Jon Samsel

Tad, what’s your background–and how did you start and grow your own publishing company?
I’m an author and attorney as well as a publisher. I started teaching writing at the School of Visual Arts (a New York City college) and discovered that my artist students had no idea of what would happen after graduation in terms of making a living. I began teaching courses on business for artists, wrote a number of books (including Legal Guide for the Visual Artist), and in 1989 founded Allworth Press to help creative professionals. From our modest beginnings, Allworth Press today publishes 30-35 titles annually and has a staff of twelve.

Our success can be attributed to careful targeting of untapped niche markets, selectivity in choosing titles, development of unusual sales channels, control of production costs through competitive bidding, and tight management of our inventory.

Can your name a few book titles your company has published?

• Designing Logos: The Process of Creating Symbols That Endure
• Get the Picture? The Movie Lover’s Guide to Watching Films, 2nd Ed.
• Performing Arts Management: A Handbook of Professional Practices
• Making It on Broadway: Actors’ Tales of Climbing to the Top
• ASMP Professional Business Practices in Photography, 7th Edition
• Emotional Branding: The New Paradigm for Connecting Brands to People
• Starting Your Career as a Freelance Illustrator or Graphic Designer

Do writers need an agent?
Allworth Press rarely deals with agents. We are a niche publisher of books to help creative professionals (such as artists, designers, and photographers) succeed in their business. If an author can show how his or her work relates to what we do, we’ll give it serious consideration. This is true for most niche publishers, and most of the smaller publishers are niche publishers.

What single piece of advice would you give to a writer looking to get his/her manuscript published?
Study what houses publish books in the same field as your book. Make certain that you are submitting to a publisher that might be suitable for your work. Show the suitability in your cover letter (such as by pointing to a previously published book that appears to have done well and is related to your book).

What is the average advance publishers are paying authors for a book these days?
This is very hard to answer, because bestsellers get one kind of advance and more obscure books get a much lower advance. To generalize, I would say most advances are under $10,000. The important point here is that an advance is merely that–an advance against royalties to be earned in the future. It’s important that the royalties are earned because the publisher is unlikely to want to continue publishing authors whose books don’t earn out their advances.

How are writers utilizing the Internet to promote and sell their books–and is this usually done in conjunction with the publishing house?
Writers are creating websites for themselves, for their particular books by title, and are also blogging. This is usually done by the initiative of the author and is an attraction to the publisher. Publishers prefer to work with authors with a “platform,” which is a preexisting way to publicize or market books.

What do you think of the new breed of online self-publishing services such as Lulu.com–is it ever worth a writer’s time, effort and money to self publish?
Self-publishing is a good idea if the author can sell his or her own books effectively (in which case it becomes important how much the author has to pay for them), if the credential of a published book will be of value, or if the personal pleasure makes it worthwhile.

Would you mind sharing an insightful story about the publishing industry?
In 1977, the first edition of Legal Guide for the Visual Artist was published. Eventually I received the rights back in the book. In 1989, the third edition of Legal Guide for the Visual Artist was the first book published by Allworth Press. It’s now in its fourth edition and has sold over 100,000 copies in its lifetime. So it’s important to keep projects alive. Intellectual property has a long life and may have value in ways that can’t be foreseen early on.