About Trade Publishing, Part 2: Publishers

Introduction

So, Liz, wtf do you know about publishers?

This is a fair question. It’s a big topic. I’ve had contact with exactly four publishers, and published with two. I have no experience at all with direct-sub (non-agent) publishers. My first publisher was a Big 5, and publishing scales in really weird ways.

But I have spent time with a lot of people who’ve had a lot of different types of publishers, and what I learned was this: the entire industry is not a monolith. It’s a set of s...