The Truth about Book Publishing

But why is my book being rejected?

In this country, the big publishers each receive about 4-5,000 unsolicited fiction manuscripts a year. That’s around a hundred a week. Publishing is a competitive and low profit business. Perhaps only half of those were professionally presented and the rest get tossed. Of that 2,500, say, 98% will be rejected by the end of the first chapter.

That leaves about 50 manuscripts, and they’re the only ones which will get any kind of serious consideration. In a good year, ten of those might be published. In a bad year, less than five. The sad truth is most people who write a book will never get it published. Of over 1 million books published last year alone- about three quarters of them self-published.

These are the most common reasons that fiction manuscripts are rejected:

The writer simply can’t write
The writer has written a first draft and submitted it without bothering to edit it. No professional would submit a first draft;
The storyline and characters are directly recycled from well-known novels, TV shows, movies or computer games
It’s not a story, just a series of unrelated events; or it’s a polemic or rant, or a poorly disguised religious tract
It’s grossly violent, libelous, pornographic, depraved or offensive, or off-the-planet weird;
It’s not appropriate for the publisher you sent it to, or their publishing schedule is already full or
The public simply aren’t buying that kind of stuff at the moment.

The biggest problem for beginning writers is that no one tells you how the system works. There is so much talent out there, but there is also a lot of competition! It is less risky for a publishing house to publish a known, successful author (or public figure) who based on current controversy or name recognition will drive book sales, than it is to take a chance on a new author who will require a lot of marketing and publicity (cha-ching! It is expensive) to persuade readers to buy your new book. That is assuming, of course, that you are beautiful enough to put on TV! Yes, that is the harsh reality. If you are not beautiful, television publicity may not even be an option; It's just the way it works. The downside though of being young, beautiful and famous is that you tend to get dismissive, condescending publicity, often suggesting that you only got published because of your looks.

I got a contract but is that all I get?

Let's say you get a contract. When you finally get the advance, don’t spend it on something wasteful like food, clothing or rent. You’re going to need every penny to promote your book, because the chances are that no one else will.

An advance is just that- an advance against future royalties-and the author doesn't get any money from book sales until the advance has been earned back by royalties from sales. The advance is seldom more than half to two-thirds of what the publisher expects the book to earn in royalties. It is their insurance in case it does badly. For example, say the book retails for $15.00 plus tax, the author's royalty rate is 10% and the publisher expects to sell 5,000 copies (98% of all titles sell less than this). If it does, the book would earn the author $15.00 x 0.10 x 5000=$7500 in royalties. The publisher would normally offer an advance of between $3,750 and $5,000.

If you're writing children's fiction, advances are typically lower than the figures quoted above. The reason is kid's books sell for a lower price. Literary fiction, which may get the reviews and the awards but doesn't sell well, expect advances to be lower at maybe only $1,000 to $3,000.

Despite this policy, a lot of books don't earn back their advances. According to one Publishers Weekly survey of five large publishers, only one in ten of their fiction books make back their advance. Even among mid-sized publishers, as many as 60% of all general trade titles may lose money.

Recently, a writer with 50,000 regular readers of his column on the web site of the San Francisco Chronicle reflected on offers made to him by his agents and publishers: "The book deals they offered were not what they once were. There were no more big advances, and no national book reading tours with stays in swanky hotels. That whole idea has sort of vanished, has sort of gone away. There is no more marketing money."

The trouble getting self-published books into bookstores

Barnes & Noble policy is that a store can’t order a book for stocking (in their store shelves) or a special event (book signings) unless the book has been reviewed and accepted by a nationwide B&N buyer. Once it has, it will be listed in the store's computer. Barnes & Noble has a special arrangement with Lightning Source to list all its books in B&N’s computers however, the greater number of those books have not been reviewed and accepted. All the ones not accepted are prominently labeled in the computer as Print on Demand. It’s this label that identifies a particular book cannot be ordered for a special event such as book signings.

The Print on Demand label is there so any clerk in any Barnes & Noble store will know it can always be special ordered. This label is what puts the book into the store computer in the first place and makes it available for special ordering throughout the chain. Without that, any customer asking for the book would be told it was unavailable, or just “out of print.” Which is exactly what used to happen before B&N’s computers started listing POD books.

The reason for the lack of acceptance is most POD books are sold to booksellers with reduced discounts (supplier did not meet B&N's standard terms of sale) and with returns not allowed. This means B&N generally can't profit as much on a POD book as on others. So really it is not discrimination on the store's part, it's good business! Good news is, Barnes & Noble's Small Press Department is willing to consider any POD book offered on standard terms and which can be ordered from a major wholesaler. For details click here.

Wholesalers normally expect a 50-55% discount, pay in 60-90 days, and expect books to be returnable. Some expect free freight. Placing your book with a wholesaler also allows Barnes & Noble to place larger orders and put the book on automatic replenishment. POD books are typically distributed by Ingram- the largest wholesaler in the United States.

Now, if you are a self-published author, you must consider the financial consequence of agreeing to standard terms. Sometimes the cause doesn't justify the means. Now consider this:

In 2003 Barnes & Noble acquired Sterling Publishing. Barnes & Noble now has publishing or distribution rights to nearly 10,000 titles. For 60 years, Sterling has been one of the world's leading publishers of non-fiction books. I wonder what percentage of the store's inventory is supplied by what publisher... hmm... (Barnes & Noble Inc. has put its Sterling Publishing business up for sale, signaling a likely end to its decades-long involvement in the publishing of its own books...) If as a self-published author you sacrifice so much just to potentially get your book on the shelves of big chain bookstores, how can you now afford marketing? How is anyone at the store going to know your book is there?

The hard truth is, self-publishers have always had trouble getting books into bookstores, and especially into the chains. However, far from keeping self-publishers out, POD for the first time makes most self-published books obtainable through almost every bookstore in the U.S.

The Odds

Nielsen BookScan is a data provider for the book publishing industry, owned by the Nielsen Company. Nielsen BookScan compiles point of sale data for book sales. The Nielsen Company is a privately held global information and media company, and is one of the world's leading suppliers of marketing information, media information and TV ratings (Nielsen Media Research), online intelligence (Nielsen Online) and mobile measurement (Nielsen Mobile).

According to Nielsen Bookscan:

The average book in the United States sells about 500 copies.
95% of ALL book titles produced sell less than 1,000 copies.
79% of books sell less than 99 copies

Let's look at some scenarios. You write a 200 page book. It's priced at $19.95. You self-published professionally investing $3,500.00 and sell 500 copies yourself. After costs to print, you just made $7,525.00. If your books sold through online stores, after discounts you profit $2,038.75.

Now, same book, but say you get a publishing contract. Your publisher knows the statistics. He gives you an advance of 50% of expected earnings in royalties (10% of retail for expected sales of 1000 copies). That's $997.50. You won't receive royalty checks until your earnings exceed the $997 book advance. Mid-sized publishers have reported 60% of titles won't earn their advance.

Many factors (controversy, beauty and trend factors) will highly influence a publisher's marketing efforts including advertising, promotion and publicity. Most books aren’t going to sell enough copies to justify much more than the publisher's minimum expenditure in these efforts.

Don't do anything to market your book and you'll be in the 79% of titles that sell less than 99 copies category!

So what does this all mean?