Publishing has always been a relatively small industry, in which narrow margins make it tremendously difficult to stay afloat, but you wouldn’t know it from the sheer number of small publishers that exist these days.
When you come across a small publisher to whom you might like to submit your work, you need to do your due diligence. Anyone can set up as a small publisher, so the quality varies: publishers are not created equal!
To avoid not just the scammers, but the people with good intentions who just don’t know what they’re doing, you need to evaluate small publishers carefully to make sure they are legitimate and professional.
You want to avoid the worry that the publisher you’re signing with won’t be able to sell your book effectively, or is about to fold, and you want to avoid the disappointment that comes with having signed over your publishing rights to such a publisher.
Here are some tips for how to check you’re looking at a publisher who won’t take your book and sink it.
Before you submit your work to a small publisher:
If they come directly to you, it’s probably a scam
Do a basic smell check here. Is it really likely you’ve been noticed and picked out by a legitimate publisher from hundreds of thousands of others? Or is it more likely that you’re being targeted by a vanity publisher that’s going to try and charge you thousands of pounds and then sell you copies of your own book?
If you’re already a known voice in your field, have several publications already under your belt, and a publisher emails you wanting to discuss commissioning a new work in your area of expertise, then sure, you could be being approached by a real publisher offering a real opportunity.
But if you’ve published or self-published a book that isn’t selling well, and you’re receiving offers saying your work has been noticed and all you have to do is pay them to do blah blah blah… No.
Real publishers don’t do this. Ditto real literary agents and real TV/film producers.
They are plenty of articles outlining these scams, so I won’t go further into them here. The focus of this article is not so much avoiding scams, but how to positively establish that you’re dealing with a legitimate and professional small publisher that will add value to your publishing career.
Look at their website
First, does the website target readers or authors?
Traditional publishers are in the business of selling books to readers, so their website should be highlighting their new and forthcoming books.
Vanity publishers try to draw in authors with pages of guff about how much they care about authors and how you too can be published with them, and remarkably little about the books they supposedly sell.
Also, check where can you buy their books: are they only available through the publisher’s website or only on Amazon? Are print copies of their books limited to print on demand copies? A self-published author could arrange these things themselves, so ask yourself if they seem to be doing more for their authors than the authors could do alone.
If they’re a publisher with a genuine focus on selling into the book trade, you should be able to order their titles from chain and independent bookshops and find them in libraries.
Look at their books
Check their books’ covers, prices, reviews and sales ranks, and compare them with books published by known quantities.
The covers should be professional, attractive, meaningful. The prices should be normal – not noticeably overpriced, and not all discounted to 99p. Order a couple of paperbacks and check the paper and binding quality. Then read them – are they good books that have been carefully published?
Not all their books need to have hundreds of reviews, but if you can’t find one of their books that has more than two reviews, they just aren’t shifting units. Check how many units they’re actually selling by using a sales rank calculator.
How many books are they publishing a year? If it’s very few, let’s say less than ten, the small publisher may be a hobby or a side hustle for the founder, which doesn’t suggest they’ll be able to sell copies and support their authors’ careers adequately. Of course, if they’re churning out new releases at a rate of knots, it may be an author mill, and the quality will reflect that.
Look at the founder and the staff
Does their background and experience qualify them to publish other people’s books? Enthusiastic amateurs can do a lot of harm to an author’s career.
You should be able to see who works at the small publisher and a bit about their work history, and that work history should include relevant experience at publishing houses. Being a big reader, or having a Creative Writing MA, or being an author are not enough to qualify someone to be your publisher.
Similarly, the editorial staff absolutely must be trained and qualified: being an English teacher isn’t at all the same thing as being a professional editor.
Be wary also of founders with a business background, who haven’t previously run book businesses – the publishing industry is idiosyncratic and jumping straight in from another sector is highly likely to lead to a swift failure.
How long has the small publisher been in business?
Small publishers fold at an alarming rate, usually within the first year or two. If they’re new, it may be best to let them work out the bugs on someone else. If they’re good, they’ll still be there in a few years.
Any evidence of late/missing royalty payments, unhappy authors, or bad behaviour?
Do a general search for news items from industry publications.
Look them up on Facebook and Reddit to see if the authors have banded together to try and rescue their rights or get their missing royalties. Take note of any relevant blog posts.
Once you are in discussions to publish with a small publisher:
Talk to a few of their other authors
Find out what other authors’ experience with the small publisher has been like.
What went smoothly, and what was bumpy? How did the publisher respond when something went wrong? Would the author want to work with them again? Has publishing with them been more lucrative than the author thinks they could have managed if they’d self-published?
What added value are they offering?
If the publisher isn’t going to do anything more than you could do on your own as a self-published author, there’s not much point being with them.
Ask them how many copies of your book they would expect to sell, based on their experience with similar books.
Do they have a distributor, and if so, do their books get pitched to accounts? If they’re very small, they probably won’t have an in-house sales team, so they might forgo a print run and be focusing on selling via Amazon. This isn’t necessarily terrible, but there needs to be some advantage to being with them that you cannot provide on your own.
Find out what and how much of the marketing you’re expected to do, what activities they would arrange, and ask for examples – if they’re not doing anything you couldn’t do yourself or you’re expected to shoulder the whole burden of marketing the book, they’re not adding value.
Look at their contract
I have articles on the essential contract terms you need to understand, and groups like the Society of Authors and the Authors Guild have resources and advice as well.
The small publisher should be willing and able to explain any part of the contract you ask about. If they’re reluctant, that’s a worry, and it may mean they don’t understand their own contracts.
Establish that their standard terms are negotiable, and then negotiate
Read the contract carefully and make note of all your questions and concerns.
If they say their terms are not negotiable, that’s a red flag.
You should expect to need to ask for a few changes. Even the best and fairest contracts I’ve ever seen usually require a few clarifications or some small changes before they’re ready to sign.
Lastly, you should seek expert advice before beginning to negotiate. It’s worth taking the contract to an authors’ group or a contract negotiator like me, to make sure you haven’t missed any red flags, and you’re getting the best terms you can. You can book a contracts consultation with me using the button below.
Don’t forget: you have agency here
If you’re serious about your work being published, you will not get swept up in fantastical daydreams just because someone is interested in publishing your work. You should not be looking to sign with any publisher that will have your book! You should only be talking to publishers that are capable of doing justice to your book – otherwise, you’d probably be better off self-publishing.
Now that you know what you’re looking for, and what you’re not looking for in a small publisher, you should be able to proceed with the submission and signing process with confidence that you’re dealing with a legitimate publisher who knows what they’re doing.
But, if you want a second opinion from a publishing professional, I’m happy to oblige – in that case, you might benefit from one of my mini consultations, and you can book one through the button below.
