In this episode, we speak to Justin Branch, the Director of Consulting at Greenleaf Book Group, about how to sniff out publishing scams, and the biggest mistakes he’s seen authors make when evaluating publishers.

1:20 – Could you start off by telling us a bit about your background and what you do?

• I'm the director of consulting for Greenleaf. What that means is, essentially, my role is to help identify books and authors that we feel have promise and then develop the right strategies to get them from where they are to where they want to be.

• I had an unconventional journey to get here, like you, I also went to film school at the University of Texas and the day after graduation I went out to Southern California where I worked in television in a variety of capacities.

• Then, just over 16 years ago I met the leadership at Greenleaf Book Group, and was just blown away by the vision they had and where they saw opportunities in an industry that had been stuck in place for quite some time.

• I immediately connected with the idea of helping authors get their ideas out there competing with the measure houses without having to sacrifice as much as they had had to sacrifice in the past.

• One of my favorite parts of the job is getting to spend time with authors every day and helping them realize their vision for their book.

3:15 – Can you cover the main routes an author has for publishing in today’s market?

• There are three primary routes. The first one is traditional publishing. The next one is self-publishing. With that you're your own general contractor so you're finding designers and editors and distributors and marketers for your project.

• And finally, there's hybrid publishing which takes really the best of both of those worlds and puts them under one roof.

• The reality is that each of those models have some really strong upsides, and each of them have some downsides. As we think about the pros and cons of each you kind of have to look and say OK what are they bringing to the table and what are you giving up in exchange for they’re giving you.

6:15 – What are some of the biggest complaints you hear from authors when they’re searching for a publisher?

• With traditional publishing typically lack of control is a big one. It’s often not the cover of that you choose it's the one that they've selected for you, for example. So when you're working in a traditional model they're buying the rights from you, so it's their book and they're going to do what they feel is in the best interest with the book from a retail perspective and that may be out of alignment with what your goals are for the book.

• Lack of ownership is another big complaint. Now there's so many ways to repurpose and reuse content from putting together workbooks based on the content or creating custom additions. There's just so many derivative products that exist now that didn't before.

• Another complaint I hear is lack of marketing. With a traditional model, the only way for that business model to work is to invest as little as possible in each book and that way a few good hits can pay for a lot of misses.

• With the traditional model there may also be things like a buyback clause or a first right of refusal.

• Timeline is another common concern. It takes time to do things right, but if you need to find an agent, then shop around, then negotiate a deal and get the deal, and then go through the production process, it can take a while to get your book out there.

12:50 – What advice would you give to authors who have their heart set on a single publisher?

• The value of an imprint and the little logo that goes on the spine of a book has changed a lot over the years because there's so many publishers out there and most readers don't look at that these days.

• The first thing I’d say is take a step back and figure out what the real value of this particular publisher is. The next thing to think about is “what is important to me as an author?” and then “which publisher is best positioned to get me to my goals?”

• I've always found that books are most successful when they can serve as both a product and tool. It needs to be a great standalone product that is well-packaged, well-positioned, well-edited, distributed properly, and marketed aggressively to have a shot to compete in mainstream retail. But often the higher value of a book is in the opportunities it creates for you and the doors that it opens for you.

• Look at what a publisher is bringing to the table and what they're asking for in return and see if that aligns with what's important to you. Look at their titles and say “do I connect with the way they are packaging and positioning their books? Do I think this would work for my book?”

• As you start to do this, you may arrive at the the place where you started and say, “yes that is the perfect publisher for me,” and if that's the case—go for it. But I would still always say have a backup option in your pocket.

18:00 – How can an author sniff out a credible publisher?

• That's unfortunately the downside of having so many options right now—not all of them are good options. What’s perfect for one book may be very different than what’s perfect for another book.

• I would start with Google searches. People talk, and the release of a book is such an important thing to an author, they put so much of themselves into it, that if a publisher isn't serving them well typically they'll let people know about it. So, it's pretty easy to find publishers that have a strong reputation online and publishers that don't.

• I'd look for a publisher that has a vested interest in your retail success. When a publisher has a vested interest to make your successful in retail, they have a higher obligation to you. They still want you to love the book and be excited about it, but they also want to create a product that has the potential to be successful in retail.

21:15 – How can an author protect themselves and their work while exploring different publisher fits?

• Online research again is a great place to start. If you see some red flags out there—follow your gut—chances are it's not the place you want to be.

• Talk to them. You should be able to talk to someone there and they should be knowledgeable and informed and give you an initial feeling as to how far you want to explore things with that publisher.

• You can always ask for an NDA. If there's any reluctance to offer an NDA, that might be a red flag as well. And trust your instincts. If something doesn't feel right, there's just too much that that you've put into this as an author to take a chance on it getting tied up into issues out of the gate.

22:20 - What are your thoughts on publishers who say they can ‘guarantee’ a specific result? Such as hitting a bestseller list or getting a certain number of copies sold.

• I would be extremely skeptical. Again, there's a lot of things that you can control when you're releasing a book and you want to make sure that those things are best in class. But there's always going to be things that are outside of your control that are also going to impact how successful a book is in retail.

• There’s a number of bestseller lists, so the big ones that we look at are the New York Times or Wall Street Journal lists, and hitting those lists typically requires sales of between 5,000 and 15,000 books in a single week to customers. So, it’s very difficult for a publisher to predict that 15,000 people are going to go buy your book. And we've been fortunate at Greenleaf to have a bunch of New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestsellers over the years, but again a lot of it is making sure that all the things you can control are done well.

24:40 - Any parting advice for our listeners?

• Publishing a book is a huge commitment and once it's out there, it's out there, and it's really difficult to make it disappear, so make sure you spend enough time making sure that you're finding the right partner on the front end to give it the best shot of success.

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About Justin

Justin leads the acquisitions process for Greenleaf, designing successful book launch strategies for our authors. He takes a holistic approach to publishing, with a focus on author brand and platform development, as well as creating a high-quality, differentiated, and market-ready book. This approach—applied to well-known brands like John Gray and Kanye West, as well as debut authors—has produced more than twenty New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestsellers. Before joining Greenleaf, Justin worked in television production and marketing for KingWorld Productions (The Roseanne Show), HollywoodBroadcasting.com, and Cox Communications.