New Year New Blog
It’s the beginning of the year and that means many people are starting new projects. At the press, we’ve decided to start a publisher’s blog that will come out about six times a year to talk about what’s happening at the press. For this first blog post, I’m going to tackle five of our most frequently asked questions about how we do things here at Wolsak and Wynn.
1. How much does it cost to publish a book with you?
Nothing. Seriously, it doesn’t cost anything to publish with us. In fact, we pay you. When you pay to be published you’re engaging in self-publishing or a form of hybrid publishing. In these cases the company charges you for the book to be made and then gives you your copies to sell and distribute. With a hybrid press they may do some of the sales and marketing for you – it’s important to read contracts with hybrid presses carefully to see what kind of services you’ve paid for.
With a traditional publishing company such as Wolsak and Wynn, there is no cost to the author to be published. If we agree to publish your manuscript, we’ll sign a contract with you, pay you an advance on your royalties and give you royalty statements once a year where we let you know how much money you’ve made. Author royalties are calculated as a percentage of money made from each book sold. You won’t see any cheques from us until your royalties are higher than the advance we gave you at the beginning, but generally our authors see royalty cheques a year or two after the book is published. Unless you have a poetry collection. But I digress.
The remaining revenues, along with grant monies that the press has applied for, go to paying for editing, design, printing, marketing and distribution. We also cover things like rent, paper and other prosaic office expenses. The press handles all the costs associated with publishing a book so that there is no financial risk to the author. We’re taking on that risk. With self-publishing or hybrid publishing, the author takes on all, or some, of the financial risk of publishing the book.
2. Can I send you my manuscript?
We’d be happy to look at a sample of your work, not the whole manuscript, when we’re open for submissions. Wolsak and Wynn is open for submissions from January 1st to March 31st each year. Anyone can submit. You don’t need an agent to work with us. What we’d like to see is a cover letter that tells us a bit about your book; a list of writing credits, if you have any; and about twelve to fifteen pages of writing from your completed manuscript. If we like those pages, we’ll ask to see your full manuscript.
We have more detailed information online, on our submissions page. Please read them. In fact, poke around the website and read about the press as well. See who we’ve published, maybe follow some of the links on the book pages, see what reviewers have had to say about our books. Read the samples. If you like what we’re publishing, chances are good we’ll like what you’re writing. If you don’t like our books, we’re probably not a good place for you to publish. But there are lots of small presses out there who like different kinds of books. Read widely and get to know them.
3. Can I book an appointment to come and talk to you about my book?
No. If we decide to offer to publish your manuscript, we’ll get in touch with you to talk about contracts, editorial direction, publishing seasons, etc. But we can’t do any of that until we’ve read your submission, and we’re not going to sit down and read the submission with you. Mail it in to us, and give us good contact information so that we can let you know what we’ve decided.
As a side note, please don’t bring manuscripts to book fairs either. Stop by and chat with us about what’s new, see the kinds of books the press is publishing, even consider buying a book. Maybe pick up a business card to get in touch later on with a pitch. If you give me twenty pages to read when I’m in another city trying to sell books, I can guarantee I’m going to leave those pages in that city when I pack up to go home. Now, if you’ve sent us in a submission and are wanting to check in, give us about six months after submissions close to get in touch. You’ll probably have heard from us by then, but if not, send us an email to see where things are at. We still won’t meet in person, but we’ll be happy to answer your questions about the submission.
4. Why won’t you publish my book?
There are many reasons why we choose not to publish books. One is that we are a small press and only bring out between twelve and fifteen books a year. We have hundreds submitted to us. We simply can’t publish them all. I’m forever telling my editors, and myself, that we can’t sneak more books in once we’ve filled a season. But another reason is that what you’ve submitted might not fit with our list. Every publisher has types and styles of books that they publish, a flavour to the lines at their press. It’s a good idea to get to know those styles before you submit to any press, to save you time and energy. Wolsak and Wynn is a literary press, so we don’t do business books or self-help books. We do publish lots of poetry and fiction and collections of essays or memoirs. So if you bring me your book on prostate self-care, I’m going to turn it down. And if you tell me I don’t know what I’m missing by doing so, I’ll respond that I’m just fine not knowing, thank you. It’s pretty clear the book doesn’t fit our list.
5. I’ve done everything for you! All you need to do is get my book out into the world so we can be rich!
Okay, that one’s not so much a question as a declaration. But it’s something that happens fairly often. If you’ve already had your book designed and printed, and sold copies to everyone you know along with a few strangers, you’ve published your book. As a publisher, there’s not much left for me to do. There’s no room for editorial changes that might make the book structurally stronger and there’s not even room for a copy edit to make sure you’re using the right it’s throughout the text. It’s not my book at this point, so I’m not going to ask my distributor to carry it, create bibliodata so that booksellers can find it in their databases or send out copies to media outlets to see if they might review it in their publications. You’ve self-published that book, so that’s now your job. If you want us to consider your manuscript for publication, don’t bind it, or give it away as a free ebook first. Give it to us as a manuscript, open to change and full of potential. If we decide to publish it, we’ll work with you to make it the best it can be, and send it out into the world for you. But I’ll warn you right now, we’ll never get rich together. We’ll cover that issue in a different blog post.
