Peevish Pen

Ruminations on reading, writing, genealogy and family history, rural living, retirement, aging—and sometimes cats.

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Location: Rural Virginia, United States

I'm an elderly retired teacher who writes. Among my books are Ferradiddledumday (Appalachian version of the Rumpelstiltskin story), Stuck (middle grade paranormal novel), Patches on the Same Quilt (novel set in Franklin County, VA), Them That Go (an Appalachian novel), Miracle of the Concrete Jesus & Other Stories, and several Kindle ebooks.

Monday, November 12, 2012

Support Books?

Today I received an email from a publisher that once rejected a query of mine many years ago. Here's part of the email:


They want me to give them money so they can "seek out new voices" and "publish groundbreaking work"—"transformative literature," whatever that is. According to their website, they're a non-profit publisher. (A bit of Googling told me that there are several other non-profit publishers. I was surprised. I thought publishers wanted to make money.)

I dislike getting spam requests for money in my email. I can see contributing to public radio or public TV because they don't have advertisers to fund them—and I can listen or watch them whenever I want without paying another fee. (Plus NPR and PBS don't send me email spam.) But it's not likely this publisher, which has been around for thirty years, will give me X number of books if I contribute.

 I can maybe see contributing to a start-up publisher (through Kickstarter, for instance) if I knew the people involved and believed in their project. I could even understand buying stock in a publishing company that's determined to make a profit. But I can't understand why this company—which does have books to sell—hasn't figured out a way to sell its goods to make a profit. 

I generally support publishers—and authors—by buying books. I took a look at a few of this company's recent paperbacks, which were priced in the $15 to $18 range, but I didn't see anything that I loved. 

I loved the book that I once queried them with and they rejected, though. Thus, I'm rejecting this email spam.
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