Pirates, Bandits, Crooks & Thieves: A Field Guide

"We are very excited indeed by your manuscript ..."

Some pirate-publishers pretend not to be self-publishers at all. They'll pretend that they've carefully assessed your manuscript and are rolling over with excitement about it. This is rubbish. They may be rolling over with excitement - but it's your wallet that interests them, not your work.

If a publisher gives you a positive "assessment" of your manuscript and then asks you for money, that publisher is not for real. They will assess anything positively. Try sending in your washing machine manual, or a collection of shopping lists. They'll all be wonderful too.

We know of one woman who was dying of cancer. She had written twelve poems about it. The poems were obviously important to the lady concerned - but they weren't remotely of publication standard.

Edward Teach, aka Blackbeard

Bartholomew Roberts

"We will ensure that your book is available from over 25,000 outlets worldwide."

Wow! If that's true then our publishers are doing something wrong, because our books have never been sold through this many outlets.

But perhaps there's a catch? If you push these people, they'll admit that your book is "available" in the sense that people who know your book exists can walk up to the counter, armed with an ISBN number, and order the book from the salesperson.

But that's not "available" in any meaningful sense of the word. If you want to sell your book, it needs to be in bookshops. That sounds blisteringly obvious, but it's something no self-publisher can provide.

If you're in doubt about whether your self-publishing outfit will get your book into bookshops, then there's a simple test. Go into a bookshop and ask at the counter for ANY book published by the publisher in question. Not available to order, but available to buy there and then. There won't be a single book. If you find one, we'll eat it.

Really? Let's just have a think about this.

A commercial publisher launching a new author might settle on a marketing budget of, let's say, £50,000. if they can secure major promotions in bookshops, that amount could easily skyrocket.

And that total is just for advertising. It doesn't include the PR department. It won't include the salaries of the sales & marketing team. It doesn't place any value of the strength and depth of the relationships all the big publishers have with bookshops.

So what is a self-publisher going to provide you with for that "small extra cost"? More or less nothing. You'll probably get a standard form press release. An "author signing kit" that won't actually get you any book signings. Be aware that press outlets are flooded with promotional material. The web is piled high with website by individuals trying to promote something.

Henry Morgan

So how do you get noticed? Answer, you get a large publisher, with plenty of money and a real commercial incentive to sell books. Nothing else will work - unless you are one of the rare few with a gift for self-promotion, and a story with distinctive media appeal.

Edward England

"Agents can be time-consuming and expensive"

This comes as news to most professional authors. A competent agent will sell your work worldwide. He or she will negotiate publishing contracts for you; advise you on financial issues, including international tax problems; hold your hand throughout the publishing process; be your support and advice-line when you have problems. And for this they charge 10% of any money they make for you.

You just won't find any professional author complaining about this. So why are pirate-publishers trying to keep you away from agents?

Because agents have nothing to do with this sort of publisher and are likely to keep clients away from them.

Of course, agents do set high quality standards. They won't offer to represent you, if they don't think your work is strong enough to sell. Whereas self-publishers don't care if your work will sell. They'll make money from you anyway.

"We will produce your book to a very high standard"

Jolly good - that's what you're paying for, isn't it?

But will you get detailed editorial advice on how to improve your work? No! Yet that's by far the most important job in publishing, and it's not something that any pirate-publisher will ever do. Why should they bother to give quality-control advice? They make money no matter what rubbish they put out. And of course, this tars all authors with the same brush. Because a lot of rubbish does get self-published, most bookstores, media outlets and bookbuyers steer well clear.

Many pirate-publishers don't even offer basic copy-editing (the nit-picking search for typos, spelling mistakes, punctuation errors, etc). That's really basic - but you may not get it, or may just get a rushed, poor quality job. Your book will suffer for it.


HELP! You've really put me off pirate-publishing, but I still want to see my book in print. So what should I do?

You have a choice.

One, you try to get your book up to commercial publication standard. This is very tough, and most people who try will fail. All the same, most writers start with this ambition.

The Writers' Workshop can help by giving you the best editorial advice available. If your stuff isn't good enough, we'll tell you so and what to do about it. If you want to know whether we think you have any chance of making the grade, then we'll tell you that too. Our main service is total honesty - plus the expertise to back it up.

Two, you accept that your work isn't going to make it commercially. Perhaps we've told you so; or perhaps you've had more than 12-15 rejections from agents.

Further help

The Writers' Workshop is run by writers for writers. That's not just a slogan, it's a philosophy.

Despite the tone of this webpage, we're not hostile to self-publishing at all. We have editors who have self-published. We have editors who run self-publishing companies (the saintly sort, of course). We are here to help you and can offer brief free advice by email, or by phone. For more, please just contact us.