Author Aubrey Rose recently wrote a blog post explaining why she decided to turn down an offer from Amazon Publishing’s Montlake Romance imprint.
Why would a self-published author turn down an overture from a publisher? An offer that included royalties, even?
From her post:
“…Naturally, I was thrilled. A real publisher wanted my work! I chatted with her briefly on the phone and asked her a ton of questions: What kind of cover would they create for me? What promotions would they do? What control would I have over everything? Although I was excited to work with Amazon, I wanted to know that they would treat my book right. She told me my novel was a great read and very clean writing, and that she would love to “partner” with me in relaunching my book through Amazon’s imprint.
However, she couldn’t guarantee anything – from cover image to pricing to marketing…”
Ah, ha! Well, that’s par for the publisher course. But wait, there’s more:
“…The advance they offered was less than I had made in my first month of sales. As I looked through the Montlake catalogue, I saw a mix of breakout hits and complete flops, with some recent books that just had the worst covers imaginable for romance. And I would have to pull my book from every publisher except Amazon…”