I can’t help but chuckle.
Two days ago, an article about me and my books and writing appeared in my local paper. Today the digital version made it online.
This afternoon, I got a phone call from a publishing house.
Now for a little exposition: Before I self-published my first book, I shopped it around to publishing houses and to literary agencies to no avail. No big deal, rejection is part of the game. A couple of years, when I finished Wanderers, I went back and shopped it around to literary agencies and to publishers. Again, I was met with rejection or simply no reply.
A little while ago, I got a phone call from a place called Author House. I only vaguely remembered sending them a submission request.
The gentleman who called me asked if I remembered submitting with them. When I gave him my answer he asked why I couldn’t remember specifically sending a submission request to his company.
“Well, to be fair, I sent out a lot of submission requests,” I said, “and it was probably two years ago that I did so.”
“Oh, well did you finish the book you were working on?”
Uh, yeah, Schumcky, I’ve got four books done and self published. I did without you and your company that didn’t give a shit about me for two years. Oh, and while you’re giving me your sketchy sales pitch that involves talking about your aggressive advertising methods, I’ve been researching your company. Yeah, I know you just said you rebranded your company all of five weeks ago, but I can’t find one single positive remark about your company on the internet. I’m reading about how your company doesn’t like to pay out royalties to its clients and such.
So, yeah, I think I’m going to be just fine continuing to work on my own and keep pushing my books on the interwebs without a marketing budget.
Just because there are authors out there who are hungry and desperate for representation and for help with getting their material out there, it doesn’t mean you should take advantage of them.
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