publishing 101: small publisher, large publisher

It’s been hot here, NYC hot. Though I imagine NYC hot is related to Florida hot and other types of regional hot, I think NYC hot has a particular uncomfortable steaminess of its own. And it’s not as exciting as it sounds — more related to dew points, too much cement, and not enough trees. It’s even affected Thea. Yesterday, when we were walking, she begged me to take her into a supermarket. She already knows that superior cooling can be found amid the dairy aisle.

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.

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publishing 101: the secret — to getting published, that is

Someone recently contacted me with a question about getting started in book publishing — meaning, a general overview for those who want get published, but maybe aren’t to the point where they need the nitty gritty deets of contract negotiation, editorial process and so on. In other words, general advice on how to publish a book or a tarot deck.

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.

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publishing 101: literary agents — do you need one?

One of my recent posts about publishing flushed out a question about literary agents. In this day and age, literary agents do make it easier to get published. But do you have to have one to get published?

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.

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publishing 101: how does a book get sold?

Some believe there are two answers to this question:

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.

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publishing 101: the truth

Jane Yolen’s online journal, Telling the True, is also a favorite of mine (see Endicott Journal below). Jane Yolen is the illustrious author who has frequently been called a latter day Hans Christian Anderson. In her journal’s latest entry, she mentions the unfortunate reality that it’s become harder for midlist authors to have their books reviewed. And without reviews, books often are unable to be acquired by libraries — an important market for those who write children’s literature. It also makes it harder to have books picked up by retail markets.

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.

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