Publisher Questionnaire

Publishers, if you wish to be interviewed by Pat Bertram, please answer ten to fifteen questions (do NOT answer all questions — it makes for a long and boring interview) and submit them in the reply section below along with whatever links you’d like included. Be sure you mention the name of your company and where people can find you. If an answer to a question is yes or no, please explain why. Feel free to include your own questions. Also, please include links where I can find your logo or a photo you would like included in the interview.

(For the purposes of this blog promotion, a publisher is someone who publishes books by a variety of authors, who pays royalties, and who never charges authors a fee for any service.  If you charge fees of any kind, I am sorry, but you are ineligible for this promotion.)

1.  What made you go into publishing?

2.  What is the general background of your company?

3.  Are you getting from the business what you hoped to, monetarily as well as non-monetarily?

4.  How do you decide to publish one book and not another? If some of the classics were subbed to you, would you have pubbed them or snubbed them?

5.  How has the eBook revolution affected your business?

6.  Do you have a plan to survive since new ebook publishers are springing up everyday?

7.  Some people think that with more titles available today than at any other time in history, the novel as an art form is dying. Do you agree? Disagree? Why?

8.  What is your perfect author/client?

9.  Do you think starting this company changed your life? How so?

10. What challenges do you and your company face?

11. What is the most difficult part of being a publisher?

12. What is the easiest part of being a publisher?

13. What is the most rewarding part of being a publisher?

14. What is the most surprising part of being a publisher?

15. Do you publish anything or just certain genres?

16. What are your goals for the company, your authors, and your readers?

17. What, in your opinion, are the essential qualities of a good story?

18. What advice you would give to an aspiring author?

19. Have you always wanted to be a publisher?

20. What are your future plans? What will you bring to the literary world besides more stories?

21. Who do you imagine is your ideal readers?

22. What do you think the most influential change in book publishing will come from?

23. What criteria do you use to determine what you will publish?

24. Who are the authors you have published so far?

25. What do you do to sell the books you publish, for example, where do you advertise?

26. Can we find your books in stores or are they just online?

27. How do you reach potential readers?

28. Why should readers check out the books you publish?

29. Are you satisfied with the financial return on your investment of time and resources?”)

30. Would you recommend anyone else go into the publishing business?

31. What do authors do that drives you crazy?

32. What do authors do that please you the most?

33. Has the availability of POD and E-books made it easier for you to publish more client’s work since you no longer have to invest in large runs, shipping, etc?

34. What can you offer a writer in terms of brand and marketing that makes your percentage worth the author’s while?

35. Do you have a sales force? Are you successful in getting your books into traditional bookstores? Do you have a return policy?

36. Do you set up signings for the authors and then publish the ‘tour’?

37. Bookshops seem to be fast disappearing both in the USA and in Australia. How is that affecting you?

38. How do you acquire your talent? Open Submissions? Recommendations? Reading Periods? Placing Ads?

39. Do you charge your authors for any services?

40. Where can we learn more about you, your authors, and the books you publish?