After trying (and failing) to get my first novel published through an agent, I decided to try another tack: the small press. By going directly to the source, I hope to skip over the middle men who previously ignored me. So today I sent my novel to a dozen small publishers.
The big boys don’t even maintain a slush pile for unknown authors any more. They typically use literary agents to separate the pretenders from the contenders. Yet I’ve always suspected that both of them are more concerned with profit than art. They all say (on their blogs, websites, etc,) that they want to fall in love with the story, yet when you see the kind of stuff that gets published, you have to question if anyone really loves it. Do we really need more self-serving celebrity autobiographies? Yet if Kim Kardashian queried, I suspect they’d all take the account.
The small press, though, is immune to such concerns as profit and publicity. It is happy to service the noble artist who only wants to read his/her words in print. At least I’d like to think so.
