How do you decide which publisher to go with if you have publisher interest? If you have already chosen an agent to work with, the answer is simple. Usually, you will turn over the contact information for each publisher and the agent will follow-up, along with contacting other publishers the agents feel is right for your book. Then, your agent will recommend which publisher or publishers to negotiate with and work out the details.
However, if you don’t have an agent, you will need to decide yourself and negotiate any agreement on your own or perhaps with some input from an attorney. Though make sure your attorney is familiar with publishing; otherwise the attorney may bring up some points that are not negotiable and could kill the deal.
When you do have multiple publishers or any publisher interested, the initial process is much like what you would do in evaluating an agent. You do an assessment to decide the best fit, and after that, if there is more than one publisher in the running, look to your intuition or gut feelings to help you decide.
As part of this assessment, look at the size of the publisher. If it is one of the big six, now five, including any of the big five’s imprints, that’s usually a strong plusfor that publisher, since the clout of a big publisher will increase your credibility and is likely to result in better distribution, promotion, and sales, though there are no guarantees.
In the event that you have more than one editor from a publishing house interested in your book, you need to tell them about this situation. A good way to do this is to initially work with the first editor who has expressed interest and let the other editors know. You can explain that you weren’t sure who to contact and let the editors work it out for themselves who will handle your book.
Next, in conducting your assessment, look at the different books the publisher handles to see what other books have been published in your category. There should be others for this to be a good fit. You can get a sense of how well these books have done by looking at each title on Amazon and checking the ranking – the lower the number the better. Consider any rank under 10,000 to be a good showing. Generally, the other books that have been published will be in your subject area (i.e.: business books, self-help books, general interest, etc.). But sometimes a publisher may want to move into a new area or create a new imprint for a different type of book, which is fine. In fact, a publisher may even give these books a greater promotion to establish the category. However, if there’s clearly a mismatch and this is a small publisher, this could be a warning sign, such as if you have a business book or memoir and the publisher is specializing in health and nutrition books.
Another important consideration is the size of the advance, since this is often the only money you will get, because the majority of books don’t make out their advance. On the other hand,, some small publishers only start with a small advance or even no advance, and their books do well, plus they may have a good reputation in the field. So that could offset a low advance if the publisher is otherwise a good fit for your book. Generally, for a book from a new author, you can expect about $5000-20,000 from a larger publisher and about $1000-5000 from a smaller publisher, though in some cases, especially if this is an academic press, there will be no advance and limited sales. But the prestige of the house can make the sale worth it and open up doors for future books.
Consider, too, how enthusiastic the editor and marketing team is about your book. Ask about the publisher’s plans for distribution and promotion, as well as what the marketing and PR people expect you to do. Often publishers expect authors to pick up much of the promotional effort after their publicity department sends out about 50-200 review copies. So assess how much the publisher plan to do for your book in comparison to other interested publishers.
Also, review the contract you are offered. Many terms are fairly standard, such as a 10-15% royalty on hardcover retail sale or net receipts from paperback book sales, which start at 10% and go up with increased sales. A standard royalty on e-book sales is now 25%, though some publishers may offer up to 40%. Usually, publishers offer 50% of net receipts on the sale of other rights, such as serial rights, foreign sales, and video rights. These are details which you can work out once you decide on a particular publisher, and they are less important in making a decision on which publisher to choose.
However, one clause to be careful about – and which most publishers are willing to drop – is the first option on future books clause. While it is reasonable to have an option on books on the same or a related subject or have a non-compete clause about your publishing other books on this topic that might undermine sales, it is not reasonable to tie up any of your books in the future, especially if you write books on different topics. So the publisher should be willing to strike such an option; if not, that’s a warning about working with that publisher.
Another caution, as in dealing with agents, is that you should not be asked to pay the publisher to publish your book. While there may be an exception for some academic publishers, where academics are asked to help subsidize the publication of their book because of the “publish or perish” syndrome and the limited sales of most academic books for a specialized audience, trade publishers should not ask for any payment. Even if the publisher is asking for extensive rewrites, this should be something you do yourself or hire your own editor. But it is a conflict of interest if a publisher has its own pay to play editorial service. The publisher should make its money from publishing, not from editing manuscripts of the writers it publishes. And normally, publishers only take on books when the manuscripts are ready to go or require very little editing, apart from line or copy editing, which publishers normally do as a matter of course, with no charge to the writer.
In some cases, a traditional publisher may expect a writer to commit to buy a certain number of books. But unless you are likely to sell that number of books, say on the speaker circuit, cross that publisher off your list. Also avoid any publisher who has a substantial charge for publishing your book, even with a promise of a much higher than usual royalty rate (ie: 40% of net versus a more usual 10-15%), since that is often the sign of a vanity or author subsidized publisher, where the publisher has little distribution and its main income is coming from authors who are paying to publish their books. If that’s the only alternative, it’s better to self-publish than turn your book over to a vanity press.
If after weighing these various factors, you are still left with several contenders, focus on how enthusiastic the publisher is about your book and how you feel about working with that editor and publisher. For now, you are ready to let your intuition or gut level feelings help you decide.
And if you only have one interested publisher, the question is whether you want to work with that publisher or not. If not, you can always self-publish, seek to build sales and your platform, and then try to sell the book to a mainstream publisher. You can use the same title if the book does well, or if not, you can always change the title and pitch it again.
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Gini Graham Scott, PhD, writes frequently about social trends and everyday life. She is the author of over 50 books with major publishers and has published 30 books through her company Changemakers Publishing and Writing. She writes books and proposals for clients and has written and produced over 50 short videos through Changemakers Productions. Her latest books include: TRANSFORMATION: HOW NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, BUSINESS AND SOCIETY ARE CHANGING YOUR LIFE and THE BATTLE AGAINST INTERNET BOOK PIRACY