SpiralTruth

I received a response from the publisher I was forwarded to this morning. Very exciting stuff. So exciting, in fact, that before I hurriedly sent off that manuscript, the musician in me, who has been screwed over so many times he’s lost count started to speak up and say, “Hey, this isn’t so different from the music world, and nothing good comes without the feeling that you’ve smashed your head against a billion brick walls.” And so I whipped out my google-fu and did a quick check on this “traditional publisher”. Aha… they are under investigation in Florida and also on at least one “Writer Beware” page. I also found some forum posts from people who have submitted queries to them where the initial responses seemed very similar to the one they sent me. People who went further, were recommended to pay for professional editing. The editors chosen were also associated in some way with this network of companies and were presumably getting kickbacks from referrals. Basically, they seem legit in the sense that they’re not completely scamming you, but more in the sense that you’ll probably end up paying as much as you would if you went the self-publishing route, plus you’d be under contract with them. The warnings also mentioned that the company’s track record of commercial book or script sales is not known. I double-checked on Amazon and found that every title I searched for was indeed listed and they were listed as the publisher, but I wasn’t able to find any book with more than one review, which makes me wonder how much these books are pushed. I’m not going to name the company at this point because I’m still going on suspicion and second hand reports, and I don’t think it’s fair to bash someone based on pure speculation. I will, however, warn my fellow aspiring authors to BE CAREFUL! I’m no dummy. I’ve grown up in a generation that’s way more savvy towards marketing BS than the generations before, I’ve been around the block with shady band promoters and hustlers, and my entire academic and professional life has had skepticism as a necessary skill – and still I want to believe that these guys are the real deal, even with every fiber of my being screaming: NO, YOU FOOL! It’s tough. I’ve been writing for years, obsessing over this manuscript for at least the last three, and it would be so nice for something to finally just be easy. But nothing good ever comes that way, and the bottom line is that I don’t want a publisher that says I have a 6-to-10 chance of getting published after only seeing my synopsis and initial query. I want them to be picky. Even if that means that there’s a chance they’re too picky to take me and my book on. P.S. For those making note of the subject lines, yes, Rambo made a big impression on me when I was growing up… We’re now up to the part where he took on the entire Soviet army.