Publishers - Getting Your Book Published
Once you go through all the steps to get your book in perfect, polished, final shape, it is often time to find a "real publisher"! I of course have MANY pages on this site if you want to self publish. That is certainly an option. However, self publishing can be incredibly time consuming and frustrating. Many bookstores won't stock self published books. You would have to go store by store, on your own, convincing each one to put your books on their shelves. Many will refuse. If you instead get your book accepted by a real, "well known" publisher, they will instantly get your book into stores with no problem at all. That means you are saved a lot of work! On the other hand, you also "lose" a lot of money. Where you make 100% of profits on each sale of a self published book, you might only get 10 cents profit on every book sold by a "real publisher". If the publisher does an awful job promoting you, you can be contractually stuck. There are a LOT of pros and cons to weigh here.I sold one series through a publisher who did no marketing at all - so the book didn't sell well. It was just as bad as if I was self publishing, in terms of not being in any bookstores, but I also made hardly any money because the publisher kept most of the proceeds. It's important to talk with the publisher up front about what they feel they will be able to do in terms of marketing.
I have had friends who went through publishers who radically changed their book content, put awful titles on the front, and in essence turned out a book they were embarassed to have their name on. Be sure to talk this through up front as well. You might think it's instantly great to get a publisher to accept you. It could be the start of a nightmare, instead. Be wise, be prudent.
To get more detail on how this process worked, I decided to send out my romance novels and see what the response was. Here are publishers I have written about my romance novels, and their responses. Keep in mind that Harry Potter was turned down by about 20 publishers before someone accepted it, so you should really not expect success with the first letter you send!
Avalon Books
Avon / HarperCollins
Barbour Books / Heartsong
Berkley / Penguin (also Jove) agents only
Black Lyon Publishing
BookEnds LLC
Dell / Bantam agents only
Forever / Hachette agents only
Harlequin Mills & Boon
Hatchette Book Group agents only
Kensington Books
Love Spell / Dorchester Publishing
Medallion Press
Pocket / Simon and Schuster agents only
St. Martin's Press agents only
Wild Rose Press
Notes on My Process
What I Submit
Form Letter Responses
What Does It Cost to Ghostwrite a Book?
Lisa Shea's Editing Services
Lisa Shea Free Ebooks
Lisa Shea Full Library of Published Books
Getting Your Book Published
Writing Tips and Online Books
Lisa Shea Medieval Romance Novels
Online Literary Magazines
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