One benefit of summer was that each day we had more light to read by
Our highlights below include new releases, contracts signed, notable reviews and PR events, new authors to the agency and other news of note by clients and agents.
Releases
Congratulations to W. Henry Sledge and Knox Press for June 3 release of The Old Breed… The Complete Story Revealed: A Father, A Son, and How WWII in the Pacific Shaped Their Lives,
Forty years after the publication of Eugene Sledge’s memoir With the Old Breed at Peleliu and Okinawa comes The Old Breed… The Complete Story Revealed by Eugene’s son, Henry, adding new material and immeasurable depth to his father’s story.
The Old Breed… The Complete Story Revealed brings to life an abundance of new material from the original manuscript of Eugene Sledge’s classic memoir With the Old Breed at Peleliu and Okinawa. By interspersing his own personal anecdotes throughout, Henry Sledge takes his father’s work and gives it newfound context, sharing memories of conversations between father and son. The result is a flowing narrative that portrays an intimate look at a WWII veteran and his struggles to adapt to civilian life following the war.
Contracts
Shannon Evans with Eric Clayton signed with Paraclete Press for the July 2026 release of The Seagull on the Roof.
R.B. Jamieson signed with Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing November 2027 release of God from God: The Trinitarian Christology of the Gospel of John.
Abigail Favale signed with Penguin Random for the June 2027 release of The End of Sex: What We’re Made For and Why We Keep Missing It.
Jessica Hooten Wilson signed with HarperCollins for the October 2026 release of Twice Rebels.
Gretchen Hammond signed with Globe Pequot for the October 2026 release of American Unpeople.
Sarah E Frazer signed with Revell for the January 2027 release of His Night Song Is With Me.
Steven Argue signed with Brazos Press for the March 2027 release of Right On Time.
Sarah Varland signed with Harlequin for the November 2026 and April 2027 release of two books.
New Clients
Ryan Kell, Marty Mosher, Michael Jones, and Holly Guertin, recently signed with WordServe. Welcome,
From the desk of Emma Fulenwider
Yesterday, I was lamenting to a fellow writer about running out of time to thoroughly judge an essay contest. There are 30% more submissions this year, and I’ve been pleading with the organizers to give me an extension so that I can deliver the 1st-50th place winners, in order, like I did last year.
Chanté looked over her glasses at me. “I think you’re trying to do A+ work when they’re only asking you for A- work. You have enough time. Do an A- job and move on.”
She was absolutely right.
Last month, we talked about how platform isn’t the path to a book deal, it’s the path around a book deal that allows authors to get their message out and engage their readers without depending on a publisher.
So if authors are doing all this work to connect with their audience and market themselves, what’s the point of letting a publisher take a cut of the profits when you can self-publish instead?
The short answer is: because self publishing is A- work. At best.
There is a place for self-publishing. Self publishing is for the books you just want done. Not perfect, just done.
Last year, I was working on my book about raising kids toy-free when an acquisitions editor reached out and pointedly asked if I knew anyone who was writing a book for moms about “having less stuff.” I could have pitched him my book right then. I thought about it for 1.6 seconds. I mean, what are the odds?
But I knew that working with a trade publisher would mean increasing my word count from 20K to 60K, investing heavily in a social media presence that I loathe, and spending the rest of my life drawing the flaming arrows of the internet for being a mean mom. I knew I didn’t have it in me to produce and launch an A+ version of this book, I just wanted to finish the thing and use it to promote my Patreon.
So I replied back. “I do know someone working on a book like that, but she decided to self-publish.” She being me.
Before I was an agent, I helped authors self-publish their books. The low-quality work I had seen by other assisted self-publishers (often calling themselves “hybrid” publishers) motivated me to get in the game and do it right, with excellence. At one point, I was running an indie imprint and managing their annual anthology series. Not only have I helped authors self-publish a dozen books, I buy more self-published books than anyone I know.
Without fail, our best work falls short of what I know it could have been. A self-published book always feels like a prototype.
Here are three major benefits to working with a publisher instead of self-publishing:
QUALITY
Even when I outsourced the editing, proofreading, cover design and formatting to professionals, even when I had a marketer working with me, I was never able to match the level of excellence that I see in traditionally published books. Self publishing does not compete with traditional publishing when it comes to quality, and it rarely competes when it comes to sales.
People think that self publishing is a chance to prove publishers wrong. 99.9% of the time, it’s how authors prove publishers right.
FUNDING
In self-publishing, you pay up-front for cover design, formatting, proofreading, etc. In my experience, these expenses ran into the low thousands in value if not actual cost. If you have friends who are great at cover design and willing to work on trade, you’re still trading your time and managing the project, which is a cost to you.
In traditional publishing, your team not only takes on all of the financial risk, they even give you a chunk of your share in advance.
GROWTH
There is a hidden benefit to working with a publisher that I believe is more valuable than the embossed hardcover, the advance and higher overall sales. In fact, it’s the reason I left self-publishing to work for an agency. Mentorship.
When you self-publish, there’s no one helping you get better at what you do. You are always the expert, and therefore your growth is limited. Similar to how a small fishbowl stunts the growth of a goldfish, self-published authors mostly release books that are of the same quality as their last book. They don’t grow. Publishers, on the other hand, are invested in your entire career as an author. They want you to succeed over years and years, and books and books. They are a massive aquarium of knowledge, connections and pep talks.
Now that my toy-free book is out in the wild, I have zero regrets about self-publishing because it has freed me up to focus on projects that deserve my A+ work.
The contest organizers did grant me that extension, though.
QUESTIONS to ask yourself
- Is this a topic I like to talk about occasionally (A-), or am I willing to talk about it nonstop for 5 years?(A+)
- Is this project only worth my time if I sell 5K copies (A+), or would I be happy if I only sell 100 copies? (A-)
- Am I willing to trade ownership and creative control to make this book be the best it can possibly be (A+), or is it more important that I retain creative control and ownership of my work (A-)?
WordServe Water Cooler 