A Publisher's Conversation with Authors: Collaboration in Sheep's Clothing
1. It is Tuesday. Time to tall turkey. Monday's madness is over, and Wednesday will take us over the hump, so Tuesday it is--for some serious discussion with authors. Tuesday talks mean to address authors in waiting and self-published authors who would like to go a more traditional route or who would at least like to take their steps with a publisher by their side. Today's topic takes a detour from the usual format of this column in order to share an experience as a warning to other publishers and to authors -- a great get-rich scheme for the company doing the offering and stay-poor scheme for authors, presented as a collaboration. I almost got trapped by this one and there are some takeaways I have learned (and should have known) that could be warning bells for others. Months ago, I was contacted by ORIM, a legitimate company, offering to collaborate on marketing of some of our e-books. It was a very fair offer: we would put up the e-books, ORIM would market them on