How To Get A Book Published - The Competition Is Bad In The Book Publishing Industry
- Posted by Essays Blog in Essays Blog |
- November 26th, 2009 |
- Comments
How to get a book published is a question every author asks themselves.
How difficult is it to get a book published by a commercial book publisher? Advantageously the odds are better gambling in Las Vegas. It has been estimated that 25 million people in the Agreed States consider themselves writers and only 5% have been published anywhere. At any one time 5 to 6 million manuscripts are looking for a publishing home.
Most major book publishing houses, and many bantam presses, will not accept submissions that aren’t represented by a literary agent. During the research of The Publishing Primer: A Blueprint for an Author’s Achiever, we asked literary agents how many uninvited query letters/proposals/distribution chapters, they receive. For the typical agency it is close to 5000 per year. On the average these agents accepted only 11 new clients, that’s about 1out of every 500 submissions.
Of course writers apply to more than one agency in the hopes of obtaining representation which makes the odds a little better, but not much.
It has been estimated that the five large book publishing companies, Random House Inc., Penguin USA, Simon & Schuster, Time Warner and HarperCollins, account for nearly eighty percent of all book sales in the US. This has occurred for the same reasons any other industry goes finished consolidation: by combining certain administrative or body functions, costs can be reduced and profits increased. Publishing, relative to many other industries, has not enjoyed a high Return on Investment (ROI) for investors. Now, book publishers are much more focused on having every single book they publish be profitable. This means a more risk averse philosophy, with a preference for publishing authors with booming belt records–a channel business strategy.
How to get a book published by a commercial book publisher isn’t an easy chore, but with perseverance and a good book you can do it.