Category: publishing

In May of 2022, I had an idea for a new story. I had basically just finished the last part of Revin’s Heart and was looking for something new to write. At the SFWA Writing Date I banged out a 1,900 word pilot and immediately knew that, what I had, was the first chapter of a novel. The semester was just ending, and so I had plenty of time to write. I worked assiduously and, in little more than a month, I had finished the rough draft of a 50,000 word novel.

A young man desperately wants a strong magical familiar but, instead, is captured and made the familiar of a powerful demon that intends to train him up for something. But what?

When I reached the end of what I had intended to write, I kept having fun ideas about what the characters could do afterwards. This happened about three times until I remembered that I was the author and I could just keep writing. I ended up writing two more chapters and another whole ending.

I revised and polished the manuscript over the summer. I got good comments from my faithful beta reviewers. My younger son, rolling his eyes, commented that he had been worried about his own writing being too weird until he read this manuscript. Sometimes the meaning of your life is only to serve as a warning to others. By fall, I was ready to start trying to submit it for publication.

I checked with Water Dragon first, but they were in the middle of publishing Revin’s Heart and Better Angels, so it didn’t work into their schedule.

I briefly considered trying to pitch it to an agent. But I decided it wasn’t really long enough and was weird enough that it would fit better at a small press. I saw one small press looking for “cozy fantasies” so I pitched it to them. I mean, I think of it as cozy fantasy. Unfortunately, they didn’t see it that way, objecting to “overt themes of sexual abuse and sexual coercion” — which seems harsh and exaggerated to me. But, they can publish what they want. I tried a few other publishers but had a hard time finding a home for the manuscript: it’s too cozy to be dark and too dark to be cozy.

I was gratified when I got Water Dragon to take another look at it this spring, since I thought it would be a good fit. And, this time, they agreed! I have now signed the contract and it will be worked into the schedule to come out this winter.

I really like this story and I think readers will like it too. I can’t wait to get it into your hands!

When Charlie Jane Anders wrote about short fiction it resonated with me because this is exactly what Water Dragon Publishing has been trying to do!

To be clear(er) Water Dragon Publishing has been developing a short fiction program for several years called “Dragon Gems”. Novelettes accepted for publication get their own individually designed cover and are published as both ebooks and printed books. Shorter fiction is now collected together in quarterly anthologies.

I submitted a novelette, The Third Time’s the Charm, to the Dragon Gems program which was accepted for publication. I then succeeded in persuading my (soft-hearted? soft-headed?) editor to open-endedly serialize subsequent novelettes as Revin’s Heart.

In the end, I wrote seven novelettes with the intention of collecting them together as a fix-up (along with several side-stories.) I did it partly because, like Charlie Jane, I really like episodic fiction. (Tho partly it was also because that’s where I was in my fiction writing at that point — I hadn’t written any longer fiction and I was nervous about taking on longer projects.) It’s worked out well for me as it’s given me a year where every three or four months I could go back and promote something. As a new author, it must be difficult to publish a debut novel and then say, “Well, I’ll be back in two years.”

Now, Water Dragon has asked me to write some new stories extending my Better Angels stories with the goal of eventually developing a collection. So far, I’ve written seven stories (maybe eight, depending on how you count). So I expect you’ll be seeing more of those this year.

I’ve now helped run the dealer table for Water Dragon at Worldcon, ComicCon, and Arisia (and, in a few weeks, Boskone ). It’s been interesting to see the reactions that readers have to the Dragon Gems. A number of people have said that, for whatever reason — pandemic, social media, dystopia, planetary collapse, take your pick — they are looking for shorter fiction and the Dragon Gems are just what they want. Similarly, many authors have stopped by and been giddy to see that Water Dragon accepts novelettes.

My brother Philip Brewer pointed out he wrote a relevant post 10 years ago about short fiction. I think this would be a great model to help raise the profile of short fiction too.

And neither of them are talking about Amazon’s Kindle Vella or Radish which are yet further takes on serialized fiction.

In any event, I was very pleased to see Charlie Jane’s post because it dovetails with my experience perfectly. There’s a lot of short fiction out there, but the market for it is broken. And there are too few mechanisms for people to discover it.

Below are my publications that were (or will be) released in 2022.

Brewer, S.D. 2022. The End of His Rope. Part Five of Revin’s Heart, Water Dragon Publishing, San Jose, California. 46pp.

Brewer, S.D. 2022. The Right Motivation in Corporate Catharsis: The Work From Home Edition, Water Dragon Publishing, San Jose, California. 226-233.

Brewer, S.D. 2022. Something Else to Do in Modern Magic. Knight Writing Press, Parker, Colorado. 55-59.

Brewer, S.D. 2022. Imaginary Friends in The Future’s So Bright, Water Dragon Publishing, San Jose, California. pages 290-297.

Brewer, S.D. 2022. Better Angels and the Very Scary Halloween. Truck Stop at the Center of the Galaxy Boos-Day, Water Dragon Publishing, San Jose, California. Available at: https://truckstop.waterdragonpublishing.com/truck-stop-boos-day/very-scary-halloween/

Brewer, S.D. 2022. Who’s Afraid of Whom. Truck Stop at the Center of the Galaxy Boos-Day, Water Dragon Publishing, San Jose, California. Available at: https://truckstop.waterdragonpublishing.com/truck-stop-boos-day/whos-afraid-of-whom/

Brewer, S.D. 2022. Crossing the Streams. Part Four of Revin’s Heart, Water Dragon Publishing, San Jose, California. 42pp.

Brewer, S.D. 2022. Better Angels. Truck Stop at the Center of the Galaxy, Water Dragon Publishing, San Jose, California. 25pp.

Brewer, S.D. 2022. Storm Clouds Gather. Part Three of Revin’s Heart, Water Dragon Publishing, San Jose, California. 36pp.

Brewer, S.D. 2022. For the Favor of a Lady. Part Two of Revin’s Heart, Water Dragon Publishing, San Jose, California. 42pp.

When I drew up plans to attend Chicon8 the 80th World Science Fiction Convention, my editor/publisher Steven Radecki, suggested that I might want to get some badge ribbons to promote Revin’s Heart (my steampunky fantasy adventure story with a trans protagonist that’s been serialized by Water Dragon Publishing). They had done a number of ribbons previously and he sent me a link to a site that would let you submit a design to have them manufactured. He even had a great idea for a ribbon: Airship Pirate.

I’m by no means a professional graphic designer, but I’ve done a fair amount work in this area (for example, self-publishing four books of haiku with artwork, covers, etc). And I teach students to make scientific figures and posters, which is functionally the same. But I was excited to fire up Inkscape and see what I could put together.

My first decision was that I wanted to see if I could use the trans-flag as a background. The site that Water Dragon had used previously couldn’t do that, but I had found a gay gaming company that had figured out how to do it. I asked them and they pointed me to PCNametag. We went back and forth a few times to sort out possibilities (e.g. full color yes, gold foil no.)

I ran a dozen different possible arrangements by Steve : just the words looked stark and not very interesting, so I added a dirigible, but then what should go in the dirigible? We went back and forth trying to come up with an idea. He suggested a rainbow, then I hit on the idea of using the new pride flag. We were getting close.

It was a delight to get the proof back and see that it looked like it was going to be perfect. And then to order them and receive them and they did look wonderful. But then the waiting began, because I didn’t want to reveal them until we were actually here on the ground. It was hard.

When I registered and got my badge, the first thing, I did was to put on my airship pirate ribbon as my very first. After we had successfully registered, Phil and I stopped at the bar and had a beer. While we were there, a drunk guy at the bar introduced himself saying he had a private pilot license, but had never flown in an airship and was curious about how to pilot one.

“It says, ‘airship PIRATE,'” I said. He was bemused to discover I was a writer, not an airship pilot.

When I headed to the Dealer Room, I got Dealer and Program Participant ribbons. And a Cometary Life Form ribbon.

I put a stack of the ribbons near my books and, when people approached the table, I used the ribbon as an essential part of my patter: “Would you like to be an Airship Pirate?” It frequently allowed me to initiate a conversation about my books.

The ribbons were insanely popular. Some people just collect as many ribbons as they can. (Some people end up with ribbons that reach the ground and then come all the way back up. One woman was making a skirt of ribbons.) But a lot of people were just tickled to become an airship pirate. And I think some people recognized the trans flag background and were glad for a visible symbol of their allyship.

Not everyone wants to be an airship pirate, however. Some people just said, “No!” Some quite abruptly. One woman seemed incensed and said, angrily, “I’m in too many groups already!” And she tore off some other ribbon she already had on her badge. It made me want to ask, “Who hurt you?”

But, frequently, it let me break the ice, describe my books, and make a sale. The ribbons were insanely successful from that perspective.

Beyond that, however, there was one thing I had not considered. As I walked around Worldcon, I would see people, here, there, and everywhere, wearing my ribbon. The ribbon that I had designed, gotten printed, and handed out from our dealer table. It was just unbelievably satisfying.

I’ve already gone through almost my entire stock of 100. Now, I’ll need to order 500 for Rhode Island Comic Con, Arisia, and Boskone coming up.

One year ago, I attended Readercon 31 and met Water Dragon Publishing. What a year it’s been. In my Year in Writing 2021, I wrote about my early experiences with Water Dragon. But when I wrote that in December, I still only had the single publication: The Third Time’s the Charm.

Since then, in consultation with the managing editor, I was able to persuade Water Dragon to serialize 6 following novelettes that extend Charm totaling about 70,000 words that we have called “Revin’s Heart“. So far two of the novelettes, For the Favor of a Lady and Storm Clouds Gather, have been released — and the manuscript for Crossing the Streams has been submitted. The rest are written and will continue to come out over the rest of this year and the first half of next year. Eventually, I anticipate that we’ll collect them together in a fix-up novel. I have also written three “side stories” about characters from the universe that we can include in the novel.

I am fully cognizant that relatively few authors (and vanishingly few new authors) have the opportunity to be serialized. And I’m extremely grateful for this opportunity to tell the story my way. I had a variety of reasons for wanting to do this. Partly, I found the 10,000 word novelette was a comfortable unit for telling these stories. Partly, I think I’ve also been influenced by reading manga and “light novels” that are often serialized in Japanese media that are more episodic in nature than a lot of American storytelling seems to be. But partly, I also saw an opportunity to engage with the public over the course of a whole year rather than publishing a book in a single event. But Revin’s Heart hasn’t been my only work.

On Tuesday, August 16, Better Angels, my first story set on the Truck Stop at the Center of the Galaxy will be released. It was fascinating to try writing for a common setting developed by a group of authors. In November, Something Else To Do, will be released in Modern Magic, an anthology by Knight Writing Press. And I have another story, Imaginary Friends, appearing in The Future’s So Bright anthology. And several other projects in the works, including a new novel “A Familiar Problem“. It’s been quite a year.

And I’m not just writing. I’ve also joined a local writing community, the Straw Dog Writer’s Guild, serving on the Program Committee. I’m serving as a guest interviewer for the Small Publishing in a Big Universe podcast. I’m even offering some technical support for Water Dragon.

Capping my experience, during the first week in September, I’m appearing as a participant in Chicon8, this year’s WorldCon — the world’s premiere science fiction convention — in 8 separate events. I’m moderating three panels, participating in two more, offering a “table talk”, reading with other Truck Stop authors, and helping to offer a workshop. What was I thinking? It’s going to be super exciting to meet with other authors and engage with readers.

As soon as I return — literally the next day — I will need to hang up my author hat for a while and focus on my “day job” for the fall semester. But I’m excited to see what will happen next.

I attended Queer Publishing 101, part of OutWrite 2022 by the DC LGBTQ Literary Festival, a discussion with an interesting and diverse panel of queer editors and authors. The event was a preview of the weekend-long festival coming up August 5-7. It provided a variety of complementary perspectives driven primarily by audience questions. I asked two questions:

I’m interested to hear about the crossover between queer publishing & publishing generally: I’ve seen perceptions that they’re extremely balkanized: how separate are they from your perspective(s)?

This is similar to a question I asked at Lambda Literary and the answer, which surprised me, is that people in queer publishing see it as fundamentally disjunct from traditional publishing. “There is a lot of work to be done in terms of that representation.” And “There is not a lot of crossover.”

The role of small press and indy publishing was highlighted: “We have very few doors opened to us. Go where you are loved.” and “Indy is where the radical queer work is happening. Books pushing into mainstream can get sanitized.”

My own naive experience was that I wrote a steampunky fantasy novelette, The Third Time’s the Charm, with a trans protagonist and prominent gay supporting characters. And a small press, Water Dragon Publishing, picked it up and then doubled down by serializing Revin’s Heart — another 6 stories about the characters. (Part Three, Storm Clouds Gather, just came out!) They’re not an outlet that specializes in queer publishing, by any means. (Although I would remiss if I didn’t mention that they also publish the Grimaulkin series which also has queer characters).

What are the best ways for an indy press author (like me) to promote their queer books?

There were a lot of good answers here — these are the notes I took.

  • Be really creative
  • Traditional press may have more resources
  • Publisher may provide marketing to help
  • Work with publisher to determine how they can support you during the first 12 months
  • Help with book tour? Find conferences to attend? Make you a vendor?
  • You’re in charge of a lot of your promotion
  • It can be lonely
  • Network: find people excited to help you
  • Partner at readings
  • Doing it with your friends will make it better
  • Community is the most helpful thing
  • Bookstores and more
  • Tap into the world you know
  • Its a lot work
  • You’ll never think you’re doing enough
  • Identify five things you’d like to accomplish
  • Be realistic
  • Social media is important (twitter, booktok, bookstagram, etc)
  • Don’t pressure yourself to do it all
  • Choose one to two that you can do sustainably
  • You need a website
  • Gather emails
  • Put an email or contact form so people can reach you

A constant refrain was to cultivate patience. You’re playing a long game. Don’t try to rush things: Don’t query until you’re ready. Don’t be so eager that you accept a bad deal or compromise on your principles. Know what you want for your work and from your publisher. Sometimes “no” is the right answer.

I was glad I attended. Many thanks to Emily Holland, Chris Gonzalez, Lauren Cherelle, Saint Gibson, and Shelly Romero for their time and insight!

I participated in a… Well, I don’t really know what it was. It was called “Five College Publishing Day” and it offered panel discussions related to academic publishing. It was described as beginning with “a roundtable discussion with editors, agents, and authors who will share their perspectives on the rapidly changing world of publishing today, followed by four sessions on different areas of publishing and writing.”

Organized primarily by the UMass Office of Faculty Development with support from Amherst College Press and other members of the Five Colleges, it brought together a range of professionals from academic presses, but also a literary agency and a non-profit independent press.

I’ve had little connection to academic publishing. As an NTT faculty member, my rewards are disconnected from publishing so it’s not something I’ve pursued professionally. I did, at one point, explore trying to translate the books by Kalle Kniivila into English and contacted two academic presses to see if they would be interested, but both declined.

In the past year, I’ve started working with Water Dragon Publishing and spent a fair amount of time exploring the current publishing market. And I was somewhat surprised to discover how utterly disconnected from Academic Publishing that world is. They call it “trade publishing” and they seem to wrinkle up their noses when they say it.

It was pretty clear that, as a non-tenure-track faculty member, I was in the wrong place. People said things like:

Where do you find the time for this? That’s when the luxury of tenure really matters.

Pawan Dhingra — Amherst College Press

and

A second book is an immense amount of work. Your first is a bit easier because you’re really just revising your doctoral work.

Olufumi Vaughan — Amherst College Press

and

We invite you onto the marketing team as a VIP member — especially for your second book because that’s the book you want to write rather than what you need to write.

Maura Roessner — University of California Press

I asked a couple of questions, both of which seemed to leave the panelists flat-footed.

There is now burgeoning world of publishing opportunities: academic and trade publishing, but also the independent and small presses that exist on a spectrum down to self-publishing. How you make the calculus on how much time spend exploring this spectrum versus making a choice to situate your work?

This question left them bewildered. I got a range of replies that were utterly disconnected from my experience in publishing. One said “Figure our your authorial identity!” Another said, “Within one’s discipline, it’s pretty clear who your peers care about.” Another said, “Schedule time to explore the space. Find ‘comp titles’.”

The responses to my second question were even funnier.

There’s a lot of discussion right now about digital media offering broader kinds of genre publication (e.g. Kindle Unlimited, Project Vella, etc.): not just novels, but novellas, novelettes, and serial publication. How do you see the market moving?

Nobody actually touched the question. One panelist wrinkled up her nose, “Fiction? We mostly don’t do fiction, but don’t dismiss university presses that may be trying to build a home for trade because they’re trying to diversify their portfolios.”

So, it was a pretty weird event from my perspective as some looking in at academic publishing from the outside. But it helped me understand the role of the academic press. To get tenure, faculty (in some disciplines) need to publish books. And the books they need to publish are mostly not books that would be profitable in the trade publishing business. So universities and non-profits subsidize this publication.

Which is not to dismiss the scholarly significance of these publications. But as someone looking at publishing from the other side, it’s pretty wild.

Years ago, I read about the idea of guerrilla marketing: a low cost way to try to attract interest. The core was to post something mysterious, funny, or inexplicable that would get people to notice something and that you could use to tie to what you wanted people to buy.

With my new book For the Favor of a Lady coming out on March 25 (via Water Dragon Publishing) I thought perhaps I could attract some interest doing something other than just plugging the books.

I figured out one way to avoid just plugging by attaching my announcements to the story fragments I write for #vss365. Every day there is a new prompt and I usually write a one tweet story fragment. Periodically, I write a fragment that references characters and situations from my existing stories and, as a second tweet in the thread, I add a pitch for my stories. I don’t have metrics that indicate it “works”, but it makes me feel better than posting and reposting the same plug. But I wanted to try something new.

On the book covers, we’ve begun to develop some motifs. One is that each cover has a dirigible on it. And we’ve also added some framing around the edges. So I wondered if I could take some photographs that had framing like that and then photoshop in a dirigible.

I went through all my old pictures and found that I basically didn’t have any pictures that that kind of framing. So I gave up on the part.

I went to Flickr and found three pictures of dirigibles that were by themselves in the sky (easily photoshoppable) and were not restricted against remixing or commercial use. In some cases, I had to make some adjustments (erasing text on the dirigible). And then I inserted them into some pictures.

“Good Year Blimp” flickr photo by tequilamike https://flickr.com/photos/hyttinen/2273716687 shared under a Creative Commons (BY) license
“Goodyear Blimp” flickr photo by Phil_Parker https://flickr.com/photos/45131642@N00/6996190987 shared under a Creative Commons (BY) license
“German Zeppelin NT” flickr photo by Kecko https://flickr.com/photos/kecko/4080605473 shared under a Creative Commons (BY) license

It worked about as well as I could have hoped. (OK — I could always hope that it would go viral and get millions of views). But a friend was only too happy to play tsukomi to my boke:

I couldn’t have asked for a better straight line.

I can keep doing it for a while to see if I can fish anybody else in.

A couple of months ago, I volunteered to read submissions (aka “slush”) for Water Dragon Publishing when I had some time. After picking his jaw up off the floor, the editor welcomed my offer and said he would send me some manuscripts when I was ready. With the beginning of spring break, I finally had time and was provided with 16 manuscripts to start with. It’s been a fascinating experience for me.

When my brother Philip Brewer attended Clarion, he mentioned that he’d been expecting that getting his own manuscripts critiqued was what would be the most useful thing. But it turned out that critiquing other manuscripts and seeing what other people made of them was actually more useful. Reflecting on the experience he wrote a blog post about how to critique a manuscript. In my case, I was writing something far short of a full critique, but I found these principles helpful to structure my thinking.

I’ve come to realize that most of what is published in science fiction falls into a rather narrow slice of what gets written. And so studying what’s been published is not particularly useful for learning. What gets submitted, however, is a much richer source of data for learning to recognize problems. It’s hard to look at my own writing and recognize problems with exposition or pacing. But the slush pile has a lot of manuscripts where these problems are manifest. It’s been really helpful for giving me a better sense for how to recognize and address these problems with my own writing.

I’ve finished a first slug of manuscripts and requested another set to look at before spring break is over. It’s not something I’m going to want to do forever, but it’s been a fascinating adventure. What I really should do is join a writing group. But I haven’t found one yet where I feel comfortable. I’ll keep looking.

Once upon a time, I thought an author would write a book, get it published, and then write their next book. But, once upon a time, I also believed in Santa Claus.

Let me start by admitting that I have never seriously considered becoming a “writer” as a career. I’ve had an eclectic employment history, but I came to writing rather late in life. My first speculative fiction publication (in Esperanto) was in 2010 (in my late 40s). That is also the year I self-published my first book, Poŝtmarkoj el Esperantujo, a collection of haiku in Esperanto and English with imaginary postage stamps, using Createspace.

I went on to self-publish another three books. These are books where I did very nearly everything (although I got a friend to help me edit the manuscripts — you really can’t edit your own manuscripts.) But I did the writing and page layout and cover art and interior art. And “promotion” — if you could call it that.

These books were not commercial successes. But I never expected them to be. I made them mostly for fun — so I could give copies of my poetry to friends and family. And to learn about self-publishing. It was an interesting and valuable experience. But I also came to appreciate how much work it is to self-publish.

I’ve never been traditionally published, although I’ve seen book publishing up close. I’ve worked on several book projects for traditional textbook publishers. And been invited on some of their junkets. My father published several books. And my brother has always been interesting in writing and publishing.

But the key point I’m making is that I’m not personally that invested in my writing becoming a significant part of my financial support. I wouldn’t mind, but that’s not primarily why I’m writing. And this fact drove a lot of my decisions about how I approached choosing a publisher for my work.

In Fall 2021, I signed a contract with Water Dragon Publishing (an imprint of Paper Angel Press) to publish my first work of speculative fiction in English, The Third Time’s the Charm. Working with a small press offers unique opportunities and challenges to an author. But it’s not for everyone. Anyone who is tempted to go with a small press should probably be aware of the trade-offs before signing a contract.

Publishers are a kind of specialized venture capital firm. They put up the capital to publish a book hoping to recoup their investment plus profit. But more importantly, a publisher hopes to discover the Next Big Thing. That’s what they’re really hoping to do: to discover the new writer today that becomes tomorrow’s great and famous writer.

Large (traditional) publishers basically require you to work with an agent. A small publisher probably won’t. Agents can be helpful in terms of negotiating the terms of the contract. And knowing which publishers are most likely to be interested in your manuscript (and, indeed whether your manuscript is likely to be publishable by one of the traditional publishers.) But, of course, their labor doesn’t come for free either. Their interests are aligned with yours but, at the same time, they’re also probably on friendly terms with the publishers too. (Make of that fact what you will.)

With a small publisher, you’re on your own. This is, front and center, one of the primary reasons that Writer Beware warns against small presses. “Be afraid! Be very afraid!” You, as the author, will be negotiating with them directly.

That said, a good small publisher will act like your agent for many of the tasks you would otherwise need to do yourself if you were self-publishing. And, in some ways, is better than an agent: An agent probably has some good ideas about what kinds of manuscripts a publisher is accepting. But the small publisher knows. 🙂

Small publishers tend to not have deep pockets. So don’t expect an advance. But you will probably get a more favorable revenue sharing arrangement. What does a small publisher do? They do the publishing: they edit your manuscript, do the layout, arrange for the cover art, etc., etc.

Perhaps, the biggest challenge is that small publishers (and authors) face is publicity. The large publishers have a track record and established relationships with the national vendors and media outlets to help get favorable placement for their authors in book stores and advertising. Small publishers mostly do not.

In point of fact, however, the large publishers have been pushing authors to take larger and larger roles in publicizing their work. Authors are encouraged to maintain a presence in social media and try to develop a fanbase that can help get “word-of-mouth” referrals, which is the gold standard (or, perhaps, best manure) for growing sales. And as the traditional publishers make the author do more and more of the publicity work anyway, there are fewer and fewer downsides to going with a small publisher anyway.

If you imagine a line between self-publishing (where you do everything) and traditional publishing, there are a whole range of small presses in between that offer more or fewer services. Shop around! Look at what kinds of books they’re already publishing: Will your work complement what’s already there? Do you like their selection of cover art?

And be sure to do your due diligence: What’s their track record? How long have they been around? Have they been reported as a vanity press? Are people complaining about them?

But if you do decide to go with a small press, you should understand that the relationship is a two-way street. The press has chosen to invest in your work. They’re going to do whatever they can to help you succeed. And that means it’s incumbent on you to also help your work succeed. You need to advocate for yourself and get your work out there. But you should also try to help raise the profile of the press: their success will also be your success.

Don’t publicize your book with links to distributors! Link directly to the publisher! They can provide the links to a range of vendors that buyers might prefer. And people going to look at your book might find other things at the press to buy.

Tag the press when you post about your work! Help the public to discover and learn about the press! The more people are looking at the press, the more likely they are to discover what other stuff they might have — including stuff you have there.

Work together with the other authors at the press! They can help cross-market your work and coordinate with publicity. And help discover opportunities (awards, conventions, etc.) that might be useful. Who knows? You might even make a friend or two.

At its best, your relationship with a small publisher is a kind of partnership. If you were self-publishing, you’d be on your own. But with a publisher, you’ve got someone you can work with, ask questions of, and get advice from. Take best advantage of this partnership and work together.