Certainly established e-published authors do it more often than not.  In a perfect world, an author who publishes with more than one publisher helps create crossover sales for both the author and for his or her publishers.

In this imperfect world, what are the advantages and disadvantages of having more than one publisher?  We’ll take it as a given that you intend to increase your sales and royalties by considering the idea.

Advantages

Insurance. It is a good thing to have more than one established relationship with publishers.  Guidelines change, publisher release schedules get overbooked, sales can soar or plummet at one house.  Even if you have a great rep with one publishing company, that doesn’t mean your rep will spread to other places if you aren’t in that other place.  It doesn’t hurt to let other publishers know what you can do as long as you can establish a good reputation there.  And having two or more royalty checks coming in can be very nice.

New Opportunities. You may have a book you want to release that would never work for your usual publisher or the chance to work with an editor or another author that you can’t do with your usual publisher.  If you think you would thrive with that additional opportunity, give it a try.

Disadvantages

Overscheduling and underscheduling.  Not only can you have issues when your publisher or you need to change a date for one book and it impinges on another publisher’s schedule, but your name can end up being overexposed.  There is no magic formula for how often an author should have a new release in e-publand but if you are steadily releasing a book a month – or even less – you need to remember readers tend to be on a budget.  No matter how much they love you, they buy only so many books a month.  And that’s assuming your creativity or your body doesn’t get burned out from doing so much.

On the other hand, if you are a slow writer, writing one book every two or three years for a publisher makes it hard to establish an audience there.  That’s print speed, not e-pub speed.

Contract conflicts.  You may end up locked into working with one publisher for all future works or all future works in a certain genre or length if you sign a contract with them.

Going to the wrong publisher.  It’s fine to have multiple publishers but think about why you are going to a particular publisher.  If they are well-known for releasing books in the genre you want to write, if they pay well and on time, if they offer opportunities you can’t get with the publisher you usually go to – all of those are valid reasons to submit.  Change for the sake of change…maybe think about that carefully in combination with the overscheduling and contract conflict issues.

Establishing a Bad Rep with More than One Publisher.  If you can't prioritize, juggle and do what you need to do for more than one publisher, you've just trashed your rep in at least two places.

Thinking about why you are submitting to one publisher rather than another before you do it is always smart.  The bottom line is what will promote your career best.

Treva Harte
www.loose-id.com