That’s basically it. They also deal with business stuff, like rights and contracts, that authors know little about. If you did manage somehow to sell your book directly to a publisher, they would want you to hire an agent because they’d rather talk contract with a professional than an amateur.
It’s not a matter of belief or disbelief, some publishers accept your direct submissions in that they have a mailing address for them.
I’ve made no claims that they’ll give them as much thought as the tissue they wipe their nose with.
And I have no association or interest in the publishing business, real estate is my primary game.
Hari Seldon writes:
> Something like 22 publishers turned down Harry Potter.
Is there any way to get a definitive statement on the number of publishers that rejected the first Harry Potter book? I just did a search and I found a wide variety of numbers. Some of them are as small as 3. I didn’t find anyone else claiming as much as 22. I suspect the real answer is closer to 3. Are there even 22 British publishers who do children’s books? In any case, if I worked for a publisher, I wouldn’t feel bad about rejecting Harry Potter. It’s not bad, but it’s just not that great a series. All it shows is how random it is which books become popular.
Thanks to everyone for the responses.
I don’t mean to be secretive, but it is an idea that could easily be stolen. So, I will use an existing book as an example. Say I had an idea to publish the Darwin Awards books. My actual idea is a humor book also. I have a lot of time to dedicate to it if necessary, and I don’t think the idea requires me to me specifically qualified in any one area.
So, does one traditionally write the book first, or should you find someone to present the idea to to see if it is good enough? I hope I’ve answered your questions, and I’m sorry if I wasted anyone’s time. Thanks again.
Wrong. You actually have a fairly decent chance of getting a work of fiction published… if it’s GOOD. Something like 50% of manuscripts are rejected off the bat because the author didn’t put the book in standard manuscript format. Probably around 75% of those remaining are rejected because the author didn’t know the basics of the English language–if you’ve got misspellings and misplaced commas on the first page of your text, you’re just asking to be rejected by either an agent or a publisher. If you submit a manuscript of adequate quality and do it the right way and through the right channels, you have a very good chance of getting published eventually. It’s not like winning the lottery or getting struck by lightning.
I just hate when people point to how many manuscripts get run through the slush pile or the agent’s desk without considering that there may be very good reasons why a manuscript is rejected, and they don’t all have to do with publishers conspiring against the authors. It’s discouraging and it’s inaccurate.
Pretty much. But the money handling is hugely important. Not only do they take care of things like collecting/tracking royalties (and ordering audits of the publisher if necessary) and negotiating for rights you never even dreamed about, but they have a direct impact on how big your advance is. I know, from experience, that a good agent can start a handy bidding war between interested publishers and get you about 6 times what the original interested publisher offered. They also know more about what a particular publishing house tends to do to market a particular type of book–some throw heavy marketing muscle behind their acquisitions right from the get-go, others wait to see if a book takes off, and only THEN begin to seriously market it–and can help you choose the right house.
Of course, that’s all for a GOOD agent. Good agents are worth the 15%.
Two things to consider:
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When you’re done, fact-check the bejeezus out of it. The historicall fiction crowd is a rabid audience, but they’re ferociously unforgiving of mistakes. Hire some history professors to go over the thing to make sure your history is correct and the period details are correct (i.e., they really dressed like that, the word a character utters was actually in use at that time, etc.).
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Unless the themes are very mature (i.e., romance is fine, lurid sex scenes are not), consider the highly profitable Young Adult market. School librarians and teachers are always looking for historical fiction, and they hold a surprising amount of book purchasing/marketing power.
True, there are many things you should and should not do. But even good manuscripts, in the proper format, with proper English, etc., are very likely to be rejected by agents and publishers alike a good number of times. I know, personally, of authors whose books–one of which went on to win a Newbery award–were rejected by literally dozens of agents, and then by many publishers even after an agent was found.
Assuming your ms. is good (definitely a big assumption), there is still just a huge amount of personal preference and zeitgeist and coincidence involved in publishing. It sometimes just takes the right editor reading your pitch at the right time (say, when they’re looking for a particular type of book to fill out their list–after all, they have budgets and needs like any other shopper; you may want to buy a certain book at the bookstore but don’t have the cash because you just bought 6 others the day before; it doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with the seventh, just that the timing didn’t work out).
Be prepared to be rejected a lot. Don’t take it personally, but DO read what they say in their letters, in case your manuscript really truly does suck. Sometimes, rejection letters will tell you what’s wrong with your book. Sometimes, editors and agents also go batshit (I guess after reading 100 bad pitches in a day) and will go off on a tirade, telling you in exquisite detail what a moron you are. But more usual will be the near-form-letter rejection, which is hollow and disheartening. But keep at it. It just takes time and much bruising.
That’s what’s taking so long. When I started this project, I felt somewhat confident: hey, they always say write what you know. About ten pages into it, I realized how much I didn’t know. I wasn’t exaggerating much when I said I had to research almost every sentance. Luckily, I have dozens of books on the time period, and the internet has a lot of original documents from that time. ( will always have the memory of combing through a transcribed sixteenth centruy cookbook at four in the morning to see if a certain spice was used.)
Sex is about the only thing I don’t vividly describe. There isn’t much romance-- my main character is married as a teenager to an old man and only submits to the king because she must. My husband insists I ought to throw the poor girl a bone and give her a little bit of love, but, again, I want to stay realistic.
The other thing an agent does for you is to keep looking for alternative markets. Most authors sell the first rights to their book and stop. A good agent will look for overseas distribution, paperback rights, translations, audio book publishers…
Speaking directly to brickbacon now: You’re going to have to write the whole book before you can sell it. Odds are slim that someone will look at a few “Darwin Award”-style anecdotes and say, “here’s money…do more.” Especially with a new author, they want to see that you can produce an entire book.
Once you’re done, go to the local bookstore and look through their humor section. Pick the books most similar to what you’ve done and see who published them. That’s where you start. This is one market you can probably break without an agent.
Self-publishing is a possibility, but only if you’re willing to put an immense amount of time into promotion. I’ve done a couple of self-published books, and the amount of work it takes to sell 1,000 copies isn’t worth it. Sure, I make four or five times as much per book as with traditional publishing, but it’s ten times the work, not to mention the cost of printing, storage, and fulfilment.
Don’t even bother with vanity presses or POD. The book will be too expensive, and the bookstores won’t touch non-returnable, short-discount humor–especially with publishers like iUniverse. They use cheap cover paper, and if the book doesn’t sell in a few months, they’ll have to throw it out because the cover is curled.
There is no rhyme or reason as to those types of books. The Darwin Awards was a popular website so it had a track record, which you appear to lack. But other books of that type get published for reasons I cannot fathom.
What an editor or agent will want to see is evidence that you can put together a full book together. Your lack of qualifications may or may not make a difference - a lawyer doing a book of lawyer stories would have an advantage, e.g. - but your ability to find material, organize it, and write it is will matter greatly. So you would want to have the book pretty ready to go before submission or at least know where to get any other needed material quickly, especially if the editor wanted more or less of something or a different slant or whatever.
On ideas: if your idea is so obvious and so easy to do that someone could steal your idea and beat you to an editor with it, then it’s probably already been done or been rejected. Are there any documented cases of someone putting forth an idea on a message board that has been successfully stolen by another? I’ve never heard of one and believe me, it would make a giant splash in the writing community. No offense, but this paranoia is considered to be the glowing neon sign of a hapless amateur who will never get anything accomplished. I won’t mind if you prove me wrong, but that’s the way to bet.
You may want to check you’re not retreading Jean Plaidy’s footsteps:
http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/p/jean-plaidy/
Good luck!
I don’t believe that I am. Besides Plaidy, there aren’t many authors who have focused on these two reigns-- they all seem to write about Anne Boleyn. Plaidy made poor Katheryn share a book with Anne-- she must not have thought Katheryn’s story was interesting enough to stand alone.
And pardon-me to any Plaidy fans, but I’ve never particularly enjoyed her books. She’s . . . shall we say . . .* flexible* with facts, her style is too melodramatic and her characters aren’t well-drawn.
There are a couple of books about Katheryn Howard, but Anne of Cleves is virtually ignored. I think that the two of them make for a fascinating story.
Oh I don’t know. It IS kind of a crap shoot, but a lot more people break into the fiction market every year than become quarterbacks for the Steelers, or even quarterbacks for any NFL team. I would guess 500+ new authors are traditionally published (i.e., not vanity) each year–that’s probably low but is based on what’s submitted to the best first novel contests in various genres each year.
(22? I’ve heard 17, I’ve heard 7, I’ve heard 3…)