Books Even More Competitive

Talking about the competitive nature that Publishing has become, books are even more competitive. It's really the same thing, but being more specific, books do compete with each other, even on the same publisher's list. Sure, buyers or readers have hundreds of different online publishers these days from which they can choose their reading material. But some of those publishers have hundreds, even thousands of books on their lists. I would say that is competition, too.

Some publishers seem to publish as many books as they can, within a certain guideline of what they deem worthy, of course. Other publishers are more picky. I've seen publishing websites with thousands of books listed, and I've seen others with as few as two. Okay that's probably because they are new, and just getting started at it. But there are publishers who limit the number of books they publish to two or three books a month, whereas other publishers will publish over a dozen per month.

My publishers, Melange (Killer of Killers) and Penumbra (The Vase) are on opposite ends of that description of publishers. It is not unusual for Melange to publish a dozen books in one month, although that number does vary. Sometimes they publish fewer, and sometimes even more.

But Penumbra will only publish two or three books in one month. So there is the difference. It was true that in my own personal experience, Penumbra was far more picky, and more strict in their editing guidelines than Melange. I am NOT saying that Melange doesn't have high standards, they certainly do, but Melange was more relaxed in giving their authors freedom in how they want to write. I mean, if an author wants to write a certain way, Melange will let them. But Penumbra won't. If an author disagrees with a Penumbra editor, then heads will clash.

I, personally, did not disagree with my Penumbra editors, by the way. Every time my Penumbra editor wanted me to change something, I did, except for a couple times when I explained exactly why it had to be a certain way, and because my explanation was clear and logical, then the Penumbra editor relented. So, yeah, they are reasonable about that, which was good, even while they were strict.

But that makes a book better. It makes writing better. It's great to have two publishers, one that allows more freedom, and another who sticks strictly by a certain guideline. For the Killer of Killers sequel, Killer Eyes, I will certainly go with Melange again. As for my John Dunn novel, I don't know yet. Maybe I'll try for a third publisher. Why not? It's cool being published by two different publishers. It would be cooler to have three. Maybe this time it can be one of the Big Six. We'll see.