We’ve received many excellent questions about partnering with Authors Equity. Below are answers to some of the most common ones. We’ll continue to add to this list – so be sure to check back for updates.
How do I submit my manuscript for publication?
We appreciate your interest in publishing with Authors Equity. To ensure you’re well-represented, we ask that you work with a literary agent or someone else who has experience in publishing contract law.
How do I find an agent?
There are several good resources you can use in your search. Here are a few of them:
How to Find a Literary Agent? by Jane Friedman (she’s also on Substack @janefriedman)
As you research potential publishing partners, it’s important to be on the lookout for scams. Here’s a helpful free article on what to watch out for from the Authors Guild (an organization you may want to consider joining).
What factors are you considering when deciding what to publish?
We’re a boutique publisher, which means we need to be extremely selective in our commitments.
In some ways, what impacts our decisions is not that different from other publishers. We’re looking for great narratives that seem to meet a clear reader need. That “need” could be as abstract as providing inspiration or as concrete as solving a problem in someone’s daily life.
Where we’re a little different from others is that, because publishing with us is really like getting into business together, we want to make sure we and our authors are going to be a good fit for each other personally and professionally. We want to know that we can add value to one another and that we’ll be able to rely on one another as we together make the many different decisions in the path to market.
What are the main differences between Authors Equity terms and those offered elsewhere?
The main differentiator is the experience we offer, which is related to remaining boutique in scale. For each book we publish, we provide intensive, customized support at every stage. Authors have the deciding vote on key issues they care about (examples: marketing spend, production specs, retail models). And we pull in ideas and resources from outside as well as inside the industry.
We work with a joint venture/profit share model, paying no advance but offering a much higher per-unit payout to the authors we work with. Several other publishers offer profit shares, so that’s not in itself unique. In comparing our model to others, you’d want to pay careful attention to how the profit is calculated (What’s deducted from revenue? Are there any general or overhead allocations?) as well as the percentage that’s paid out.
We’re flexible on some of the key terms that are rigid in traditional contracts.
How do I join your collaborator network?
Please fill out this form. We’ll keep track of your information, and, when we have a project that we think you’d be a good fit for, we’ll reach out.
Is this a photo of a hot dog as a hot dog?
He’s actually half beagle.
I have a literary friend in Paris, Ben Santucci, who told me about your work. As a grass roots independent publisher myself in this fine town, it's a pleasure to see that you're changing up the game for authors across the pond