52 Benefits of Being an Author
Make your expectations and goals explicit to reap proper rewards
One of the most interesting and complex aspects of being a small-press publisher, one who has had lots of direct contact with her authors at all stages of the publishing process, are author expectations!
That authors and publishers do not share identical interests would be obvious to any businessperson, but since that was not my background it took a while for this reality to become clear to me. We both want an author’s book to be wildly successful, right? That at least was my vague, muddled view. Until the day several years ago when two separate authors with whom I had and have warm, friendly relationships sent me a New York Times piece about authors vs. publishers with a quip to the effect: We’re glad you’re not like those publishers.
It hit me instantly when I read the article: I am like those publishers, and you are like those authors. I am a publisher, and you are authors. Thereafter I worked on understanding and unraveling these identity differences for win-win outcomes.
As you might suppose, one complicated element of author expectations is not that authors have them but that every author has different ones. Then there’s meeting company goals that may or may not have anything to do with the sea of…
