Tips from a Book Publishing Industry Insider

By Laura Boon

Tips from a Book Publishing Industry Insider reveals what publishers don't think to explain and writers don't know to ask.

Publishing is an unusual industry in that the key players in the business don't work under the same roof. Publishers (and their cohort of editors, designers, salespeople and accountants) work in one sphere while writers toil away, often on their own, in a separate sphere. They overlap only briefly around the publication of a book.

As a result, the inner workings of a publishing house are a mystery to many established authors, let alone aspiring writers. The journey to publication can be bewildering. Do you need an agent? Can you approach a publisher directly? How do royalties work? Is it better to self-publish?

Knowledge is power. A better understanding of what to expect when you have a finished manuscript and are preparing to engage with the army of people required to get a book onto shelves real and virtual will help you to make better decisions as an author, regardless of whether writing is your primary career or a passionate hobby.

While the rewards of being traditionally published can be tremendous, they can also be disappointing. Tips from a Book Publishing Industry Insider is a guide to how the publishing industry actually works so you, the author, can make an informed decision about the best publishing path for your career.

"An essential resource for new writers, this sneak peek inside the publishing industry will help you navigate the tricky maze of publishing." Pamela Cook, women's fiction author of All We Dream, writing teacher, mentor and podcaster at Writes4Women

"I wish I'd read this book before starting on my publishing journey." Rae Cairns, author of psychological thriller The Good Mother, shortlisted for the Ned Kelly award for best debut crime novel.

"In the romance writing community, there are writers who are traditionally published, indie published, and hybrid published. Irrespective of where writers are headed (or have arrived!) in their careers, Laura Boon's Tips From a Book Publishing Industry Insider is a valuable resource. This accessible and well written text provides insights, information, and a unique 'insider's perspective,' to the book publishing industry. As Laura Boon is a romance writer herself, her advice is particularly pertinent to writers of romance." Penelope Janu, author of seven rural romances including Clouds on the Horizon (January 2022)

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Laura Boon
• Release date: Nov 19, 2021
• ISBN: 9780645040333

Book preview

Introduction

Knowledge is power.

I started writing the articles collected in this book as a way to share my knowledge about the book publishing industry with other writers. I was a little nervous. I thought, maybe everybody already knows this stuff, and they’ll roll their eyes when they see it in a column. But there was also a part of me that knew that everybody didn’t know all this stuff, and so the response has proved. Over the course of thirty years of working in the book trade, I’ve been employed as a bookseller, sales rep, publicist, marketer and editor. Mostly as a publicist. I can’t count the number of times an author I was doing publicity for asked me a question I thought their publisher or editor should have answered. However, publishers and editors are book trade royalty; they float above the daily grind of sales and marketing whereas publicists get their hands dirty – and we spend a lot of time in waiting rooms with our authors. We are easier to talk to than royalty.

Publicists exist on the periphery of the publishing process. However, I’m a writer as well as a publicist. And you know what we writers are like: always observing, always listening, always picking up bits and pieces of knowledge and filing them away for possible use in a book (or a campaign). After a while, when author after author confessed that they didn’t get an answer to one question or another, I started sharing my knowledge. I like to share. I believe in education. I believe that knowledge is power.

Usually, when an industry is heavy on jargon, it’s obvious to those of us outside the industry, and we can easily identify what it is we don’t understand. Think about any doctors, architects or computer geeks you know. They’ll say something and your brain will respond, Wait…what? because it hasn’t a clue what the meaning is of the word your colleague or friend just used.

However, in book publishing, the language appears deceptively normal. It’s the way language is applied and the processes behind those terms that are obscure. Further, we have an expectation that publishers will be highly literate and easy to understand. And yes, of course publishers are highly literate, but the industry itself is no easier to understand from the outside than any other. It has its own jargon and idiosyncrasies. It rarely occurs to those who work on the inside that outsiders don’t get them, or that it would be helpful to their relationships with those outsiders – especially the originators of their creative capital – to explain how things work. Of course, if you ask a question, they will answer it, but as any beginner in any field will tell you, when you’re starting out on a journey, you often don’t know what it is you don’t know, nor which questions to ask. Perhaps publishers are afraid of confrontation. Because if writers, the owners of the creative capital on which the industry is dependent, understood more, they might question more – and then they might expect more. And despite its genteel, sophisticated gloss, book publishing is a competitive, capitalist industry and needs to make a profit to continue operating.

For every literary award winner, which may or may not make money, a publisher needs a large fistful of bestsellers to ring through the tills and provide the finance to keep operations running to pay the publishers and editors, assistants and graphic designers, marketers, publicists and salespeople, accountants and distributors who make up the team. These people must be paid whether a book succeeds or not. Unfortunately, writers, the builders of the word foundations on which the industry stands, are not part of that inner circle. The writer is a freelancer, with no claim to superannuation or annual leave, who will only make money if a book sells, and then only after the fact; there is no monthly income for a writer.

Because writing is art, and response to art is a matter of personal preference, no one has yet worked out a way to ensure that a book will be a sure-fire bestseller. Sure, people have lots of theories on it, but for every guaranteed, highly promoted, high concept bestseller, there is a quiet little book that nobody believed in except its author – and maybe not even her – that becomes an unexpected, soaring success. There are opportunities in art but no guarantees. Not for the creator, anyway, and isn’t that wrong on more levels than I can count? But that is a discussion for another day. This discussion is about the inner workings of a publishing house and how they affect an author.

Knowledge is power. I can’t stress that enough. And those who have it, don’t always share it, for reasons ranging from too busy to there is only one pie. I think there are lots of pies out there and that our reading community has the capacity to buy and consume even more. The more you know, the more informed your decision making.

My hope is that Tips from a Book Publishing Industry Insider will provide you with answers to the questions you have been too intimidated to give voice to in your anxiety to see your book on shelves real and virtual, regardless of whether you have been traditionally published for many years or you are an aspiring writer trying to work your way through the bewildering maze of choices now available to authors. If you have a question I haven’t addressed, you are welcome to write to me. There are always new questions and answers to explore.

Above all, I ask you to remember that without authors, there is no publishing industry. Value is inherent in your thoughts and the words with which you express them. Own your value, be proud of your contribution, and do not let anyone downplay the role of the writer.

Laura

1

Behind the scenes of the book publishing industry

I’ve been fortunate to work for publishing houses big and small during my career. I’ve worked in a variety of positions, but mainly as a book publicist. It’s a wonderful job that introduced me to the inner workings of publishing while at the same time giving me access to my favorite people – authors.

In contrast to my experience working within the industry, most authors write alone and work a second job in other industries. As a result, they don’t understand the behind-the-scenes workings of the publishing industry. I hope to provide some insights that will speed up your learning curve and help you get the most out of your publishing experience.

As well as being a storehouse of creativity, book publishing is a competitive industry. During 2020, in the US, print book sales alone rose over 8% to more than 750 million copies, valued at over $25 billion. Sales in the UK were up seven percent as consumers rediscovered fiction and audiobooks during the pandemic. Total consumer book retail sales rose to £2.1 billion. In Australia, according to Nielsen BookScan, the book market recorded A$1.25 billion in sales , up almost eight percent on the previous year. However, this doesn’t include ebook and audio book sales, or direct-to-reader sales, especially by small publishers and indie authors, as there is currently no reliable tool in place to measure these sales. Conservative estimates are that ebooks are about eighteen percent of print sales and audiobooks around fifteen percent.

How do these sales reflect opportunities for authors? According to Think Australian, 22,634 new titles were published in 2019 by 5,564 publishers, as determined by unique ISBN numbers for print and ebooks. The twenty biggest publishers produced over 100 titles each. The next 115 publishers produced between twenty and ninety-nine books each, and an additional 115 publishers produced between eleven and twenty books each. Then we enter indie territory (micro publishers and authors who self-publish): 2,056 publishers produced two to five books each and another 2,976 published one book. In the UK and North America, the numbers are even bigger but the ratios remain similar, with the large publishers producing the highest number of titles but small publishers and indies outnumbering them overall. If you thought there wasn’t a lot of competition for readers and reviewers, think again.

These figures can be mind-boggling to an author working on her own, but don’t let them frighten you. Competition means demand is high. The most important thing to remember is that without you, the author, there is no publishing industry.

As an author, you most likely focus on one book at a time, but no one in publishing works on one book at a time. Everyone is multi-tasking, from publishers and editors to cover designers, product and sales personnel, marketers and publicists. The production line never stops (as indie authors also know only too well). Even if a company only publishes one book a month, the relentless churn of the production schedule means that while they are editing book A, they are designing the cover for book B, typesetting book C and preparing book D for print. When sales reps sell in month 1, they are researching month 2 and reading ahead for month 3. While a publicist is on