MSI Press Blog

  (photo by Frank Perez) 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 addresses prolific authors as well as authors working on their second book. Who should publish subsequent books by an author -- the publisher of the first book or another publisher? This is not always a simple question, but there are simple ways to make a decision about where your next book gets submitted. Consider the following: What does your contract with your publisher say? Some publishers require authors give them the right of first refusal for any subsequent books. This is more especially true for novels than for nonfiction books. What your contract says you are beholden to d

  (photo by Frank Perez) 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. They also provide useful (we hope) information for first-time published authors who perhaps are not getting as much feedback from their traditional publishers as they would like or need. (Some publishers are more proactive in this way than others.) That latter phrase is important. Even published authors can be attacked by scammers, posing as book competitions, book reviewers, and literary agents. This blog post focuses those scammers posing literary agents. To separate the wheat from the chaff, there are some easy means: Literary Agents are listed in the Literary Marketplace ; yes, it is expensive,

  It is Tuesday. 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 addresses a topic that comes into my in-box on a regular basis, at least once or twice a week: a self-published author (either thought self-publication would provide more control and money or was unable to land a traditional contract) does not like the self-publication results and would like a re-do, i.e. start over again with a traditional publisher/contract. To cut to the chase, this is the content of the typical response I send to these queries: Thank you for your submission. We have a policy of not re-publishing previously        published books, so your book would not be of interest to us.  Of the data available from A

  (photo by Frank Perez) 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 is about the publication process itself. You have a manuscript in hand, now what? There are several stages. So, let's take each stage separately. Stage One. Completion of the Manuscript You have finished writing the manuscript and have carefully proofread it, but you are NOT ready to move to Stage Two. There are a few things you need to do first. If not done, this is the stage that often dooms a manuscript never to move to Stage Two and on into becoming a book. You proofread, right? For what did you proofread? Spelling? Ran it through the spellchecker? Certain your own eyes wil

  (photograph by Frank Perez) 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 addresses difficult authors.  No publisher likes a difficult author. All publishers get them at times. All difficult authors are difficult in different ways but here are some that we have seen (not necessarily within MSI Press, where we have a wonderful consortium of authors supportive of each other and the press itself but with sister presses, for the most part):  They want to have control over every aspect of production, e.g., the time schedule, the cover design, the marketing plan, color vs B&W; this can be particularly the case for first-time authors. There is a good r

  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 is about republishing self-published books. Can you get a traditional contract from a traditional publishing house for a book you have self-published?  Well, that depends. As the acquisitions editor for a traditional press that also offers hybrid publishing contracts for untested writers, the answer is an across-the-board no, but there are some publishers who might. Let's look at the reasons for and against republishing a self-published book, from a publisher's point of view. Why a publisher would not want to re-publish a self-published book -- Typically, an author thinks that he or she has exhau

  It is Tuesday. 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 look at finding a publisher from a different perspective, not the one that advises authors how to prepare proposals and cold-approach editors. This approach, well-done, can work. That is often, however, not how a publisher is found. Sometimes, it is through serendipity. More often than not, it happens through networking. A few examples should be enough to illustrate the principle. Attending a conference, meeting a publisher     This is probably the most traditional "warm approach" way to land a contract. If you are hoping to impress a publisher at a conference, come prepared. Know why you would like to publish wit

  (photo by Frank Perez) 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 is about preparing a book for submission. We are talking here about the final version that gets sent to the publisher (after the inquiry and proposal, after the acceptance and contract). There are reasons that you would want to take the extra time to make sure that the book is just as ship-shape as possible: Most publishers have a clause in the contract that allows them to turn down a book after submission if it is not of good enough quality. The cleaner the book, the less expensive for the publisher to copyedit -- should you want to submit another book later, you will be remembere

  Types of Publishers and Choosing among Them Excerpt from Publishing for Smarties Publishers differ in size and readership. Some of the ways in which size and readership cause publishers to differ include the following:   advances;   royalties;  financial investment;  author discounts and complimentary copies;  editing of books;  Books in Print (Bowker/ISBN);  Library of Congress (LOC): copyright and the LOC number;   book reviews;  wholesaling & distribution; bookstores;  advertising;  marketing & sales; and  keeping books in print.  Small presses will handle many of these items differently from large presses. Vanity publishers take a very different approach; of course, with self-publishing much does not apply because you are on your own.  The question as to how long it will take from the time you contact a publisher, get a contract, go through the preproduction and production processes, and end up with a book in hand is answered in so many different ways that it is no

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 is holiday books. After all, we are straddling two holidays right now -- Chanukah and Christmas. So, if you want to write a holiday-related book, say a Christmas book, when should you start? What kind of timeline will dictate having the book out at the right time? Let's assume that you have a publisher lined up because otherwise all timing issues are moot. Here are the timelines that would work for us, as a publisher: The latest, as a publisher, I would want to get a Christmas book, is January, but preferably the previous November or December. I need at least a couple of weeks to decide whether or not