Amazon’s prices.
Dan Brown’s Inferno is now available on Amazon at a a 61% discount. And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini has a 58% discount. Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In is at a 64% discount. A whopping 64% discount is offered on The Fault in Our Stars by John Green.
There are signs, however, that even Amazon is not invincible in this battle. J.K. Rowling’s The Cuckoo’s Calling, written under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith, is discounted only 42%. That’s right in the usual discounting area of 40% to 50 percent. Amazon likely doesn’t want to discount something that is selling well regardless of price, and wants to keep the profits involved in that title.
Overstock.com’s shot across the bow of the mighty frigate Amazon is a long-overdue attempt to take some of the wind out of Amazon’s sails. The recent verdict against Apple has already spurred Amazon toward discounting books to eliminate the real competition that is left: the thousands of indie booksellers who together hold more clout among readers than any website ever will.
Unfortunately indies do not yet hold any kind of combined economic clout with publishers and so cannot discount books at the same rate. Thank goodness someone has noticed what’s going on in book publishing and has thrown the economic might of their company onto the battlefield.
Selling a Million Copies: Oliver Potzsch an Amazon First
Last month, Amazon announced that Oliver Potzsch, author of the Hangman’s Daughter series, is their first author to have hit 1 million copies in print, digital and audio combined.
Before you hit the submit button for Amazon’s publishing group, consider that 25% of all books are still sold through bookstores.
Another 23% are sold through other retailers like Costco and other big box stores.
If you’re thinking of giving up on regular publishers just because of all the coverage of digitally published success stories, consider that e-books are one of the biggest changes in publishing right now. Of course the media is seeking out their success stories and covering them in larger numbers right now than traditionally published success stories.
You have a lot of options these days. Be sure to make an informed choice to find the best path for your books.
Publisher News: Disney Selling Hyperion’s List to Hachette Book Group
The Hyperion adult trade publishing list is being sold to Hachette Book Group. Disney, which is the entity selling the Hyperion list, will now publish children’s and YA books as welll as books based on franchises from its Disney/ABC TV operations.
Keep track of these changes so you know which publisher to approach when you’re ready to send out your work.
Just for Fun: Book Covers
Book covers with a single letter removed for fun results here.
Ender’s Game Boycott
The Ender’s Game movie that will be released November 1 is already under boycott.
The reason is that Orson Scott Card, author of the Ender’s Game series, has been vocal about his opposition to gay marriage. While the script has been reviewed by Glaad and found to contain nothing offensive, the petition to boycott the movie has suddenly gained a lot of attention and supporters.
Card himself has issued pleas for potential audience members to overlook or tolerate his views. No matter where people fall in the range of science-fiction fandom, the fact is that every piece of literature is best read with an understanding of the era and society in which it was created.
Fanny Fern’s Ruth Hall, for example, was written when women’s rights were being fought for and won. John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath appeared during a time of great difficulty for the nation. And recent works like Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat Pray Love reflect the surging movement among women to regain and redefine their needs, goals and desires.
Before, what an author believed personally meant little. Card finds himself in a society that disagrees with his personal views more so than not. Should this alone be enough to support a boycott, or should Card have been more discrete about his personal views while using his platform as an author?
Words of Hope from Book Agent Amy Rennert in Poets & Writers
Agent Amy Rennert was quoted in Poets & Writers as saying:
“I predict that people will continue to write [books]. I do feel that there is a persistent and insatiable desire for long-form prose–that there is something about the experience of disappearing into a long piece of writing that has enormous appeal to enough people in the world to maintain the publishing industry through the foreseeable future.”
J.K. Rowling Revealed as Robert Galbraith: An Analysis
Yet another famous author has taken the anonymous road to publishing. J.K. Rowling of Harry Potter fame has been revealed to be the author Robert Galbraith.
She is quoted as having said, “I had hoped to keep this secret a little longer, because being Robert Galbraith has been such a liberating experience,” she said in a statement. “It has been wonderful to publish without hype or expectation, and pure pleasure to get feedback under a different name.”
The media, and perhaps some readers who are themselves authors, are wondering if this wasn’t a publicity stunt. After all, getting attention is a concern even for the biggest authors, especially after an author switches genres as Rowling did.
From the author’s side, there is of course the concern that all her works will be judged against the Potter series. Since she has moved into writing for adults and has already released one novel as her own for older readers, it might be an attempt by Rowling to get real feedback on her efforts.
From the publisher’s side, however, the “debut” novel was released on April 30 of this year. The revelation happened very near the end of the 90 day cycle that every book is subject to…if something isn’t selling well by the end of that time, bookstores often remove it from their shelves. Since the leak to the media happened at the end of this cycle when Galbraith’s novel would be returned to the publisher, it might have been a planned leak intended to keep the book on the shelves.
In the end, the effort has actually achieved both. Rowling has been able to step aside fully from her wizard roots with this work, and the leak has saved the publisher from having to eat the losses associated with a novel that until the revelation sold only about 1,500 copies in Britain.
Complaints about Crimson Romance
Crimson is a subscription publisher…they offer readers unlimited downloads of e-books for a monthly fee.
Different publishers have been experimenting with this process, and for some, it works out well.
Authors at Crimson Romance are complaining about payment terms and how the publisher rates them against their entire stable of authors. Read more here at Writer Beware.
Writer's Resource/Sunspot Lit 