Today’s Publisher:
“Oh, no, we don’t accept any author submissions. We rely on literary agents to recommend books for us.”
“Oh, no, we can commission books, but we like most of our submissions to be completely and professionaly edited.”
“Oh, no, we don’t facilitate direct sales, our distributor and retailers do that.”
“Yeh, the marketing side is really the biggest outlay for us publishers. We use a freelance market agency now, and obviously need authors to do their marketing bit.”
“Social media? Yeh, we do a little bit, but it takes up so much time and really it’s better when the author does it.”
“eBooks? Absolutely, we love it. Some of the Adobe software means we can churn out (sorry, publish) our older out-of-print back catalogue in no time.”
“Our biggest seller? Let me see. I’ll have to take a quick look on Bowker/Nielsen.”
“Your royalties? March sales? Ah, here, we won’t process those sales and pay you until December/January next year.”
“Julian, our editor? No, it’s no wonder you haven’t had a response. He left the company three months ago.I’ll get Sandra to get back to you. No, wait… Bill may be looking after Julian’s stuff now. I’ll need to check. Can I call you back when I find out?”
“What! How do you mean there are errors in the books out in retail channels? It sounds like a printing issue. I’ll get production to talk to marketing, and maybe someone will talk to our distributors and printers.”
“What do you mean, what do we do? We’re publishers, silly. We publish books!”
Ha!!
Love it!
I’ve been in the writing and publishing business for over 30 years, and for the most part what you read above pretty much describes what it’s been like for me. (Other than the mention of Social Media — that didn’t come till later.) I LOVE being an indie author!! :^)
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