Not the Right Fit

I got my hopes up but I shouldn't have.

My worst fear was that this publishing house was a scam, that they were interested in gaining personal details for the sole purpose of draining my bank account. And so I approached them cautiously.

A few hours after I responded to the e-mail, I received a phone call. My smartphone told me that it was an international call, from California.

I don't answer calls from numbers that I don't recognize. I'll look up the number, afterwards, and more times than not I discover that it's a number that has been associated with fraud. If it's a legitimate person who is calling me, I expect that they'll leave a voice message.

This caller didn't.

When I looked up the number, I learned that it was associated with a printing company in California. I looked up the company's Web site, and it seemed to be a legitimate company, but I saw no association with the company that had contacted me about my book, through e-mail.

It could have been a coincidence, I told myself, but how would this California company have my phone number?

The next morning (Wednesday), the Canadian publishing company contacted me by e-mail. The person seemed enthusiastic and wanted to know the best time to reach me. I replied, saying that I'm usually available after 4 on weekdays. My e-mail signature includes my phone number, so I expected a call.

During my lunch break, I wrote down a list of questions to ask the person when she called me. What makes her think my book would be a good fit with her company? Is the company wholly Canadian-owned? What is the relationship between the Toronto bookstore, which she told me about in her original message, and the press company? Will I retain full ownership of my work?

I also wanted to stress that I already paid to have my novel self-published and I wasn't interested in paying to have it published again.

Shortly after 4, my phone rang. But again, it was the California number, and this time, my phone identified the call as possible spam. I ignored it, but this time, the caller left a message.

It was the person from the Canadian press agency. I compared the call number to the number in her e-mail and discovered that they were the same.

First red flag.

I sent her an e-mail message, asking her if she was calling me from California. She responded, saying that she was "using its CA number because we are avoiding international charges because we are not just dealing with Canadian authors but international authors as well."

Second red flag.

She added that she was now in another meeting and would call me back. When she did call me back, I asked once again why, if she's calling me from Canada, was she calling from a California number.

She essentially gave me the same answer that she had typed. "From where are you calling?" I asked.

There was a slight hesitation, and she answered, "From Canada. Where are you?"

"I'm in Ottawa."

"How lovely!"

Another red flag. With my area code, she should have known I was in Ottawa. And when you're speaking to a fellow Canadian, you say the city you're in, not the country.

I let her give her spiel: she told me the difference between self-publishing and traditional publishing, which I already knew. She listed off several well-known Canadian publishers, all of which I knew. She said that her company solicits manuscripts on behalf of the authors and does not stop until a publishing deal is reached. At that point, I would be paid by the publishing company.

I asked why she thought my novel had profit potential and she said it came highly recommended through one of their scouts.

I asked if they were wholly Canadian-owned, and she said that they were international, that I would be paid in Canadian dollars and would only have to deal with the CRA, tax-wise.

The Toronto bookstore is owned by their company. This made me wonder: if they own the store, do they hold books by all Canadian publishers? I wish I had followed up but she went on to say that they could hold a book signing at the store and I could be made an "Author of the Month."

I went on to my next question, about whether I'd retain the rights to my book. She said that usually, the publisher holds the rights.

I would have to think about that.

She asked me if I knew what a query letter was. I had a vague idea but asked her to explain it. Essentially, a query letter provides a brief synopsis of the novel, outlines the chapters and plot, plus describes settings and characters. A query letter is used to propose a book for publication.

I was told that they could write one for me or I could prepare one, myself. Because I'm a writer, I said, I could handle the query letter, myself.

That's where we left the conversation. I told her that I would send her the query letter and that we could go from there.

She ended the call by saying, "God bless you." I felt this odd, as we were supposedly in a professional, business call. Who introduces a deity on such a call?

Shortly after we ended the call, the representative send me another e-mail, thanking me for the call and telling me how excited she was to be working with me. And she ended the message with "Take care and God bless you always."

My mind immediately went to the e-mail message that a previous person from her company had sent me, a few weeks earlier. I dug it up and came across her description of the bookstore in Toronto, and how it was near a "good Christian school." That description struck me as odd but now had me really wondering.

I researched the bookstore to see the books it had. A large number of them were Christian-based, with God and Jesus in the titles.

Third red flag. Did they not know that my main character, Roland Axam, was an atheist??

I received another e-mail that sunk the deal: they wanted $999 to republish my book. They listed an author's package, which included everything that I was offered through my self-publishing company.

What happened to them finding me a publisher who would pay me?

I responded yesterday. I said that I looked more into the company and bookstore, and I didn't think that they were a good fit for me. I also said that I felt mislead when they told me that I wouldn't have to pay, only to learn that I'd have to pay as though I were publishing my book, myself. Where were the well-known Canadian publishers?

Her response was curt and seemed to accuse me of not understanding our conversation. Her words told me that I had made the right decision. They weren't a scam, exactly, but they weren't genuine about their intentions.

So, what are my next steps? I don't know.

Before this company reached out, I was content to letting Songsaengnim die a natural death. I had essentially broken even on it: friends and family had read it and enjoyed it. It's been reviewed on Amazon, and I think the review is fair. It's shown up in my public library, and that brought me joy.

For more than a decade, I've been working on the sequel, Gyeosunim, but I've never been satisfied with what I've written and I find that I don't have the time to fully commit to it. I'm enjoying working on my blog and my YouTube videos, as well as my photography, and I think that's where I'll direct my attention.

Maybe, after I retire, I'll find more time on my hands to return to fiction. But not right now.