Publishing Decisions

There's nothing like hindsight....

You’ve written a book, but these days finding a publisher has become more difficult than ever. The top publishers are only interested in well-known authors whose books sell well, and if a well-known connected literary agent doesn’t represent you, the acquisitions editors won’t even look at your manuscript.

Knowing this, you research small indie publishers for which your book might be a good fit. However, some of them will only consider your book if an agent represents you. You keep looking. You make a list of the publishers that might be most interested in your manuscript. If you’re a crime, horror, romance, science fiction, or other genre writer, you might have an advantage if you’ve published stories in related publications. From my experience, it’s more difficult for literary fiction, especially if it’s a novel and your first book.

As I compiled a list of potential publishers, I discovered that those which interested me most, and where I though my manuscript might have a better chance of being viewed, weren’t accepting submissions at that time. But I also found a few worth the try, and I sent out query letters with a brief synopsis and, if requested, a table of contents.

Some answered almost immediately, but the response was the same: “Thank you for your interest in …, but your manuscript doesn’t fit into our catalog at this time….” and similar responses. A few didn’t answer at all.

In the end, I decided to publish with Amazon KDP. Two author friends, Adrian Kostré in Berlin and Joan Livingston in the U.S. offered to edit the manuscript. Joan even helped me prepare the electronic files for Amazon and gave me germane marketing advice. The process was quick and relatively easy, so much so that I published a collection of my short stories with KDP a few months later.

In hindsight, I neglected to consider a wider distribution. When you publish with a book publisher or through an aggregator, your book is available to leading book distributors as well as to bookshops.

What’s an aggregator? It’s a company that can assist you in publishing and distributing your book through book distributors and bookshops, as well as to Amazon. They also offer everything from editorial and production services to preparing, printing, and distributing your book as an ebook, paperback, hardcover book, and, in some cases even as an audiobook.

As the author, you pay the aggregator upfront a percentage of the production cost or royalties. In return, the aggregator will provide you with sales and other data from where your book is sold, including an overview of data from each seller.

In retrospect, with the wisdom of hindsight, I plan to publish my next book through an aggregator, but haven’t chosen one yet. I’m still weighing options. One thing I know is I will not publish through Amazon KDP in the future. Why not? Because I missed out having my books distributed to a host of distributors and available to brick and mortar bookshops.

As an self-published author who publishes through Amazon, your books are not distributed or available to either chain or independent bookshops. In fact, many bookshops will not even display or sell your Amazon self-published book on a consignment basis. Why? Because Amazon succeeded in driving many small bookshops out of business. Fortunately, the indie bookshops have made a comeback because more people realized they preferred the personal contact with booksellers to a corporate conglomerate.

The good news is I’ve succeeded in finding two independent bookshops in my native Rhode Island that have agreed to carry my books on consignment. I hope I may succeed in finding more near where I live now and where I once lived.

To my Rhode Island followers and subscribers: You can now purchase my novel, The Writer of Unwritten Books, and my collection of short stories, The Prisoner & Other Stories from the following bookshops:

Books on the Square
471 Angell Street
Providence, RI 02906

and

Twice Told Tales
2145 Broad Street
Cranston, RI 02905