Michael Jenet On How to Get a Publisher to Publish Your Book
An Interview With Teri Gault
Be Human — It’s easy sometimes to forget that publishers are human beings too. They have lives and hopes and challenges just like you. Try to remember that as you go through the process. First, be patient. If a publisher gives you a time frame that they will get back to you with, try to respect that time frame. And, if they miss the deadline, give them just a little bit more before you bug them about your manuscript.
Navigating the publishing industry can be a daunting task for many aspiring authors. From crafting a compelling manuscript to understanding the intricacies of book marketing, the journey to getting published is filled with important decisions and steps. As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Michael Jenet.
Michael Jenet is an 8-year Air Force veteran and the publisher of Journey Institute Press, a non-profit-model small publishing house whose mission includes disrupting the publishing industry with a model that places the author above the publisher. After being extorted by a predatory publisher himself, Jenet investigated the publishing world for three years before starting Journey Institute Press with his wife in 2000. The focus on Journey Institute Press is to help tell the stories that otherwise might not be told from first time authors in the women, BIPOC, and LGBTQ+ communities.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” better. Can you tell us a bit about you and your backstory?
I was born in Belgium and came to America when I was seven. I spent eight years in the United States Air Force and served as a Flight Commander for the 8th Air Force Honor Guard. In 2013 I jumped off the corporate ladder to become what I call ‘a recovering corporate CEO’ and wrote my first book. That led me down the path of educating myself on the publishing industry and realized that the current model is broken. My wife and I decided to disrupt the model and start a non-profit publishing house that prioritizes the author over the publisher. Four years later, we are still here, growing and helping tell the stories that might otherwise not be told. I still write when I can and published my first fiction book in 2023 which was a lot of fun. Mostly I love working with fledgling writers and helping them make a dream come true.
What inspired you to become an expert in the publishing industry?
The short answer is being taken by a predatory publisher for the publishing rights to my and my wife’s books. After we had published two books each, our publisher sold the company to another one. The new company waited four months before contacting us and every other author in the catalog to inform us that they were putting all our books out of print and would be extorting us for the publishing rights for thousands of dollars per title.
That experience left a bad taste in our mouths. This, couple with a growing network of people who kept asking us how we had written and published our books left me fearful that this was going to happen to a lot more people, especially first-time authors.
As I began doing a deep dive into the world of publishing, there was not a lot to like. The large publishing houses have been consolidating and gobbling up smaller houses for many years, creating a smaller and ever-growing monopoly.
Advances in technology were giving rise to new opportunities, like self-publishing. They were also, however, creating a new crop of publishers including the pay-to-play model publishers and a growing number of predatory publishers.
That research, combined with our own experience, led us to try and re-imagine the publishing model. What if there were a way to create a model that truly values the author and their work, puts their success over that of the publishers (as opposed to the traditional model with is the reverse)? What would that look like? How would it work? That’s what we set out to create.
Can you share a story of a client’s publishing journey that you guided from the genesis of an idea to the fruition of becoming a published author?
Three weeks after we started our publishing company the COVID-19 Pandemic hit the US. Everything stopped. We decided we wanted to help take people’s minds off the fear of the pandemic, so we started a ‘writing prompt’ group on Facebook. The idea was to post a prompt with a corresponding photo every day and have writers respond to that prompt as a way of escape. One of the people who joined the group was Peggy Hill. She’s an incredibly talented writer and this method of responding to prompts with short form writing was right up her alley.
She was one of the most engaged people in the group and would often find her writing responses commented on by others in the group asking, ‘what happens next?’.
Peggy also joined our first Writing Program cohort a month later and began writing the bones of what would become her first book. Peggy too wanted to help take people’s minds off not only the pandemic but just their worries in general. Her idea was simple, Bedtime Stories for Grown Ups.
A riff on how we all grew up hearing bedtime stories read to us by our parents that helped ease our fears or take us on journeys to faraway places. How could we, as a publisher, not be a part of that? We signed her and thus began her publishing journey.
And so, Peggy continued to write her responses to the daily prompts. Occasionally, a character or genesis of a story would come out and she would file it away as a ‘possible,’ meaning that perhaps it would end up in the book.
We collaborated with her over the course of months looking at some of the stories and giving her feedback until she finally selected the stories she wanted in the book. Then she flushed them out, all short stories, but some longer than others, and then once she had the rough draft the publishing process took over and Bedtime Stories for Grown Ups Vol 1 came to fruition.
Spoiler alert: Peggy continues to write to the daily writing prompts (yes, we’re still posting them God help us), and yes she is well on her way with a list of ‘possibles’ for Vol 2.
Let’s break it down into steps. Based on your experience, what are 5 main steps that you would recommend for someone to get their first book published with a publisher?
1. Do your research.
Doing your research means finding the right publisher and partnership. Not all publishers publish all genres. Make a list of publishers who have published books in your genre. Make sure they are accepting inquiries and specifically make sure they do not require an agent because if they do, soliciting them directly will not do you any good.
Although finding the right publisher that wants the type of work you have to offer as an author is the first component, it is also about finding the right partner for your publishing journey. Another thing you might consider is contacting authors who the publisher has published to see how their publishing experience went. The list you want to end up with is one that matches both the publishers’ needs with your own.
2. Follow Directions
Each publisher will have their own method and requirements for contacting them. Perhaps they will want you to send a letter of inquiry (LOI), or a few chapters of the manuscript. Some may want a book proposal or the whole finished manuscript. Whatever their requirements are, follow them to the letter. Do not let the first thing the publisher notices about you is the fact that you cannot follow directions.
Part of this is, of course, that a publisher wants to read things a certain way and does not like manuscripts that are not formatted the way they are used to. The other part is they want to see if you can indeed follow directions. They will expect a lot from you throughout the publishing process and if they see that you cannot follow submission directions it’s an indicator that you may not follow directions moving forward and that can be a red flag to publishers.
3. Best foot forward
First impressions matter and your submission, or LOI or whatever the publisher requires, IS your first impression. Make it a good one. Use the spell checker and AI editing tools found in most word processing programs today before you submit anything to a publisher. Some people think you must hire an editor before you submit your manuscript and perhaps some publishers may require that.
Most publishers, however, have their own editors and editing process so you do not need to go to that expense. That does not mean, however, that you shouldn’t use every tool that is available to you to make sure your manuscript is as ready as it can be. You might also consider sending it to a trusted friend to get feedback. This is true whether it is an LOI or a few chapters or proposal or the full manuscript. More eyes are better than just one set. Get your submission as polished as it can be and make the best first impression you can.
4. Take it to the Next Level
Taking it to the next level is simply about trying to differentiate yourself from the multiple other manuscripts a publisher will look at. For example, instead of a simple cover sheet of Title, Name, and Word Count (unless as we stated in step 2 the directions specifically call for that only) you can make a cover sheet look a little more like a “treatment”.
What that can look like is in addition to the basics mentioned above, you can add a few components. The first is an executive summary of the book. Just a few sentences that gives the publisher the gist of what your book is about. Keep it short.
Then you add the differentiator. What makes your book different from all the other books in this genre or on this topic? Spell it out for them, say, this is how my book is different. Again, do not get carried away, just a paragraph or so, but give them something to think about before they even flip the page to start reading your words. You are planting a seed so that as they read, they understand what makes you stand out.
After that, you are at the whim of whether they like your writing but now you’ve taken your submission to the next level above the other ones and that might just be the edge you need.
5. Be Human
It’s easy sometimes to forget that publishers are human beings too. They have lives and hopes and challenges just like you. Try to remember that as you go through the process. First, be patient. If a publisher gives you a time frame that they will get back to you with, try to respect that time frame. And, if they miss the deadline, give them just a little bit more before you bug them about your manuscript.
Also, if you do get rejected, remember it is just one person’s opinion. I am sure we’ve all heard the stories of writers who get rejected time and time again until someone gives them a chance and suddenly, they’re a bestseller. All those rejections were not an indictment of the author’s writing (despite how cruel some rejections can be), they were just one person, one human being’s opinion. All it takes is one yes.
One more thought. After you submit your manuscript, consider sending a written note (handwritten not email) that simply says you recently submitted the title of your book and your name and that you appreciate the publisher giving it consideration. This kind of goes along with taking it to the next level but also recognizes the humanity in this process. Who knows, maybe you’ll get more than one publisher wanting your book.
Video Link: https://youtu.be/ut4yWBmzfXQ
What are your thoughts about the pros and cons of signing with a Literary Agent?
To me, the question is not simply one of pros and cons. It is also about whether an author needs an Agent.
Let us start with that question of need. To answer that question, we need to understand the role of an Agent. Primarily, the role of an agent is to represent the author and their work to publishers; to secure the best possible contract including the best possible advance. Since agents typically work on commission from the advance (most agents, although some will also work on fees based on royalties) they will usually only work with publishers who provide advances.
So, the question of whether an author should get an agent comes down to the author’s goals. If, for example, having an advance is a must have goal, an author is much more likely to be successful if they have an agent.
Similarly, if an author’s goals are to be published by a well-known publisher (Big 5 or one of their imprints or even a publisher in the top10–15) then they will certainly need an agent as those publishing houses rarely take work directly from someone without an agent.
In terms of pros and cons. The pros are that if an author has the right agent, who can open doors into the larger publishing houses, in fact for some houses, one simply cannot gain entry without an agent. A good agent will be able to secure the most favorable terms possible for an author with those publishing houses and get a reasonable or better than reasonable advance for their book.
The right agent for an author’s book will also have a better understanding of the publishing world writ large and will be able to advise the author of that world.
The cons, of course, are that agents must earn a living like everyone else and thus they will take a percentage (typically 15%) of the advance.
What are your thoughts on the pros and cons of self-publishing versus traditional publishing?
I have always felt that it isn’t a ‘vs’ but more of a ‘yes and’ proposition.
The advances in technology that allow for self-publishing are slowly but surely getting better, and with the surge of AI that will only continue.
There is a place for self-publishing just as there is a need and place for traditional publishing.
An author, for example, who wishes to publish a book purely as a memento for their family or to document their history might be better suited to go the self-publishing route.
Another possibility is a book written for a specific purpose — a point in time documenting a momentous occasion comes to mind, is unlikely to be something of interest beyond the community for which it was written.
Of course there are also authors who, for any number of reasons, are unable to find a publisher. The self-publishing route might be the only way they can get their work published and thank goodness it exists, or the world might never see their work.
The pros of self-publishing are many. Beginning with the authors stated above who have an often simple and easy avenue to getting published. Additionally, there are authors who would rather self-publish because they get 100% of the royalties from their work. The tools that self-publishing printers have continue to improve thus making the process easier as time goes on.
The cons of self-publishing have primarily been ones of quality. It is true that some (not all) self-published books lack the quality of those of some traditional publishers, though as I mentioned that is becoming less so as time goes on given the advances in technology. The quality of the physical books, however, is only part of the issue. Some self-published titles have been released without even the most basic editing and often with little to no typography or layout design.
Another con of sorts is that now that virtually anyone can publish themselves, the book market has grown exponentially with thousands of books now being published worldwide each day. This glut of material can be both positive and negative, but the prevailing opinion seems to be that it can lead to buyers’ remorse when a book does not meet their standards and thus the reading audience is becoming more and more fickle. Time will tell on that one.
Can you share a particularly thrilling moment you’ve experienced while helping a client get published? Was it when they signed with a publisher or received a box of their books? Something else? Please share the story with us!
For a publisher, that moment an author sees and holds their book for the first time is always magical. Seeing the joy in their eyes, the excitement, the child-like wonder after all the arduous work they put into it.
We sent one of our authors a quick video when we received their Printed Proof. We just wanted to show them that their book was real, so we took a quick video of us saying here it is, we’re going to proof it to make sure everything is right but wanted you to see that there is actually a book.
Their reaction was not only that they were thrilled but the author’s partner turned out to be the most excited. The author sent us a video of their partner screaming as they looked at their phone at our video. We could hear the author who was recording the video laughing and it just made our day to see the whole family being excited for them.
Thank you for sharing that fun story! Do you have any new or exciting projects coming up?
I think every author we sign is exciting and new. That’s why we sign them. LOL.
We did, however, just start our annual Writing Program which begins with a 28-day boot camp to help writers lay down the foundation and structure of their book and then continues for a year with support and training to help them continue and finish their manuscript.
It is always exciting to see people with ideas flush them out and watch as they grow as writers and in a supportive community.
And, of course, we have multiple authors who are nearing the ‘publishing’ part of their journey and will have books coming out this fall. It is the end of the road of a long journey and yet the beginning of their journey as published authors and it’s always an exciting time.
Can you share some of the most surprising things you’ve learned about the publishing industry?
I think the most surprising things we have learned were what came out of the DOJ vs PRH trial. Learning how the Big 5 publishers work, how they do not have any better idea of what a hit will be than us smaller publisher’s do was reaffirming.
Another surprising thing is how varied the different publishing houses are both in operation, expectations, and how they treat their authors. Although technological advances have helped authors in many ways, they have also helped spawn a new crop of publishing entrepreneurs that are not necessarily good for the industry.
On the other side of that last statement, technology has also allowed the reading public far greater access to books and people who review them (influencers) than ever before. It’s a catch-22 perhaps, but these are things that readers and authors never had available to them before and in many ways have made it possible for authors to get their work out.
I think when we started, we didn’t realize how much the publishing industry puts on an author’s platform. That, perhaps more than anything, seems to be the focus of publishers of late.
I think perhaps the most surprising thing is how quickly the publishing industry is evolving and how what was once thought to be sacrosanct within the industry is no longer in just a few short years. Viewed through the right lens it can be an exciting time to be in the industry.
What do you think are the most important qualities of a successful author?
That depends on how you define success. If the definition is based on the quality of their work, then an author who writes with a passion about their work (regardless of the genre) will write infinitely better prose than one who is just writing to write.
If the definition is based on sales of the book, that to me can be a nebulous metric. There are enough ‘success’ stories of authors who wrote books only to be rejected repeatedly. Add to that the growing list of authors who self-published with little to no purchase only to find their book suddenly goes viral years later because an influencer found it. So, measuring success by launch sales or sales within a certain period of time can be vastly misleading in today’s world.
I think a lot of people might suggest an author needs to have a good brand and social media status to be successful. That may be true, but the most important qualities for me are a passion for writing and for the genre they’re writing in, a thick skin (not everyone will like your writing), perseverance (keep going no matter what), and a clear vision of why they are writing and what they hope to achieve with their book.
How do you advise your clients to handle feedback and criticism about their writing?
The first thing I tell them is that there is not one single book that has been read by “everyone,” much less liked universally. I tell them that the old adage that you cannot please all of the people all of the time is very apropos in being an author.
In terms of how to handle the feedback and criticism I advise them to only engage with someone who is providing constructive feedback (if at all) because so many online ‘trolls’ are just looking for a fight and it’s not worth wasting their energy and time.
If a reader clearly has an understanding of the book and takes issue with a plot line or doesn’t understand the direction the author headed in, that’s different. Engaging with your reading audience is about give and take and even admitting you might have made a mistake can go a long way to endearing an audience.
The trick is determining the actual constructive feedback from all the noise, trolls, and troublemakers that make up the world of feedback today.
Many authors experience writer’s block. Is there any particular book, quote, or concept that you recommend to help them overcome obstacles along the way?
I love that you think that something as simple as a quote can help an author to get over writer’s block :-)
My biggest advice to authors is to move. I tell them that writing is like any use of muscles in our bodies and should be used regularly (not necessarily every day. Unless someone is a professional writer/author most people have lives and can’t write every single day despite what expectations might be). So, when writer’s block happens and they stop writing, the worst thing they can do is not write.
Wait, isn’t that why they call it writer’s block? Because they can’t write? Yes, but bear with me here. When a writer is stuck and can’t write, what they need to do, and absolutely should do is write; just maybe not about what they sat down to write about.
I teach authors that if this happens one solution is to move on to another section in the book. Write about what happens later, or earlier if you haven’t already.
This, of course, will not work for the author who must write in order and thus moving on doesn’t work. Okay, for that author another course of action is to go back and look at what you have written previously, or even start back at the beginning and do some ‘re-writing.’
If none of this works or the author just can’t get ‘un-stuck’ I tell them to write about that. Literally, start writing, “I hate this. I am completely stuck. I have writer’s block and don’t know what to do.” Then I tell them to keep writing what they’re feeling including where they are in their story/manuscript and what is happening to which characters that got them to where they are stuck. (Often times, this re-writing of how they got here will help free them up and move them past the block).
The point is to write. Anything. It’s about continuing to engage the muscles involved and the creative part of the brain that makes them write. By doing so, even if it has nothing to do with the book they’re working on, more often than not will get them past the block.
If all else fails, then I tell them to move. Literally. Go for a walk. Go for a drive. Move their body and get the endorphins flowing. Think about the book while they’re exercising or taking the dog out to the park. Sometimes they just need a new perspective and getting out of their rut and place of writing can do that.
How do you help your clients stay motivated and disciplined in their writing practice?
We created our Writing Program to be a year long to do just that. To give our writers accountability partners beyond just us. A community of like-minded authors all doing the work (though separately on their own) together.
For authors who are not in our program and come to us another way, it is about encouragement more than anything, and also finding out what works for that particular author.
Writing is such a personal thing. I think the pressure of deadlines (though I understand their necessity) often does more harm than good. Even if an author is pressured to meet the deadline more often than not the work suffers.
Getting to know an author and what motivates them, what their discipline strategies and capabilities are is crucial. Even in setting deadlines if the deadline isn’t in sync with what an author is capable of doing the work will suffer.
The old thinking that to be a good writer you must do A, B, C, and D and you must do it in a certain way at a certain time has been proven to be not only ineffective, but also inefficient because not everyone does things the same way.
Being a good partner in publishing means understanding your author(s) and how they work best, then encouraging them and holding them accountable in a way that works best for them. Ultimately isn’t the goal about getting the best work done?
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person or a memorable story about someone who helped you or your client achieve success?
This will be a cliché, but without question my wife. Both as an author and later a publisher, without her none of it would have happened. When I dared speak out loud the words that I wanted to write a book she was my biggest cheerleader. In the years that followed, she was always there championing my writing and helping me navigate the, as yet unknown, world of publishing as an author.
Then, when we decided to start a publishing company, she has been invaluable in creating the publishing house we had always hoped would be there for us as authors and wasn’t. Her creativity and passion for how we run the company and the resources we provide for our authors would simply not have happened without her. It was her idea to do the writing prompts, and her expertise in workshop design that led us to the writing program we do each year.
You are a person of enormous influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
This is not meant to come across a glib, but that is exactly what we are doing with our non-profit publishing model. We want to flip the traditional publishing industry model on its head. Our belief is that publishing should be a partnership between publisher and author and one that prioritizes the author over the publisher (not the other way around as the current model does).
Our movement is to show the world that a non-profit model can work. That a publisher can make money but does so by helping their authors succeed and that same author benefits most from their success. By doing so, we believe the model can then be replicated such that various iterations deal with either geographical regions of authors or genres rather than one Large Publishing House that tries to do it all for everyone.
This helps the most authors, gives them the tools and resources they need to be successful and thus, in turn, the publishing house is also successful. It’s the simple model of tides lifting all boats. The problem is, with the current traditional model of publishing, the only boat being lifted is the publisher, at the expense of most authors with only a select few being lifted in the process.
What if the model lifted all the authors first, and then the publisher was lifted as a by-product? Imagine what that would look like.
How can our readers follow your work online?
We’re also on Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn
You can join our daily writing prompt group at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/805660096593937
Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.
About the Interviewer: Teri Gault is a published Author of Shop Smart Save More with Sheryl Berk, published by HarperCollins. As founder of The Grocery Game, Teri has been seen on Good Morning America, Today Show, ABC 20/20 and more. Teri is currently a Publicist and a Purveyor of Hope and Health at www.Unite2020Pandemic.com
