There is an old adage in the publishing business that it is better to be published well than to be simply published. Of all the advice I’ve ever received about writing, this is probably the best of the lot. But with the rise of self-publishing and the Internet, this seems to be fading more and more into the background every day. If you really want to succeed as a writer, you need to keep this adage in the forefront of your mind and examine every single deal you are offered to see if it meets the criteria for being “published well.”
Being published well means working with a publisher that creates the right environment for your work (and by extension, your career) to grow and flourish. I don’t care if it is a small press publisher or a major international conglomerate that you are considering working with, the same basic rules apply.
When I’m deciding whether a publisher is worth working with, I consider several key criteria. These include:
- The ability to pay the writer a fair advance as well as a decent percentage of royalties.
- A quality distribution process that puts physical copies of my titles in the larger chain bookstores (Borders, Barnes & Noble, Chapters, etc)
- A sales force to push my title to the buyers of those chains (as well as to libraries, independent bookstores, etc)
- A competent art department to create a cover that is designed to promote my title
This is the bare minimum I expect from my publisher. Eliminate any one of those four criteria and your title is either bound to fail or you are not getting what you deserve as a writer.
Publishing is a joint business. Sure, the writer has to produce a decent book in the first place. But the hard part comes next, when the editor, the art department, the sales team, the publicity team, the local bookstore manager, and the reading public all have to work together to make a book a success. And the team that you have behind your creation makes an INCREDIBLE difference to the success or failure of that work.
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