I'm one of those who had a book published by a small press and, with several hundred ebook/paperback books sold, I never received a cent. Their contract said royalties would be paid semi-annually. The publisher died two weeks before I reached that first six-month threshold. So I'm a creditor against his estate. Do I expect to ever be paid? No.
I've worked with Three Ravens Publishing and Cannon Publishing, so this write-up makes me want even more to set aside time to submit stories to Raconteur Press anthologies. :)
I haven't been published myself (yet lol), but I'm learning something about the world because my husband is trying to build his own writing career, and in just the short time we've taken our dive into this pool, I can already say I've found some of the best advice and encouragement from post's here at Rac press and from the discord for Three Ravens and from the podcast done with Jumpmaster and the other publishers that are supporting LawDog.
I definitely want to support publishers like these mentioned here who want to lift everyone up, to form a supportive network of authors and publishers that work together so we all can succeed instead of feeding off each other then casting them aside.
Thank you so much for sharing this. I didn't know you did this in your model of publishing.
That said, what publishing is doing is what Hollywood perfected: Hide the profit and the data. It's why Michael Caine and Sean Connery sued and audited United Artists back in the day and literally bankrupted them because of all the dirty financial tricks they were doing. This started a trend among a handful of major stars to audit every movie they're in to the Nth degree. Reclassifying and hiding budgets and profits to maximize grift.
Of course the publishing industry for the most part are doing a variation on that song too. I strongly suspect online vendors have their adaptation of the game as well. If you didn't handsell the book, you've no idea really. You're always taking someone's word for it.
So seeing someone playing as honest a game as possible is wonderful. I hope to get to work with you guys in the near future, as I have a few projects gearing up for you and other presses you're creating a network to gain leverage against the systems that are cheating authors and small presses for their own profit and acting like kaiju crabs in the crab bucket.
Shine on you crazy diamonds! I'm gonna join in as best I can.
I long ago shifted from traditional print books to ebooks and audiobooks, but the lovely editions Raconteur puts out have made change my mind. Your books are the only ones I’ve added to my physical collection in a decade or so, and I’m looking forward to completing the set published to date soon. The stories are great, and so is the artwork; but it’s the business model and the people that were audacious enough to start this project that sealed the deal for me. You’ve got a fan for life and at least one copy of everything you put out sold as long as you’re publishing.
I come across a comment like this roughly once a day on Twitter:
"I'm a man. I read a lot. So do my male friends. But we're becoming invisible to tradpub because tradpub has become hostile to the kinds of novels men like - SF in the the classic (non-self-hating) mode, adventure and military fiction, Westerns."
You can't sell what you won't publish, and unfortunately they listen to their marketing teams who tell them that only doctor-princess-astronaut-admiral SFCs sell. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. And they don't want to chance being burned down if they were to publish -- perish the thought -- a man saving a woman. All women save themselves, don't you know? This is one of the reasons I wrote RoH, to give people something different, something other than a doctor-princess-astronaut-admiral.
Anthologies are great, but for me as a writer, they're like the Chinese water torture test. A story here. A story there. I write to keep my brain from exploding. Too much for such dribs and drabs. So I needed a publisher who would put out a book of MY stories. Does Raconteur Press ever do that?
Why not self pub a collection yourself? The whole point behind an anthology is to leverage the audience garnered by many authors. Only big names get collections published by trad pub.
I'm one of those who had a book published by a small press and, with several hundred ebook/paperback books sold, I never received a cent. Their contract said royalties would be paid semi-annually. The publisher died two weeks before I reached that first six-month threshold. So I'm a creditor against his estate. Do I expect to ever be paid? No.
I've worked with Three Ravens Publishing and Cannon Publishing, so this write-up makes me want even more to set aside time to submit stories to Raconteur Press anthologies. :)
I've worked with Raconteur, Cannon, and hope to work with Three Ravens. All very different, but all quality folks.
I haven't been published myself (yet lol), but I'm learning something about the world because my husband is trying to build his own writing career, and in just the short time we've taken our dive into this pool, I can already say I've found some of the best advice and encouragement from post's here at Rac press and from the discord for Three Ravens and from the podcast done with Jumpmaster and the other publishers that are supporting LawDog.
I definitely want to support publishers like these mentioned here who want to lift everyone up, to form a supportive network of authors and publishers that work together so we all can succeed instead of feeding off each other then casting them aside.
Thank you so much for sharing this. I didn't know you did this in your model of publishing.
That said, what publishing is doing is what Hollywood perfected: Hide the profit and the data. It's why Michael Caine and Sean Connery sued and audited United Artists back in the day and literally bankrupted them because of all the dirty financial tricks they were doing. This started a trend among a handful of major stars to audit every movie they're in to the Nth degree. Reclassifying and hiding budgets and profits to maximize grift.
Of course the publishing industry for the most part are doing a variation on that song too. I strongly suspect online vendors have their adaptation of the game as well. If you didn't handsell the book, you've no idea really. You're always taking someone's word for it.
So seeing someone playing as honest a game as possible is wonderful. I hope to get to work with you guys in the near future, as I have a few projects gearing up for you and other presses you're creating a network to gain leverage against the systems that are cheating authors and small presses for their own profit and acting like kaiju crabs in the crab bucket.
Shine on you crazy diamonds! I'm gonna join in as best I can.
I long ago shifted from traditional print books to ebooks and audiobooks, but the lovely editions Raconteur puts out have made change my mind. Your books are the only ones I’ve added to my physical collection in a decade or so, and I’m looking forward to completing the set published to date soon. The stories are great, and so is the artwork; but it’s the business model and the people that were audacious enough to start this project that sealed the deal for me. You’ve got a fan for life and at least one copy of everything you put out sold as long as you’re publishing.
SWAG...sigh... Scientific Wild Ass Guess... sigh And yes, you saw what we did with the CalExit and Tales Around the Supper Table anthos!
I come across a comment like this roughly once a day on Twitter:
"I'm a man. I read a lot. So do my male friends. But we're becoming invisible to tradpub because tradpub has become hostile to the kinds of novels men like - SF in the the classic (non-self-hating) mode, adventure and military fiction, Westerns."
https://x.com/esrtweet/status/1791947006983700985
You can't sell what you won't publish, and unfortunately they listen to their marketing teams who tell them that only doctor-princess-astronaut-admiral SFCs sell. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. And they don't want to chance being burned down if they were to publish -- perish the thought -- a man saving a woman. All women save themselves, don't you know? This is one of the reasons I wrote RoH, to give people something different, something other than a doctor-princess-astronaut-admiral.
20th century publishing, but yeah.
Anthologies are great, but for me as a writer, they're like the Chinese water torture test. A story here. A story there. I write to keep my brain from exploding. Too much for such dribs and drabs. So I needed a publisher who would put out a book of MY stories. Does Raconteur Press ever do that?
Why not self pub a collection yourself? The whole point behind an anthology is to leverage the audience garnered by many authors. Only big names get collections published by trad pub.
Sorry, I forgot to mention that I have a book of my stories published and another soon to be. https://books2read.com/u/m0ajPY