Today’s blog entry is excerpted from my latest book—an ebook: The Successful Author’s Handbook
Do you have an amazing life story that’s just burning to be told? Did you overcome a major obstacle and hope to share it with the world? Are you an expert in your field and you want to educate others? Or have you always dreamed of writing a novel?
According to a Jenkins Group 2002 survey, eighty-one percent of Americans believe they have a book in them. And technology has made it possible for more of us to actually write and produce our books. Sadly, most authors fail. Why? They approach the publishing industry all wrong.
Few first-time authors understand that while writing is a craft, publishing is a business and a published book is a product. As an author in today’s highly competitive publishing climate, it is imperative that you follow some measure of publishing protocol. What if you disregard this advice and bring your book out on a whim, hoping for bestseller status? It could happen. But it is highly unlikely. Here are some statistics to help you see the bigger picture:
In 2006, RR Bowker, the keeper of publishing data, recorded 291,290 new books published that year. There were around 1.5 million books in print. Ten of those titles in print sold a million or more copies in 2006. A whopping 948,000 of them (or over seventy-six percent) sold fewer than 100 copies. (As I understand it, these figures exclude self-published books, those published through “pay-to-publish” companies, text books and other books that are not in the mainstream.)
For the 2008 tally, Bowker announced that there were 560,026 books produced. This includes self-published and pay-to-publish books. Only 275,232 of those books were from traditional royalty publishing houses.
The sad truth is that, while technology makes it easier for ordinary citizens to become published authors, it has created an arena of failure for most of them.
A typical hopeful author will spend months and sometimes years writing his memoir or the novel of his dreams. He lovingly completes it and then turns it over to the best editor he knows—a high school PE teacher, a 1957 college graduate or a neighbor with a large vocabulary. He then jumps on the Internet in search of a publisher. Bingo! Google brings up a whole list of publishers seeking manuscripts—any manuscript. These publishers offer to help authors “self-publish” their books. His is accepted right away. All he has to do is send money—in some cases, lots of it. And when the book is finally published, the author is invited to purchase as many copies as he wants. I refer to these as “pay-to-publish” companies. You might know them by names such as iUniverse, AuthorHouse, Xlibris and Infinity. (This list represents just a fraction of all pay-to-publish companies.)
It doesn’t take this disillusioned author long to discover that, contrary to what he remembers reading in the publishing contract, his book will not be sold through bookstores. In fact, the only books that sell from this point on, are those that he hand-sells to family, friends and a few neighbors. If he’s lucky, sales will number around 200, or so—maybe generating enough revenue to pay the publishing bill. Most are not that fortunate.
This example, fellow authors, is a good representation of the thousands of authors who fail every year.
So how does one experience success as an author? There are two simple steps.
Step Number One: Study the Publishing Industry.
• Read books by publishing professionals such as Patricia Fry, Dan Poynter, Brian Jud and Marilyn Ross.
• Read magazines about the industry, in particular, Publisher’s Weekly, (subscribe to their free ezine, www.publishersweekly.com) and SPAWN Market Update (for members of Small Publishers, Artists and Writers Network, www.spawn.org.)
• Attend writing and publishing conferences. Locate conferences at http://shawguides.com or do a Google search to find conferences near you.
• Join publishers’ organizations, such as SPAWN (Small Publishers, Artists and Writers Network) www.spawn.org; IBPA (The Independent Book Publishers Association) www.ibpa-online.org and SPAN (Small Publishers of North America) www.spannet.org.
There’s much more where this came from. Let me know if you’d like to see more excerpts. And keep in mind that, while this news seems a little disheartening, it is nothing compared to how disheartened you will feel if you take your book project down the wrong publishing road without a reliable map.
Order your copy of The Successful Author’s Handbook (an ebook) here:
http://www.matilijapress.com/successful_author_handbook.html
Leave your comments or questions here.