Mel Keegan:
The World According to Mel
Legends
Digital Kosmos
MK's LJ ... OK
Doctor Mike
Digital Kosmos
Aricia Gavriel
Aricia's Gay Book Blog
Aricia's Album
Jade
Digital Kosmos
(Digital art blog, waiting for title; pending)
Subscribe!
Posts
Comments
Statcounter...
Mel Keegan, Doctor Mike, Jade and Aricia Gavriel blog about the writing and publishing business, keeping no secrets, answering readers' questions with a wealth of information, and offering newcomers to the trade about half a century's worth of combined experience!
I am the author of a new mystery novel, The Cry of the Cuckoos. It is a joint venture publishing contract with AEG Publishing Group. With 40 years of writing/editing/book producing/book sales, I found joint venture publishing a lot better than self-publishing. The publishing company delivers high quality professional services. See my website: http://www.thecryofthecuckoos.com
ReplyDeleteHi, John,
ReplyDeleteAricia and Jade posting here ... thanks for commenting -- most interesting.
We've heard good things about AEG; it's one of many companies offering similar services, and we're going to be talking about joint venture publishing in the weeks to come. A friend who lives up in DC went this way with her own first professional book, and we'll be inviting her to describe her experiences.
Joint venture is a good way to go, so long as you can afford the investment, and if you're in a cultural center -- the US or UK.
Believe it or not, the DreamCraft group is in Australia! For Aussies and Kiwis -- and people even further from the world's "bright lights!" -- joint venture is, alas, most often a closed door.
As good as this method can be, even for writers within the US and UK it can be expensive, sometimes prohibitively so.
Eloquent and Strategic are New York companies, not so well suited to writers on, say, the Limestone Coast or the south island of New Zealand! (If we have this right, Global Book Agency isn't actually a suitable partner for fresh, untried writers -- who are the most common visitors to this blog. GBA's site says, "We are always interested in establishing relationships with literary agents, publishers, sub-agents, attorneys, and even interns from around the world." New writers are not *quite* what they're looking for!)
It's so unfortunate that writers from outside the US have such a hard time even using self publishing as a platform -- do you know that American companies like Lightning Source and Booklocker won't do business with "foreign" writers? True! Even writers who can find the investment capital (which is rare these days) are effectively shut out, making companies like Lulu, CreateSpace, Amazon, B&N, the French giant Mobi and so on, very attractive.
For just a moment, place yourself in the position of the writer who doesn't live in America or England ... whose budget is much too meager to afford the professional services of a company like AEG ... and who is looking for a solution. It's quite a challenge. This is where we're trying to help.
Joint venture is definitely a topic we'll be tackling along with all the usual -- literary agencies, traditional publishing, small presses, publish on demand (empty warehouse), the Amazon marketplace, and the whole gamut of options -- even APAs!
We did indeed take a look at your website -- very nice design, though we had seemed to have some file loading problems, which made a lot of the content not come up. (Couple of blank pages, and so on.) We'll try again to load the site properly another time.
We wish you all the best with your novel. You might like to check out Mel Keegan's website, for comparison purposes: www.melkeegan.com ... MK's site is set up to market a couple of dozen titles, 1989-2009, so it's a very different design -- which makes it so interesting.
Thanks for commenting,
Best wishes,
Aricia and Jade