A couple of months ago I wrote a post about vanity presses: those publishers that are in business specifically to take advantage of authors rather than make money by selling books. In the comments it was pointed out that I talked about vanity presses, self-publishing, and the Big Howevermany publishers as options, but not small presses. I even made the comment that there were a couple of small (some might say micro) publishers that I’d recommend without any qualms. But … I’m not going to name names. Instead I’m going to throw out a few thoughts on why someone might come to the decision to go with a small or micro publisher instead of self-publishing, and some of the things to consider in making such a decision.
I’ll start with a disclaimer that this is all just opinion. It’s not based on the experience of actually publishing a book using any process, publisher-assisted or not, but from observing the publishing landscape’s evolution over the last several years, reading about author’s experiences (both good and bad), and reading books that resulted from every publishing process out there. Continue reading “Small Indie Publishers: An Overview”
Everybody knows the big publishing houses are scrambling. They reek with the stench of death. They can merge all they want. They can point at tortured data to reassure themselves all is well. But it’s pretty much over for them, and they did it to themselves by clinging to a ridiculously outdated business model. They became middlemen who added little to no value for most authors they signed.