Since I started taking my professional novelist ambitions seriously many well-meaning folks have asked when my books will be out. I'm grateful that people have shown interest in my work. I also advise those people to stoke their enthusiasm for the next several years.
Taking an idea from draft to finished manuscript to publication usually takes a long time. Published author's I've consulted say that the average is about five years. This means that some authors get published in a year. For every first year prodigy, someone else waits ten years.
It takes me about six months to write a novel draft. I go through a minimum of three drafts before I start to think that my work might be fit for public consumption. Each draft goes out to beta readers from whom I get as much feedback as possible before re-drafting.
When editing devolves into aimlessly pushing words around the page, I've done all that my petty skills allow. It's then time for agent queries and possibly a few direct publisher submissions. I don't approach many publishers directly because:
1. Few publishers even accept unagented submissions these days.
2. Those few publishers who do allow open submissions still give top priority to projects from agents they've done business with before.
3. The stigma that writers making unagented submissions weren't good enough to land agents.
4. Publishers are far less likely to buy a manuscript rejected from their slush pile (which it almost certainly will be) even if an agent represents it later.
5. It is extremely poor form to submit the same MS to multiple publishers at once. It can be career-ending to get caught.
I'm focusing most of my efforts on querying agents. It's generally okay to query more than one at a time if you promptly inform the others when one accepts you. Agents who say they're taking on new clients will only add one or two at most, but those odds are still better than in the slush pile.
The good news is that I've been hard at work querying agents. Most have replied via form letter, which is neutral. The few personalized rejections have only been encouraging. To my surprise, no one in the industry has yet labeled me an illiterate hack.
Once again I ask your kind patience. Delayed gratification is the best gratification.
Showing posts with label electronic publishing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label electronic publishing. Show all posts
Monday, March 18, 2013
Monday, January 23, 2012
Practical E-Book Justice
Norman Spinrad has a compelling article over at SFWA that addresses a number of pertinent subjects, including the obligatory dire warning over the demise of brick and mortar book stores and the perennial "pusblishers used to care about art" rebuke. However, what intrigued me most about Spinrad's post was the scenario he presented about how the ongoing e-book revolution could radically shift relations between publishers, best-selling authors, and mid-list authors.
It breaks down like this: most traditional literary contracts offer writers 25% royalties on e-book sales. By contrast, Amazon and Barnes & Noble offer 70% (albeit without advances). The only thing keeping major best-selling authors loyal to traditional print publishers is the fact that print books still outsell digital copies. However, it's not too hard to imagine a very near future in which book sales are split 50/50 between print and electronic markets. When that happens, Spinrad argues, major best-selling authors will have it in their best interests to self-publish the digital versions of their books at 70% royalties because they simply don't need advances to finance their work. They can also turn around and sell the print rights separately to a traditional publishing house for a lessened but still substantial advance. This new dynamic could cause a mass exodus of top talent from traditional publishers, who will be made reliant upon their remaining mid-list authors to survive.
Spinrad defines a mid-list author as a writer who can consistently sell ten to twenty thousand copies a year--not enough to make the best-seller lists, but sufficient to keep a beleaguered publishing company on life support. That is, unless, the mid-listers also decide to go into the online publishing business for themselves.
What can save the traditional publishers at this point? Spinrad suggests a reassessment of the industry standard 25% e-book royalty rate. Most publishers can't afford to match Amazon's 70% figure, but compromising on 50% should be enough to keep the midl-listers around while still eking out a profit.
And if traditional publishers reject the path of enlightened self-interest? Well, nothing's keeping companies like Google and Apple from throwing their hats into the epublishing ring, and if they do, they'll be poised to offer what Amazon and B&N currently don't: advances matching or exceeding those of print publishers.
It breaks down like this: most traditional literary contracts offer writers 25% royalties on e-book sales. By contrast, Amazon and Barnes & Noble offer 70% (albeit without advances). The only thing keeping major best-selling authors loyal to traditional print publishers is the fact that print books still outsell digital copies. However, it's not too hard to imagine a very near future in which book sales are split 50/50 between print and electronic markets. When that happens, Spinrad argues, major best-selling authors will have it in their best interests to self-publish the digital versions of their books at 70% royalties because they simply don't need advances to finance their work. They can also turn around and sell the print rights separately to a traditional publishing house for a lessened but still substantial advance. This new dynamic could cause a mass exodus of top talent from traditional publishers, who will be made reliant upon their remaining mid-list authors to survive.
Spinrad defines a mid-list author as a writer who can consistently sell ten to twenty thousand copies a year--not enough to make the best-seller lists, but sufficient to keep a beleaguered publishing company on life support. That is, unless, the mid-listers also decide to go into the online publishing business for themselves.
What can save the traditional publishers at this point? Spinrad suggests a reassessment of the industry standard 25% e-book royalty rate. Most publishers can't afford to match Amazon's 70% figure, but compromising on 50% should be enough to keep the midl-listers around while still eking out a profit.
And if traditional publishers reject the path of enlightened self-interest? Well, nothing's keeping companies like Google and Apple from throwing their hats into the epublishing ring, and if they do, they'll be poised to offer what Amazon and B&N currently don't: advances matching or exceeding those of print publishers.
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