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Monday, April 23, 2012

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of Publishing Interview with Terri Bruce Part I

This week will be different on The Write Time.  Terri Bruce is my guest for the entire week.  That is correct, Terri is doing a five part interview, here, and is also on E. M. LaBonte's Realms of a Fantastical Mind, her blog talking about Publishers.  Terri will be talking about the small press.

March 6, 2012 I got an e-mail from Terri:

"OMGOMGOMGOMGOMG....got home tonight and there was an email from Eternal Press: they want to publish my book. I'm...stunned and shocked and thrilled and dazed and confused....I don't know if I'm up or down. My novel is going to make it print (and five digital formats apparently!)!

And after all the drama of 8  months of rejections - I'm home alone tonight, my husband is traveling. No one is picking up the phone...there's no one to tell, no one to celebrate with....well, this is just....boring!!! LOL!" 
 

I can't wait to be in that position.  I'm still chipping away at my ms, and editing and cutting etc.  So I am thrilled to see Terri about to be published.

Terri has proven to know so much and so we talked about her journey and why she went with Eternal Press.  So here is Part One of our five part interview.


I am thrilled to be here today to talk about navigating the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of publishing. Many, many wonderful people helped me on my road to publication—sharing information, resources, and their experience—and I jumped at the chance to do the same when Emily and Dean offered me the opportunity.

With so many indie presses, conflicting information, and scam artists out there, Dean and Emily asked me to stop by and talk about what I learned while I was searching for a publisher and why I made the decision to work with a small press with a questionable (internet) reputation.

Why did you decide to go with an indie press/small publisher?

The three main terms people like to throw around are “traditional publisher,” “indie publisher,” and “self-publishing.” Psst…here’s the first thing you should know: they’re really all versions of the same thing. A bodega and a giant chain grocery store are both grocery stores. Sure, there are key differences from an operations stand point and there are also some key differences from the consumer’s perspective—such as price and selection, but at the end of the day, they’re both grocery stores. People tend to make sharp distinctions between the three publishing models and rather than thinking of them all as, say, cats, people speak as though they are a cat, a dog, and an elephant. When you, the author, do that, you start muddying the water for yourself. It makes it very hard to do an “apples to apples” comparison of publishing opportunities if you’re looking at one of the items as an apple and the other as a sofa.

When I hear authors say they only want to pursue one type of publishing model, to me, that feels like they are saying “I only buy groceries at the grocery store”—which means they never, ever buy any type of grocery item at a place like Sam’s Club or B.J.’s, a convenience store or drug store, or Wal-Mart. Which is ridiculous—of course they do. We all do. You buy your grocery items at whatever place offers the best combination of price, product availability, and convenience. If I need a gallon of milk, I’m going to stop at the convenience store I’m driving past on my way home, rather than drive five extra miles out of my way to go to the big chain grocery store. On the other hand, I’m not going to buy a full week’s worth of grocery items for a family of four at the drug store—first of all, they don’t carry everything I would need, like meat or fresh vegetables, the price would be prohibitively expensive, and they aren’t equipped to check out and bag a large grocery order (can you imagine the look on the other customers’ faces as I wheel my overflowing cart up to the checkout counter?).

So…why did I choose an indie publisher over a traditional publisher or self-publishing? I didn’t. I submitted my manuscript to a variety of agents and publishers (of all sizes) and accepted the first good offer that would best help me meet my goals for this novel—in my case I was lucky because I actually had three interested publishers to pick from. But, at the end of the day, it really came down to picking the best of three perfectly good offers.

Come back tomorrow for Part II.

Pop over to Em's blog to see what Terri has to say about Publishers.


Biography: 

Terri Bruce has been making up adventure stories for as long as she can remember and won her first writing award when she was twelve. Like Anne Shirley, she prefers to make people cry rather than laugh, but is happy if she can do either. She produces fantasy and adventure stories from a haunted house in New England where she lives with her husband and three cats. Her first novel, HEREAFTER—a contemporary fantasy about a woman’s search for redemption in the afterlife—will be released by Eternal Press later this year. Visit her on the web at www.terribruce.net.

Connect with Terri:


HEREAFTER
Coming August 1, 2012 from Eternal Press

Thirty-six year old Irene Dunphy didn't plan on dying any time soon, but that’s exactly what happens when she makes the mistake of getting behind the wheel after a night of bar-hopping with friends. She finds herself stranded on Earth as a ghost, where food has no taste, the alcohol doesn’t get you drunk, and the only person who can see her is a fourteen year old boy-genius who can see dead people, thanks to a book he found in his school library. This sounds suspiciously like hell to Irene, so she prepares to strike out for the Great Beyond. The problem is, while this side has exorcism, ghost repellents, and soul devouring demons, the other side has three-headed hell hounds, final judgment, and eternal torment. If only there was a third option…

2 comments:

Angie Sandro said...

Hi Dean and Terri,
Thanks for sharing. I'm so excited for you, and I can't wait to read your book. I'll be back for the next installment.

Terri Bruce said...

Thanks Angie! I hope this information is helpful to people - I know how overwhelming the search for a publisher can be; there's so many options, which, in part, can lead to the overwhelmingness!