Rami Ungar The Writer

Yesterday I wrote how I’d read a TIME magazine article and it had given me hope. After I’d posted that and started getting ready for bed, I thought about how some self-publishing writers made enough sales that they were noticed by the traditional publishing houses in New York and signed lucrative contracts for their books. It made me wonder, is starting independent and then signing up with a traditional publishing house once one presents an offer a smart move?

Well, let’s weigh the pros and cons. Some former indie authors  have said that they’re happy they don’t have to manage marketing their books or paying for illustrators/copy editors/advertisers/possible print orders if you make enough money for it. There’s also the security and old prestige that still comes with being associated with a publishing house, and with a publishing house backing you, they can get your books into stores, help negotiate movie/audiobook deals, and the occasional lawsuit where someone says something absolutely ridiculous about your book and what it’s doing to young people or how a single character is a slanderous caricature of them. Your books can read a wider audience, and who like a publishing house can garner you a good review or get you on Ellen?

However, there are some negatives: You have to submit to the publishing house’s rules, aka write what will sell, and the publisher ends up taking a large amount of the royalties from print sales. You lose a lot of control over what you have, and if you decide to break your contract with the compnay over creative differences, not only will the company retain control over most, if not all, of the work you published with them, they’ll badmouth you throughout the industry for being a sore loser. Also, if you’re name’s not J.K. Rowling and you don’t continue to give them amazing work, they can ask for your advance from your previous work back or impose other such penalties or even drop you (or so I’ve heard).

I guess it depends on the writer, his/her circumstances, and how s/he feels about traditional vs. independent publishing. For me, I’d only sign up with a publisher if they gave me a lot of rights and incentives over my work. But of course, I first have to get the work out. Let’s hope that’s soon.