Self publishers

[eloisel]

Are any of you self publishers?

I've got a new guy in one of my groups who bills himself as an established, published writer but when I got his first submission it was prepared in single space. I've never had that happen before. Preparation of a manuscript in double space is such an industry standard I never think about it.

Maybe he is a self publisher. Do any of you know what the industry standards are for self publishers?

I'm not going to give his stuff a chance based on line spacing. I'll read it. Hope it is good.

 

[Filthy Whore]

No, but I know someone that claims to be a published author. Because his short stories are posted online in a writing forum. I wasn't too impressed.

 

[Eat Shit And Die]

He sounds like a failure.

 

[NeonMercuryASH]

This is what I got from Simon and Shuster, Mimi Tanitch. It's better to have an agent, but if you don't, call ahead. Get a name of a bona fide, editor, so you'll have a name for your cover letter. Type it, DOUBLE SPACE. It'll take six to eight weeks to hear back. Do send a self address envelope with sufficient postage. i.e. If the post office weighs your postage at a buck and a half, send two bucks back. As if fifty cents is gonna break you. Don't be cheap.

 

[eloisel]

I don't know that the guy is a loser. I'm going to read his stuff and give him a good critique this time. If the story is good, I'll give him the opportunity to work on his mechanics. Basically, I have openings for two more people in my group and I'd like for at least one of them to be male to keep the group balanced.

 

[Enkephalen]

Ask The Saint - he's self published and has an e-book on Amazon.com. So does RJ Diogenes who posts on Shattered Corpse and on ExIsle.

 

[jack]

Somehow, I don't think she'll use him as a resource.

 

[Aquehonga]

What about vanity publiishers like Lulu? Or are they last resorts?

 

[eloisel]

I've done a lot of pre-production publishing work for vanity publishers in the past. Generally, the ones I worked for published family histories and other limited edition types of work. Examples, I worked on a book about Janie Frickie for Janie Frickie, one for Jackie Chan, one about fire engines in New York, another on Winchester rifles, several Friends of the Libraries small town histories - limited market type books. In the old days, we still required double spaced, single side, typewritten pages on white paper, 1 inch margins, flushed left, first line of paragraphs indented, 12 pt. Times Roman or Courier font.

I read the guys manuscript - or at least the first 60 pages that he sent to me. He is going to need a great deal of work to be able to get anything published by a publisher with a footprint, and distribution and marketing assist. He isn't material for the group to which he applied. That's okay. If he is interested in raising the bar on his writing, I can find a group more suitable for his genre and style. Or, he can continue to self-publish if he is happy with how that is going for him. His main problem is going to be getting an agent or an editor to get past page two of his stuff before they ashcan it. Then, he is going to have to learn, like so many other male writers, to stop using big words to say simple things and which don't mean what you are trying to say anyway. I literally marked a big red mark through the first 35 pages of his MS, which included a prologue that read more like a synopsis, and was very poorly written. Oh well. Nothing is etched in stone and chances are it won't survive a thousand years anyway.