A MODEST REBELLION
One of my publishers has gone out of business, so I’ve decided to seek another for the book that was to have been issued in September. To that end, I sent out a query letter to another small press. They replied promptly and I intended to do the same. Then I read their elaborate set of instructions.
The new requirements meant that I would have to reset the entire piece with new margins and new text formatting and change from Microsoft word to rich text. In sum, having written the novel, I was being asked to give it a new layout as well. What’s more, the letter closed with a warning that if I failed to comply with any one of the requirements, my submission would be automatically discarded.
(chumpyclipart.com)
After reading the letter I asked myself the question, “Do I want to spend my time jumping through other people’s hoops?”
My second question was to again ask why I didn’t consider self-publishing. Why didn’t I, like so many others, rebel against the tyranny of a publisher’s governance?
I haven’t yet decided to take the plunge into self-publishing. But I did take a baby step in that direction. I told publishers of this small press to take their instructions and….