Should You Take A Small Press Deal?

Hey friends,

I get a good number of messages in my query inbox that say something like I sent you my query on [date] and now I have received an offer from a small press. I'd still love to work with you. Can you let me know your thoughts by [later date]?

This is a completely fine message to send to agents. It doesn't make me mad, or make me think less (or more) about your work, or cause me to judge you in any way as an author. What it says to me is this author wanted to query agents and small presses at the same time, and that is a perfectly valid choice to make as an author.

If I got a vote (and I don't), I might have preferred if the author picked one or the other to do first, but that's me. When I receive those messages, I treat them much as if the author got another offer of representation. I look at the query, check out the pages, and make my decision. Most of the time I pass on the project, but that's just because statistically speaking, most of the time I'm going to pass on any project. If I liked the project enough to request a full, and then liked that enough to offer representation, and the author said yes, we'd then have a conversation about that small press offer. (The small press should be willing to wait for the author's answer and if they're not, that's sus, to me.) We'd talk about that offer because it's not any port in a storm when it comes to publishing your book.

Before we get into what I'd ask my client to consider about that small press offer, let's talk about what a small press is, or isn't. It's not one of the big 5 (Penguin Random House, Macmillan, Simon & Schuster, Harper Collins, or Hachette) or any of their individual imprints. It's not one of the major independent publishers like W.W. Norton, Grove/Atlantic, Zando, Scholastic, or similar. Things start to blur as we get to small publishers than these. Is Hub City a small press? Melville House? Belt Publishing? Akashic? Those are the kind of literary small presses, but what about the more genre ones, like Neon Hemlock, Wild Rose, or Shortwave?

Obviously size is relative, and there isn't a marker that says a publisher is Small if it only does X books a year or something like that. There will always be a smaller press that thinks those houses listed above are the big guys. Some consider a publisher a small press if you don't need an agent to send them your work, and I would guess that's largely, true. However, "big" publishers like Chronicle Books take unsolicited manuscripts, and some imprints of big 5 Publishers open their doors from time to time. I think it's more useful to use other metrics to see if a publisher is small or not, and to use those to see if they're who you want to work with.

Here are some questions I ask when considering a small press offer:

Does the publisher offer an advance?

When a small press makes an offer on your book, are they offering you an advance against royalties, i.e. money upfront that you start to earn back when your book goes on sale, or is it a profit-sharing arrangement, where you don't get money upfront, but you get a higher percentage of the book's sales? Honestly, both are fine, and you get to decide which one makes more sense to you. A smaller publisher will make a smaller advance offer, maybe only a few hundred or thousand dollars, and a larger publisher has the ability to make a larger advance. There's no rule that offers under $500 mean it's a small publisher. It is also rare to have a profit sharing model with a large publisher, though I've seen it happen occasionally (usually when the authors are already rich). Often publishers who offer no advance at all are smaller publishers because they have less capital to work with.

How will the books be distributed and sold?

One of the primary benefits of going with a traditional publisher, big or small, over self-publishing is that there's a team of people at the traditional publisher who's whole job is to get your book into stores. Not all traditionally published books get into all stores like B&N, Target, or Wal-mart, but any store can order from them, and they offer competitive wholesale discounts because they sell at scale. Small publishers may not offer deep wholesale rates or take returns, so it may be harder for any store, indie or B&N etc, to stock their books. Books from traditional publishers are sold to stores on consignment, which means XYZ store can buy 50 copies, try to sell them for three months, and then send back to the publisher the 32 they haven't sold and get their money back. It's expensive to print, ship, manage, and store that kind of inventory, and lots of small publishers struggle with this. (Lots of big ones, too.) When considering a small publisher, it's important to know who distributes their books. Do they work with a big wholesaler like Ingram, or the distribution arm of one of the Big 5 publishers? Many of the Big 5 publishers have whole sections of their company that just sell and distribute books for small publishers, so that those small publishers can enjoy (close to) the same distribution channels as the big guns. If your small press is distributed by Penguin Random House, that doesn't mean your book is published by Penguin Random House, but a team at PRH is doing the sales and fulfillment. A small publisher doing their own sales and distribution is not an automatic red flag, but I would ask more questions about the markets they typically sell books to. B&N? Indies? Or do they mainly Print On Demand and ship from their website or Amazon? And if you want your book to be in print on paper, make sure the small publisher you're thinking of isn't digital-only.

How many copies do they usually print?

The number of copies a publisher prints at one time is called a print run. Print runs are often set right before the book goes to the printer, and are heavily dependent on how many pre-orders a book has (this is why they're so important) and how many copies places like B&N and Amazon order. The publisher doesn't want to print too many because paper and shipping are incredibly expensive now, and publishers are taxed on stock that sits unsold in a warehouse. Of course the publisher wants to print juuuuuuuust enough copies to cover the first wave of interest and to be ready to hit reprint juuuuuuuust before those copies sell through. That....rarely happens.

If you ask, a small publisher is probably not going to tell you all the times they printed too few or too many books. But if you're talking to a real person there, especially after they've made an offer, you might ask them what their typical print runs are. 200 copies? 500? 1200? 10,000? If their typical print run is 500 copies, that means only 500 print copies will exist in the world until they have evidence that they can sell more (pre-orders or re-orders from stores). If your print run is only 500 copies, you are not going to be a surprise success and land on the New York Times best sellers list as a sleeper hit because there just aren't enough books in the physical world to make that happen. You could sell a ton of audiobooks or ebooks, possibly, but that's just as much a long shot for small publishers as it is for big ones. (The NYT best sellers list has a combined print and ebook best seller list, as well as hardcover and paperback lists for adult books, but you basically have to outsell Theo of Golden and Dungeon Crawler Carl to get on the combined list.) Please note, this is just as hard if your print run is 5,000 books, which is a common initial print run for lots of books at Big 5 publishers. If your primary goal is to be an overnight sensation, a small press is not very likely to get you there. A big press isn't much more likely to get you there either, but they do have the capacity and capital to get more books out there if that success is in the cards for you.

What staff works in-house?

One of the other primary benefits of working with a traditional publisher of any size is that you're working with a team of professionals to produce your book, instead of doing it all yourself with self-publishing. (Though many would say that getting to do it all yourself is a feature of self-publishing, and more power to them.) Many small publishers outsource certain parts of their business because they don't have the infrastructure to employ people to do it themselves, or this is just the best way they have found to do business. Sales and distribution is one of those things small publishers outsource, but it could also be editing, copyediting, design, and marketing. Probably not all of them, but it wouldn't be unusual for a small publisher to have in-house editors to do the structural and line editing of your book, and to hire out copyeditors and proofreaders to get the manuscript ready for printing. Actually, big publishers hire that out all the time, too. But not exclusively. A small publisher might hire an outside business to typeset and design the book (the text on the page) and maybe a different one to design covers. Or do one or the other in-house. It works all ways, but you might want to know how your small press works. Who does their marketing and publicity? A dedicated staff member? The editor? An outside firm? Again, there isn't one way that is good and one way that is bad, but you might want to know who you can expect to work with throughout the whole production process of your book.

Will they negotiate the contract with you?

Some small publishers offer you a contract and you get what you get and you don't get upset. They do not have the staff to negotiate it with you and/or not many of their authors know how or what to negotiate. I particularly dislike this part of working with small publishers, but my whole job is to negotiate contracts and thus I know how much of a pain in the ass it is. An author can choose to sign any contract they want, though I hope they take a good look and try to understand what it means. It's important to know what rights the small publisher wants to buy from you. World distribution rights? Would they be willing to consider only North American distribution rights? What about translations? Audio books? Will they license that audiobook or produce it themselves? Who controls the film rights? Who owns the copyright? (YOU. The author owns the copyright! Unless you're writing an IP project, and in which case you already know you don't own Minecraft or whatever) YOU THE AUTHOR should own the copyright to your work. (And don't give anyone your film rights, even a Big 5 publisher). And, of course, you should ask for more money, even if you don't think you'll get it. Always ask! A publisher of any size should be willing to reasonably negotiate the contract with you. Saying no to everything, especially if they say we just don't do that here, is a bit of a red flag to me.

What happens to your rights if they go out of business?

There are many small publishers that have been around for decades and god bless them for sticking it out even longer than some Big 5 imprints. It's tough out there for everyone. There are sometimes new, small publishers that say we're going to do EVERYTHING different and thus fix publishing and disrupt the whole book world. Yeah, I've seen a dozen of those come and go over the last 20 years and things are largely the same in book world (i.e. still broken! but chugging along anyway). As soon as any company says disrupt, I tune them out completely. It's Silicon Valley speak for we did no research and got a bunch of money from some dude to open some business we know nothing about. Ahem. I might be biased here. BUT, it's important to know what happens to your rights if ANY publisher goes out of business, or is sold to another company. This is in your contract under clauses often called Termination, Bankruptcy, and/or Assignment. There are bonkers bankruptcy laws, at least in New York State, but it's important to know what happens to your book if your publisher publishes no more. If the small publisher answers this question with ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, run.

This isn't everything to consider about working with a small publisher, but it's a good start. I love small publishers and have worked with them many times over the years. This is my favorite book I ever worked with a small publisher on. As a querier, I can see why you would consider sending to agents and small publishers at the same time. More chances for the magic to happen! As an agent, a small press offer doesn't necessarily sway me either way, and it doesn't make me rush to make sure I don't miss out on a book. Often times it complicates the submission for me, because I usually have to tell an author that I don't know if we'd be able to sell their book to a bigger publisher. That's usually what the author hopes–that their small press offer is an indication that they'll be a success and I can leverage that into a bigger offer. I mean, I can try! But I can't guarantee it because I can't tell the future. It's a hard choice to say no to an offer in hand from a small publisher for the maybe of an offer from a big publisher. Sometimes you can't go back to that small publisher and say no, wait! I changed my mind! That's why I would start with asking the author what they want to happen with their book and go from there. Of course, we all want to be best sellers and millionaires, but if the author's main, realistic goal is I want my friends to see my book in B&N then that directs us to the kinds of publishers that most frequently get books in B&N. And we go from there. If the author's goal is a book deal at all costs, well, then, they can take any path they want.

I'll say it again, all ways of reaching readers are good ways. Some ways can reach more readers than others. Some ways require more work, time, and/or money than others. That's how you decide what path is right for you.

OXOXOXO,

Kate

Who am I and what is this? This is Agents & Books, a twice-weekly newsletter about writing, publishing, and the creative life. I've been an agent for 20 years, most of it at the Howard Morhaim Literary Agency, and I'm the author of two books: Write Through It: An Insider's Guide to Publishing and the Creative Life (Simon Element, 2025) and a picture book called Pay Attention to Me!, with illustrations by Rob Justus (Sourcebooks, 2026). If you haven't already, become a subscriber today. $5 a month or $50 a year. Same price since 2019! Need to unsubscribe? Look here.