The landscape of publishing can be challenging to navigate, especially as it continues to evolve and change as new outlets have emerged, such as self publishing and an even newer model called hybrid publishing. What does it take to land a traditional publishing deal? And how viable are these alternative options?
I had a chance to have a very open and candid conversation with April Eberhardt, a literary agent who also refers to herself as an “author advocate” to answer these very questions. April and I met at the San Miguel de Allende Writers' Conference in Mexico last year when I plopped myself down next to her at the opening faculty brunch. We hit it off immediately. She is a kindred spirit and a special human, and I'm excited to share her insights with you!
April Eberhardt is a self-described "literary change agent" and author advocate passionate about helping authors be published in the most satisfying way. After 25 years as a corporate strategist and management consultant, April joined the literary world, where she saw strategic opportunity to play a role in the changing world of publishing.
She advises and assists authors as they choose the best pathway to publication, and serves as a consultant to publishing startups serving indie authors. She represents a diverse group of clients in the U.S. and abroad, and speaks at conferences worldwide.
April serves on the Advisory Council for The American Library in Paris and is a reader for The Best American Short Stories series published annually by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. April divides her time between San Francisco, New York and Paris.
KARIN GUTMAN: What kind of literary projects do you represent as a publishing agent?
APRIL EBERHARDT: I continue to be most interested in stories by, for and about women. Mostly fiction, although I have represented some nonfiction as well, but I feel like women's voices are often not heard, and we as women are the ones who love to tell our stories, to share stories, to learn from stories, so that has really been my niche: to work with and for women, mostly fiction authors, and mostly debut. Frequently, my authors are women who have or have had full professional careers as doctors, lawyers, business executives, entrepreneurs, and they've always had a book in them. Often, it's just one book. Sometimes, it's more, but sometimes it's just one book.
It’s pushing water uphill. It's the hardest market to be in, because fiction is far harder to sell than nonfiction. Debut authors are almost impossible to sell to traditional publishers. But I really feel like that's the niche that I want to serve, so that's what I do.
KARIN: In which category would you place memoir?
APRIL: That's a hybrid category. It is sold as nonfiction, but in fact, in order to place a memoir, it has to be fully written. With a nonfiction book, you can write a proposal. You can say, “This is what I'm going to write about, this is why I'm qualified,” and then include a couple of sample chapters; whereas with a memoir, editors want to see the entire story to get a sense of whether it reads like fiction, like a story.
KARIN: Memoir falls under the umbrella of literature.
APRIL: Yes, that's right. Exactly.
KARIN: Does memoir as a genre appeal to you?
APRIL: Personally, I find it very interesting, particularly when someone has written a memoir that moves beyond the personal into the more philosophical. In other words, to me, there needs to be a bigger message from a memoir than “This is my story and I'm going to tell it.” That's completely legitimate, but for a book that's going to be published and find a wider readership, it seems to me a memoir needs to be more universal so that it will appeal to a variety of readers and not only entertain or amuse them but also leave them with some sense of knowing a little bit more about the world, in a broader sense.
Unless you're a celebrity, it's so difficult to sell memoirs. I will pick on Sharon Stone. I haven't read her memoir but her memoir sold to a publisher just like that, and they put all the publicity money into it. For an unknown person, it just doesn't happen that way unless it's really unusual. In recent years, I see much more emphasis on trauma memoirs, or what we call in the industry “misery memoirs,” which sounds cruel and I don't mean it to sound cruel, but if there's a helping of misery in there and some awful trauma which makes everybody gasp, those are the things that are more commercially successful, and I don't find those necessarily the stories that I want to be reading. I'd rather read a quiet story about someone discovering her birth father at age 47 and discovering family secrets.
KARIN: How do you suggest writers, then, think about the landscape of publishing?
APRIL: This is my advice, particularly for authors of memoir: think carefully about the audience with whom you want to share it, and that frequently is a fairly close-knit circle. I always say, “Take the small circle approach.” Think of a small circle of people you would like to share this with.
Wouldn't it be nice if the whole world were interested in it? In many ways, thinking about a book being read by millions of people legitimizes it. It says, “Yes, your story matters, and your story is worthwhile in some sense,” but the truth is that it rarely happens that a first-time author, especially a memoir author, is able to achieve that kind of audience, so I'd say don't measure your success by that. Measure your success by completing your memoir, by selecting a group with whom you're going to share it, and then not turning yourself into a pretzel to get it published. The traditional route, of course, is to find an agent… the agent will find a traditional publisher… that publisher will do all sorts of PR for you and you'll have a national tour where you sign books in 10 zillion venues. Again, that rarely happens, so I encourage authors to think about getting their story out to people to whom it will matter and whose opinions they value.
KARIN: What does “a small circle” mean to you?
APRIL: Well, I tend to work a lot with authors who are self-published or they decide to work with a hybrid publisher, which can be very costly and doesn't always end up where they want it to be. But self-publishing is really an attractive, manageable way to produce a beautiful book. I wish I had brought some examples, but many authors I've worked with have self-published and they invest in a beautiful cover. They get their cover professionally designed. They work with professional editors so it's edited well. Then, they print a short stack. They may print 10, 20, 100 books. They're not investing a whole lot of money in producing some big sell-it-to-the-world type of book, but there's a real satisfaction. It becomes a gift book.
I really think that is a wonderful solution for so many authors as opposed to trying to hit the big time and then three, four, five years later, coming back to me and saying either, “I didn't find an agent,” “I found an agent and she couldn't find a publisher,” or “She did find a publisher, and then the publisher couldn't publish it for two or three years, then it fizzled.” That, to me, is so disappointing. It's a terrible ending for books that have so much potential and hope for the author.
KARIN: When you say you work with a lot of authors who self-publish, is that the goal when they come to you?
APRIL: Not always. The goal is to decide whether the story is worthy of being published, whatever that means. Again, that's very subjective, but I will read it for them and say, “Yes, I think this is a worthy story.” I'll make suggestions to them about changes they might want to make to it. You want to take a look at the whole thing and shape it based on our experience as readers, coaches and so forth.
Then, we will do a Plan A and a Plan B. Often, the Plan A is “Will you be my agent, take me on as your author and try to sell it?” I do that, but I tend to put a fairly short timeline on that. I'll say, “Yeah, we'll give it six months to a year. If we don't find a publisher for you in that period of time, then we need to have a Plan B.” That is either going to be hybrid publishing or self-publishing, but the point is nobody is getting any younger, last I checked, and particularly for a lot of my authors who have a few years under their belt. I don't want them to be 95 and still waiting to be published.
The point is, if you don't have to wait that long, why not get your book out now and begin to enjoy the fruits of your labor, have discussions around it and feel a sense of satisfaction instead of waiting for some arbitrary judge out there to judge your book worthy or not worthy by virtue of being traditionally published? I think we give far too much power to the traditional publishing industry when, in fact, it's not guided by quality necessarily. It's guided more by celebrity and what can they sell the fastest for the biggest amount of money.
KARIN: Where does that leave you in terms of your investment?
APRIL: I call it my literary philanthropy. Increasingly now, after six months to a year, if we haven't been able to get a publisher, I propose a consulting arrangement where I support them in areas where they need help, and we come to an agreement on some reasonable fee for the author and for me to work together and I’ll do some things and she’ll do others.
It wouldn't be everything. For example, if they need professional editing, I introduce them to a professional editor and they pay that editor. Same with a cover designer. I know what I like, but I don't have a skill in designing those covers, so I put them in touch with a professional designer. Then, if I walk them through the process of getting published, we'll agree on some sort of hourly fee or project fee. I'm not in this to be a millionaire, frankly. I knew it going in and I know it now. It's nice for all of us to be compensated for our work, so we have that candid conversation up front so that there are no misunderstandings later on down the road. If they eventually say, “I want to do it myself,” I'll say, “Fine, good luck,” and I'll let them do that. I'm happy to work in whatever way makes sense to get the best book out there.
KARIN: What is the best way to approach a publishing agent?
APRIL: Well, we as agents are inundated with manuscripts. Not a day goes by that I don't get a whole bunch of unsolicited manuscripts. I think many authors blast a query out to a whole bunch of agents just to see what will stick to the wall.
If it's a well-written query in an area I'm interested in—by, for or about women—a query that's well-structured, well-punctuated, they spelled my name right... there are certain basics that often don't happen… then I'll ask for the manuscript. I usually know in the first couple of pages whether it's something that I am going to be interested in. It has to get off to a pretty fast start and if it does, then I'll read the rest and comment on it, but I can really only represent 10 to 12 actively at any given time because there are many activities that go into representing an author. I like to work independently. I'm a one-person shop, so I can only handle so many.
It's hard to really qualify or quantify what that means, but it's the old “I know it when I see it.” If it's something that seems good but doesn't work for me, I will very frequently refer it to another agent. We all know each other and we all tend to refer things back and forth.
KARIN: How do people find you?
APRIL: There's something called AgentQuery.com. Mostly, it's through conferences, though. In a typical year, I'll do 10 to 12 conferences. The last year it’s been Zoom, but normally after a conference I will get a whole slew of queries from people who've heard me speak about publishing options. I'm developing a presentation right now on post-pandemic publishing. What does the world look like and what implications does that have for authors? I think once I start presenting that, that will again engender a whole bunch of queries.
Frequently, it's referrals. I always tell the authors I represent, “If you know of somebody and you'd like to refer her, I'd welcome it.” I'll always take a look at those. Or, they'll look on Publishers Marketplace and see that I've sold this kind of work to this publisher. There are lots of ways that people find me.
KARIN: What does publishing look like in a post-pandemic world?
APRIL: I think that the trends have been there for a long while. Certainly, you're on your own as an author. The fact that we've all been locked away at home now has made that more apparent. I think social media has been and is currently flooded with “buy my book,” “read my book,” so it's devolved in many cases to a shouting match. Who can shout louder, who can shout more frequently, who can get well-known authors to review or blurb a book.
I find that social media is probably not the most effective way to sell your book. What's the sales rate depending on how many clicks you get? I would say it's probably not a whole lot, so I'm encouraging authors to think about different ways to promote their work. Now that we can reconnect in person and that we have this robust Zoom network, how can you work that to greatest advantage for yourself?
Again, it's that small circle that I mentioned earlier. Rather than frustrate yourself trying to beat your drum so loudly that the entire world can hear it, why not choose a vetted group of people that you'd like to reach and figure out a smart way to reach them? Most of it is grassroots, organic, that I say to you, “Karin, I read a really good book. I'm going to send you a copy of it.” Then, you tell others. So much is word of mouth right now, particularly among women, because so many of us are members of book clubs and discuss books all the time. I think word of mouth is really, really powerful.
We have so much noise going on that shouting no longer is the effective way to do it. Keep small. Try to stay small. Who knows? Some authors will become really famous as a result of that, but if you're focused on a manageable goal and audience, it makes life so much more satisfying, at least for the authors I've worked with.
KARIN: How important is it for an author to have a platform?
APRIL: Well, for nonfiction, if writers want to be traditionally published, they have to have a platform. They have to be the expert in their topic, in some way, shape or form, and have the social media following to support that. That is the way that traditional publishers separate the buys from the not buys. A platform is critical for any kind of nonfiction work published by an author who is not well-known.
For fiction, platform is typically not so important, but I do find that if people have a fairly broad following and can demonstrate that, it is what traditional publishers want to see. They want to know that you can reach a lot of people and basically do all the heavy lifting on the marketing, because they will typically not provide any or very little PR and marketing to a new author. It's all on you.
In that case, social media's probably a good tool, but again, I've just become disillusioned in watching authors try so hard to make a name for themselves on social media and just be increasingly frustrated or really hurt by the snarky, damaging feedback that comes back by people who don't know them. Behind the veil, people can say anything they want. I guess I'm trying to protect my authors' feelings because it's such a personal thing to put your book out there and we are in a really mean-spirited world now. Why expose yourself to that if you can get some readers in a different way?
Again, I'm now in this niche where I am working with authors on a very specific goal to get their books published and out to people to whom they will matter. That is a very different approach, but I'm looking at the satisfaction of a job well done and readers who have read your book and get it. That is really at odds with, I think, what the traditional publishing world and most agents are looking at. I'm the odd duck out here, but I’m happy swimming in this pond, and helping authors in a specific way that brings them satisfaction.
KARIN: You've really aligned your work with your values.
APRIL: That's right, and my values are not everyone's. If somebody really wants to be a big-name author with a great big publisher, a big budget and so forth, I'm probably not the person to do that. I hate to say this- I don't think any of my authors will ever become really big names, and that's fine with me. It's because I appreciate the value of what they're bringing, and in many cases, the quiet nature of their book, which again, is at odds with what the industry is looking for. The industry wants splash, crash, flash, cash. They want big-concept books. Those don't appeal to me, and I know there are millions of other women readers to whom these quieter books will appeal. I'm really trying to very quietly but steadily build a market for those.
KARIN: Do you find the publishing landscape depressing?
APRIL: It's discouraging. I would say, Karin, I'm in the business of managing expectations now with authors. I tend to vet authors based on shared values and goals. We decide up front that we are going to have a Plan B before I even start working with them so that we know that this wonderful book will get out in the world, albeit possibly not in the way that they might've initially thought about it, which means not traditional. But it will find its readers.
KARIN: If an author does manage to get set up with a traditional publisher, what does that look like?
APRIL: It usually isn't pretty. It takes too long for the book to get published. The author doesn't like the cover and the answer often is, “Well, too bad, this is the cover we, your publisher, are choosing.” Then, of course, they're crushed when they get little to no publicity two years down the road when their book is finally published and it's suddenly moved to backlist six weeks after pub date. It's been on the website for a little bit, and then, all of a sudden, the publisher moves on to the next book. That's the way it is. It's a numbers game, and if your book doesn't prove itself in the first few weeks, it's not going to get any more push from the publisher.
That has been a huge disappointment to authors and I've seen it happen again and again. Then, many times, they will go on and say, “I don't want to publish traditionally again,” “I'm going to self-publish, publish through a small press or a hybrid publisher,” do something different so that they can avoid going down that disappointing track again. And I support that.
KARIN: Are small presses a legitimate option?
APRIL: They are, but again, no one does any marketing or promotion anymore. That's the issue. Again, I'm trying to manage expectations and say to authors, “You need to want to do this and be able to do that,” which means saving up enough money to hire a publicist and maybe a social media expert. Unless you want to do it all, you need to hire somebody. It's like building a house. If I don't have the skills or the bandwidth, I have to hire people to build my house. It's the same with your book career: you have to hire people to do it.
I feel kind of like a Debbie Downer, but I would rather have them know that up front than be crushed when they get into this process and realize that it's not going to go the way they had hoped. That's not the reality, that's the dream. We all wanted to be a princess when we grew up but, (a) most of us will never be princesses, and (b) look at poor Meghan Markle. Wasn't what she had counted on. It's a princess dream that we all stay in our pink costumes and life is perfect,, but it doesn't always turn out to be the way we thought it would.
KARIN: It sure doesn’t. That’s a funny analogy.
What is the benefit, then, of working with a hybrid publisher? That might be a new concept for some people.
APRIL: Well, a hybrid publisher in essence is a publishing partner who will choose your book. They don't accept every book. They choose books that match their criteria, their values, their niche, whatever. They say, “Yes, we will publish you, and the way it's going to work is we will split the publishing costs, sometimes 50-50, sometimes in a different proportion, and then we will also split the profits.” You will pay let's say $10,000 up front, the publisher will pay $10,000 to publish it, and then you will start splitting the profits once it starts selling. Instead of making the 8-10% margin you would make on a traditional book, you are making 50%, more or less, on each book.
You make your money back more quickly, but again each hybrid is different, so it makes it very hard to compare. When I talk with authors about choosing a hybrid approach, we go through very carefully which hybrids would make sense for them, what their models are, what the pros are, what the drawbacks are, and I always suggest to them they talk to other authors who have been published by these hybrids so that they understand what the overall experience has been. I think it's very important to understand what current customers think.
KARIN: What kind of financial investment is it?
APRIL: The starting point realistically is $5,000 to $10,000, and many authors are now telling me it's more like $20,000 to $25,000 to $30,000, once they add in the editorial, the cover design, the publicity, the social media, the printing, and all that. Once you pull all the factors together, it can be $20,000 easily. I know that's a big chunk, but I always say to people, “Well, none of us has taken a vacation for the last year. Maybe we can put off buying a car another year. This is an investment in you. What could be more important?”
Each author has to decide her own budget, but I say save up money and think about how much this book means to you. I would rather have them invest in a book that is exactly what they wanted and gets read by people whose opinions they respect than putting it into the hands of somebody else and watching it go off the rails and not get to where they want it to be. It's an investment in a dream, really.
KARIN: Is the financial investment the same for self-publishing and hybrid?
APRIL: Hybrid can sometimes be more expensive because they have additional fees. If they print a number of books, put them in the warehouse for you and you don't sell those within a year, you start getting charged warehouse fees.
If your books are returned, which is part of the industry structure, then you get charged, sometimes, more for the returned book than you made when it got shipped out because they've got a restocking fee. In other words, there are a lot of other fees in there that authors often aren't aware of that really can add up over time.
KARIN: What are some of the hybrid publishers you recommend?
APRIL: One highly reputable one is Wonderwell. Mostly non-fiction, some memoir. Another is Girl Friday Books, which is just introducing its hybrid publishing model now. Two authors I’ve worked with are publishing with them, and so far so good.
I think it's important for authors to look clearly at each hybrid press and understand what the benefits are as well as what the potential drawbacks are. That's true of any publishing method, including traditional, and self-publishing.
KARIN: Why would someone choose hybrid over self-publishing?
APRIL: It's truly partner publishing. They will, for a price, design your cover, do the editing, distribute, print, et cetera. Instead of authors having to do it all themselves, which is what self-publishing is all about, a hybrid will bring to bear all of their resources to provide the services that an author either doesn't know how to do or doesn't have the bandwidth to do, and the hybrid publisher is paid for that.
There are really huge variations in these models, so I like to help authors sort through them, understand what their options are, what they stand to gain and what they have to be wary of.
KARIN: You're such a unique resource and professional. Do you know anyone else that does what you do?
APRIL: No, I don't know of any other agents who do this because it's a fool's game in terms of profit. You really don't make money off this, but to me, it's a critical service. Again, it's my literary philanthropy. I've made it my business to understand because I'm in the market all day every day with traditional publishers, with acquiring editors, with authors, with hybrid publishers, with self-publishing authors, and I see it all. It's a real advantage to having authors operating in all those areas. You begin to form an opinion of what works, what doesn't and what to beware of, so I can advise others as they go into it with their eyes as wide open as they can be.
I feel like we all have a way of being of service to others, and this is my way. Yes, wouldn't it be nice if, at some point, I made an income that allowed me to do something big with it, but the fact is I really enjoy this. I love working with authors.
To learn more about April Eberhardt, visit her site.
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