Our local NBC news affiliate recently featured Publish Yourself! in a short piece. It’s an interesting take on  how easy it is to get a book in print, though the piece offers little regarding the realities of book distribution. As my literary agent would say, publishing is more than just printing up books.

Click here to view the Publish Yourself! video

The Times article presents some facts that might be useful to anyone considering self publishing or, as it’s called in the industry, micropublishing. For example, the vast majority of people who self publish sell less than 200 copies of their books — a good explanation for why these small book runs are called micropublishing. It is assumed that these books find their ways into the libraries of friends and family, rather than into bookstores and other retail outlets. By comparison, the average trade industry book needs to sell anywhere from 10,000 to 25,000 copies to financially break even for the publisher and author.

From the Times:

“‘As publishing has become less expensive, the urge to write my own self has become the opportunity to publish my own self,” said Gabriel Zaid, a Mexican critic and the author of “So Many Books: Reading and Publishing in an Age of Abundance,” a meditation on literary life in an over-booked world. Today, he added, “Everyone now can afford to preach in the desert.’”

Yes, they can afford to. But should they?

Here’s my measured response: It depends.

If you just want to see your book printed under any circumstances, then micropublishing is a wonderful tool. It’s a rare example of instant gratification in the delayed gratification world of publishing, where creating a book can be insanely slow. I mean, it can take years to just place a book with a publishing house, let alone finally see your words in print and on a book shelf. Aside from the issue of time, there are some books which may not have the market available to make a commercial print run feasible. Nonetheless, they deserve to be in print.

However, if you’re looking for something more — fame, fortune, a career as an author or illustrator — then self publishing is problematic for numerous reasons. Printing a book is not the same as publishing a book. Plus once you have books printed, you still have to deal with the industry bugaboo of distributing and selling them. In other words, self publishing is definitely not a case of “if you build it, they will come.”

But that’s a subject for a whole other post on another day.

To read more about self publishing in The New York Times Book Review article, click here.

It’s easy to give people the basics. But what about those who have sold their first book or two? Where do they go from there? Or, in these competitive times, should they just be thankful to be published?

My two cents: be grateful for all you’ve accomplished — and aim to grow. With this in mind, here is a short guide for actually thriving (not just surviving) as a children’s book illustrator.

Promote yourself. If you were an agent for another artist, how hard would you market their work to other publishing houses? Most likely harder than you are promoting your own art right now. Most people (myself included) have a real block when it comes to getting out there with their work. After all, we’d all rather be in the studio working than deal with the business end of things. A good exercise in getting past this is to pretend you’re marking someone else’s work, an incredibly successful and gifted artist. Now, what would you do?

Feel the difference? This is how hard you should be marketing yourself.

Are you sending out mailers regularly? By regularly, I mean three or four times a year, not every decade. Make sure your mailing list is up-to-date. I prefer the Literary Marketplace (LMP for short) because I find it more accurate. Read Publishers Weekly to see what editors are moving where, which houses are actively acquiring books. Get on the phone and call a publisher to find out what editor acquired a book you love. Confab with your colleagues with the biz — if you don’t know any, join SCBWI. However you do it, do it. How else will editors and art directors find you?

What about your website? Does it accurately reflect your current work? Is it professional looking? Can art directors and editors easily contact you via it? Give at least two ways to contact you, in case one way isn’t working. E-mail goes down, phone lines go kaplooey — but your business doesn’t have to.

And don’t forget school and library appearances and book signings. They’re all good ways to to gain publicity for your work, and are a good antidote to artist’s isolation. Some illustrators make a nice income from school appearances alone — but that’s a whole other subject.

Expand your markets. It’s tempting to work with only one publisher, especially if they were the one to discover your work. Loyalty is a wonderful quality, especially in monogamous relationships. In authors, it cuts both ways. The realities of publishing preclude a house from publishing more than one of your books a year at the very most. Average book advances being what they are, can you really afford to do that? Plus, what if there were delays while you’re working on a book? Would it be good to have another book to work on while you wait?

These are only some of the reasons I think illustrators should work with more than one publisher.

Diversify! As a children’s book illustrator, you have a unique position of being able to sell yourself as an illustrator of manuscripts and as an author. If you are marketing yourself only as one of these, you’re missing half your income.

To sit around and wait for an editor to find you a manuscript is unfair to your art. It also makes the editor responsible for your career — you probably know better than others what book you’d like to illustrate. Likewise, it’s foolish not to work on someone else’s manuscript because you didn’t write it. A book is a book and will only help your career grow.

Some illustrators feel unable to write for publication. One solution for these woes is common property material. Common property is when the copyright expires on published material, meaning it can be reused without paying the author. Dover Books bases their entire list on repackaging common property material. Grimms Fairy Tales, Blue Fairy Book, and much more are common property.

You can also think of ideas for books and propose them to a publisher. My first two books, Rapunzel and The Firebird were sold from proposals and sample illustrations; my editor then found someone to write the manuscript to accompany my art.

Crossmarket your art. I hope you’re not abandoning your book art in your flat files after it’s returned to you from the publisher. There are other markets awaiting it!

Greeting card companies often use children’s book art. Some pay a flat fee, while others pay a royalty based on sales. All will include sample cards to you as part of your agreement, which is a great way to get art mailers. If your artwork is suitable, there’s also posters, calendars and day books, even novelty mugs and plates. Whether you like her work or not, Mary Engelbreit has based an entire merchandising empire on these principles.

One caveat: Make sure to reserve merchandising rights when you negotiate your book contracts. Most publishers don’t mind, since they rarely exercise them. If there is an issue, sometimes this is because publishers fear competing products — you can clarify in your contract that these rights will only be exercised if they do not materially interfere with the publisher’s selling of your book.

There’s also the fine art world, if you feel you can part with your originals. Every Picture Tells a Story is only one gallery specializing in book illustration — there are others, as well as museums actively acquiring. If you do decide to sell your original art, make certain that you have a high quality scan or transparency of it. That way you can always reproduce it in the future.

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Have a question about publishing, writing or illustrating books you’d like answered on Publishing 101? Send it to Kris: e-comment at artandwords dot com.

Technorati Tags: publishing, picture book art, children’s books, children’s book illustrators

You ask for how information on how to sell your book to a publisher. Well, I have to be honest: It’s not easy. I know that everyone has a story about someone they know who met an editor at a party and they got their book published like that. Sorry, exception to the rule. Ditto for J.K. Rowling.

But just because it’s hard to sell a book with a publisher doesn’t mean it’s not possible.

The not-so-good news: The publishing industry has changed dramatically since I started working in it well over a decade ago. Children’s books have gotten more commercial and celebrity driven — all those Harry Potters have made publishers hungry for the big book that will make a lot of money. It used to be that children’s book publishers would be satisfied if a book broke even at 5,000 to 10,000 copies. Not any more. Publishers could also rely on selling a good portion of books to schools and libraries, but budget cuts have changed this. Selling to schools and libraries gave publishers the freedom to acquire books that spoke to a niche demographic, or were clearly educational. Again, not anymore.

Children’s book publishing these days is all about how well it sells in the chains, such as Barnes and Nobles or Borders. It gets more complicated since chains often order large quantities and then return said large quantities if they don’t sell within a 90 day window, which really wrecks a publisher’s bottom line. Publishing is one of the few industries where the product can be returned; usually they can’t be repurposed (ie: sold elsewhere) because they’re paper products and usually don’t hold up for repeated sellings. So that means books get remaindered or, worse, destroyed and the publisher is out of pocket. And yup, there’s Amazon, but that’s a whole other complicated issue.

Suffice to say that publishers have become more cautious. They try to publish books that they’re sure (as much as they can be!) will sell a lot of copies. These days, they’ll even consult with a Barnes and Noble rep before deciding to acquire a book from an author.

So why am I presenting you with all this doom-and-gloom? Is it to discourage you? It may seem that way, but that’s really not my style. I simply want you to understand what you’re up against, so you’ll understand the following:

Your book has to be the best it can possibly be before you send it to an publisher or a literary agent.

Make this your mantra. Publishers don’t care if your family or your child’s class likes your book. They don’t care that you’ve always wanted to write a children’s book. They care that they can sell your book, that there’s a market for it, that it’s good.

What do I mean by good? Look at children’s books that move you. Try to analyze what makes them work, what elevates them into essential contributions to children’s literature. Writing a good picture book or children’s novel is an art onto itself. Spend some time at your local children’s bookstore or library to familiarize yourself with the classics. Talk to the people who work there, who are passionate about children’s books. Some people think that because a children’s book is shorter it’s easier to write than a book for adults — not true.

Workshop with other children’s book writers. Join the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (or SCBWI for short). They have programs, workshops and resources for those just getting into the biz to those who are already published authors. Just about everyone I know in the industry belonged to SCBWI at one time or another.

Educate yourself about the industry. One good website about children’s publishing is Harold Underdown’s site at http://www.underdown.org. He’s also written The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Publishing Children’s Books, an essential guide to children’s books which has been recently updated. (Don’t be discouraged by the title - you’re not an idiot!)

It’s great that you’re aware of similar books to your’s. This gives you the knowledge you need to shape your book differently — different focus, different structure, different pov. There are lots of books on your subject matter, so clearly there’s a market for them.

You mentioned hiring an illustrator for your picture book. Just so you know, you don’t need any illustrations to sell a picture book to a publisher. That’s the publisher’s job. But if you like, you can set up your manuscript as a 32 page book dummy on white paper; just indicate with words where you want the art to go. If you want to illustrate the book yourself, then just include one or two sample pieces of art.

In regards to setting up a book dummy, most picture books are 32 pages in length — sometimes 24 or 48, but that’s unusual. One classic book which describes how picture books are created is Uri Schulevitz’s Writing with Pictures: How to Write and Illustrate Children’s Books. It’s really written for illustrators, but writers of picture books can take away a lot here too.

Once you know that your book is (a) as good as it can be and (b) has a market, then you’re ready to send it out to a publisher! And that’s a whole other ball of wax.

There’s information on how to sell a book to a publisher here and here and here.

I hope you find this helpful! Good luck to you.

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Have a question about publishing, writing or illustrating books you’d like answered on Publishing 101? Send it to Kris: e-comment at artandwords dot com.

Technorati Tags: publishing, children’s books, writing children’s books

The question:

Do you know of a comprehensive list (even if I have to buy it) that lists the publishers that will accept children’s nonfiction book proposals? I have Children’s Market and Writer’s Market, but I thought there might be another source.

My answer:

Yup, there’s Children’s Market, Writers Market and the LMP (Literary Marketplace). However, I find them useful only as a backup to my own market research. Generally speaking, by the time these books are in print, they are already dated — the market moves quickly. I also find that they’re often inaccurate. For example, when I worked as a children’s book designer, we’d often get proposals which were obviously addressed from the Children’s Market. How did I know? The editor-in-chief’s name was spelled incorrectly in it. It was a tip off to us that this was someone who relied on a book rather than industry knowledge.

There’s no substitute for going to a bookstore and seeing who’s publishing what. Once you find a publisher you think would be receptive to your proposal, then go check out Children’s Market. Better yet, skip the books and go directly to the publisher’s website for submission information and doublecheck it against the Literary Marketplace.

Another good resource: Harold Underdown’s site at the Purple Crayon. He keeps a page which lists what editors are moving where and why.

Good luck!

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Have a question about publishing, writing or illustrating books you’d like answered on Publishing 101? Send it to Kris: e-comment at artandwords dot com.

Technorati Tags: publishing, how to sell a book to a publisher, children’s book publishers

Heat or no, I’m trying to keep as focused as possible on the NB*. I am making some progress and have a first draft of the book design (though it is watered with humidity). Thankfully, when I woke this morning, an evening thundershower had worked some magic. And now life is much more comfortable. I can work again without the idée fixe of “I’d like some iced coffee to cool off” running through my brain every five minutes.

And on that note, back to some publishing chat. In a recent post about literary agents, I mentioned that you might not need one in the following circumstances:

1. You’re a children’s book illustrator.

2. You have a book that speaks to a specialized audience: academic, technical presses, literary fiction, and so on.

3. You want to be published by a smaller publishing house.

So, if you’re an emerging author seeking to sell a book, why deal with the vagaries of literary agents and large houses if you can diy it? Which brings me to today’s topic: the advantages and disadvantages of large and small publishing houses.

I’m fortunate to have been published by both large and small houses. Much as I hate to admit the passing of the years, I’ve been a published author for almost two decades. When I first started out way back when, I had the romantic notion of “I only want to work with one publisher. I will be loyal to them. They will be loyal to me. We will publish together forever and win Caldecotts.” (Ah, youth!)

And I was fortunate. My first publisher was my dream publisher, one I’d long wished to work with. But time and three books passed. Reality hit: What if I wanted to do a different type of book than what my publisher could produce? Did I only want to illustrate children’s picture books, as wonderful as they may be?

Whatever I write here is based on my personal experiences. Since much depends on the author, the house, and the book, your mileage may vary. Or, in other words, though I am attempting to generalize, it’s not possible to generalize.

With these caveats, here goes:

SMALL PUBLISHER

Advantages:

~ Often times open to new authors, so easier to break into.

~ Personalized attention. Since they’re only produced a small number of books, they handpick each one carefully. They tend to be more involved with directly promoting each title.

~ Generally speaking, you know who you’re dealing with. With only a handful of editorial forces, you won’t be dealing with a revolving door of personnel — usually the acquiring editor is also the line editor and so on. You won’t be negotiating your way around publishing committees, book cover meetings and so on.

~ Things seem to move faster. Smaller list = easier to schedule books. Less editorial staff = less time “herding cats”, as my mother-in-law would say.

Disadvantages:

~ Lack of financial force. This pertains to your advance (which may be nil) to their ability to properly promote and distribute the book.

~ Lack of distribution. Their sales force may be limited and can only do so much for your book. Or they may be relying on a third party distributor to get your book to market. Unfortunately, these companies have been going belly up of late. (See McSweeney’s for a cautionary tale of how this affects small publishers.)

~ Though you may get personalized attention when promoting your book, they may not be able to pay for a book tour or to advertise your book. Which will affect how widely your book saturates the market.

~ Sometimes there’s just a lack of professionalism — not all small houses, just some. They’re a bit off the publishing mainstream, unaware of what’s going on in the bigger burgs. So things may be done in a “this is how we do it” way that bears little resemblance to industry standards. I’ve seen this especially in contracts from small publishers, which can have some very strange clauses that are not in an author’s interest to endorse.

~ I hate to say this, but I’ve had problems getting paid by small publishers — not all, but some. Royalties are delayed or paid in a casual fashion. And since you’re dealing one-on-one with them, it’s hard to not allow personal feelings get in the way. I mean, people who work in publishing tend to be nice people who are passionate about publishing. They’re not bad, just overextended. But if you want to make a living as an author . . . need I write more?

After writing all this, it must make the pluses and minuses of large publishers implicitly apparent. But just in case, here are some additional points:

LARGE PUBLISHER

Advantages:

~ You are dealing with a well-oiled machine. They know how to publish books and they do it well.

~ You’ll get paid. You’ll get an advance. You’ll be able to support yourself.

~ Superior distribution. A dedicated sales force means that they’ll also know how to place your book in special sales (catalogs, stores outside of bookstores). They’ll also have tight relationships with chain store buyers, like Barnes and Nobles.

~ They have the money to advertise and promote your book.

Disadvantages:

~ May only acquire books from authors who have been previously published or have literary representation. So harder to place a book with them.

~ They can be a little impersonal at times, but it’s business. (Actually this is a plus in some ways, unless you’re an author that likes a lot of handholding. Less time-consuming to deal with.)

~ With so many books being published, it’s easier for your book to be lost within the crowd unless your editor champions you specifically.

~ Big publishing generally works years ahead of time when acquiring books. This can leave your book a little vulnerable to change. Editors leave and you could be “orphaned”, a term used to describe when an author has lost her acquiring editor; though you’ll be assigned a new editor, it’s usually not the same. Or imprints get snapped up by even bigger publishers, like fish in a pond. When this occurs, books are often cancelled (though you’ll get to keep the advance, it’s still upsetting) or lost in a later list with a perfunctory publication (which means your book will quickly go out of print).

So that’s that. Notice that there’s another possibility I haven’t discussed here: what if you’re an author who doesn’t want a publisher at all? These days, it’s not so hard to self-publish a book using a POD (print-on-demand) service — or is it?

Well, that’s a subject for another post. Stay tuned!

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*New Book recently acquired by Broadway Doubleday. Due to be published in October ‘08. Which is relatively soonish.

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Have a question about publishing, writing or illustrating books you’d like answered on Publishing 101? Send it to Kris: e-comment at artandwords dot com.

Technorati Tags: publishing, small publishers, large publishers, how to choose a publisher

There’s many things I can suggest, but not enough room or time to do them justice on this forum. What follows is some advice adapted from my faq page on this site.

Before I launch into this, please remember that many, many talented people want to be published — unfortunately, more than all the publishing houses combined in the world can hope to ever publish.

With that preface, here’s the secret to getting published:

Persistence is more important than talent.

Simple, huh? And no law of attraction involved (though magical thinking can get you through many a crisis of confidence).

Rejection is part of the game. When it occurs, you get up, brush yourself off, and keep going. Don’t let your hurt feelings get in the way.

And, most importantly, learn from rejection. Take your rejection letters as a gift. Embrace them. Look upon them as an offering from the School of Hard Knocks. Hard as rejections may be to accept, they are giving you valuable information — though it may not be the information you’d like to hear. After all, it’s far nicer to get kisses and kudos than a zeroxed form letter beginning “Your manuscript does not meet our editorial needs. . .”

In my experience, book rejections tend to fall into two categories:

1. Inappropriate or inadequate/oversaturated market. Have you sent your project to an appropriate publisher? Don’t waste your time — or an editor’s time — by sending a children’s book to an adult house, or a tarot deck to a paperback house.

Is there an audience for your project? In other words, is there a market that will purchase it? Is it novel or last year’s news? (Crass, I know. But publishers are in the business of selling books, so they can stay in business.)

2. Quality. It’s a harsh question to consider, but your project is as good as it can be? It’s difficult to be honest with ourselves when we’ve worked so hard for so long on something. We’re simply too close, too in love. But if you’re getting rejections on a project, then maybe it’s worth considering if there’s room for improvement. Or that your project isn’t as compelling as you think.

Take the time to workshop your book. Don’t just show it to your best friend who will be supportive no matter what. That’s a wonderful blessing, but that type of feedback is for when you’re starting a project — not when you’re getting ready to present it to editorial forces. Carefully choose to show your manuscript to those who have been there, know the biz, can give you genuinely helpful information.

Be merciless yet nurturing of your project — a tricky balance, but necessary. I think of it as balancing the Dionysian with the Apollinian.

Obviously, there are times when the reasons for rejections don’t fall neatly into these two categories. We’ve all heard of stories where books were passed on by 23 publishers and then went onto superstar bestsellerhood. Some times it’s simply a matter of timing — a book may be brilliantly written, but it may be ahead (or behind) the time.

And here’s one last simple but important tip: When it comes to selling a book, it’s better to send one pristine submission to a one appropriate publisher than a dozen bad ones happenstance. Take the time to research your market. Find out which editors are buying and why. As mentioned in a previous post, recent book deals are often mentioned in Publisher’s Marketplace and Publisher’s Weekly. They offer a wealth of valuable inside information.

Other resources I like: Harold Underdown’s Purple Crayon website (Harold is the author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Publishing Children’s Books), Publisher’s Weekly, Jeff Herman’s Writer’s Guide to Book Editors and Literary Agents. There’s also The Literary Marketplace (known in the industry as the LMP, available at most local libraries). I’d avoid the Writer’s Market. True story: When I read slush at a major publisher, I could easily tell submissions which were sent to us using Writer’s Market information. It was easy: They all misspelled our editorial director’s name, since that’s how it was spelled in the WM. So, if you do use the WM, doublecheck it against the LMP.

After writing all this, you can see why the secret to getting published is persistence. Writing (or illustrating) your book is only the first step!

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Have a question about publishing, writing or illustrating books you’d like answered on Publishing 101? Send it to Kris: e-comment at artandwords dot com.

Technorati Tags: publishing, how to get published, how to sell a book to a publisher, the secret

Here’s my wishy-washy answer: Yes and no.

On the “yes” side:

1. You can get published without a literary agent. But not everywhere. Generally speaking, most large established publishers refuse to consider book submissions unless they are represented by an agent.

2. Which means that many smaller houses (which may be very established and venerable in themselves) are open to unrepresented authors. To smaller houses, add specialty markets: academic, technical presses, literary fiction, and so on. However, they may not offer the distribution and financial muscle that a larger house does.

(The advantages and disadvantages of large versus small publishing houses is worthy of a separate post.)

3. Children’s book illustrators can often get published without agent representation. Even if a publisher will not consider unsolicited picture book manuscripts, they usually will look at illustration portfolios, which usually include book dummies with manuscripts and the like.

On the “no” side:

1. See above. You cannot get published without a literary agent at the majority of established publishers. Why? It takes too much time and money to wade through the “slush” pile for that rare diamond in the haystack. (How’s that for mixing metaphors?)

Is this unfair? Perhaps. But I can tell you that based on my short-but-not-so-sweet experience reading unsolicited manuscripts, maybe one (or less) in one hundred manuscripts are worth showing to an acquisitions editor. Sobering, isn’t it?

2. Literary agents provide editors with a valuable service as acting as a gatekeeper by prescreening manuscripts for them. And publishing houses don’t have to pay agents a wage, unlike editorial assistants or a freelance readers.

3. Literary agents earn a fee based on the sale of the book; generally speaking, 15% of the book advance. (In the interest of public service, let me add that a reputable literary agent will never ever charge a reading fee or a fee for representation. Ever. If they do, run far, far away.)

Accordingly, it’s in the agent’s interest to only represent manuscripts that they believe have a serious chance of reaching print and will command a serious advance. Otherwise, they are wasting their time as well as the editor’s. Waste an editor’s time = lose professional credibility = not make money. Not smart to do if an agent wants to stay in business.

So where does that leave the aspiring author or illustrator who wants to sell their first book? Here are a few questions to help you decide whether you need a literary agent or not.

~ What type of book you want to get into print? Children’s picture book? Scholarly bio? Nonfiction with a highly specialized market? Or are you writing a potboiler novel with wide mass appeal?

~ What type of publisher do you want to publish your book? Check out their submission guidelines. Large house with many imprints? Small literary house? Academic press?

~ Where do you see your career going — one book in a lifetime or a lifetime as an author? Do you simply want to see your book in print? Or are you looking for a black swan of a payout?

These are but a few of the factors to consider when deciding if you need a literary agent. Once you do decide, proceed accordingly.

For additional info, here’s an inside look at how an agent decides to sign an author and more.

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Have a question about publishing, writing or illustrating books you’d like answered on Publishing 101? Send it to Kris: e-comment at artandwords dot com.

Technorati Tags: publishing, literary agents, getting published

1. You mail your manuscript/book proposal to a publisher, wait a while, and then receive a contract in the mail.

2. You mail your manuscript/book proposal to a publisher, wait a while, and then receive a rejection letter in the mail.

In other words, it’s sort of like college. Either you get the thin envelope or, if you’re really lucky, the thick one. Right?

Not so fast — it’s more complicated than that. And Harold Underdown, the creative force behind The Purple Crayon*, has resolved to demystify the acquisitions process for us.

Acquisitions, in publishing speak, is the term used when a book is purchased for publication. I’m not sure why — maybe it sounds more important that way? On a related note, an editor who buys books is called an acquisitions editor. They differ from editorial assistants, assistant editors, copy editors, managing editors and any other type of editorial whatever — but that’s grist for another post.

Harold’s article “The Acquisition Process: From Submission to Contract” clearly points out all the stages that a manuscript passes through before it is acquired. Some might consider them similar to stations of the cross, since selling a book can take so very long and be so frustrating to the author-in-waiting.

He makes this very important point:

“Trade publishers get their possible future books sent to them through the submissions process and must choose between them. For those publishers, publishing begins with acquisition and depends upon it. Acquisition for a publisher is like planting seeds for a farmer, or creating new models for a car manufacturer: without it there would be no products to sell in the future, and therefore no income. And that begins to explain why publishers are so careful about what they acquire, and take so much time over it.

“Committing to publish one book means committing to spending or otherwise investing thousands of dollars in advances, staff time, plant costs, paper/printing/binding costs, marketing expenses, and the like, with income from the book not expected for at least a year (in the case of a ready-to-publish novel) and possibly not for several (for a picture book with an illustrator who can’t start right away, for example). A publisher must be sure that an acquired book fits within their budget. It must also fit within their list: most companies plan on a certain number or novels and a certain number of picture books per season, for example.

“Choosing the “wrong” book–one that will not, in the end, succeed–means losing not only the money spent on that book, but also losing the opportunity to acquire a different book . . . A publisher attempts to find the safer bets though a careful acquisition process.”

In other words, it’s not about you. It’s about them -- the publisher, the powers-that-be, the folks who pay the printer and sell the books. As an author, it’s sometimes easy to focus only on the other side of the fence. Your book may be the most wonderful thing since sliced bread. But if it doesn’t fit into a publisher’s list, if they can’t promote it effectively to make money off it, it’s not in their interest to publish it. Period.

My experiences with the acquisition process has been that it really varies by publisher. Some houses are remarkably decisive and will make a book offer within days. I’ve had this happen to me; it was breathtakingly exciting and surprising. There’s nothing like picking up the phone to hear your agent tell you good news.

Others are incredibly slow. One well-known art publisher took well over a year to decide to publish one of my book. During this time, I was asked to revise the manuscript, submit marketing plans, have various discussions with the editor; on the editorial side, they ran the book past several publishing committees, marketing departments and even their Barnes and Noble buyer. Talk about jumping through hoops! By the time that book was acquired, I felt like a well-trained circus animal.

But even after a positive decision has been made, there are other hurdles to master. Contracts negotiations can take time, as each party — author and publisher — parry for favorable terms. It can take months for contracts to be signed, advances (if there is one) to be paid.

Again, the style of the negotiations varies by publisher. Most houses are willing to meet you halfway on most points and will address your concerns fairly. Others will refuse to budge on anything and have a “take it or leave it” stance. These are publishers where it makes little difference if you have a literary agent or consult with the Author’s Guild. They treat everyone the same, for better and worse. It can be tempting to walk away, if the terms are too unappealing or the negotations too unpleasant. Sometimes it’s worth doing so, if you think you can sell the project to a more author-friendly house.

But in any case, the end result is the same. Books are acquired and published. They go forth into the world to meet their individual fates. Life — and art — goes on.

You can read the rest of Harold’s article here.

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*The Purple Crayon is an incredibly rich resource for anyone interested in publishing — illustrators, authors and editors. Though the website primarily concerns itself with children’s books, much of the information offered is applicable to trade publishing in general. There’s also a great selection of publishing-oriented links.

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Have a question about publishing, writing or illustrating books you’d like answered on Publishing 101? Send it to Kris: e-comment at artandwords dot com.

Technorati Tags: publishing, how does a book get sold, book acquistions

So what is an author to do? Jane mentions blogs as one way authors are “taking the reins of the marketing pony” (her phrase, not mine), with a caveat: Sometimes telling the truth can have unexpected results for an author.

To see one example of what she means, check out this link here.

I suspect the post which prompted the writer’s cri du coeur has been taken down. And not surprisingly, considering that some anonymous poster has accused her of committing career suicide by mentioning that one of her books has gone OP (out of print in the biz).

Here’s the truth: Books go OP. To mention this isn’t suicide, it’s reality. A book going OP is not because of the author or illustrator most of the time. It’s the reality of publishing, which imho has been in flux the past few years.

More truth telling: Books have 90 days to make their mark on the shelves of Barnes and Noble (sometimes less) before next season’s list comes in to stake their claim. You know those books that are displayed face out on the end of aisles, the special displays? Usually publishers pay for those spots — they’re rented, like any slab of real estate. Publicists and marketing departments at publishing houses are often laden with more books that they can effectively promote. And without publicity, book sales shrivel up like a plant without water.

But there’s also good news. One recent survey I read mentioned that the chains (Barnes and Noble, Borders and the like) are only responsible for 55% of book sales, which is astonishing. This means that 45% of books are being sold via untraditional means, which are becoming more traditional these days, including online sales.

What does this mean for the average author? To survive in publishing, authors have to work hard to extend their markets for their books — which ties back a bit to what Jane wrote earlier regarding blogging.

I know that I’m still figuring out this brave new world, as are many other authors

ETA: Actually, it’s only 45% of book sales which are via chain bookstores. 55% of sales are through other sources. I doublechecked and found that I’d inverted the statistics. Even more astonishing, no?

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Have a question about publishing, writing or illustrating books you’d like answered on Publishing 101? Send it to Kris: e-comment at artandwords dot com.

Technorati Tags: publishing, selling books, out of print books, Jane Yolen, Barnes and Noble