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Home » Career » Page 28

Career

How Publishers Make Decisions

By Dan Balowon September 23, 2014
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We all agree that book publishing is changing fast. New technology, new formats and new ways to sell books have changed everything.  Well, almost everything.

One thing has not changed…the fundamental way decisions are made as to what new authors an agent represents and publishers publish. It has always been and remains people making quick, subjective decisions (aka QSD).

A number of years ago I knew a publisher that received 5,000 unsolicited book proposals and manuscripts each year.  Those were the days before email submissions were common, so you can imagine the piles of paper. If each of those were to be thoroughly reviewed and researched, the company would have needed to hire 15 full-time employees for that purpose alone with the very real possibility than none of the 5,000 would make the final cut for the publisher.

So what happened? Decisions to review some of them more thoroughly were based on first impressions.  If at first glance it wouldn’t fit the company, it wasn’t given any further thought.  A quick, subjective decision was made.

Agents get a lot of submissions from new and prospective authors as well.  Hundreds or thousands per year.  Here again, the only way to deal with that is to filter out most with a QSD.

Writers’ conferences contain examples of what I am talking about, by scheduling 15 minutes of time with an agent or editor to “speed-review” your proposal. It is good exposure for how quick decisions are made.  Actually, to more accurately simulate what really happens, the meetings should be more like 90 seconds, but I am not sure anyone would desire to take part in that chaos!

There have been some changes to parts of the publisher decision-process. A little more than ten years ago, sales data from various bookselling channels for all published titles became available, so publishers could analyze comparable titles and also specific author sales history to make smarter decisions on what books to acquire.

But the decision to publish a new author or any new book remains a subjective process, meaning that sometimes logic plays a very minor part in the decision.

For example, what is good writing? It is a personal, subjective judgment. Some of the best-selling books of the last century were deemed lacking from a writing-quality standpoint by some publishers and yet sold millions by the one publisher who thought it was worthwhile. Of course, this doesn’t mean it was well-written after all, but a decision-maker made a quick, subjective decision that won or lost for the publisher or agent. The common bond of everyone in a decision-making position for a publisher or agency is that “you win some and you lose some”.

One of my favorite cartoons depicts a cocktail party of publishing people and each one was introduced as, “The guy who rejected John Grisham”, or “The person who thought Stephen King couldn’t write”, etc.   There are similar stories for every publisher, editor or agent in every age which all goes to prove the point of decisions being mostly subjective.

One area where change is seen is that most publishers place their marketing and sales leaders into the role of having virtual veto power over a prospective product. This is why an author platform is so important and sales data from similar products is such an issue today.  But with all the data available and emphasis on author platforms, decisions are still made quickly and subjectively.

Every new author feels deep in their bones that if an agent or publisher would simply take the time to review their work thoroughly that they would agree it is worthy of being represented and published.

That would be true if there were far fewer authors trying to be published. The sheer numbers require that everyone make a decision quickly based on a first impression.

Publishing is a lot more like hitting a baseball than shooting free-throws in basketball.  A great free-throw shooter (like Steve Laube in is heyday) could make up to 90% of their shots. A great baseball player might get a hit a third of the time.

(I can wedge examples from sports into just about any blog topic…amazing.)

This feels like I am deliberately trying to discourage a new author, which I am not, but think of it this way:

  • You only need one agent to agree to represent your work and there are a lot of us.
  • You only need one editor to like your work to get it considered and there are a lot of them.

Everyone doesn’t need to love what you do, just one or two of the right people.

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Category: Book Business, Book Proposals, Career, The Publishing LifeTag: Book Business, publishing, The Publishing Life

Travel Woes? It Will be Okay!

By Tamela Hancock Murrayon September 18, 2014
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As I prepare to attend the ACFW conference, I recall how many things can go wrong on travel. They can, and they do. But the world will not end. Please remember this. How do I know? Because I used to consider myself indispensable. But the graveyards are filled with indispensable people. And I must remember that the world will not end if something goes wrong. For example: 1.) I missed my flight. …

Read moreTravel Woes? It Will be Okay!
Category: Career, ConferencesTag: Career, Conferences, travel

3 Reasons Why Rejection is Good

By Tamela Hancock Murrayon August 28, 2014
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I’ll be the first to admit that rejection doesn’t feel good, so how can it be good? Well, a rejection: …allows you to close the door and move on to the next opportunity. …shows that the other person doesn’t share your enthusiasm enough to be your partner. Learning this allows you the freedom to find the right partner. …may be a sign of God’s will. His …

Read more3 Reasons Why Rejection is Good
Category: Career, Get Published, RejectionTag: Rejection

You Are Not Alone

By Karen Ballon August 27, 2014
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Thanks for sharing your thoughts about proposals. Clearly, a lot of us struggle with this side of being a writer. As I was thinking over what to write for tackling those problematic proposal elements, I rediscovered the video below, made in ’09. It was created by best-selling authors Angela Hunt, Kristin Billerbeck, Robin Lee Hatcher, and Terri Blackstock. These authors, back in ’09, had written a …

Read moreYou Are Not Alone
Category: Book Proposals, Career, Get Published

Mao and the Four Pests

By Dan Balowon August 26, 2014
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In the late 1950’s , Chairman Mao Zedong of China implemented the first stages of his Great Leap Forward, an effort to move China away from a predominantly agrarian society to a modern industrial and political power. One of the first parts of the GLF was the Four Pests Campaign. The Chinese government identified four scourges on their society and set out to eradicate them.  They were: rats, flies, …

Read moreMao and the Four Pests
Category: Book Business, Career, The Publishing LifeTag: Career, The Publishing Life

Publishers are From Mercury, Authors are From Pluto

By Dan Balowon August 19, 2014
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Next time someone tells you that Christianity is not as valid as science, just remind them that not many years ago, Pluto was assumed to be a planet, but in 2006 was determined not to be one, but instead was a “dwarf planet”, of which there a several dozen in our solar system alone. If you took a test in grade school and answered, “How many planets are there in our solar system” with the number …

Read morePublishers are From Mercury, Authors are From Pluto
Category: Book Business, Career, Communication, The Publishing LifeTag: Authors, Book Business, publishers, The Publishing Life

8 Things Authors Should No Longer Ask Their Publisher

By Dan Balowon August 12, 2014
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Publishing is changing faster than ever before.  Book publishers have been wrenching to find new business models that make them more flexible, efficient and adaptable to the realities of the digital publishing age. Within this fast-change world, another group who has felt the pain of shifting tectonic plates are authors who have been around publishing for ten or more years.  Some issues that used …

Read more8 Things Authors Should No Longer Ask Their Publisher
Category: Book Business, CareerTag: Book Business, Career, publishing

The Morals of the Story

By Karen Ballon July 30, 2014
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As promised, here are the morals—and names—of the story of our young writer from last week. If you missed the post, please go back and read it. The young writer? None other than the gifted Lori Benton. Her second novel, The Pursuit of Tameson Littlejohn, released in April 2014. The first editor, who read her story from far, far away, and then became friends with Lori? Yours truly. But Lori isn’t …

Read moreThe Morals of the Story
Category: Awards, Career, Conferences, Creativity, Get Published, Writing CraftTag: Career, Get Published, Writing Craft

One Author’s Journey: A Tale of Publishing

By Karen Ballon July 23, 2014
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With all this talk of publishing and where it’s been and where it’s going, I thought I’d tell you a story. One that happened not years ago, in the much ballyhooed Golden Age, but recently. So gather round, settle in, and listen… Once upon a time, there was a young girl who wanted to write, who grew up to be a young woman who did write, creating stories she loved. Stories that made her heart soar. …

Read moreOne Author’s Journey: A Tale of Publishing
Category: Career, Conferences, Creativity, Get Published, Writing CraftTag: Get Published, perseverance, Writing Craft

A Matter of Experience

By Tamela Hancock Murrayon June 19, 2014
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Sometimes I’ll have one of those days where I’m minding my own business, when I pick up the phone to discover the author on the other end of the line is irate. (No, this is not a rerun of an article from the 20th century. I do still have a land line for my office). “Ohhh, Tamela! I know that Hell is indeed located on Earth and where is it? It’s at my publisher’s …

Read moreA Matter of Experience
Category: Book Business, Career, Communication, Tamela, The Publishing LifeTag: Book Business, Career, publishing, The Publishing Life
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