Small and Independent Publishers

Page updated/links checked: 12/30/25

Small and independent presses offer an important alternative to bigger houses, including the Big 5 publishers (Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, etc.), most of which are largely closed to unagented writers.

More flexible than their larger counterparts, free of the shareholder expectations that drive the major houses in pursuit of profit, and willing to work with authors without the intervention of a literary agent, they can afford to take chances on authors and books that bigger publishers may overlook or be unwilling to risk, and serve niche or specialty or experimental audiences that aren’t profitable enough for the majors to bother with. They may be more open to new authors, and because of their smaller teams, may allow for more personal attention and greater author input into the process of bringing a book to market.

Digital technology has transformed the world of small press publishing over the past two decades, reducing or eliminating the cost of print runs and warehousing and making it far less expensive to start a publisher than in the past. Easily-accessible digital publishing platforms like IngramSpark and Amazon’s KDP allow almost anyone to set up a publishing business with minimal outlay. There are more small publishers now than ever before, specializing in every conceivable market and genre, offering a wealth of opportunities to writers.

But while there are many amazing small presses producing beautiful books and doing right by their authors, scams and dishonest operators are as prevalent in the small press arena as they are in other areas of publishing. There’s also the issue of adequate skill: just as with schmagents, it’s very easy these days for people with good intent but no real experience to start their own publishers, which often does not work out well for either the publishers or their authors.

Below you’ll find some considerations to weigh before submitting to a small press, tips for evaluating small publishers, warnings about bad and/or dishonest business practice, and links to helpful resources.

Submitting to a Small Press: Issues to Consider

The potential for instability.

It’s tough to make it as a publisher. The attrition rate is high even for well-capitalized presses with experienced staff. For publishers run by people with limited experience and/or funds, it’s even higher.  Many small presses go out of business within the first couple of years. The sudden death of your publisher can create big problems for you, especially if the publisher fails to return your rights before it vanishes.

Especially risky is signing with a brand-new publisher that hasn’t yet proven itself in the marketplace. It’s wise to hold off on querying a new small press until it has been issuing books for at least a year–and preferably more–and has demonstrated some staying power. (This also allows you to evaluate important things like quality and marketing.)

Competence and/or resources.

Once upon a time, the substantial financial outlay involved in establishing a publishing company was a deterrent to startups. These days, as noted above, setting up a publisher is both easy and inexpensive, and anyone can do it, whether or not they have professional publishing or business experience. (And make no mistake: a publisher is a business.)

Like the amateur literary agent, the amateur publisher may have good intentions and a genuine desire to do right by authors. But good intentions–like responsiveness, enthusiasm, praise, and all the other non-publishing-related things that so often entice writers into questionable situations–aren’t a substitute for knowledge, experience, qualified (and adequate) staff, and working capital–all of which are far more important factors in a publisher’s success.

Just as new writers can get into trouble if they don’t take some time to learn about the publishing industry before starting to submit, inexperienced publishers can run into difficulties if they start up too quickly and attempt to learn on the fly. This can lead to author-unfriendly contracts, poor editing and cover art, ineffective marketing, fouled-up publishing schedules, opaque communication, inaccurate royalty accounting, missed royalty payments, and abrupt closures. Also a potential pitfall for authors: publishers that are one- or two-person operations, or run in the owner’s spare time, or otherwise lack financial resources and/or the cushion of regular salaried staff. A single illness, personal misfortune, or other unexpected event can derail the business and bring things to a standstill.

Any and all of these things may push publishers into financial or logistical trouble, which in turn may provoke unprofessional and even abusive behavior from the publisher and its staff as things become increasingly bad. Alternatively, the publisher may simply vanish, cutting off communication, closing down websites and social media accounts–sometimes without warning or explanation.

All of this may sound farfetched or alarmist. Unfortunately it’s not. Small press complaints are among the most frequent that Writer Beware receives. You can see our many posts about these in the Publisher Complaints section of the Writer Beware blog.

An abundance of sharks.

The ease and cheapness of digital technology has made it very easy for unscrupulous or dishonest people to establish publishing ventures. From vanity publishers masquerading as legitimate small presses (see Vanity Publishers in Small Press Clothing, below), to “author mills” that seek to turn a profit on enormous author volume and skimpy services, to overseas scammers impersonating real publishers (see A Special Warning, below), these companies are the Venus flytraps of the writing world, lying in wait for the inexperienced or desperate authors who are their sustenance of choice.

The possibility of small sales and exposure.

Limited budgets and/or limited expertise often go hand in hand with limited marketing and distribution. With smaller budgets and smaller staff, they rely more heavily on authors to do the work of marketing and promotion. Such limitations can negatively affect sales. 

Evaluating a Small Press

As many opportunities as it offers for authors, the small press realm can be a murky place. It’s vital to carefully evaluate any publisher you’re considering approaching, both to assess its professionalism and to assure yourself that what it can do for you is in line with your needs and goals.

It’s also extremely important to do this research before you submit–not just so you won’t waste your time with inappropriate or problem publishers, but because it’s hard to refuse an offer once it’s made…even if the offer is a bad one.

id the publisher solicit you?

If so, beware. You can never say never in the publishing business–but it is extremely unlikely that a reputable publisher will contact you out of the blue to tout its services or invite you to submit. For scammers, on the other hand, solicitation is one of the main ways they acquire clients. Solicitation scams are extremely common these days (see A Special Warning, below). Writer Beware’s blog provides many examples of why you want to avoid publishers–and publishing-adjacent businesses–that solicit.

Is there a fee, or do you have to buy something?

Many reputable small presses can’t afford to pay advances. But they don’t ask for cash upfront, or withhold royalties to recoup production costs, or require you to buy something (such as a quantity of finished books) as a condition of publication. If you have to give your publisher money in order to be published–whether upfront or on the back end via book purchases or withheld royalties–you are not dealing with a traditional publisher.

The one exception–sometimes–is a hybrid publisher, which charges a fee yet adds value beyond that of a vanity publisher or self-publishing service provider. But true hybrid publishers are extremely costly, and so many dishonest or marginal companies are calling themselves “hybrid” these days that you can’t assume a publisher that describes itself as a “hybrid” really is one. (For a more detailed discussion, see the section on hybrid publishers, below.)

Fee-charging publishers posing as traditional small presses can be inventive about hiding or attempting to sanitize their fees. For examples of these sneaky practices, see Vanity Publishers in Small Press Clothing, below.

Are there complaints about the press or its staff?

A websearch on the publisher’s name can turn up online chatter, both positive and negative. An excellent resource is the Bewares, Recommendations, and Background Check forum at the Absolute Write Water Cooler, where writers discuss their experiences with publishers (and others), both good and bad. You can also contact Writer Beware; we’ll tell you if we’ve gotten any complaints or reports.

Don’t skip this step. A publisher may be open for submissions even as complaints are blowing up on the internet, and a professional-seeming public face may disguise a long history of problems. These things are more common than you might think. Also, some small presses that fail under one name start up again under another; and staff who leave under questionable circumstances may start their own publishing enterprises.

Is the publisher new?

As noted above, there’s a high attrition rate for new small publishers. This can work out badly for you, because a publisher that liquidates or goes bankrupt or simply disappears can tie up your rights, or may pass them on to third parties without your permission.

Sudden failure is a possibility with any small press–finances are often precarious–but if you sign with a publisher that’s just starting up, or has been in business only a few months, or has not actually published anything yet, you are really taking a risk. Look for evidence that the publisher has been issuing books for at least a year (longer is better), and that it has a decent backlist of published books (not just two or three). These things suggest at least some stability, and demonstrate that the press is capable of taking books all the way through the production process. You’ll also be able to judge important factors like quality, design, and how (or whether) the publisher is marketing its books.

What are the owner’s and staff’s credentials?

This is a super-important part of evaluating a publisher, especially a new one. Do the owner and staff have publishing, editing, and/or marketing backgrounds? If not, how does their experience relate to publishing and bookselling?

Be wary of publishers whose owners and/or staff don’t have relevant work experience (“Staffer X has been an avid reader all their life” or “Staffer Y did critiques for friends and always dreamed of being an editor” or “Founder Z has a degree in English and is a middle school teacher” are not relevant qualifications). Be especially cautious with publishers that provide no staff information on their websites, or that provide names with no accompanying biographies. This is important disclosure–not just because it’s good for a publisher to be transparent, but because without it, you can’t properly evaluate the publisher’s expertise.

Are the books professionally produced and edited?

Order a couple to find out (or cheat by checking out samples on Amazon). If the publisher is producing poor-quality books for others, it likely won’t do better for you. Inconsistent formatting, typos and other errors, and unprofessional-looking cover art are all warning signs.

Is the pricing competitive?

Compare the publisher’s retail prices with those of similar publishers, large and small, to be sure it is pricing its titles competitively. High retail prices can especially be a problem for print editions, since digitally-printed books have a larger unit cost than offset-printed books, and must be priced higher to ensure the publisher’s profit.

What’s the website like?

Is it professionally designed and easy to navigate? Is the text well-written, copy edited, and formatted? Do the links work? The website is the publisher’s business face, and should reflect a commitment to professionalism. If a press isn’t capable, or doesn’t care enough, to create an attractive website free of typos, grammatical errors, and the like, what kind of books will it produce? On the other hand, a glitzy website is not a guarantee of quality.

A reputable publisher’s website will be book-focused: it will publicize its authors, and try to attract readers. A questionable and/or fee-based publisher’s website will be service-focused: it will promote itself, and try to attract writers.

What distribution is in place?

Distribution is a vital component of book publishing. At a minimum, the publisher should have a presence on the major online retailers (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Waterstones, Kobo, etc.), and make print books available for order in physical stores via a wholesaler like Ingram. Platforms like KDP and IngramSpark, which many small presses use for publishing, provide this type of distribution.

For brick-and-mortar bookstore shelf presence–as opposed to just availability to order–there also needs to be a relationship with a distributor, as distinct from a wholesaler or a publishing platform. (For a discussion of the important differences between wholesalers and distributors, see this post from the Writer Beware blog.) Most books these days are sold online, but physical bookstores are still a source of sales, and if a publisher has a distributor, it may be able to do better for you in terms of sales numbers.

What about marketing?

Does the publisher send out ARCs? Have a NetGalley account? Make books  available for pre-order on retailers’ websites? Attend book fairs, writers’ conferences, and/or genre conventions?  Maintain an active social media presence? Is it able to obtain media reviews and/or reviews in industry publications like Publishers Weekly? These are all important components of book marketing, in many cases arranged long before a book is offered for sale.

Many small presses have limited budgets, and expect their authors to play a major part in marketing and promotion. This is fine, as long as you’re up for it and the publisher is honest about it. No matter what you may have heard, though, the entire burden of marketing should not fall on you. Your publisher should be a partner in the marketing process, undertaking efforts of its own.

Especially, a press should not require authors to pay for marketing (for instance, charging for sending out review copies, or offering a menu of marketing options for which you have to pay) or pressure authors to become customers by buying their own books for re-sale (beware of publishers with book purchase requirements).

What about the contract?

Bad contract terms are a problem industry-wide–but they’re especially common in the small press world.

Terms you could encounter include life-of-copyright grants without adequate reversion clauses, demands for copyright transfer, claiming subsidiary rights the publisher isn’t capable of exploiting, paying royalties on net profit, retaining a financial interest in the author’s work even after the contract has terminated, claiming the right to edit at will without seeking the author’s permission, tying next-book option clauses to current contract terms, imposing fees for early termination, tying rights reversion to purchase of overstock…the list goes on.

Contracts are a minefield for authors, who may not have the knowledge or experience to recognize author-unfriendly contract language. Don’t just assume your contract is OK, or take the publisher’s word that its terms are standard (for these and other unwise assumptions, see Evaluating Publishing Contracts: Six Ways You May be Sabotaging Yourself). Get qualified advice. If you seek legal counsel, be sure the lawyer has experience with intellectual property and publishing.

You should be able to do at least some negotiating. There are contract terms publishers are rarely willing to negotiate (royalty rates or warranties and indemnities, for instance), and small presses may be less flexible on contract negotiations than bigger houses–but there should be at least some wiggle room on things like option clauses, holding onto subsidiary rights, how many author copies you get, and more.

If a publisher flatly refuses to negotiate, be wary. This may indicate an autocratic attitude toward writers–not a good sign for the road ahead–or the publisher may be hiding the fact that it doesn’t understand its own contract language (more common than you might think).

What about the publisher’s backlist?

Investigating what a publisher has already published can tell you important things.

For instance, Amazon sales rankings can give you insight into sales volume. Amazon obviously isn’t the only retailer out there, but it owns a huge chunk of the book market, especially the ebook market, and for most small presses, ebook sales far outstrip print. Amazon rankings can provide at least a general idea of well a book is selling. (Here’s a tool to convert sales rankings to numbers.)

The number of books the publisher is issuing can give you a sense of its publishing volume. Tiny numbers (fewer than five or six books a year) may indicate a part-time or hobby press, while big numbers (a dozen books a month, scores of books a year) may be a sign of an author mill, or a publisher that’s pushing out books too fast to give them proper editing and marketing attention. Overcommitted publishers can get into trouble if they don’t have the staff or the resources to keep up with the workload, leading in some cases to mass contract cancellations.

Are there any gaps in the press’s publishing history? A hiatus of several months or years suggests logistical or financial problems; ditto for a press that abruptly stops issuing books, regardless of how active its publishing program may have been before. Missed publication dates are also a big red flag.

How are the staff paid? 

This may not be easy to find out, but it can be an important data point. As a way of minimizing upfront outlay, many small presses pay their staffers a royalty on the books they work on, rather than a salary or a flat fee. The publisher, in other words, only has to pay if it gets paid.

But this can be bad for staff, since it essentially forces them to work on spec. Small pay from poor sales can spur frequent staff turnover–a problem that has a direct impact on authors, especially if an editor or cover artist quits in the middle of the process. It may also result in less-qualified staff, since editors and designers with more credentials may not be willing to accept such an uncertain form of remuneration.

Is the press forthcoming?

Does its website name its staff and provide biographical information (important: you want to be able to assess their experience)? Is the submissions process clear and complete? Are your questions answered promptly, fully, and without evasion? A publisher that isn’t transparent about its business, refuses to provide information–or, worst of all, scolds you for asking questions–is a publisher to avoid.

Does the press add value?

This may be the most important question of all. Many small presses don’t do much more than upload a copy edited version of your manuscript to KDP. For this minimal service, they demand that you tie up your rights with an exclusive publishing contract and yield up a portion of your sales proceeds. This makes no sense. If a publisher does barely more for you than you could do for yourself, what’s the point?

A publisher should add value, in the form of quality editing, design, cover art, production, promotion, and other areas that match your goals and ambitions as a writer. Otherwise, in today’s world of abundant self-publishing options, it may be better to go it on your own.

Hybrid Publishers

When is a fee-charging publisher not a vanity publisher? When it’s a hybrid publisher. Sometimes.

When used correctly, the term “hybrid publisher” indicates a publisher that straddles the divide between traditional and self-publishing: charging a fee but publishing selectively, and adding value in terms of quality editing, design, marketing, and/or distribution beyond that of a self-publishing platform or a vanity publisher.

Unfortunately, many unscrupulous vanity publishers have embraced the label in an effort to make themselves seem more respectable. Ditto for some expensive assisted self-publishing services. How to tell the difference? Author and editor Jane Friedman provides this advice:

• A hybrid worth the name will have some method of curating or selecting what projects to take on. In other words: They consider the market potential of your work and its ability to succeed. If they appear to take anyone and everyone, then you’re better off evaluating the best self-publishing service to use. Don’t kid yourself about leveling up to a hybrid. (So-called hybrids aren’t averse to playing to your ego to get your business.)
• A hybrid publisher should offer the potential of specialized or hard to get distribution, where they can get books physically placed on shelves in stores. They might not be able to promise this, but if they’re actively placing books at bricks-and-mortar retail outlets—and they have a catalog of titles for marketing purposes—that’s a good sign. Again, any self-publishing author can easily get distribution through online retail, via Amazon and IngramSpark (who take a cut of sales), so the more the hybrid invests in marketing and distributing print editions, the more they might be offering something you may not be able to accomplish yourself. Still, keep in mind most books are not sold in physical stores now. They are sold online.
• Most hybrid publishers that live up to their name work with you both pre-publication and post-publication. The relationship doesn’t end once the book is done; some even sell subsidiary rights on your behalf. However, you may have to pay fees to continue the relationship beyond the first year or so.

Similar guidelines are provided by the Independent Book Publishers Association in its Hybrid Publisher Criteria, a 9-point set of standards intended to differentiate true hybrid publishers from other author-subsidized models (i.e., vanity publishers).

Hybrid publishing companies behave just like traditional publishing companies in all respects, except that they publish books using an author-subsidized business model, as opposed to financing all costs themselves, and in exchange return a higher-than-industry-standard share of sales proceeds to the author. In other words, a hybrid publisher makes income from a combination of publishing services and book sales.

Unfortunately, these criteria are extremely easy for less-than-honest fee-charging publishers to game by misrepresenting their business models or just plain lying (an example: prolific vanity publisher Austin Macauley). This kind of subterfuge is  common. As a result, you cannot trust that a self-described hybrid publisher actually is one.

It’s a good idea, therefore, not to take a hybrid publisher’s claims at face value, but to investigate on your own.

• Does the hybrid claim to screen for quality and publish to professional standards? Assess those claims for credibility: buy some of its books, and use Amazon’s Look Inside feature to sample more.
• Make sure that the hybrid is offering more than a self-publishing-style suite of services, or pretending that the basic elements of digital publishing (such as “worldwide distribution” via Ingram and online retailers) are premium extras. What will it do for you that you can’t do for yourself, or buy for less from another service?
• Check the hybrid’s other claims. Does it really work with a distributor (as opposed to a wholesaler like Ingram)? Can it really get its books into brick-and-mortar stores? Does it really do the marketing it promises?
• Search for complaints. Absolute Write’s Bewares, Recommendations, & Background Check forum is a good place to start. Contact Writer Beware; we may have heard something.

Finally: ask yourself why you are choosing to spend a large amount of money to publish your book with a hybrid instead of self-publishing or submitting to agents and/or traditional publishers.

Genuine hybrids can be seriously expensive. Some may quote a base price on their websites that doesn’t include important elements like editing or printing, which must be purchased separately. Others may pressure authors to up their initial investment by buying add-on services–which, if included, can bring fees well above $20,000. (You can see the eye-poppint amounts two authors spent on their hybrid-published books here.) Not only does this make it even more important to determine that you’re not being rooked by a vanity publisher in disguise, it should prompt careful and realistic consideration of the probability of ever recouping your investment.

Vanity Publishers in Small Press Clothing

Many less-than-honest publishers present themselves as traditional while still finding ways to force their authors to hand over cash. There aren’t a lot of universal rules in publishing, but here’s one: traditional publishers do not require payment from their authors. If money is due–whether upfront, via fees or purchase requirements, or on the back end, via withheld royalties or the sale of optional extras, you are not dealing with a traditional publisher.

Here are some of the ways dishonest fee-charging publishers try to hide or sanitize their fees.

• A fee for just one aspect of the publication process, such as editing. You’re not paying to publish, you’re “cost sharing”! But traditional publishers don’t expect authors to share costs. Plus, it’s more than likely that whatever you’re asked to pay covers not just the one element, but the entire expense of producing your book plus overhead and profit.
• A print book purchase requirement. Again, you’re not paying to publish: you’re buying books you can re-sell. This kind of requirement, which can range from tens to hundreds of books, is spun as “investing” in your own success–but it’s not so easy to flog print books, especially if you don’t have a following or other direct access to likely readers. And the bottom line is still that you are handing over money in order to be published.
•  Withheld royalties. You get no royalty income until the publisher’s out-of-pocket costs have been recouped. This is another back-end vanity ploy, and an especially sneaky one, because you don’t have to actually lay out any cash. But money that otherwise would be yours is kept by the publisher, which amounts to the same thing.
• “Extras” for sale. Though it doesn’t require any fees, the publisher offers a menu of optional purchases: expedited editing, special website placement, inclusion in book fair catalogs, enhanced marketing, courses and workshops, annual conferences, and more. You don’t have to buy–but there’s often heavy pressure to do so, and authors who don’t pull out their credit cards may become second-class citizens.
• A sales guarantee. If your book doesn’t sell X number of copies within X amount of time, you must agree to buy the difference. Most authors have an over-optimistic idea of the sales they can achieve, and figure they’ll never have to pay up–but the publisher has chosen the sales number because it knows it won’t be fulfilled, thus guaranteeing itself a profit.
•  A pre-sale requirement. A similar contract clause may require you to generate a certain number of sales prior to publication, or to “guarantee” a minimum number of sales (usually, exactly as much as is needed to enable the publisher to recoup its investment and make a profit). You don’t have to buy them yourself–you may be asked to find “investors” or organizations to commit to purchases–but if you don’t deliver the sales, the publishing deal is off. This is another tricky variation on the pay-to-publish scheme that lets the publisher claim that it’s not asking you for cash. But it’s not an author’s job to be a salesperson for his or her own books. That’s what the publisher is supposed to do, in exchange for making money from your intellectual property.
• Pressure to buy your book yourself. The publisher may not contractually require you to purchase your book, but it will put you under heavy buying pressure–for instance, providing literature that extols the financial benefit of buying your own book for resale, or bombarding you with special incentives and discounts. These are all signs of a publisher that relies on its authors as a major income source, and thus has less motivation to invest resources in getting books into the hands of readers. Unfortunately, if the publisher employs such tactics, you may not find out about them until you’ve already signed the contract (which is why researching before submitting is so important).

A Special Warning: Publishing  Scams From Overseas

The latest ripoff to hit the writing world is a plague of publishing scams that, through outrageous prices and worthless services, extract enormous amounts of money from unwary writers.

Based in the Philippines (despite their apparent US, UK, and Canadian addresses and phone numbers), these companies mostly target self-published writers, but they also focus on small press authors, who they try to poach away from their current publishers with high-pressure–and highly deceptive–phone and email solicitations. The claim: the scammer can re-publish your book at a better price and with better marketing, and/or will “represent” or “transition” you to big publishing houses like HarperCollins or Penguin Random House or major movie studios like Paramount or Netflix. Overseas publishing scammers also impersonate well-known and reputable traditional publishers, literary agents, and film production companies with fake offers and fake contracts.

The scammers have no connections with traditional publishers or Hollywood producers: their claims are window dressing to convince authors to shell out money for re-publication, and for products they present as essential to the rights acquisition process: marketing of various kinds, editing, book reviews or assessments, query letters, and items that are completely bogus (see below). Delivered services are often of substandard quality; frequently, the scammers simply take authors’ money and run. Writer Beware has heard from writers who’ve lost enormous amounts to scammers’ false promises, in many cases for goods and services they never received.

How to protect yourself? Fortunately, overseas publishing scams have a number of telltale markers.

• Cold-call contact by phone and email. Out-of-the-blue contact is the main way overseas publishing scammers acquire clients. Often they’ll claim your book has been recommended to them, or was discovered by one of their book scouts, or evaluated by a literary organization or production company. With so many publishing scammers competing for customers, any out-of-the-blue solicitation related to publishing or movie rights that you can’t directly tie to a contact or query you yourself made is highly likely to be a scam.
• Republishing or “rebranding” of your book. This extremely common pitch by overseas publishing scammers may be framed as a strategy to improve your sales, or as a prerequisite to transitioning you to a Big 5 publishing contract, but in reality it’s a gateway to your bank account. It also completely ignores the complication of an existing publishing contract.
• Bogus products and services for sale. Are you being told that your book must be licensed or re-licensed in order to be republished? That you need a Separation of Book Rights Order or an Independent Publishing Registration? That you have to buy Book Returns Insurance? That a Global Copyright Certificate or International Book Seal is a publishing requirement? These are all entirely fake things that scammers have invented in order to extract money from writers. (If you’re being pitched a product and aren’t sure it’s legit, contact Writer Beware and we’ll give you an opinion.)
• False information. Publishing scammers’ websites often include falsehoods that can be spotted with some double-checking. For example, the scammer may claim to have been in business since 2018, but its web domain wasn’t registered until 2024. Some of the books featured on the website may turn out not to exist, or were published long before the scammer’s supposed founding date. Testimonials may be fake or unverifiable: no last names, a gender mismatch between images and names, book titles that don’t exist. Or if there’s a list of staff, reverse image searches on accompanying images may show that they’re stock or stolen or generated with AI.
• Names designed to deceive. Some publishing scammers choose names that they hope will cause writers to mistake them for a different (real) company. Multiple scammers use the Penguin name, for example (Penguin Book Writers, Penguin Random House Publishers, Penguin Books Publishers), and many scammers appropriate Amazon trademarks (Amazon Publishing Hub, KDP ProPublisher, Amazon Kindle Network). The presence of paid services identifies these copycats as scams. Neither major publishers like Penguin, nor self-pub platforms like Amazon, charge fees or have affiliates that do.
• English-language errors and phone callers with foreign accents. Overseas scams are owned and staffed primarily by people who speak English fluently, but as a second language. The advent of generative AI has made grammar and colloquial errors far less common on websites and in written text than they used to be, and may soon make it possible for sales reps to alter their voices so that they sound American or English. But these are still important markers (especially if you force the scammer to go off-script).

Resources

Researching Publishers and Checking Reputations

• E-mail Writer Beware. We’ve assembled a large archive of documentation on publishers (and others) that engage in questionable practices. Send us the names of any publishers you’d like to know about, and we’ll summarize for you any data that’s in our files.
• A good spot to research the reputation of small presses: the Bewares, Recommendations, & Background Check area of the Absolute Write Water Cooler. Check the index first, to see if the press you’re interested in has already been discussed.
• Helpful advice from author and editor Jane Friedman: How to Evaluate Small Publishers.
• An excellent checklist of considerations: How to Evaluate a Micro/Small Genre Press as a Prospective Author.
• The Complete Review provides a substantial list of independent publishers and small presses. (Note: not all are necessarily reputable. Do extra research on any publisher you approach from this list. The same caution applies to the two lists below.)
• Another list of small presses, from Poets & Writers.
• NewPages.com’s List of Independent and University Publishers.
• The Independent Book Publishers Association’s 9-point list of Hybrid Publisher Criteria. (As noted above, these can be–and are–easily gamed by dishonest vanity publishers, so while they are helpful, you shouldn’t necessarily trust a self-identified hybrid publisher’s claims to follow them.)

Contracts

• Evaluating Publishing Contracts: Six Ways You May Be Sabotaging Yourself. Should you believe your publisher if it promises that a nasty contract clause will never be enforced? Or trust it if it tells you that contract language doesn’t mean what you think it means? How these and other assumptions could come back to bite you.
• The USA’s Authors Guild’s model trade book contract.
• The Authors Guild’s Fair Contract Initiative takes a fresh look at the standard book contract, and highlights where change is needed.
• Model contracts from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (these are not specific to speculative fiction writers).
• Professional writers’ groups like the Authors Guild or the UK’s Society of Authors offer free contract advice to members.
• From IP attorney Howard G. Zaharoff, a checklist and explainer of publishing contract terms.
• Writer Beware’s blog includes many posts on publishing contracts and contract issues, including reversion clauses, termination fees, copyright transfers, bankruptcy clauses, editing clauses, why net profit royalties are a red flag, and much more.
• From publishing expert Jane Friedman: Questions to Ask Your Publisher Before You Sign the Contract.
• From the Alliance of Independent Authors: Who Does Your Publishing Contract Protect? (Make sure it’s not just the publisher.)
• How to Request Rights Reversion From Your Publisher, from Writer Beware’s blog.

General Resources

• From author and former agent Nathan Bransford, a glossary of publishing terms.
• Start Here: How to Get Your Book Published. A comprehensive resource from author and editor Jane Friedman, whose website is one of the most reliable and comprehensive resources around for pretty much anything related to books, publishing, and writing.
• Useful guidelines: Jane Friedman’s chart of the key book publishing paths puts small press publishing in context.
• Two literary agents offer perspective on the benefits and potential drawbacks of working with a small press.
• Author C. Hope Clark discusses her own experience with small press publishing, both positive and negative.
• A comprehensive article from author Barbara Linn Probst, Hybrid Publishing: Everything You’ve Always Wanted to Know
• When you need to run away: Hybrid Publishers and Paid Publishing Services: Red Flags to Watch For
• The Association of American Publishers, a trade group for publishers in the USA, provides useful info, industry stats, and a list of member publishers.
• The Independent Publishers Guild, a similar organization in the UK, also lists its member publishers.
• The Independent Book Publishers’ Association is a US-based group focusing on smaller presses.

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