Many authors hope that their book will be picked up by one of the Big Five publishers. They envision receiving a five or six figure advance, then becoming a top bestseller. But many of us might be better served by working with small publishers rather than the big ones.
What’s Small?
Reedsy provides helpful definitions on what a small publisher is. They say that a small publisher earns less than $50 million annually, which doesn’t seem small to me. But Reedsy points out the a difference between small presses, and micro presses, which distribute tiny runs of books, even as few as twenty books at a run. They are likely not nearly as stable as the smaller presses or publishers earning in the millions.
What You Should Expect
Jane Friedman, a speaker who helps authors with business strategy, offered her primer on working with small publishers. Friedman says that publishers—large or small—should do four things:
- Produce the best-quality books available;
- Work hard to sell books in bookstores, other retailers, and libraries. They should work to distribute your books wherever books are available;
- Market and publicize your book to the people and businesses that buy and promote books such as booksellers and librarians;
- Market and publicize your book directly to readers through direct marketing, social media, etc.
Friedman offers authors several questions to ask to evaluate each of these publisher functions, which she updated in May of 2022. If you like checklists, check out Friedman’s column!
From an Expert
Weldon Burge appeared at our August 2022 Maryland Writers Association chapter to speak about working with small publishers. A small publisher himself, Weldon is the owner of Smart Rhino Publications. He’s published several anthologies through Smart Rhino, such as Asinine Assassins, the anthology in which one of my stories appears. One of his biggest messages is for authors to do their research. Find out what the small press has published in the recent past, and ask other authors what their experience of working with that small press is. Other authors will obviously know best. Having said that, if another author is uncomfortable with promoting their work, but that’s your jam, don’t let that author’s experience deter you from working with that press.
From the Field
Authors always have a lot to say about working with small publishers. Insecure Writing Support Groups published a blog post on this in 2015. They featured comments from twelve authors about their experiences with small presses, and the article revealed some trends. For example, smaller publishers will often give authors much more freedom than larger publishers, in cover design, for example. That is in contrast to the Big Five. I met Rick Campbell in 2017. He spent 20 years serving on a US navy submarine, and who now writes submarine thrillers. Campbell showed us part of his Big Five contract and all his publisher wants from him are submarine thrillers. He also showed us one of his covers. His only input on the covers will ever be if the submarine depicted on the cover is accurate. Other than that, they show him the cover for his information, not comment.
The Rub
On the other hand, many authors cite the lack of assistance in marketing as a major drawback of smaller presses. While even larger presses expect more from authors in terms of marketing, for a smaller press, that’s always a given. Another author on the Insecure Writing Support Groups post pointed out that she didn’t get quick responses from her small press, though other authors had the opposite experience. Often the biggest drawback all the authors cited, was the difficulty getting their books into brick and mortar stores. Smaller publishers just don’t have the clout that larger ones do.
All in all, many authors enjoyed their experiences working with small publishers. What’s been your experience?
