Every contract a publisher offers is a risk. No one ever knows what the reading audience wants or is willing to try. No one knows what interruptions life may offer.
No one knows how personalities will mesh. Call the publishing business a different type of office…professional but extremely personal and intimate.
The question now becomes: why then contract a newbie, someone who has no experience in the industry? Why not stay with someone who is established or experienced in the workings of being published?
If every publishing house did that no one would ever be published. No one would ever become a publisher. Everyone is a newbie at some point. Even if ony new to that publisher or editor…or author.
And this is where thoughts take an idea and turn it around to a new direction. I had intended to talk about newbies as those who are being contracted/published for the first time period. But, as happens frequently to me, this has changed and for the better, in my opinion.
Every author and every publisher is new to each other with their first manuscript together. Just as a new author to the industry is learning so will those who know the industry.
It is a team and each member has their strengths…and their objectives. The path to the final results can be bumpy; can be frustrating; will take time and energy; may not always seem to be unified or consistent.
Never forget: the end goal, result, aim is the same for everyone. Don’t let the journey there stand in your way.
Hmm, maybe I already talked about this in a previous post? Bears repeating.