Interview with Renee Rocco of Lyrical Press

With all the conversation about publishing, I had a few questions I wanted to ask. I decided to start with Renee Rocco, owner of Lyrical Publishing.

Renee runs an amazing company and Lyrical has been a dream to work with.

In your opinion, do you think that e-publishing/e-publishers will become the new New York standard?


RR: Although I think in some ways we already do set the digital standard, it'll be a long time before the NY houses blow the dust off the way they're doing things. Small presses do digital in a more reader and author friendly way (higher royalty rates, lower ebook prices) and if the NY houses continue to fight change and don't rethink how they present digital reading to their audiences and authors, that's just bad business...in my opinion.


Do you think self-publishing will affect epublishers negatively?



RR: I think self-publishing will only hurt those epublishers who fail to provide a reliable and author-friendly house for their authors. Is it true that some epublishers have felt the sting of fewer submissions? Yes. I also think some houses may be reluctant to admit this fact publicly, maybe fearing it reflects poorly on them. That's simply not true. Most authors I've spoken with about self-publishing want to be the next Amanda Hocking. When they realize she is the exception and not the norm - which will take time as sales figures continue to come in - those authors will return to quality epublishers.


What do you think the the next few years in publishing will look like?



RR: You know, I was laughing about this very thing this morning. Here's an example of what was on my news feed today (these two headlines were back-to-back about ebook pricing): The $0.99 ebook will save publishing / $0.99 pricing will kill the value of ebooks. I think this goes to show no one knows what will be, but everyone has an opinion about what might happen. Me? I'm a wait-and-see person. I'm not going to speculate. If I've learned anything over the last few years it is, no one can predict what's going to happen with publishing. All I can do is be prepared for change and evolve Lyrical Press as it happens. Until then, I'll sit here, quietly reading how one person's prediction of what will save publishing is another's person's opinion of what will kill it.



What do you think new authors should think about when they're considering their future in publishing?



RR: First and foremost, authors need to realize they are a business. Their books are not their babies. They are the tools of their trade. They must be willing to accept constructive criticism. They must learn the art of self-editing. Most importantly, they must leave their expectations at the door. Simply put, what *was* no longer *is*, and what *is* won't be for much longer (see above question about the future of publishing!). A large part of that means print can no longer be an author's ideal and the days of marketing packages are long gone (unless you're a Stephen King type). Yes, your publisher should offer some form of marketing, but unless you're a name (even with large houses, I've recently learned), it will be a more generalized promotion of the house, rather than individual authors. A major repercussion of that is, authors need to embrace social media. That means more than just Tweeting '1k more and it's lunch time!'. That's not being social, which is the main function of that media outlet (hence the name 'social media'). It's about interacting with your readers and not just posting word count updates or only writing-related news. It's about being real, being present with your readers. It's not longer only about writing - even though we all wish it was because let's be honest... that's the fun part!

The View From Publishing

It's a fascinating world out there in Publishing Land. If you're not a writer or even interested in the industry then all that matters is the stories keep coming but the question of where those stories are coming from is on everybody's minds.

Traditional publishing (writer gets agent, agent shops book, publishing house buys book, gives advance, publishes book, author is traditionally published) versus epub (author writes book, sends book to epub who accepts publishes book, author gets 30 - 40% of cover price on books sold) to self pub (author writes book, formats book, puts book on amazon, b&n and others, gets 75% of cover price for each book sold)...

Okay, starting again. So with ebooks taking a large share of the market thanks to the Kindle and the Nook and all the other ereaders out there traditional publishing houses lost their way. Ebooks are a huge seller and money isn't being made by traditionally publishing. But prestige and names are still made by trad. publishing not to mention it's every writer's dream to have that paper copy in their hands and to know they made it.

The epubs offer little chance of print books but they give you the editing process (Carolyn and I both have gone through editing with Lyrical and if they aren't as good or better than anyone out there I'll eat Carolyn's shorts). Epubs are great except that erotic sells best and if you don't have lots of tab a in slot b then you might not see great sales.

Self publishing is the exciting new landscape. The only problem is that a lot of people seem to be looking at it like a get rich quick scheme. Write a book, slap a cover on and price it to sell. The only problem is that the writing sucks the editing is non-existant and the covers are sub-par. How do I know this? I did it too.

I put 2 short stories out on amazon that were badly formatted and had lousy covers. And then I thought that wasn't how I wanted to represent myself. So the stories were taken down and are being offered for free on smashwords. (If you want just go to smashwords.com and search Lori Green. There are 3 free shorts. Feliz Navidad is the best of them.)

The fun thing is that with each arm of publishing there's cheerleaders and scoffers. JA Konrath, who has been the loudest cheerleader for self-pub just signed a contract with the new Amazon publishing arm. Courtney Milan self-pubbed a short and she's delighted with it but she had a readership in place and it looks and reads professional.

So what to do? That's like asking if you want a cone with chocolate or vanilla ice cream and do you want sprinkles? I say get a cup not a cone try all the flavors and sprinkles say it's a party.

In other words they're all good. Why does one have to be better than another? They all have benefits and drawbacks. For me, I want the elusive New York publication. I want to see my book on a bookstore shelf. I also want to have many ebooks with many epubs because I love my publishers and what they teach me about writing and promo. And I plan to self-pub but I'm doing that with an editor already signed up and a cover artists raring to go.

It's a world with no boundaries. Can you imagine what a great ride that's going to be for anyone willing to drive with the top down?