Feb. 7, 2006
I'm still interested in anybody's opinions and/or expertise on the differences between hardcover, mass market paperback and trade paperback, and if you enter a comment I'll respond. In the meantime, I'm going to move on.

I'm by no means an expert on publishing, but I thought I would list some opinions and observations here that might help unpublished writers get a grip on the lion's den they've decided they want to enter. I'm referring predominantly to book publishing, but much of these thoughts also apply to magazine publishing as well.

1. The definition of a publisher is someone with money who publishes. Period. There's no school, no credentials, no licensing. You have money, you publish, voila, you're a publisher. It's worth keeping in mind.

2. Corollary to #1. Even if a publisher publishes because they love books, thought publishing would be cool, etc., they have invested money in the process. What they expect from the author, then, is to make back their initial costs and create a profit for them. This is a long way to say, publishing is a business. But when you forget this, everything about publishing becomes confusing.

3. Editors do not become editors for the money. I read a survey of NY publishing house editors' salaries a few years ago and was stunned that anybody could work in New York City for $30,000 to $50,000 a year. I asked my then-agent about it and he commented that they got bonuses if their authors did well. PAY ATTENTION TO THIS! Do you understand what that means to you as an author? You're not a charity, and no matter how much your editor may like your work, if it doesn't perform, it hurts your editor's career, not just in terms of salary and bonus, but if they keep backing losing horses, they're pretty soon going to be delivery pizzas for a living.

4. Big publishing was once a so-called "gentleman's profession." There is a tension there still, in that it is stocked by people with Master's degrees in literature who are now running a business. (Which explains many things about publishing, I think). But increasingly, big publishing is owned and top-down managed by businessmen, all those MBAs. That's the tension. The movie industry is the same way. Money people at the top, creative people at the bottom, a mix inbetween. Who do you have to appeal to as a writer? BOTH!!!

5. Imagine this scenario. Your book is well reviewed and wins several awards. Your publisher gives you a $20,000 advance and you only sell 50% of your printing. Will they publish you again? Possibly. But the next book had better get into a 70 or 80% sell-through.

6. Sell-through. Typically books--I'm told--don't sell 100% of their print runs. It would be better for everybody if they did. The publishing industry needs and wants (think requires) a 70% to 80% sell-through. For instance, if they print 10,000 books, they need you to sell 7,000 to 8,000 copies. I would have to do some math here, but I think the 70-80% sell-through is the amount that will put the publisher into the black after paying for production costs.

7. Ask yourself this: What does a publisher want? The next Dan Brown or J.K. Rowling? Or the next Harper Lee? Trick question, isn't it? And complicated. Sure they want the next Da Vinci Code or the next Harry Potter. But they wouldn't mind another "To Kill a Mockingbird" that becomes a classic and sells consistently for 50 years. BUT... Harper Lee only wrote one book. And I guarantee you, publishers aren't interested in one-book authors unless that book should be "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil," or "Tuesdays with Morrie" or "The Da Vinci Code."

8. I felt for years that the publishing industry had a moat around it with the drawbridge up. And that I was constantly banging my head against that drawbridge. Now, I seem to be knocking at the door and being occasionally invited in. What happened?

Here's the deal. In order to get the publishing industry to drop the drawbridge and let you in, there is a laundry list of requirements that the would-be writer has to meet. Yes, sometimes people bypass the drawbridge and the requirements and parachute or tunnel their way in, or they're such big freaking powerful writers that a single knock slams the door in. [Excuse the metaphors, please].

What are they?

1. Learn to write well. I'm not talking lyrical, etc. I'm talking effective, which is my definition of good writing. Your writing accomplishes what needs to be accomplished. It carries your story in the best possible way.

2. Be professional. That includes neat manuscripts with few if any spelling or grammar errors, formatted in the proper fashion--12 point font, preferably Ariel, Times New Roman or Courier, one-inch margins, on good clean white paper. It also means corresponding professionally, being patient and treating the entire endeavor as if it's a business, which it is.

3. Write something recognizable. Ouch. But this is why God invented genres. There may very well be a market for, say, a dinosaur who is a private investigator, but I'll tell you what. It's a TINY market. Part of this is also, be aware of what sells. It's tough to say, hey, that sold so I'll write something like it, because that book was bought a couple years ago, so 4 years or more might go by before yours is on the market. But be aware that, for instance, within the mystery genre, there are cozies and P.I. novels (hard and soft and inbetween), and thrillers and technothrillers and suspense and procedurals and espionage and woo-woo. The same goes for romance and SF and fantasy. You don't have to rigidly fall into one category, but you need to know what the hell you're doing and why if you try to blend things.

4. Be persistent. Joe Konrath regularly says a published writer is one who didn't give up. This is true. But, I would add, there's no guarantee. None whatsoever. You could spend 5 years or 10 years or 30 years and still not break in. Luck is involved, as well.

5. So to that I would add, if you eventually find that you're not enjoying this or don't think it's worth it, well, it probably isn't and you should quit. Life is short. It's not a dress rehearsal, and if this is a voluntary activity that's stressing you out and making your life miserable, for god sakes, find something else to do with your time. You can't get that time back, so if this isn't working for you either professionally or if you don't find it in some way satisfying, try to find something that does.

Best,
Mark Terry