Be Your Own Editor

From Alec G. in NYC:

Here’s the story: I have recently finished translating someone’s memoirs. The book spans the course of the 20th century and falls under every possible category of interest: personal history, philosophy, story of one’s survival, etc.

My difficulty is with finding the right publisher. I’m doing this myself, i.e., w/o having to go through an agent. Print-on-demand [online self-publishing] is not the best option for me. I would rather prefer the traditional print, even if that implies a smaller print run.

Any suggestions you might be able to offer on this would be great and much appreciated!

I’ve got one suggestion for you, Alec: hire an agent.

You don’t mention whether you’re trying to find a publisher on your own because you’ve tried to get a literary agent and were unsuccessful, or because you’ve decided that not employing one is the smart thing to do for some reason (e.g., you don’t want to pay commission). Either way, I’m afraid your chances of getting your book placed with a publisher of any significance are slim without the help of an agent—especially if you’ve never been published before, which I assume is the case.

Most major publishers, and even larger independent publishing houses, require that all submissions come through an agent. Otherwise they’d get more submissions than they could ever handle. The agents do the weeding out first and, if they’re good, send the right types of manuscript to the right publishers.

Now, there are a lot of small presses throughout the land who may be willing to accept submissions that don’t come through an agent. But these presses, while they perform a valuable service by publishing work that otherwise might not have found a home, also can’t give you what a larger publisher can.

First, an advance of any significance. Any publisher large enough to give you an advance that’s more than a couple thousand dollars is likely to require that you submit your work through an agent.

Don’t care about the money? Unfortunately, small presses also have a harder time getting their books promoted or even stocked in bookstores. So you might be able to sell your book and have it printed and bound, but be aware that it may not receive the quality of manufacture, design, promotion, etc., that a larger publisher can provide, so it probably won’t catch the eyes of very many readers.

I’m not trying to dismiss small presses. I’m a fan of any company that tries to make a profit publishing books in the land of the conglomerated publishing behemoths and the conglomerated bookseller behemoths. Bless them all. And some do manage to find a significant audience for their best books. But you need to research any small presses that might express interest in your book and be aware that, without the services of a literary agent, they may be the only option available to you. (You are wise to avoid print-on-demand.)

So my advice to you, Alec, without my knowing all the facts, is to do everything within your power to find a literary agent. Trust me, it’s worth the commission. If you find that a lot of agents are rejecting the project, try to get feedback and find out why. They know the market, so if multiple agents give you similar criticisms or reasons for rejection, those criticisms will be echoed by publishers, and you might want to consider revising the manuscript to increase its chances of selling.

If you are interested in submitting the book to small presses, many can be found through Internet searches or by perusing the advertisements in writing magazines. One other avenue you might consider, since your book is a memoir, is to try to get an excerpt of it published in a magazine or journal. Writer’s Market 2007 is one source for periodicals that accept submissions.

Best of luck to you, Alec, and please do let me know how it goes!

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 1st, 2007 at 11:52 pm and is filed under Literary Agents, Readers Q&A, The Book Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.