Jan 05 2010
Another Eight Facts About Writing That Surprise Prospective Novelists
This is the second article in a series. Please see part one here.
9. Getting published is really, really hard. Publisher’s assistants at major publishers go through hundreds of unsolicited manuscripts a week. Out of every thousand or so manuscripts, they’ll probably send on around five to an editor for further consideration. That means PAs reject about 99.5% of manuscripts. Of the five surviving manuscripts, usually one or two will eventually be offered contracts.
10. Publisher’s assistants do not have the time to pore through each manuscript. They are not on your side. They have to get through hundreds of manuscripts each week and the only way to do that is to throw out manuscripts as fast as possible. Most manuscripts do not survive to page two. If something does not make sense on page one, they will throw away the manuscript long before you’ve explained what is going on. The story absolutely needs to be clear and engaging from page one.
11. SPELLING, PUNCTUATION AND GRAMMAR ARE EXTREMELY IMPORTANT. They are the difference between conveying that “I am a polished writer that will be easy to publish” and “I am not familiar with basic writing craft.” If your writing has more than a few typos, you are dead on arrival. Even one typo per page would raise eyebrows. Remember, around 99.9% of unsolicited manuscripts get rejected. Don’t give the publisher any reason to drop the guillotine.
12. Publishers select what they think will sell. If you look like you could sell ten thousand copies with a minimum of editing work, they will probably make you an offer. It depends on the work and publisher, but most publishers need to sell between five and ten thousand copies to break even.
13. It is really helpful to establish an audience before you try to get published. For example, if you’ve established a blog that has hundreds of thousands of readers, it will seem more plausible that your book can sell tens of thousands of copies. If your writing is not yet good enough to attract a hundred thousand free readers, it may help to practice more before you try selling thousands of copies. Alternately, get some professional writing experience with a newspaper, a magazine or any other company that needs writers. (Most large companies have communications offices).
14. You need to know who your target audience is. That will make it much easier for an editor to visualize selling ten thousand copies of your book. Preferably it’s an audience his publisher works with frequently. The most important audience attributes are gender and age. It’s usually easiest (but obviously not mandatory) to aim at readers that are the same gender as the main character and 0-3 years younger. (Why 0-3 years younger? Because they’d find the character old enough to be cool but young enough to be relatable).
15. Even after you get published, your publisher won’t do all that much to publicize you. Selling the book is mainly your job. Starting a website is a good first step. For example, you only encountered my writing today because I started a website about how to get published. If you aren’t quite tech-savvy enough to handle your own website, try making a page on Facebook. Just make sure that you update it regularly.
16. Websites are great, but you’ll still probably have to promote your book in person after you get published. Identify accessible sites where you can talk about something interesting, preferably something related to your book. Depending on your target audience, college campuses within driving distance might be a good place to start. If you’re writing a superhero novel, ask any comic book stores near you if they’d let you do a promotional event. You might also find conventions devoted to comic books, fantasy, science fiction or horror helpful.
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Someday, I should create a website of my own…
- Wings
11 seems a little basic to me. What I’m stuck on right now is 13. It scares me. XD Lord knows why I daydream of being published when I’m too shy to write a blog.
Grammar, punctuation and spelling are indeed very basic, but I figured they were worth repeating because they’re probably the single biggest manuscript killer. More like a manuscript serial killer.
With #13, if you don’t feel comfortable writing a blog or for a media company, you might benefit from experience in corporate communications. It’s probably a bit less daunting than asking strangers to read your stuff.
I have lofty dreams about #13, starting a website and such, but it’s kinda hard. And I’m not so good with people so everything else up there is kinda daunting.
Starting a website and updating it regularly does take a lot of time. If you had the time, I figure you could learn Blogspot. I think the trick is being okay with awfulness early on. Three years ago, my writing was shockingly bad. My artistic skills were even worse. So it was sort of a cosmic convergence of awfulness. Just keep practicing and it’ll all get better.
I don’t think I’m all that good with people, either. I think that being mostly cheerful and sane will put you ahead of most authors. I don’t think that you need an outsized persona or intense charisma or anything like that. Also, people will identify you with your product and as long they like your writing they will want to like you. If you’re constantly learning and improving, you’ll eventually have more readers than you will know what to do with.
Wow this is really helpful–naturally
I’ve been lurking on this website for a good while, and have just now gotten the courage to post. I love your website, and have found several things (especially the article How to Introduce a Novel, and the ones on character developement)
Thanks again!
[...] Superhero Nation continues its (depressing) article Facts About Writing That Surprise Young Novelists. [...]
[...] Superhero Nation continues its (depressing) article Facts About Writing That Surprise Young Novelists. [...]
Hello, Poet Warrior. I’m glad to hear that it’s been helpful for you. Thanks!
Sound advice, as always.
Y’know, I’ve heard a lot about those ‘hundreds of ms’ piles in editors and agents offices. I’m not saying those folks are not overworked–they most certainly are–but I believe that’s an exaggeration. Couple hundred manuscripts this week!,blah, blah.
In a genre like spec fic? Even the major publishers wouldn’t have that many. I belonged to one of the largest online workshops and at any one time they had fifteen hundred, maybe 2 thousand members from all over the world, of which maybe a couple hundred were brave enough to post excerpts for criticism. And 90 per cent of these were short stories. Are they telling me they get a hundred novel ms a week per publisher?
My opinion–slush reading at the houses is low priority but must eventually be done. So they let their in-boxes pile up and every couple of months or so they have a pizza party with all their asst. assistants and have them weed out the majority.
Since they procrastinate this responsibility the piles grow and grow. Hell, I think it’s DAW that requires the full ms these days. Over a couple months even a few dozen items of slush would have thousands of pages there!
Aren’t you more likely to get published with an agent first?
Agented manuscripts are more likely to get published. (For more about agents, please see this).
Publishers generally regard a manuscript more seriously if it has a credible agent. For one thing, having an agent shows that you’ve impressed at least one publishing professional with your writing ability. Agents also help you pick publishers that are more likely to be receptive to the style, length and target audience of your book. So you’ll mostly avoid a publisher’s assistant throwing out your manuscript because “umm, you know we don’t handle this sort of stuff, right?”
Agents also negotiate on the author’s behalf, which is a hugely important service for an author that is new to the field. (You’ll probably be paid more).
However… all of these benefits of agents hinge on the agent being competent. Pretty much anyone can say he’s an agent. If you’re going to place your professional career in someone’s hands, make sure that (s)he has a successful track-record selling manuscripts at least remotely similar to yours. (It’s best if your agent specializes in your kind of fiction because then he’ll know more about the market and who to talk to).
For more about what you can expect from agents and why you might want to submit to them, please see this article by an agent and this one.
^.^
YAY!
(/sarcasm)
…but one day i will get one done…
…even if i dont have a computer then…
…or maybe that wont be possible…
I have read several books on publishing, and I have to say, your advice is on par with what I have read. I also have a following for my novel on Facebook. I am also a graphic designer, and already have the cover designed. I want to publish it myself, and thought if not, what is your opinion of P.O.D. publishing? Does it have a better rap than when they started? I know it is cheaper, but I have heard horror stories about covers published with gross errors, even names misspelled. I just don’t really think I have much stock in traditional royalty publishing, mainly because of the volume of material mixed in with mine.
I have a few issues with print-on-demand.
POTENTIAL CAUSES FOR CONCERN
POD books usually sell poorly and you’ll have to sell all of your copies yourself. (In contrast, a professionally-published rookie will get at least some nominal support, like placement in bookstores).
POD print quality can be very uneven and some operators are just downright shady. I’d recommend speaking with at least a few people that have published with the POD houses you’re looking at.
Cost-per-unit is usually pretty high. (This could probably be overcome somewhat by also releasing the book for the Kindle, but you’ll still probably have to work a bit harder to make each sale than a comparable professional publisher would).
Most first-time authors don’t write all that well at the beginning. The main difference between a first-time self-published author and a first-time professional is that the professional has probably benefitted from years of the process of rejection and rewriting and now enjoys some editorial guidance. At the very least, I would recommend spending a few months with a writing circle if you haven’t written professionally before. If you’d like, you can send me the manuscript at superheronation[at]gmail-dot-com and I can make some suggestions. (Another option is going with a freelance book editor, but I think they’re generally well-meaning individuals that charge more than the book will end up selling).
ENCOURAGING SIGNS
Your comment shows that your book will probably be free of the spelling/punctuation/grammatical errors that plague self-published books.
You have the skills to design your own cover.
You’re putting in effort to market the book. I don’t know what your following is like or how many sales you would need to justify the time you’re spending on this project, but I figure if you have 500+ readers that have expressed an interest on Facebook, that’d be a good sign you’ll sell more than a handful of copies. (Most POD books don’t). Then, if the product turns out very well, you’ll have a pool of readers that might pass it along to their friends and family.
It looks like you’re approaching this with a prudent amount of caution.