Today, I’m offering up a bonus publishing legal post that answers a question I often hear from authors getting ready to release their first novels into the world–and sometimes even from veteran authors with numerous books to their credit:
With the explosion of publishing houses in the United States (and abroad)…how can an author tell if a publisher is a good place to submit a manuscript?
Agented authors don’t need to worry about this quite as much, because one part of an agent’s job is choosing publishing houses to fit the author’s work, and agents don’t submit to disreputable houses. That said, the rise in independent authors, the boom in publishing houses, and the fact that many publishers (including quite a few larger ones) accept submissions directly from writers means that sometimes authors find themselves receiving an offer without an agent or lawyer already in the deal.
In light of that, I’ve posted an article with 12 concrete tips on how to evaluate a publishing house over at the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers Blog: click here to hop over and see the entire list.