January 24, 2012
Think about it like this. You have a child. You are taking your child to a free daycare center. The daycare center is run by a small group of parents who also have children of their own. Unfortunately they cannot have their own kids at the daycare, so they are currently looking for a daycare for their children.
Why did they set up this daycare in the first place? Well, they believe in children. And that’s good for you because you want your children to be in a safe happy place.
You want to have the daycare people love your little pumpkin and take good care of him/her. You want the children to be loved and fed, sung to and carried forth into their young childhood like the angels you believe them to be.
Here’s how most people start with their indie publisher/editor, “How much do you like my book? How hard are you going to work on my book? What else can you do for my book?”
I’m not suggesting that you have to be friends with the people running the press any more than you have to be friends with whoever runs your kids’ daycare. But I am suggesting that you think about this. Why is this writer spending any of their time producing, publishing and promoting your book when they could be working on their own? Probably because they love books as do you. But pretend for a moment if you can that it isn’t all about you, that you are not the center of the literary world.
Most writers when they contact a press are very eager to know what that press can do for them. They start making requests, issuing orders and camping out.
We writers collectively want books to survive. To do that, writers need to work with their publishers. And that means first of all taking into account that the publisher is a person, very often a writer, with his /her own life. Respecting and acknowledging that can only help you as a writer. You’re part of the world of writing, not the most important part, just a part.
What I would do? I would want to know the following:
- If I am lucky enough to be published by your publishing company, what would you like me to do to make the book successful?
- Is there anything else I can do to help?
- How are you? And mean it. For a moment at least, mean it.
Come up with one thing you can do for your publisher every year. Seriously. Do something for the publisher that isn’t about you.
The writers I am most excited about working with work to promote their own book, fill out their questionnaire, are easy to work with on editing and don’t seem to think that I work for them or that anyone at the press works for them either. A writer is working for their own book. It’s my job to write my book and to run a press. That’s what I’m doing every day, building a press that rocks the world.
