Read and Write with Natasha
A guide to thriving as an author with publisher Deborah Kevin
In this episode, I sit down with Deborah Kevin, founder and chief inspiration officer of Highlander Press.
We uncover surprising statistics about book sales, discuss the financial intricacies of advances and royalties, and reveal why independent publishers are outpacing traditional ones in today's fast-paced market.
From self-publishing challenges to the nuances of hybrid models, Deborah and I explore the full spectrum of publishing options available to authors today.
Discover how professional editing and design can catapult self-published authors to success and learn about Highlander Press's unique approach to integrating the best of both traditional and independent publishing.
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➡️ P.S. I'm running my 4th cohort on how to monetize your writing in September, in which I show you how to find writing gigs in markets across the world, grasp the art of pitching, and make income from your writing.
You can check it out here and read testimonials from previous students. I would love to have you as a participant.
In this episode, I sit down with Deborah Kevin, founder and chief inspiration officer of Highlander Press.
We uncover surprising statistics about book sales, discuss the financial intricacies of advances and royalties, and reveal why independent publishers are outpacing traditional ones in today's fast-paced market.
From self-publishing challenges to the nuances of hybrid models, Deborah and I explore the full spectrum of publishing options available to authors today.
Discover how professional editing and design can catapult self-published authors to success and learn about Highlander Press's unique approach to integrating the best of both traditional and independent publishing.
****************************************************************************
➡️ P.S. I'm running my 4th cohort on how to monetize your writing in September, in which I show you how to find writing gigs in markets across the world, grasp the art of pitching, and make income from your writing.
You can check it out here and read testimonials from previous students. I would love to have you as a participant.
I think either traditional publishing has to change with the times and be more flexible and less rigid, which they aren't. They're like the Titanic, like these great ocean liners. They take a long time to shift, and we could talk about how COVID impacted traditional publishing in a minute, because it's fascinating. They're slow to change and so I think you know independent publishers as people become more savvy and realize that they can do a lot of the work themselves and retain the resources. You know 100% of the risk, 100% of the reward. But you've got to get savvy at not just writing. You've got to get savvy at either investing in a cover designer and build relationships with somebody who knows your work.
Speaker 2:Hi friends, this is Read and Write with Natasha podcast. My name is Natasha Tynes and I'm an author and a journalist. In this channel I talk about the writing life, review books and interview authors. Hope you enjoy the journey. Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of Read and Write with Natasha. I'm very happy today to have with me Deborah Keevan, who is an author and the founder and chief inspiration officer of Highlander Press. She loves helping change makers tap into and share their stories of healing and truth. She's guided dozens of authors to craft and publish impactful books of which they are proud of. She lives in Baltimore, Maryland. So, Debra, thank you for joining me today. So glad to have you here. I'm sure the listeners and the viewers are going to learn a lot from you. So, Debra, I think my first question to you is you're a publisher? Right, I am? Yes, You're a publisher. So if you can just walk us through the publishing process, how many submissions you receive and what kind of publishing services do you provide?
Speaker 1:Sure, well, thank you first for having me. It's wonderful to hang out with another Marylander so I work with. Well, highlander Press is considered a hybrid publisher and so maybe just to ground the listeners in how we'll approach this is you know, most people when they think of being published, they think of a traditional publisher. Of being published, they think of a traditional publisher. You find an agent, or an agent finds you, you go into a contractual obligation with each other and then that agent shops your books around to the publishers with whom they have a relationship. So if you have a really great book and it happens to be on the list of what publishers are looking for at the time traditional publishers, or what they plan to publish in three to five years from now then they'll license your book. And if you're super lucky, they'll go into a bidding war because everybody's looking for the same thing, right, and they're super excited about your book. And then it goes into their process, and their process really hasn't changed much since the late 1800s.
Speaker 1:The big changes to the traditional publishing model really include audio books and digital books, and they went into the digital space kicking and screaming. They did not want to do digital books. So there are a lot of gatekeepers in it. It takes a long time and, as you know, because you go that way, it takes a lot of time and if you have a great editor that you work with at the publisher and you have a really strong relationship, it can be a really wonderful experience. And then there's the royalty side of it. Right, the advances and the royalties which can be the advance will probably be smaller than it would have been in the past, because that's really based upon what they think your book is going to sell, and I think one of the most eye-opening statistics that came out of the antitrust lawsuit with Penguin, random House and Simon Schuster and the US government last year was that they predict traditional publishers predict that most authors will sell less than 250 copies of their book which was 250, which was like jaw dropping right For first time authors in particular.
Speaker 1:Now you have your Stephen King's and your Jodi Picoult's and your Kristen Hanna's, where they're making millions on their sales and royalties, but they're established authors. You know they weren't that way.
Speaker 2:And Colleen Hoover. Don't forget about Colleen Hoover, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:Exactly. I mean, we can make a list of authors whose books will sell. And then you have the other end of that whole spectrum, which is self-publishing, which got a super bad rap early on in about 2008, when CreateSpace came to the market, where all these very frustrated authors who were getting rejection after rejection from traditional publishers threw their work up on Amazon because that was the only place to do it at the time. And the books weren't very good, they weren't edited professionally, they had really bad covers. And if you want a really fun exercise, just scroll through some Amazon, pick some covers and you will find, like you can spot, oftentimes, a self-published book a mile away.
Speaker 1:And just because it's self-published, which is now rebranded to be independent publishing, doesn't mean that a book has to be bad. It can actually be really great. But if it's got to be professionally edited and you definitely need a professionally designed cover and if those two things go well, then the author has 100% of the risk and 100% of the reward and you have authors who are making millions upon millions of dollars in their self-published book. All you have to do is look at Brandon Sanderson or Craig Martel and Michael Anderle, to name three, who make a very good living off of their self-published books. They don't work with a publisher for most of their books or any of them.
Speaker 2:Brandon Sanderson does not have a publisher. He does.
Speaker 1:Some of his books are published with a tour in particular, but some of his books are self-published and they're it's incredible, yeah, yeah. And he runs a lot of Kickstarter campaigns to fund yeah. So we could talk all about how to get that kind of success and the methodology that they have used themselves to garner that kind of growth. And then there's this wild west of hybrid publishing, of which we are. Highlander Press is one, but we're structured more like a traditional publisher. In many ways, we're considered a mid to high range publisher because we operate in many ways like the best of independent and the best of traditional. We marry the two. And then you have, at the very other end are vanity presses, and a vanity press means that there's no submission process. You pitch your book to them. They basically provide services. They give you a website or a landing page, they give you a cover and they may provide editing services, but they're not usually well done. Vanity Press is you have written a book, we'll publish it for you. There's no gatekeeper at all. And so, to your point, we used to.
Speaker 1:In the very beginning when we started, we started honestly, by accident. People were coming to us with books that had been published by vanity presses that the authors were horrified by the book. They didn't feel proud of it, and so they came to me and they're like, can you help me with this? So that's how I started even dabbling in publishing and I realized that I have a love of books. I have a financial background.
Speaker 1:I'm a Six Sigma Black Belt, which means I know how processes work and how to make them better, and I'm an author, so I know what it feels like from an author perspective to be in that position. So we created something that's just very different and very unique in the publishing space in that our focus is not only in providing the book publishing side of things. We do the editorial piece, we do all the launch marketing for the author. We provide them with ongoing resources for ongoing marketing. But our biggest differentiator is our cohorts. We put together small groups of authors who are publishing at the same time and we teach them about the author business.
Speaker 2:Okay, oh wow. Do they have to pay extra for these, or?
Speaker 1:So it's all inclusive. Our packages are all inclusive, because I don't, so we're all about relationships. Another thing that we do is so the authors come in and there's this submission process. We don't accept all of our, everything that comes to us, because you asked about how many submissions we get. Initially it was everybody was coming to us and then I realized I was having the same conversations two, three, four times a day, explaining how publishing works and how, as an author, you want to know certain things and have input to certain aspects of the publishing of your book, and with traditional publishing, you don't really get a lot of say. They tell you when it's coming out, they tell you what the marketing plan is going to be. They tell you in many cases what your cover is going to look like. They tell you in many cases what your cover is going to look like, and if you have a strong contract with them, you can get some, you can provide some input, but they decide all of those things. Yeah, and that's okay. But what I love to do is to educate authors on.
Speaker 1:You know what does it mean to have intellectual property? What do you do with it? How do you license it to actually generate more income. What do you look for in a publishing contract? Right, so that you can have more leverage as you grow your fan base. You grow your publishing experience so that, if you decide, you know what. I had a great experience with Highlander Press, but now I want to try the traditional publishing route. You are grounded in what to ask for, what to look for, what are red flags with a publishing agreement?
Speaker 2:I see that's interesting A whole lot of stuff, yeah, so you provide. In addition to publishing the book, you also provide education.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay. What kind of books do you publish?
Speaker 1:We started in the nonfiction space, so a lot of nonfiction thought leadership we now have. We've got biographies. I'm just thinking about what we have coming out this year. We have, I think, 10 fiction books that range everywhere from YA romance to YA supernatural to sci-fi and fantasy. We have biographies coming out. We do poetry books. We have several children's books. Our children's books tend to be really focused on how to make a big impact, so we look at social issues and those are the books for children's books, because we want to get children being empathic. We want children to understand how to fight bullying, that kind of thing, how to be accepting of different races, religions, beliefs, so we tend to look at that kind of children's. A lot of discussions among authors, which is an author?
Speaker 2:should not pay to be published. It should be the other way around. And I've seen some authors say if a publisher asks you to pay, then run, just run the others. How would you respond to this kind of narrative that's happening online?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I see that myself all the time. And again, I'm going to go back to this one question, and this one question is what is your goal for your book?
Speaker 2:To be published and seen and I guess maybe make some money. But that's not like the main goal.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sometimes it can be. So if so, if your book is, if your book is just going to get published, then I would say, go for a traditional publishing deal and if it doesn't work out self, you know, do independent publishing, publish it yourself, because if it's only to get it out there, then that's one thing. But if you want a career in publishing and you want to have people discover your book because writing it and and publishing it doesn't mean people are going to find it so how do you market it? What are you going to do? Look at a publisher's track record, interview people. I don't see anything wrong with paying someone to publish your book because it's like what is the goal? So, for example, we have a financial investment with our authors, but for them they get all kinds of education, they get ongoing marketing support. They get all kinds of things that a traditional publisher does not offer.
Speaker 1:You know, I have a girlfriend locally who is a middle grade author. She's a well-established middle grade author who publishes with a traditional publishing house. She organizes all of her own book tours, she organizes all of her own media events and it wasn't until and I'm talking like she was a Newbery finalist like very high rated books, highly rated books. And it wasn't until her third book that she even got a publisher, a publicist provided for by the publisher, and she's done a lot of work with her book. She goes into school, she gets reading, but she does all that on her own dime. So she's spending money anyway. Right, it's just a matter of where do you invest? So, instead of saying spending money, it's like this is an investment. If you're going to get a vanity press, you're going to pay for something, but what's the quality of that work? What's the quality of the experience that you're going to have?
Speaker 2:And I've noticed in the past maybe five years or more even the term hybrid publishers was I don't recall hearing it like maybe 10 years ago, but now I'm seeing a lot of hybrid publishers being established and do you think that's where the publishing industry is now headed? Like, let's say, in 10 years we're going to have either hybrid publishers or independent publisher, I mean, or traditional publishers, and maybe vanity presses will disappear, or indie publishing will disappear. Like, how do you foresee the future?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't believe. I gosh. I wish vanity presses would disappear. Is that my if I had a magic wand? Because I don't feel like they serve the author Like. That is my like.
Speaker 1:I think that that's just the worst experience. I think either traditional publishing has to change with the times and be more flexible and less rigid, which they aren't. They're like the Titanic, like these great ocean liners. They take a long time to shift, and we could talk about how COVID impacted traditional publishing in a minute, if you like, because it's fascinating. They're slow to change, and so I think independent publishers as people become more savvy and realize that they can do a lot of the work themselves and retain the resources 100% of the risk, 100% of the reward.
Speaker 1:But you've got to get savvy at not just writing. You've got to get savvy at either investing in a cover designer and build relationships with somebody who knows your work and then invest in an editor. You're still going to make investment. It's just a matter of where you're going to do that. Because, as a writer, think about if you're going to self-publish, if you want to do it all yourself. You have to understand where you're publishing. What are the comparable books that you're comparing to. What are the keywords and the categories? What's a good cover design? Are you going to design the cover yourself? Then you have to become a graphic designer, then you have to become also a copywriter to write the marketing copy and to create the marketing platform.
Speaker 1:So there's a lot of ins and outs that people don't really think about and most authors don't want to do all of that, and so they write these books and they publish them or get them published, but they don't do the marketing. They don't understand how to leverage marketing without being, like, you know, an ask hole. You know, buy my book, buy my book, buy my book, which is not an effective marketing tool. So I'm hopeful that because there's an organization to which we belong it's called the Independent Book Publishers Association, that is for independent book publishers, hybrid book publishers, and we follow a code of ethics, and so that's kind of the first place to look. If you're considering a hybrid publisher.
Speaker 1:Ask to speak to references who published with them and what was the experience. Look for how long people have been around. We've been around officially since 2019. For how long people have been around Like we've been around officially since 2019. We're on some of our authors' fourth or fifth books they keep they're coming back. So that also speaks to the relationships. And so look at you know. So if I had a magic wand, I think that we're going to see the traditional publishers becoming less relevant but also having to be more flexible. I think we're going to see, as people get more savvy, a growth of more independent publishing. But I think hybrid publishing is kind of the best of both worlds a legitimate, integrous, independent publisher.
Speaker 2:So what is your biggest success story for your publishing house?
Speaker 1:biggest success story for your publishing house. We published so far, I'm going to say so far. We published a book last year where the author called the Selfish Hour, where the author had a very large platform already so lots of social media followers, had a huge email marketing list already. She is savvy in marketing because she's also a business coach and that book had by far the most successful book launch and then continues to have very strong royalties every quarter, like we, we publish our, we do our publishing. We pay our royalties quarterly because that's we, we float when the money comes, comes in. But she still gets a nice little royalty check every quarter and I love cutting royalty, I love cutting royalty checks.
Speaker 2:Can you give us a figure, like a round figure, of what the packages are in terms of a few thousand dollars, like how much money does an author need to up front to be in a hybrid publishing industry? Well, again, there's a huge there's a huge range.
Speaker 1:We have one package because I focus on bringing people in and I, you know, at the, at this moment it's a twelve thousand dollar investment. But we spread those payments out over 12 to 18 months Because, again, we're publishing a book within 12 to 18 months. So I spread them out because I, if it's a good fit, I want the author to have that experience and it's not a matter of, and we're, we're, we're very, very much in alignment with other publishers are, I've heard, upwards of $30,000. I've heard anywhere where you just buy services, you pick and choose, we've landed at that because we have our authors, have the best experience that comes in and they come back right, so they're learning as they, as they're going through the process.
Speaker 2:So they're getting their book edited laid out.
Speaker 1:We're doing the launch. It includes everything.
Speaker 2:So you edit it, you launch it, you put it on Amazon, you create the cover, you do the marketing.
Speaker 1:We do more than Amazon, so we're publishing on Ingram.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay.
Speaker 1:And we publish on three platforms. So we publish digitally and paperback right now, just because hardbacks are ridiculously expensive. You've got to price a hardback at like $50 just to have the author make any money at all. Yeah, so we publish on all platforms so the book can be available everywhere in the world.
Speaker 2:Oh, interesting. Well, I mean, if you do the math, if I want to do it myself, it'll probably cost the same, honestly, if like hiring an editor, hiring someone to lay it out how to do thatetted.
Speaker 1:So what we've done is we've kept our publishing our company very flat, and so what I've done is I've very mindfully built very strong relationships with other women in graphic design, interior layout, marketing, launching, and so we have I hate to use the word stable, but we have very strong relationships with several and proofreaders and people who have those skillset, and I do work with women Like so we're we're growing other women's businesses as we're growing. So you know, we started publishing maybe 12 books a year. This year we're going to publish, I think, 22 books this year and we're growing and we've it's. It's a wonderful experience, like it's. I'm very happy with the way we show up and the way we teach our authors and they're very happy with their outcome Interesting.
Speaker 2:All right. So let's say I am, we're going to do some sort of a role play. Okay, let's say I'm your sister and I have this manuscript and I come to you and I tell you I'm your sister, I'm not a client, here is the manuscript. What should I do?
Speaker 1:What should I do? So if you're coming to me as a potential publisher, we have a whole submissions process. So there's on our website a submissions where we explain what we're looking for. Um, because I again I only want to pick books that we're going to. I know we can do really well with right and we definitely do better than traditional publishing. I'm just going to say that right out front. Like our track record has been significantly higher than that 250 mark, 250 book sales. So if you come, you submit it goes through a submission process.
Speaker 1:So we have I read it always as the developmental editor, the head developmental editor for Highlander I read it. As the head developmental editor for Highlander, I read it. If it's a specialty book, like a fantasy or a sci-fi, I have an editor that I'll send it over to and we'll read it concurrently. The submission and then we'll have a discussion and we'll say do we want to see the whole manuscript? If we do, then I'll send a note out or my assistant will send a note out and say we're interested in seeing your entire manuscript, please submit it. And then we'll read it cover to cover and we so I literally print out the books that we have.
Speaker 1:I go to my library. I have a library in my house and no pen. I just sit and I read the book cover to cover. My other developmental editor does the same thing. Then we come back and we're like, okay, what do we think this book needs? Does it need developmental editing or is it pretty strong? Are we looking at copy editing? Are we looking at like, where, what's, what is the, the strength of the manuscript? And then I always book a call with anybody who that we're interested in.
Speaker 2:Let me just say that, because we don't accept everybody, some books come and they're just not a good fit, but I'll refer them to somebody who might be. I'm just thinking of something you said about do you want to make money or do you want to be published? So you think authors have a higher chance of being like full-time authors if they go with hybrid publishers than traditional publishers, Is that?
Speaker 1:I think. So. Here's what it comes down to, and here's what I always say to our authors we provide all of the documents and everything that you need as an author to be successful, right? The quicker you write and the quicker you publish, the more you build a backlist, and the backlist, once you sell a new book, people who fall in love with your new book are going to be looking for your old book. Think about, I don't know about you, but when I discover a new author and I read something, I'm like I'm automatically looking for the other books that they have. So so, the more that you can produce, the more likelihood you're going to have a backlist and you'll be able to build a following.
Speaker 1:And if you have a following, there's a theory in the publishing world about what's called whale readers. If you have a thousand whale readers, and so that means that they're going to consume everything that you put out. They're just waiting for your next book, they're just looking for you, they're following you on social media, they want to know what you're doing, they're ready. If you can get to that point, you can make very good living, but it takes time. And so think about the marketing aspect of your book. How are you marketing your books yourself? Because, just like you you I know you have children, I have children. Our teachers love our kids. The pediatrician cares about our kids, but nobody cares about your children more than you do.
Speaker 2:Nobody.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that your books are the same way. Like you've got to advocate for your books, you've got to put yourself in a position and and I don't know about you, but I'm an extreme introvert, so getting out in front of people and talking about my work is harder than me talking about our author's work Like I can talk about our author's work all the time, but putting myself out there, yeah.
Speaker 2:So how do you market your business Like how do you find your clients? How do you market your business Like how do you find your clients? You know, there's a lot. As you said, there's a number of hybrid publishers. Now Right, and how do?
Speaker 1:people find you. So there's a couple different ways. One of the things I realized that the more that I speak and the more that I talk about publishing either on a stage or at a conference or on podcasts people find us that way a conference or on podcasts, people find us that way. I also have my own podcast where I I talk just about stories, women's stories in particular. But most of our clients, most of our authors, I should say, are referrals from our existing authors and people will do introductions.
Speaker 1:I'm part of a couple of women's networking groups and they usually are they. They meet me and they're like I really like your energy, or I'm writing a book, or we'll have a conversation Like I'm I. I'm generous to a fault with giving and sharing information. So if it's not a good fit for us, I want you to be successful and I'm going to refer you to somebody who I think could be a good fit for us. I want you to be successful and I'm going to refer you to somebody who I think could be a good fit Like that's my thing is, I want great books in the world and I want people to succeed and I want them to have the most amazing author experience and get more books out in the world.
Speaker 1:So but I will say that since I've been very mindfully appearing on podcast and speaking more, our submissions have blown up. I mean, I routinely will get. In the beginning we had very few coming through our submissions portal, but I right now have about 15 manuscripts on my desk that we're reviewing. And if you think about what we do, I really look at those manuscripts and I'm providing feedback to every single person who provides a manuscript to us, as long as it's something that we would be interested in publishing. If it's not something, I'll even go out of my way to talk to some of my other publishing peers and say, hey, I've got manuscript, it's not a good fit for us. May I send them to you.
Speaker 2:Okay, and what kind of books do you reject? Why would you?
Speaker 1:reject. We don't publish erotica. That's one that's like a hard pass for me, and we recently got one. It says that right on our website. We don't do that. For like religious reasons, it's not something that I feel like we could do a good job with, because it's not something that's really well, and it's oh, it sells great. Yeah, and you know what sells the best is YA romance oh, yeah, yeah, okay, yeah.
Speaker 1:YA romance is like off the chain and they've got a very engaged audience. I was doing some comparable book research for a YA book that we're publishing and one of the things that I noticed during that research is that they have exponentially more reviews on Amazon than the regular fiction book and in the hundreds of thousands of reviews on Goodreads yeah, so, they're they're a very engaged audience.
Speaker 2:Correct, correct. So you don't accept erotica. What else? What would like you look at the manuscript? Okay, no, I can't do this.
Speaker 1:Well, we look at the manuscript. But then there's also I'm a big believer in energetic connection. So my goal is not to be the biggest publisher, but I want to be the most sought after because. So I always give a review of here's what I thought was really great about your book, here's what was strong about your book. And then here are things you might consider changing. And I do that for two reasons. One, I want the author to experience what it's like to be edited by our company. Okay, and I also want to see how they receive the feedback, because if, if, if it's not a good fit, I'm going to know immediately. And they're going to know immediately, because an editor is a trust relationship. You're trusting somebody to take something that you've really poured your heart and soul into.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And you want to be able to trust that that person's giving you good guidance. So I'm never going to accept a book that I know we can't do a good job with.
Speaker 2:I see, and before we conclude, do you have any tips for aspiring authors? What would you tell them? Something like unusual tips. You know, like you always have, like reads, you know you always have reads something unusual that you discovered or learned from the years of experience.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would say, if you want to increase exponentially your opportunity for being accepted, do your homework and, this is the most important, follow the submission guidelines. I will kick out a book immediately if it doesn't follow the submission guidelines, because if they're not going to follow the very basics and we all have different submission guidelines- so I think, that's the number one is really follow, but also do your homework, Like really look at.
Speaker 1:Okay, here's a great tip If you're looking to get published by a traditional publisher or you want to find a really good hybrid publisher, read the author's acknowledgements. You'll find the name of the agent, You'll find the name of the editor and you'll see the name of the team and then you can go research.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's what. Yeah, I do I always. I like that. I never skip the acknowledgements, because it's just interesting to see what the publishing process was yeah, but that's where you'll find an agent and that's where you'll find and if they've had a good experience, they're going to be glowing, and so then you can do the research.
Speaker 1:Is that agent accepting manuscripts that I've written?
Speaker 2:So that's a way to increase and then follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow their submission guidelines. So, Debra, this has been great. And how can people find you, your website? I mean, if you can tell us?
Speaker 1:how we can reach you. The best way to find us is highlanderpressbookscom. There's a way to book on my calendar. You know I'm on all the socials as well. I have a very active TikTok, actually Believe it or not, but yeah. So the best way is Highlander Press Books. You'll see what's coming up. We you know what classes we have going on, when our next cohort is launching that kind of thing. Testimonials our bookstore.
Speaker 2:Ah, this is fun. Well, this has been wonderful. You know, I might even submit to it.
Speaker 1:I would love it.
Speaker 2:Okay, but thank you very much, you know, very inspiring and educational and enlightening and for everyone who is listening or watching. Thank you for joining us for another episode of Read and Write with Natasha and until we meet again, thank you, deborah.
Speaker 1:Thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you for tuning in to Read and Write with Natasha. I'm your host, natasha Tynes. If today's episode inspired you in any way, please take the time to review the podcast. Remember to subscribe and share this podcast with fellow book lovers. Until next time. Happy reading, happy writing.