With the barrier to having a publisher sign a new author seemingly high, especially without prior success or experience, are there any good author-funded alternatives out there to the repeated mailing of manuscripts out to additional publishing houses after facing rejection?
As a businessman, especially since I have a bit of savings, and since I am familiar with the practice of procuring investors for other types of ventures, is there a way I could put up $10k of my own money with $25k from other sources to help grease the wheels of this process? If the book doesn't become popular, I understand the risk, but I'm willing to face that possibility.
Since someone will no doubt bring it up -- no, I don't mean some kind of random run on a POD website like Lulu or whatever. I'm asking about a reputable company taking on the mechanics of getting my book into Borders, and/or wherever else possible.
Answer
What you're thinking of is vanity publishing. A vanity publishing house is one that will publish your book, but you pay all of the costs. You pay for the marketing, the editing, the cover art, etc. Basically all they do is print the book and put it in stores for you.
And to be honest, if you go this route, you're going to be laughed at in the publishing world. Money is supposed to flow to the author, not the other way around. If you then decide to go into traditional publishing, they most likely won't count that book as a prior publishing credit, since anyone with a couple thousand dollars can have their books printed.
If your book isn't good, a traditional publisher isn't going to take it on no matter how much money you wave at them. Not only does the publisher need to be able to sell the book, but they need to maintain their reputation. If they start publishing poor quality manuscripts, they'll get less submissions and their sales will drop as well. So unless you plan on funding them with quite a bit of money, they're not going to blink.
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