All posts by Aubree Morris

The Importance of Workshops

Before approaching your publisher, you—ideally—want to bring your writing to a few people for review. It could be a friend, a former teacher, a mentor, or a family member. Regardless of their relation, every piece of submitted writing should have gone under a few pairs of eyes before any type of submission—literary journals, publishers, and literary agents.

However, close friends and family might find it difficult to provide unbiased advice. Of course, they should still read through your work to provide feedback, but this should not be the only criticism you solicit. Perhaps your friends don’t know how to talk about literature, or maybe your family members feel uncomfortable providing criticism. If you want honest, constructive feedback, you should get it from a stranger or a professional. The former is always the easier, more cost-effective option. If you find yourself seeking a reader or someone to have a dialogue about writing, there is an indispensable tool you should utilize: the writer’s workshop.

Joining a writer’s workshop is an excellent strategy for getting your work into other people’s hands. These groups meet regularly, either in-person or online, to read and discuss member work. Here’s how it works: prior to the meeting, a writer will send their work to all group members. Everyone will arrive to the meeting prepared to discuss the writing, and a constructive conversation will build around that week’s reading. This is an excellent way to glean a new perspective on your writing. Maybe your character development could be better, or perhaps you’ve written every other sentence in the passive voice. Somebody in the group will point it out, and you’ll be able to address the issue—or think through why you don’t want to change something. This is essential for finding your writer’s voice, learning to respond to criticism, and incorporating new ideas.

Additionally, writer’s workshops meet regularly—either every week or every month. If you want to become a long-term member or take a workshop-centered class, this schedule will impose deadlines. Have you been struggling to finish that novel manuscript? Want to write more than one or two articles this year? Your hworkshop will hold you accountable for doing the work you want to write. Not only will you get excellent feedback, you will write more during your time in the workshop.

 

Thinking About Self-Publishing? Read This First

Self-publishing is one of the easiest ways to throw your written work into circulation. Similar to what we do at Edmonton Small Press, self-publishing imposes few creative limitations and almost no publication drawbacks. However, writers looking to self-publish their work should weigh the pros and cons carefully before making a decision. Below, we have outlined several important factors to understand before jumping into the world of self-publishing.

Self-publishing allows for more creative freedom, but you won’t get any professional feedback. Writers may enjoy the ability to control every part of the creation and publication process, but they will not receive the services offered by professional editors. An editor is an essential tool, as their removed perspective can offer invaluable insight regarding both global and local aspects of your writing.

You control the format and artwork, but you also do all the work. Both small and large publishers work with authors and artists to create the book jacket and cover art. When you self-publish, the task falls on your shoulders (or on the shoulders of the freelance artist you hire). If you don’t know how to use PhotoShop or another illustrating software, you’ll likely have to spend money on the service.

Your market reach will be stunted, but you will receive 100% net royalties. With the aid of Amazon, self-published work can now reach a broader audience. However, this online platform still pales in comparison to the marketing and distribution services provided by traditional publishing venues. However, though your profits will likely be small, you keep everything you make; a published would normally take a share of revenue.

The Advantages of Working with a “Big Five” Publisher

If you want to work with a large publisher, you’re probably in the wrong place; we at Edmonton Small Press pride ourselves on the ability to publish everything and anything. With few limitations and a wide set of venues, we want to make publishing easier for those who are interested.

However, if you want to work with a big publisher, we won’t stop you. In fact, there are several benefits to working with one of the “Big Five” publishers—Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, Macmillan Publishers, Penguin Random House, and Sion and Schuster. Below, we have listed our top three reasons to work with one of these big-name literary venues.

1. Your book will reach a larger audience. A larger publisher has access to a greater number of sales channels, meaning your book is more likely to be picked up by a reader. Additionally, your work will be in the publisher’s seasonal catalog and available via wholesale distributors, increasing distribution range and efficiency.

2. The marketing and publicity support will be intense. Good reviews of your book can significantly increase its publication life, and these reviews are easily accessed with the help of a big publisher marketing team. Moreover, you’ll receive professional marketing assistance in the form of targeted advertisements, release parties, and scheduled readings.

3. You’ll experience several rounds of diverse editing processes. On the way to publication, a book can go through dozens of rounds of editing; some will concern global changes, such as those relating to plot, whereas other will address only local, sentence-level shifts. The more eyes you have on your work, the more feedback you will get.

The Benefits of Working with a Small Press

With hundreds of independent publishing companies producing work, writers—both professional and recreational—have more opportunities than ever before. These literary venues often offer a specific publication direction; some specialize in flash fiction, while others prefer lyric essays. Working within a category can increase your chances of publication, but it can also feel restricting. Edmonton Small Press is working around this issue by publishing work from all genres on all topics.

If, however, you want to work with a standard small press, we don’t want to stop you; the benefits of working with an independent publisher are manifold. Below, we have listed our top reasons for working with a small, independent press.

1. Small presses often have more contract flexibility. A large, traditional press will generally offer an author somewhere between 5% and 15% of gross royalties. Publishing through a small press may result in as much as a 50/50 net royalty split, and you have a greater chance of retaining subsidiary rights to your work. Negotiations are also easier; you will come to know the people working on your project, and they are more likely to hear you out.

2. A small press will allow more editorial control. At a larger press, manuscript changes are difficult to address and control. In most cases, a smaller press will allow you to be more transparent about the changes you would like to make to the final product

3. Small presses will often run the production and distribution processes for the author. If you work with a larger publisher, a production schedule can stretch on for more than a year. A smaller press has fewer projects and can therefore devote the time and resources necessary to turn your project into a reality. It can take as little as three or four months to turn a draft into a launch.

Today’s Small Press Publishers

Have you heard the news that small press publishing companies are a dying breed? Well, don’t believe everything you read. With more than 500 small presses in operation today, this sector of the publishing industry isn’t exactly an endangered species. Many of them even maintain viable, robust print publishing operations.

 

Unfortunately, not all of them have the best track record in looking out for their authors. Look around the web and talk to people you know, and you’ll find some of the best and some of the worst experiences come from working with small presses. It’s really night and day. Some of them are set up and deploy deceptive publishing practices so as to cover their own risks at the expense of the treatment of the author. Some of them are downright scams. Again, we’re talking about dozens of bad apples among hundreds. Many of them fall somewhere in a gray area that they’ve deemed necessary for survival. Indeed, the small press is a volatile, surprisingly competitive market that draws on audiences from local communities, online communities, individual interests, and collegiate affiliations.

 

The Edmonton Small Press can offer some recommendations in specific genres that may have flown under your radar until now. Have a personal essay or piece of literary nonfiction you want to submit to a literary-minded small press, for example? We recommend River Teeth, but there are a ton of great options. To wit, we couldn’t possibly claim to tell you one-by-one which of the small press publishers you can trust and what you can expect from them and what their publishing model looks like. At least not yet.

 

In addition to providing an opportunity for writers to get paid something for the “stuff they write on the side,” we’re working to build out our reviews and general tips for submitting work to and then working with a small press publisher. As uncertain as the future of print publishing may be, the future of small presses themselves are looking as strong as ever. It’s much like the notion that “nobody reads poetry anymore,” when in fact more people read poetry today than ever. It’s just that nobody talks about it.