What is a hobby publisher? I've found a few references to the term, defining it as self-publishing, which is not how I define it. Hobby publishers are folks who become publishers as a hobby. Sometimes they are retirees, or late-in-their career types, but they are small operations who are or who have earned their way doing something besides publishing. Publishing becomes their hobby, and it's becoming more common with the growing availability of POD equipment and the web's bookstores and the evolution in online book buying.
I coined this phrase because of my experiences in publishing. Stone House Diaries was published by the Local History Company of Pittsburgh, and TLHC is a prime example. They are a retired couple with some help. They specialize in publishing books for the Pittsburgh area. They are good people and I'm pleased to see their web site shows new titles.
(Slight digression)
Earlier this year I finished a historical novel with the working title 'Where the Gold is Buried'. The story is built around a map to buried treasure at Fort Niagara. I stumbled on this legend of buried treasure years ago, and felt connected with it because the luckless soul who tried to find the treasure was my ancestor. So over the past several years I've been searching through known history and making up the rest, and finished with about 550 pages trying to flesh out the legend.
The rule of thumb these days for getting published is for story length to be between 70,000 and 90,000 words, which is in the neighborhood of 350 pages (doublespaced, etc). At 550 pages I was a little long. So... I edited. I cut and cut and rewrote (usually a good idea anyway). Got it down to (imagine a calculator clattering away) 109,000 words Damn! Still 19K over.
The story line begins in 1649 and finishes present day, and years ago a writing advisor suggested stopping the story in the 18th century. So... last summer I said a sad goodbye to a couple of my favorite characters - both Tuscaroras - and stopped the story in 1789. (Warning: this is really traumatic)
What does this have to do with hobby publishers, you may be asking? (Go ahead, ask, someone's got to keep me on track). Well, for my latest opus I decided to try, again, for an agent. I labored over my summary and query and have heard contradictory advice on how many agents to email (1. email only the handful you have exhaustively researched and believe would truly love your work, 2. email agents until your fingertips bleed). Whatever. I got no interest.
Before the Severe Truncation, I sent part of the novel to an online outfit, a hobby publisher that does Canadian history (most of the novel is set in Canada). If they publish it they might get it reviewed, but they use POD equipment and the book will essentially join the long lists on Amazon and BN.com and will only appear in my local bookstore if I take a pile in and try my charm.
It has led me back to hobby publishing. I did some research and the cheapest POD printer I could find was $15K used. Also available for lease. Am I doing the world a disservice by bypassing the vetting process of agents, intended to save the world from bad novels, and cranking mine out anyway? Well, I don't think mine is so bad - not while Dan Brown is still getting published... I'll stop here.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Saturday, October 17, 2009
SASE
I suppose I'm among friends here, so I'll admit I've been writing for over twenty years, and I stank until about ten years ago. I knew early on that an agent made publishing easier. Before the web (henceforth to be known as BTW) there was, of course, no email option in querying agents, so I went to the library (quaint, I know) and filled a couple pages of a legal pad with agents addresses from LMP. Then I typed up cover letters - knowing little about what to put in a query, I don't remember now how sucky that query must have been, but what the hell - and tucked in the SASE.
Around 2001, when I was trying to find a publisher for Weathermen, I vowed no more SASE crap. Postage was starting to be a less trivial cost, and I was certain that no traditional agent wanted me, and the newer agents would have email. I was partly correct in both, at least I assume so, as no traditional agent has EVER expressed an interest in my work and some agents had email. So began a epoch of emailing. I've had modest success in publishing, none in agents.
At the Muse/Marketplace workshop Grub Street holds, one recently published writer gleefully explained she broke a couple of the 'rules', mailed her novel over the transom to an agent, found publishing success. So, I vowed to myself, at some point I had to break that old vow.
Well, two weeks ago I used the web to find agents who were a) looking for new meat, er, clients and b) would not take email queries. I used web resources to cook up a query letter and bought stamps, and sent out a total of six snail mail queries. I know that one must blast out queries much as LLBean junk mails their catalogs. Junk mail is considered successful if it gets a 3% response, so how do you calculate a 3% success rate on six mailed queries? Agent took a little longer to throw it in the trash? I mailed them on a Tuesday(?) Got the first rejection on Friday, and two more since then.
Moral of the story? I suspect the writer who bagged an agent by being quaint and ignoring the rules also had a leg up because she was a marketing pro. Trying to find an agent by using an old road seldom used does not necessarily work. Yes, common sense should have told me that, but at the end of the day don't you want to be able to say, I tried everything? Even SASE?
Around 2001, when I was trying to find a publisher for Weathermen, I vowed no more SASE crap. Postage was starting to be a less trivial cost, and I was certain that no traditional agent wanted me, and the newer agents would have email. I was partly correct in both, at least I assume so, as no traditional agent has EVER expressed an interest in my work and some agents had email. So began a epoch of emailing. I've had modest success in publishing, none in agents.
At the Muse/Marketplace workshop Grub Street holds, one recently published writer gleefully explained she broke a couple of the 'rules', mailed her novel over the transom to an agent, found publishing success. So, I vowed to myself, at some point I had to break that old vow.
Well, two weeks ago I used the web to find agents who were a) looking for new meat, er, clients and b) would not take email queries. I used web resources to cook up a query letter and bought stamps, and sent out a total of six snail mail queries. I know that one must blast out queries much as LLBean junk mails their catalogs. Junk mail is considered successful if it gets a 3% response, so how do you calculate a 3% success rate on six mailed queries? Agent took a little longer to throw it in the trash? I mailed them on a Tuesday(?) Got the first rejection on Friday, and two more since then.
Moral of the story? I suspect the writer who bagged an agent by being quaint and ignoring the rules also had a leg up because she was a marketing pro. Trying to find an agent by using an old road seldom used does not necessarily work. Yes, common sense should have told me that, but at the end of the day don't you want to be able to say, I tried everything? Even SASE?
Friday, October 2, 2009
Agents... it would help if I wore a dress
I have had exactly one literary agent in my writing life. Ralph from Cambridge Literary, at the time in Newburyport, accepted my first novel in 1999. From his website I could readily see the agent hadn't sold any fiction. After a year of absolutely no contact, I terminated the agreement. I eventually self-published that manuscript, Weathermen.
In retrospect I wish he'd offered to edit the story, as I now see it needed.
Lately I've been doing the agent hunt, and it's been as futile as ever. I have been published 'traditionally', and I thought that would help my agent hunt. What I've noticed from the online agent databases, and the individual entries I assume the agents create, that most agents are women and most of them dearly want 1) chick lit, 2) romance 3) women's fiction. The agent will then include most other categories - mystery, commercial fiction, 'literary fiction', but their priorities are plain. My wife, who tears through women's fiction like Sherman through Georgia, reminds me that women buy most of the books, so it's a simple supply-demand situation.
I should note that, besides women's fiction, fiction for teens is a close second. Now, is that because teens are reading books (in this age?) or because the schools need fresh material for required reading? I'm sounding soooo cynical.
So, if one cannot get an agent, then one chases a publisher, and not the big publishers, most of whom won't look at non-agented work. That leaves the amateur publishers, the small timers who may not last more than a few years. I used an amateur publisher for my historical novel 'Stone House Diaries'. They printed nice copies, blundered painfully getting reviews, blundered painfully getting the book into the stores... oh well.
In retrospect I wish he'd offered to edit the story, as I now see it needed.
Lately I've been doing the agent hunt, and it's been as futile as ever. I have been published 'traditionally', and I thought that would help my agent hunt. What I've noticed from the online agent databases, and the individual entries I assume the agents create, that most agents are women and most of them dearly want 1) chick lit, 2) romance 3) women's fiction. The agent will then include most other categories - mystery, commercial fiction, 'literary fiction', but their priorities are plain. My wife, who tears through women's fiction like Sherman through Georgia, reminds me that women buy most of the books, so it's a simple supply-demand situation.
I should note that, besides women's fiction, fiction for teens is a close second. Now, is that because teens are reading books (in this age?) or because the schools need fresh material for required reading? I'm sounding soooo cynical.
So, if one cannot get an agent, then one chases a publisher, and not the big publishers, most of whom won't look at non-agented work. That leaves the amateur publishers, the small timers who may not last more than a few years. I used an amateur publisher for my historical novel 'Stone House Diaries'. They printed nice copies, blundered painfully getting reviews, blundered painfully getting the book into the stores... oh well.
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