It's not so much the bureaucracy as the low resources. Most of these guys have half a dozen staff tops. Some are one-man bands. Half a dozen books a year out there is a big deal to some of them. The publisher that's put out the most of my work so far celebrated because they got 14 titles out in 2013, an all-time record. With that kind of limit in personnel and advertising budget (if any) there's quite a queue of stuff heading to print. The delays tend to be around editing, artwork, and compositing.

The other feature of these small-print runs is that maybe 50% of sales come from trade stands at conventions etc. Lots of the small publishers have a deal where any creator can get at-cost copies for resale like that, but then there's no other royalty on those sales. And since the creator list includes the editor and cover artist as well, there's a chance that large numbers of your work get sold without you seeing any reward other than a healthy circulation.

Some authors I know have a nice sideline in taking copies of their books to such places - especially the ones where they can double as a guest and get a free table. Shifting say 100 books with a profit of $3.50 a unit over a weekend isn't too shabby.




There's an art to longer-form stories. The techiniques vary from writer to writer. I generally power all the way through to the end then crawl over it again at least a couple of times, with a few weeks break in between.




Avoid filler at all costs.

If a 60,000 word story seems too much for the story you're telling, look to four 15,000 word stories that link together. For World Class, story 1 is Keiko and Sean meeting and their first case together. Story 2 has some link to Keiko's past. Story 3 gives some emphasis on Sean's circumstances. Story 4 features the fight against the bad guy who's been behind it all from the start. Or similar. That was the book has sections, each of which is a novella in its own right, all of which lock together into a complete narrative.