Hi everyone, I'm new here so please be gentle! I have a question about publishing contracts. Brief backstory first though; I wrote and illustrated a children's book called The Panda bear who came to stay... for my own children last Christmas and they loved it. I decided to self publish on Amazon and have received great feedback but now want to get it out to a wider audience. All good so far but I thought publishing contracts always worked by giving the author an advance, and then royalties on units sold.
However, I've been offered a contributory publishing contract for £1,900 with 25% royalties on net profit and I was wondering if this is normal nowadays and if it sounds good??
My initial thoughts are; how much is 25% net profit of a book that may retail for say, £5.99? Obviously actual sales numbers would be very difficult to predict, but on average, how many copies do children's books sell by first time authors??
I'd love to get my book into bookshops, and ultimately children's bookshelves, but just need to know if I'm likely to recoup my £1,900 outlay.
Any help would be very gratefully received.
Many thanks,
David Howlett
Hi Janis, we seem to be having the same experiences! I submitted to a few publishers a month or so ago and heard back Novum, who wanted £10k, Austin Macaulay who wanted £1900 and Olympia who like you, had read my story and liked it but thought the illustrations weren't up to professional publishing standards. I told them I'm not a professional illustrator and they offered for me to have another go if I liked. I'd asked about using a pro and they were quite honest about prices to be fair but it didn't seem like it would make a difference to the story getting through to the next round. After looking at some of the pictures, I have tweaked a few to be honest, and made the cover more bright and colorful and I'll upload the changes to Amazon when I've finished for a '2nd edition'!
I don't know what to do now re Olympia, I've submitted a couple of tweaked drawings as Joe, as we'll call him, suggested. Just waiting for a response but unless they come back with a yes on a traditional contract, I'll try someone else I think.
As much as I love my book and think it could be commercially successful, I'm reminded of a quote I read on one of these forums from a lady who said 'why would I spend my own hard earned money on work that a publisher wouldn't invest in...?'
David
Dear David,
I've only just registered with Writers and Artists and am new to writing children's stories myself too, but just wanted to warn you of my experience when I submitted to Olympia Publishers in London. They wrote to say they were really keen to publish my children's story and hinted that it could be with a traditional contract (no payment up front) and even encouraged me to supply them with 2 - 3 of my own sourced sample illustrations which I did and paid for myself separately as I am not an illustrator (these were fantastic by the way and I was really pleased with them) but Olympia told me this would help in securing a traditional contract as opposed to a contributory contract. I sent them off and it made no difference in the end, they wanted to charge me around £2,500 -£3,000 so I pulled out of the submission pretty quickly! It may be that my story was not a strong one anyway but on doing more research into Olympia, I too read some uncomplimentary reviews where people have paid up and have not had anywhere near the services they were promised and their books have failed. Some Publishers call themselves Hybrid publishers and tell you on their website that they may ask you for a contribution up front or they may give you a traditional contract. Very few, if any, traditional contracts seem to be given this way. I am not sure if there is any connection with Austin McCauley. I am now trying to secure an Agent for myself. I know this is not for everyone but I think it is a very safe way of going forward. The Children's Writers and Artists Year Book is an excellent source of really sound and reliable Agents and Publishers that they have listed from A - Z, stick with this list and you can't go far wrong. To this day, I am still not sure how Olympia would benefit by asking me to supply my own sourced 2 - 3 sample illustrations? Does anyone have any ideas please?
Be very wary of Austin Macauley. They are vanity publishers. check them out
here:https://selfpublishingadvice.org/allis-self-publishing-service-directory/self-publishing-service-reviews/
and:
http://www.sfwa.org/other-resources/for-authors/writer-beware/thumbs-down-publishers/