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Why I love my indie publishers
Aug. 5th, 2012 11:32 amEDIT: Here I use "indie/independent publisher" to mean "small press." I am not, at this time, self-published, though the term "indie" seems to mean that too, lately.
I'd like to state again how pleased I am with the independent presses who have published me, Central Avenue Publishing and The Wild Rose Press. I've met more authors over the years, and read more about their experiences, and increasingly I'm coming away with the impression that those published (or formerly published) with the big houses often felt ignored and unloved. The attention from their editors/agents was being devoted far more to those couple-dozen huge-name writers who made all the money for the house, with little time to spare for the lowlier names.
As to advances and royalties: indie presses don't pay advances as often. True. But that's always been fine with me, as an advance is only that: an advance against future royalties. So you earn no royalties until the book has "earned out" its advance, and, according to the experts, the majority of books take years to do that--if they ever do. And your advance isn't likely to be a cool million bucks. Heck, no. Try a couple thousand dollars. To last you a few years? I'd rather just take the modest quarterly royalties I rightfully earned. In addition, royalty rates with big houses are usually smaller than ours in the small-press world.
So between the personal attention, the input we're allowed on cover art (again, almost unheard of in the big publishing world), the no-worse-than-average royalties, and the way e-readers have taken off lately, I'm getting happier by the year to be involved in indie publishing.
Also, in the indie-press world, we're far less likely to have movies made of our books. That's actually a blessing in disguise. Let's be honest: 9 times out of 10, doesn't the movie adaptation suck? And the writer usually gets no say in it. I mean, even with Twilight, which had the most gigantic following in the world and should have been able to afford doing everything perfectly, they couldn't get the makeup right and ended up making Robert Pattinson look like a powdered donut with lipstick.
I'd like to state again how pleased I am with the independent presses who have published me, Central Avenue Publishing and The Wild Rose Press. I've met more authors over the years, and read more about their experiences, and increasingly I'm coming away with the impression that those published (or formerly published) with the big houses often felt ignored and unloved. The attention from their editors/agents was being devoted far more to those couple-dozen huge-name writers who made all the money for the house, with little time to spare for the lowlier names.
As to advances and royalties: indie presses don't pay advances as often. True. But that's always been fine with me, as an advance is only that: an advance against future royalties. So you earn no royalties until the book has "earned out" its advance, and, according to the experts, the majority of books take years to do that--if they ever do. And your advance isn't likely to be a cool million bucks. Heck, no. Try a couple thousand dollars. To last you a few years? I'd rather just take the modest quarterly royalties I rightfully earned. In addition, royalty rates with big houses are usually smaller than ours in the small-press world.
So between the personal attention, the input we're allowed on cover art (again, almost unheard of in the big publishing world), the no-worse-than-average royalties, and the way e-readers have taken off lately, I'm getting happier by the year to be involved in indie publishing.
Also, in the indie-press world, we're far less likely to have movies made of our books. That's actually a blessing in disguise. Let's be honest: 9 times out of 10, doesn't the movie adaptation suck? And the writer usually gets no say in it. I mean, even with Twilight, which had the most gigantic following in the world and should have been able to afford doing everything perfectly, they couldn't get the makeup right and ended up making Robert Pattinson look like a powdered donut with lipstick.
