Our fall book is in the air

This week fall was in the air as you can see by the color of the maple leaf in the photo. I have been researching options for publishing the novel that my GF wrote and I edited. We tried going down the query letter path with trade publishers, but found that to be a disappointment. The next option is to have our book published with a print-on-demand (POD) publisher.

Over the past few years I have acquired a lot of knowledge about book editing and the publishing industry. If you are lucky enough to find a publisher to work with you, they are likely to request changes to your book and will expect you to travel to events to help promote the project. On the other hand, a POD publisher will print your book in a few weeks, exactly as it is, and will leave book promotion entirely up to you. There is also the quality issue to consider. Books printed by the POD process are typically lower in quality than those printed by a traditional publisher. You also have to be aware that the retail price of the POD book is going to be much greater than that of a traditional publisher. Most people will not pay over $20 for a novel from an unknown author. This, and the fact that POD books can not be returned if they are stocked and not sold by a distributor, works out to low sales numbers.

So, this is the dilemma; we have an 118,000 word novel ready to go, but no publisher who isn't a POD, has shown any interest. The story, if you are interested, is a drama about a young girl who leaves Texas to find her birth mother and finds more than trouble along the way. I would consider an offer from a trustworthy agent who could help us bring this project to a real publisher, but those people are usually too busy to even read their email.