So this weekend I landed a deal with a traditional publisher.

Yep, you read that right. Regardless of my statements about the logic of self-publishing (which I still stand by, as you’ll see later) I have sold large portions of The Black Knight Chronicles to Bell Bridge Books, an up and coming small press with an eye toward the future and a savvy marketing plan.

Why would I do this, you ask? My wife and I had a long talk about the possibility and the decision came down to a couple of things. One, having a publisher behind me will mean that I can work with an excellent editor with a long history of developing writers and making them better. My experience with Red Adept editing was awesome, and I will continue to use them on my self-pubbed stuff, but the developmental editing that a publisher brings to a project is something that doesn’t really exist right now in the indie market.

Also, they made me a sweetheart deal. I’m not going to go into much detail about that here, but I’m still free to self-pub some of my work, I still control parts of the Black Knight series, and their royalty structure is pretty badass.

You’ll notice I’m not talking a lot about advances. That’s because the advance is pretty small. I’m not buying a car with my advance, but I can buy more than a cheeseburger, too. I not only don’t mind this, I kinda like it. One of the questions I asked Deb Dixon, the publisher, at Fandom Fest was “what percentage of your authors earn out?” The answer was 100%. I understand that keeping advances low is one way to do that. And frankly, I’d rather have royalty checks every few months than an advance check that I’ll never earn out. So I didn’t go into this discussion looking for much of an advance, and got more than I was looking for. Our negotiations went very well, and I read over and agreed to the deal memo today. So now their lawyers will draft a contract, I’ll read it, consult with an IP attorney, and get them the first book under contract.

I still intend to publish a couple of books each year on my own, mostly because a publisher can’t publish books as quickly as I can write them. So there will be plenty of Black Knight stories to come, along with plenty of new material. I’m really excited about this opportunity to reach a broader audience, and to make my books the best they can be, and make me the best writer I can be. I think this is a good step along the road.

Thanks for coming with me.

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