Targeting an E-Publisher (Part 1) (This is another post that has to be split up over multiple days because it's so long.)

Note: If you want a PDF version of my first post in this series, Formatting a Manuscript for E-Publishing, you can download the PDF from my Scribd folder.

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Introduction
Once you have a manuscript written and it’s been proofed and test read and is ready to go, you have to try to sell it. For many people, this is the most harrowing part of the entire process and, unfortunately, this often leads to even more frustration because they will end up submitting manuscripts and collecting rejections from houses they shouldn’t have targeted at all. This is needless work and needless pain.

I really advocate being smart and educated when deciding which e-publishers to submit your hard work to. This includes doing some research and due diligence on the various e-publishers and making sure any compromises or tradeoffs are made knowingly. Educated decisions and even compromises are a key part of success in this industry.

I’m not attempting to tell you which e-publisher to choose. Instead I’m just trying to give you ideas of what to consider when selecting which e-publishers you want to submit your hard work to.

Know Exactly What You’re Selling
The first part of the formula is to know exactly what you are selling. This sounds like a really obvious and redundant thing to point out but I’ll do it anyway. I have actually met people who do not know what genre their story is and some aren’t sure how long it is!

If you followed the instructions in the first article in this series (Formatting for E-Publishing), you will already have a cover page that tells you exactly what genre you believe your story to be and how long it is. If you didn’t follow those instructions, write those two key pieces of information down and keep it handy.

Finding E-Publishers
There are a number of places to look for simple lists of e-publishers that publish the type of work you want to sell.

Some suggestions are:
• EREC (Erotic Romance E-Publisher Comparison Site): http://www.erecsite.com/index.html
• Preditors & Editors: http://anotherealm.com/prededitors/
• EPIC (Electronically Published Internet Connection): http://www.epicauthors.com/
• Piers Anthony: http://www.hipiers.com/
• Publishers you own books from.
• Recommendations from friends, loops, etc.

Note that some of these sites give information and offer recommendations. I always think these should be noted but no one recommendation or warning should constitute your entire decision on an e-publisher.

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Part 2 will be put up tomorrow and will start talking about the various pieces of information you can use to narrow down and rank your list of e-publishers with.

Labels: e-publishing, Maura Anderson, Writing

  ¶ posted at 11:42 PM by Maura Anderson