![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Disappointment_gif.gif\")
<\/a><\/p>\nThe editing wasn’t better than editing at any other publishing house I’d had before or have had since. The big difference came in how I was treated.\u00a0 They ignored my input on the ugly cover by saying they’d spent a lot of money on it and they knew what they were doing.\u00a0 The implication was that I didn’t, even though I had published a handful of books already and had two more in press.\u00a0 On top of that, I was a book reviewer and saw hundreds of books every year and knew the difference between a great book cover and a dud.<\/p>\n
This publisher promised me a book tour and then reneged for no clear reason, trying to convince me that they were 100% behind the book, and that sending out postcards would be very effective.\u00a0 Again, I wasn’t a newbie in publishing, and I could tell I was being played.\u00a0 The ugliest little betrayal was when I gave them a very idiosyncratic choice of someone famous to do a blurb.\u00a0 They loved my suggestion so much that they had this celebrity blurb somebody else’s book.<\/p>\n
When I’ve published with smaller houses, the relationship has always been closer and more productive.\u00a0 One publisher sent me six possible cover designs and I actually had several long conversations with the art director (an author friend was stupefied when I shared that experience).\u00a0 Two independent publishers sent me on tour.\u00a0 All of them worked hard to publicize my books and all of them welcomed my experience and insight. I wasn’t just someone on their list, I was a partner in this venture; I felt valued and respected for what I had written and for what I had learned as an author and a reviewer.<\/p>\n So even though I grew up in New York City with New York ideas of success, I thankfully got over it.<\/p>\n Lev Raphael is the author of Writers Block is Bunk<\/em><\/a> and two dozen other books in genres from memoir to mystery.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Because I grew up in the heart of the publishing world, New York, I thought nothing could be better than having a book published by a big trade house. Or at least a prestige publisher like Scribner’s or Knopf. I got my wish some time ago.\u00a0 But my experience with that publisher was bitter.\u00a0 Yes, … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[298,497,292,5,175,872,165,166,504,192,496,290,214,787,380,495],"class_list":["post-2635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-publishing","tag-advice-for-writers","tag-authors","tag-book-tours","tag-books","tag-independent-publishers","tag-indie-publishers","tag-inspiration","tag-motivation","tag-promotion","tag-publicity","tag-publishing","tag-the-writers-life","tag-the-writing-life","tag-writers-block-is-bunk","tag-writers","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2635"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2635\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2895,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2635\/revisions\/2895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a>All this came back to me when an author friend of mine recently won an award and was celebrated by the publisher.\u00a0 I noted that celebration meant being taken out to lunch (not dinner, of course) and despite the fulsome praise from the publisher and editor, none of it meant more money in the next book contract or any advertising.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n