PUBLISHERS

I've been having a pretty hard time finding the right publisher for my new book for quite a while now. It's really annoying. I've been a self-published author since I began my career over 4 years ago, 8 books so far and none touched by an editor. However, I always felt that The Reaper's Thorn was on another level (not superior or infierior, simply different) than my other books. So with that in mind all the time, I finished it, edited it and copyrighted it. About a month ago I began searching for publishers all around the world and these are all the problems that I have encountered so far:

1.- Big publishing houses do NOT accept manuscripts unless you know someone that knows someone and all that jazz. Also, all of them require for you to have a literary agent. To make matters worse, it's extremely hard to find an agent with connections to big publishing houses. In other words, the big ones only publish already famous work. They are simply unapproachable.

2.- Medium publishing houses (the ones that are known but not that much) are oftenly closed to submissions, or require a literary agent as an intermediary or ask for too many specifics that, trust me, will blow your mind. It's insane how strict they can be; they literally want your manuscript to be perfect and, on top of it all, most of them will ask you to do marketing yourself. Nice. So what's the point on publishing with them then?

3.- Small publishing houses. Where to start on these? They are small for a reason, aren't they? It's because they're just beginning, or they don't have too many authors yet. The problem with these, even though most of them are quite welcoming, approachable and understanding, is precisely that; they're small. That means the distribution of your book will probably only be on their city, and as an e-book for Amazon or Lulu. In other words, they do what you yourself can already do.

4.- This is a problem regardless of the type of publisher (whether they're big or small). The genre they publish. Let me put this as an example of what I've been going through: I start looking for publishers on Google. Turns out that not too many publish horror or dark fantasy genre. I'm left with very few choices between big, medium and small publishing houses. Now, I already mentioned that to send your manuscript to big houses is technically impossible, so I'm left with only medium and small publishers. Or independent publishers. Turns out then that most of them are closed for submissions as of now. So I'm left with a small quantity of alternatives. Turns out then that most of them only publish science fiction or manuscripts and they only accept young adult, romantic, modern horror, etc... Since The Reaper's Thorn is based on historical events, but doesn't delve much into them since it focuses on the fictional plot, and it occurs between the 15th and 19th centuries, those publishers are closed for me. Finally, I'm left with, like, 20 publishers, and most of them are either small or totally unknown. Should I send my manuscript to them, considering that I might get a better chance at crowdfunding or self-publishing?

Call me arrogant, or ambitious, but I think my book deserves a little better. I'm not saying it should go to a well-known publishing house (though that would be great), but I'm not sure a small publishing house would do a good job at marketing and distribution national-wide. You might say "why not?" Did you know that the whole process of publishing a book takes many months? One to three months so the publisher reads your manuscript and replies to you. One to three months in contract, editing and cover-drawing process and God-knows-how-much for publishing, distribution and marketing. It's at least a 6 to 8 month process and I'm not counting their payment schedules which are generally 3 to 6 months long. In one year I will be receiving money out of a book that took me 9 months of hard work to write. So that's why not. That's why I need to keep searching for the right publisher.

And yes, there are thousands of writers exactly in my situation. The problem nowadays is that there is just too much offer and little demand. It's a tough world out there, guys.

Keep wishing me luck...