I read a question from a frustrated author on Quora, who wanted to know why it was so hard to obtain a traditional publishing deal.
I think I’ve got a pretty good explanation why that is. The main reason, frustrated author, is that publishers want to make a vast profit from your book, and before they even think about asking for your full manuscript they need to have a gut feeling that the public would want to buy (in large numbers) what you have written.
Here’s what Mr Google says about selling books:
‘To make money, you need to sustain high sales for months on end.‘
Hmm… is this really possible in today’s ever-changing market? However, on further research it appears Dav Pilkey’s comic books might have achieved this. Strangely enough though, when I looked up the bestselling fiction genre, the answer appeared to be ‘Romance’.
Now then Mr/Ms author… if you can’t draw comic characters, perhaps you need to write the BIG romance of 2021. Will you inspired by Catherine Cookson or by E.L James? Will the hero get his leg over or not? Will the heroine bow and scrape before her master or tie his arms and legs to the bed? The trouble is, Catherine Cookson and E.L James might have already cornered the Romance market, and so what’s left for you, frustrated Quora author?
Why not turn your hand to non-fiction instead? Non-fiction bestsellers are apparently either inspirational books or memoirs. Regarding the latter, the celebrities (whether famous or not-so-famous) might unfortunately already have the memoir category sewn up. Within a few months of appearing on TV for the very first time, bookstores will have the memoir of any ‘celebrity’ in their front window. Nobody wants to read about your humdrum world, frustrated Quora author, and so you might as well forget about sending off your own life story. As for ‘Inspirational’ books, publishers don’t want to read about your I-survived-whatever-it-is story, unless you’re a celebrity. So… here’s an easy answer frustrated Quora author…
Become a celebrity first, and then you can write any old shite. Whatever it is, you’ll sell loads of books and make a fortune!
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jwebster2 said:
There may be two competing forces here. Publishers need to sell a lot of books to make money. The simple cost of doing proper editing and proofreading, on top of cover art (because the artist, editor etc have to be paid in advance, even if the book sells no copies) printing and distribution mean that a book has to sell several thousand copies to break even. So they really want the book that sells hundreds of thousands of copies and keeps everybody in employment.
But at the other end we have readers who are expecting more and more of their books to be free or at least very cheap. According to Amazon there are 50,000 ebooks published in the last 90 days with four or more star reviews.
I’d scrolled past 12 pages of free ones because I got bored 😦
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Stevie Turner said:
Good comment, Jim. Yes, I wonder how many readers are put off by books priced over 99p?
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jwebster2 said:
I turned the whole thing back on its head. I decided that if people wanted a 99p book I’d write novellas 🙂
So my Port Naain Intelligencer stories are about 20,000 words and the collections of stories are about 30,000
(Given these later are collected from my blog I don’t mind putting more in 🙂 )
Interestingly I have found that a 30,000 word ebook can be a slim £4.50 paperback published through Amazon, and so I’ve done that with some of them, especially the dog and quad ones and I’m getting sales of them. So 30,000 words might be the sweet spot?
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Stevie Turner said:
My novels are usually 50,000 and £1.99, but the novellas are usually £1.49 and short stories £0.99. It’s difficult to get the price right, isn’t it Jim?
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jwebster2 said:
It is. I reckon my novellas are cheaper than the bar of chocolate you might eat with them if you read them in an evening 😦
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Ellen Hawley said:
On the other hand, there are small presses whose niche is books that won’t sell a gazillion copies. They tend to focus on literary fiction and nonfiction, but if that’s your genre, they’re the ones to look at.
I’m still wedded to traditional publishing, although I respect people who make the opposite decision. Having an editor is a gift, and when you hire an editor it shifts the power dynamic (I’ve been an editor; I can testify about how it changed me) so that the contribution–okay, let’s forget generalizations: my contribution was less valuable, in spite of my best intentions.
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petespringerauthor said:
So many things in life make me laugh. Related to your post are celebrities that give tips on things that aren’t in their area of expertise. Yet, people seem to be interested in these kinds of things for some reason. I can hardly wait for Bill Gates’s tips for the kitchen or Donald Trump’s crafting tips.
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Stevie Turner said:
Yes, Trump is crafty for sure. What we need is a ban on ‘celebrities’ who aren’t really celebrities. I feel another blog coming on…
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Phil Huston said:
What we really really need is to drop the assumption that famous personalities are good story tellers, and stop publishing name recognition equals good stuff as opposed to easy money. Faulkner made this point in 1920s. The easiest way to sell a book was to be a golf hero or a husband murderer.
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Stevie Turner said:
Quite a lot of these celebrities are air-heads, and yet they get literary agents with no trouble at all. Grr!
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Phil Huston said:
I’m with Al Pacino. actors should ne seen, not heard. God knows I love Tom Hanks but his book of short stories? There’s a joke about bad bands (Pick one) putting out a greatest hits album. “That’s gotta be a box set of air.” Or “The Wisdom of (pick a politician, movie star pro athelete)” as being the shortest book ever written.
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dgkaye said:
Lol, great discussion. I look forward to the blog you feel coming on. 🙂 🙂 x
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Stevie Turner said:
Wednesday…
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