I don’t know if you’re aware… but traditional, old school, publishers do absolutely nothing these days.
I’m not kidding.
They merely exploit already popular authors for their movie rights or exploit people who aren’t aware these publishers don’t do crap anymore and are over-excited because they think they’ve joined an exclusive big authors club.
Want an example?
…Of all the major publishers, Simon & Schuster is uniquely exploitative. They had previously revived the Star Trek Writing Contest to use it as a feeder pool for their vanity press, Archway Publishing, complete with cold calls where authors were pitched overpriced services, and now S&S has found a new way to gather in the lambs to be fleeced.
They are using the cover of NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writing Month, to launch a writing contest, and they even roped in the S&S writing community XOXO After Dark to lend an air of legitimacy to the contest.…
The problems with this contest are two-fold.
https://the-digital-reader.com/2018/03/15/simon-schsuters-vanity-press-launches-nanowrimo-writing-contest-exploit-authors/
The first problem is that the “winner” gets a book contract with S&S digital imprint, Pocket Star, as well as a measly $500 advance (David Gaughran found this in the fine print).
That is a terrible advance and an exploitative contract, but the larger problem is that this contest is run by the Author Solutions front company, Archway.
Contestants are required to submit their email and phone number to enter the contest, and Author Solutions is going to use that contact info to have telemarketers pitch over priced marketing and publishing packages
This is all traditional publishers do.
Exploit.
Do not fool yourself into thinking yourself or somebody else is a “real author” because they do business with an old publisher.
Please be careful out there.