The Publishing Process

By Rick Frishman - Oct 26 , 2007

Publishing a book is a long, complex, arduous, exacting, and expensive process. According to industry figures, 80 percent of the books published fail. One percent of all books sold account for 50 percent of all publishing company profits. It takes large publishing houses a year to two years to put out a book, and the average cost is $50,000 per title.

For the purposes of this discussion, let’s look at book publishing as having three major components. They are writers, literary agents, and publishers. Of course, there are many others involved in the book-publishing process, including editors, indexers, designers, production specialists, printers, sales personnel, publicists, warehousers, and shippers. And let’s not forget booksellers.

For our purposes though, we’ll consider the basic three. Ideally, we would like to think that writers, literary agents, and publishers are coequal partners that each carry an equivalent load and have the same importance. However, in reality, that’s not how it works.

In book publishing, a pecking order definitely exists, and the playing field is certainly not level. The differences are based on power. Publishers sit at the top above agents, and then writers.

Writers

Writers are the miners who descend into the depths to extract the basic ore that hopefully will turn out to be pure gold. They dig out the words and shape them into the content that feeds the publishing machine. Publishers take writers’ efforts, polish and refine them, package them into attractive formats, and distribute them. They’re also supposed to promote their books, but they don’t always do a very good job.

In the beginning of the publishing process, during the courtship period, a talented author who has something to say reigns supreme. Publishers and agents will covet and compete for talented authors.

In order to interest a publisher, writers—at the least—must show that they have:

1. An idea or approach that readers are likely to buy
2. The talent, dedication and discipline to write and deliver a book on time
3. The desire and ability to promote and support book sales

A writer must convince a publisher that his or her book will justify the large expenditures that the publisher must make.

In the publishing food chain, writers are plentiful. Sometimes, it seems that everyone wants to write a book. Fortunately, good, salable writers are in short supply, so if you have good ideas, are talented, and have commercial potential agents and publishers will generally show interest.

Fiction vs Nonfiction

Books fall into two primary categories: fiction and nonfiction. Although the line separating them has been blurred, nonfiction is basically writing that discusses facts and actual events. Categories of nonfiction include history, psychology, philosophy, how-to, and explanatory works.

Fiction is writing that is not necessarily based on facts or events. In fiction, the facts or events may be invented, changed or further developed. A fictional book may be built on actual events around which imaginary scenarios have been created. Examples of fiction include novels, short stories, and plays.

The usual way nonfiction writers, especially those with no track records, attract publishers’ attention is by submitting book proposals. The vast majority of nonfiction books are bought on the basis of proposals.

Proposals don’t play the same role with works of fiction, especially for first-time authors. With fiction, agents and editors usually want to see the entire manuscript so they can assess the quality of the story and the author’s writing. So first-time novels and books of short stories and poetry are usually sold on the basis of a manuscript that the writer submits. Proposals do come into play for fiction writers when they want to sell subsequent fictional books.

First-time fiction writers should send queries to editors and agents that include an outline, a synopsis of their work, and sample chapters of the completed manuscript. In most cases, agents and editors prefer to read as much of fictional works as possible so they can make more informed acquisition decisions. Check with each agent and publisher to clarify exactly how much of your writing they want you to submit.

Many publishers won’t accept unsolicited manuscripts or proposals. Those that will, frequently toss them into what the industry calls the slush pile. Since so many writers hope to be published, slush piles usually climb to intimidating heights.

At publishing houses that accept unsolicited submissions, the most junior editors are assigned to read the manuscripts in slush piles. Usually, these editors are new hires who are often just out of school. They may be brilliant or even prescient, but they’re usually pretty inexperienced, and they’re always overworked and underpaid. So in most cases, your masterpiece will probably be read, or more likely skimmed, by a totally exhausted, bleary-eyed, irritable novice—at best. It’s not a pretty picture.

Although some literary agencies and publishing houses take pride in pulling gems from the slush, success via that route is a real long shot.