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WHAT WRITERS SHOULD KNOW ABOUT PUBLISHING By Jerry D. Simmons Author and former executive with The Time Warner Book Group Publishing used to be about the books, the writers and their readers. Circumstances today have forced the industry to become nothing more than production facilities for the printed word. Ownership of the largest trade publishing houses and their need to meet financial projections has caused the need for product, mass produced, to be over-distributed to as wide a market as possible to generate billing for the sake of meeting corporate financial goals. The emphasis on exceeding numbers has caused the book to be looked upon much the same as any consumer product on the market today. This pressure and the resultant over distribution of books has resulted in a tremendous amount of waste, not only in paper but in transportation, production, and man-hours, not to mention the harm to the careers of unsuspecting authors. Publishing has evolved into a bad business model that survives on the thinnest of margins. The need for revenue in an extremely mature market is causing decisions to be made that are often not in the best interests of the writers or their books. That is why it has become vitally important for writers to become familiar with what goes on INSIDE The Business of Publishing. Writers need to know what goes on behind the scenes of those large trade houses and how to position themselves in such a way that their books have the best chance at selling more copies at retail. To be successful in the Business of Publishing, a writer needs to recognize that there are two distinct facets of their work: The first, of course, is the writing of the manuscript, hiring an agent and signing a contract with a publishing company. The second begins when you sign that contract and continues to the day your book hits the streets. Your awareness of these two areas and the recognition of the need to partner with your publisher in such a way that you can make valuable suggestions on every aspect of your books production, sale and distribution, is what’s necessary to be successful as an author. It’s not “just about getting published” anymore, it’s “being smart about getting published.” The more you know about your competition, i.e. other writers in your genre, your market, and how books are distributed, marketed and merchandised, the better chance you have of positioning yourself and your book within the company. In today’s competitive climate, you must market yourself in-house the same as your publisher markets your book to the consumer. And it starts with your editor, the one person you will have the most contact with inside the company. But it doesn’t stop there. It continues throughout every department to every person that has a hand in the production, sale and distribution of your book. And you need to position yourself to make suggestions that carry weight. How do you accomplish this? By educating yourself about what goes on Inside the Business of Publishing and the process of bringing your book to market. As with any business there are the key decision makers. From the day you sign your contract and begin the process of working with your editor to bring your book to market, you need to find out who they are and how, as an author, you can have your suggestions heard and acted upon. Any writer, short of the mega-best-selling names we all know, will have a difficult time influencing the department heads to make meaningful changes to their book. However, there are ways to have your voice heard, and it begins with your knowledge of the marketplace. If you’re not an avid reader, you should become one. If you don’t have a keen sense of awareness about what is happening at the retail level, then develop one. The more you know the better your chances of the company acting upon your recommendations. Go into an independent bookstore (preferable over the chain stores) and walk the aisles, observe the titles, covers, prices, categories, authors, and the merchandising that is going on with books that are being published today. One day that will be your book, and once it hits the streets, the results are out of your control. So you need to make the most of what time and opportunities you’ll have to actually influence the direction of your book. And to do that, you need to have a basic understanding of the two most important aspects of publishing. Numbers and Distribution. When your agent calls to tell you that the announced first print for your book is 40,000 copies, do you know what that means? What if your editor calls to tell you the announced was 40,000 but we are only printing 25,000 copies. How will you know if that’s good or bad? You’ll know by learning how the numbers are developed, where the budgets for titles comes from, how the announced first prints are arrived at and what all that means to you as an author. And once you understand the numbers, then you need to learn distribution because they go hand-in-hand. Learning one without the other is like learning to drive a car without an understanding that it requires gas and oil. Your success as an author is dependent on selling as many net copies at retail with the fewest returns, thus giving you the highest sell-through possible. In a perfect market, if you do this, then each successive book should sell more than the previous book, thus securing your place as a successful author. Successful distribution is placing the right number of books in the hands of the right customers, giving your book the best possible chance of selling through at retail. And if you don't know what I mean when I say sell through, you need to learn…Or…read INSIDE The Business of Publishing for more information on the language of publishing. This is how you grow your sales as an author. Distributing the highest number possible of your books to the marketplace is not necessarily in your best interests. Forget what your agent or editor may be telling you, it’s not how many copies that get distributed that’s important, it’s where those copies go and in what quantity that’s important. As an author, it’s important to understand that your job doesn’t end when you sign a contract with a publisher. That’s just the beginning. To be successful, you should strive to understand what goes on INSIDE The Business of Publishing. Jerry D. Simmons spent more than twenty years as an executive with The Time Warner Book Group in New York. He is the author of INSIDE The Business of Publishing What Writers Need to Know and the creator of www.WritersReaders.com, where information essential to writers and their careers is available, FREE.
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