The answer would seem to be "Harder than it needs to be." Even with the advent of Print on Demand (POD), the so-called 'offers' above have not varied much - they all work together, almost as if conspiratorial, to prevent a new work or author from getting into print. In fact, there may be something resembling a real conspiracy out there if one were to look closely at how Amazon is attempting to monopolize POD by making it less profitable for you to use POD uless you do it through their Booksurge. Here is what real authors are saying There is also a matter of sly forms of censorship at Amazon., leading many authors and publishers to boycott out of principle (Amen). This is all to illustrate the pitfalls of casual publishing, but also to lead you such traps toward success..

Oh, yes, there are the occasional success stories. We've all heard about million dollar book and film deals for virtual unknowns. It is precisely such bones thrown to our collective consciousness from time to time which keep us banging away at the wall in hopes that just one publisher will see our work as the treasure we intend it to be. In the face of the real world response to our endless submissions, we might imagine the Industry believes we must surely breakdown eventually and fork over some money to see ourselves in print.

What are our true options?  Why must we be virtual experts in the industry to know a good publisher from a bad one?  Why must we literally require lawyers on retainer in order to insure a contract is equitable?  Why must we almost always be left with only the option of spending money to get published?  Whether by coincidental alignment of varied agenda, or conspiratorial design, authors are left with few good answers to these questions.

Even author H. Michael Sweeney, founder of ProParanoid Press has found the path elusive. Only by thinking outside of the box, and making a desperate move that would at least see his work made available to people who needed it most (it was, after all, a book that could save lives), was he able to secure a publisher. Even then, it was luck and happenstance based on numerous coincidences which played toward serendipity's needs. In short, it was a long shot! And, by the way, it didn't help one bit later, when other works were in need of a publisher. Being published already was, despite the slogan we have all heard, no guarantee to be published, again. Especially so, perhaps, when the topics are not friendly to the power structure which created and infects much of the print industry at both editorial and management levels. In point of fact, several large publishing houses are owned outright by CIA to a sufficient degree, or are otherwise infiltrated by CIA.
 

What Are The Choices?

Primary Choice (Old School) ~ Find a Publisher: Presuming that it is possible, there are several different ways publishers (real ones, not those that rip off would-be authors) could go in offereing terms for a book deal, where they like your work. If your work has great market appeal, they may offer you an up front advance against royalties or merely offer you royalties alone. Rare is the advance if the author is an unknown, though Mr. King could easily get a million dollar advance on his next scary book.  But there are many other things to consider, as well, which is usually where the lawyers come in handy.  Do you retain film rights, e-book rights, or even reprint rights?  Who will be the Editor, and who will pay them? Who handles promotion and how are advertising costs covered (it could come out of your royalties)? What is your minimum legal requirement to aid in such promotion (i.e., attend book fairs, author parties, etc.) and will expenses be out of your pocket?  There are many more such questions, of course, but most of us are waiting for that day to come to worry about them. In the meantime, consider having ProParanoid Press become your publisher... just keep reading.

Secondary Choice ~ Get a Literary Agent: Now actually, this can be a great idea if you can again find a real agent who is not scamming would-be authors. There are definitely good agents, but if they are good, they are already quite busy working for well known authors and personages. A literary agent works best as a choice when the author is a well known person who is going to offer a book about himself or his famous past (i.e., ex-President tells all about moist cigars). The publicist then pushes the idea of a book to all the big houses and they get to bid against each other for the best deal in town, and often, also attempts to get a film deal. So, again, this is a great idea if you are already on the front page.

Third-Rate Choice would be to Self Publish:  Spend $5-$25K to buy boxes and boxes of books, then spend the rest of your life hawking them one by one, or spend thousands more to hire a publicist or book placement agency to do the promotion. And don't forget nearly $1,000 for the ability to get the coveted ISBN number and have it converted into the all important bar code. Have money, can publish.

Fourth-Estate Choice ~ only do E-books and Web promotion:  Going Maverick and underground is not a bad choice, provided you have a way to get your Web site, name, and book name(s) to be listed high enough in the search engines. The search engines of today only work on three things:  Placement money to grease their engine for 'preferred' listing status (plan on thousands of dollars for any serious placement), or the existence of mass quantities of preexisting or otherwise arranged for Web links pointing to your site from hundreds of other sites. If you have neither, you can still do well on the Web without — if you have a ready made 'audience' or 'market' who already knows the name of your Web site. About the only way that can happen is if you can succeed in getting the right radio show or onto the front pages of the newspaper, or become so controversial that Time and Newsweek start talking about you and you end up on the television interview talk show circuit. Say hi to Oprah for me. The third driver is a well done Web site that caters to search engine technology. At least that part is inexpensive if you have Web page skills.

Fifth Wheel Choice ~ Print on Demand self publishing:  This can work well in combination with e-book/Web promotions, and has the same set of concerns, in addition to which you will need some small sum, say $500, in order to purchase a small initial sum of books, say at least 25. The price then drops on a per book basis, once you start selling them and can place reorders (the up front costs are already paid for by then) at a more reasonable price. Since there are hard copies involved, you still must worry about ISBN numbers and bar codes if you hope to see your book given any serious review or consideration in any promotional venues other than your own. A lot of people are creating POD services which are disguised to look like a simple POD alternative, but which are merely scams of the sort that involve all those unhappy response letters at the top of the page. So do read the fine print. In this author's opinion, the more 'services' the outfit offers, the less likely they are to be legitimate or useful POD resources. There are also bad POD houses with respect to quality and reliability. I personally find they all eventually make financially impacting mistakes of one sort or another even when the quality is good. You need to be patient, forgiving, and at the same time demanding and on top of it.

Sixth Sense Choice ~ Get or Become a Ghostwriter:  Sometimes someone wants to be published but they know they don't have the talent for it, or a means of insuring publisher interest based on their own lack of personal fame. A great way to resolve the issue is to have someone else write it either under your name or as a co author. This is a great way to 'get published,' presuming your author is already established and you let the publisher know they are involved. Usually, such collaborative projects involve persons who ARE on the front pages and have a Literary Agent. Often, the person seeking a ghostwriter is more than able and willing to fund ALL costs. If you are the one seeking to become the ghost writer, all you have to do is show them your best work, and get paid for more of same according to any mutually agreed upon terms between you. You can get a portion of the royalties, be paid something up front, get your name on the book as co-author, retain the movie rights, and so forth. But again, if you are an unknown, be prepared to be a little generous yourself. But at the very least, this is an excellent stepping stone to getting your own work published. The hard part, of course, is finding someone who is looking for a ghostwriter, or who would make a perfect ghostwriter for your project. ProParanoid Press does try to match up persons having such needs, so drop us a line if you have a project in mind.

And last, but not least, Consider Being a ProParanoid Press Author.  Just keep reading...
 

What Kind of Author is Proparanoid Looking For?

We are primarily interested in select kinds of fiction and non fiction work listed below. We would still entertain works outside of our stated topical interests where the story line or theme of the work itself revolves around such topics. For example, while we are NOT interested in romance novels, if the characters within the romance novel themselves were also involved with the very topics of interest to ProParanoid Press, then we would consider the work, perhaps with some suggested changes designed to increase or leverage such relationships and broaden market appeal.  What we want...

Fiction: action adventure, spy or political bents preferred, and science fiction (NOT fantasy). Avoid cliché plot twists, please. Short stories can also be submitted for inclusion within collections and anthologies, and excellent way to get a 'published' name for yourself.

Non Fiction: whistle blowing, activism, politics, military, intelligence community, and corporate peradventure, etc. First person narratives are always welcome, especially if from a victim's perspective. Our motto? Never violate national security (i.e., classified material), but always challenge the status quo, especially if it involves a crime under cover of or excused by 'national security.' Thus, be prepared to document any such instances.
 
 

What Kind of Deals can an Author Get at ProParanoid Press?

ProParanoid Press is above all else, a Maverick operation. Elements of the government hates us (four-letter words in hate mail from the White House, for instance). A lot of the print industry wishes we were not here (or that we were less vocal). There are certain powerful corporations and personages that don't like us very much (mostly former U.S. Presidents, heads of the CIA, DOD, DOJ, and other Federal agencies, etc. But don't let that frighten you, because over the years we have come to terms which dictate hands off, via what we might call an insurance policy). In order to succeed in facing such enemies, we have one simple philosophy regarding books and our opponents: If your book sticks it to em', get it into print! Of course, we want to make money along the way, and so that means that not every book needs to 'stick it.' A ProParanoid author can choose from a number of programs, which thanks to POD technology, can all be executed quite quickly...

The 'Traditional' Publisher-Author Program: not quite, but close.  We handle the costs to get it into print, including all the ISBN jazz. 

a) We try to help you get an Editor with no out of pocket to you. You get a royalty, but no up front money. Think in terms of $2-4 per copy to you, which is more than competitive with most established publishing houses. The drawback is we do not (as of yet) the distribution clout they would enjoy, and thus they pay about half of that.
b) We want you to have your own Web site with the ability to offer the e-book version and keep all sales from that, if YOU create the site. We can create and maintain the site for you if you would be satisfied merely with the royalties, which on and e-book would  be at least twice as much. We would, in fact, typically pay $5 royalties on ebook sales from our own site.
c) We mutually (you and we) partner in any film and other rights that may generate interest down the road. We actually look forward to promoting and devising ways to make that work, even to the point of getting help with writing a script.
d) You decide if, when and where, and how you will participate in self promotions, doing so at your own expense. You have access to books at true cost plus a flat handling fee for your own sales promotions at such events, meaning you keep ALL profits. There is also the possibility of joining with us in one of our promotions, in which case we share profits accordingly.

Outside the Box Program: We split the costs and the profits. Costs are paid up front, profits happen later. End of discussion. Well, not quite. If you would like to become an actual part owner of ProParanoid Press, we have versions of this option which are more like offering a senior partnership to a junior partner of a law firm. It won't be for everyone, but for those that go that route, you get a slice of EVERYTHING! You won't get a vote in business decisions, however;  we don't want the enemy to use this means to infiltrate our ranks in hopes of subverting our efforts. EVERY author who approaches us is eligible for consideration in this option but will receive information about it ONLY upon request.

Helper(s) Program: If you need or want to be a Ghostwriter or Editor, someone to do your jacket promo or a Forward, just let us know your needs, and we will try to pair you with someone, often on a trade-of-services basis (no cash needed). If we can find a match, we can work out how the book should be handled from there. Some of this stuff we do automatically, and non of it restricts our relationship model in any way; you and the other parties to your book project can still go with the traditional or outside the box method, providing you all agree. We simply try to act as catylist and put you together to work out your own deals.
 

How Should Work be Submitted?

We don't work like anyone else in the industry. DO NOT send us a full manuscript except on request. We absolutely WILL NOT read it! We WILL return it (if you provide a return post-paid envelope). What we want instead is quite simple:

1) A half page synopsis of what the book is about (Sell us the concept!) and how long it is in book pages (not how many word processing pages or typed pages: to estimate PRINTED pages, divide the number of words by 1,000. You can estimate words by counting a full word processing or typed page and multiplying by your document page count).

2) A half page description of the author (Same page, please — sell us on YOU!) along with any reasons for writing, such as personal experiences. 

3) The Table of Contents, the Introduction (if any) and/or Acknowledgments (if any), and/or Introduction or Preface (if any). If any individual section is longer than six pages, include ONLY the first five and the last page.

4) The first five and last page of the first three and the very last chapters (Double spaced, thank you).
    Note: We strongly suggest you use .5 inch margins all the way around. There should be headers and footers which display your name, address, phone, email, book title, and page number on EVERY page.

5) Cover letter expressing your Program interests (see What Kind of Program, from above), if known - with an email address. We do not respond by mail or phone, but give us your phone number, anyway in case we fall all over ourselves with anticipation.
 

Please do not submit incomplete works from projects still under way without contacting us first. Provide estimated production date of self edited (pre editorial review) copy. Indicate any issues which negatively impact on any responsiveness to editorial changes in your cover letter.

    Questions?  Get them answered before submitting, please. Email to:
    P  P  P   B  O  O  K  S ~ COMCAST (dot) N E T

    If we like what we see we will then request the full manuscript.
    If we like that, THEN we respond by phone. 
 
 

Send it to:

Emailed manuscripts (PLEASE!):
         MS Word or .pdf file attachment to the above email address.
         Cover letter can be the email message.

Mailed manuscripts:
         Send an email advising it has been sent
         PO Box 1941
         Clackamas, OR 97015