From Edie: A.C. Williams shares five reasons publishers reject books that have nothing to do with writing quality, from marketability and audience to production costs and timelines.
Why Publishers Reject Books: 5 Reasons That Have Nothing to Do with Your Writing
by A.C. Williams @ACW_Author
Are you ever frustrated with publishers?
It’s okay. You can be honest. How can publishers keep putting out the same kinds of books over and over? Don’t they understand how many fresh, new authors are producing compelling, original stories? It’s easy to take rejection personally, and the more you pitch to different publishers, the more it feels like none of them are grasping your vision, your capacity, or your potential.
You aren’t alone in these feelings. It’s a normal human response when the project you’ve spent a decade developing can’t find a home with a publishing house. But before you let those frustrated, disappointed feelings take root, let’s take a step back and consider the situation from the perspective of a book publisher.
Publishing is hard. It’s a business model that seems “easy” until you try to do it. From the outside looking in, all you need to do is find great books, right? Connect with great authors who write great books, get them printed, and the books sell themselves. (If anyone reading this has ever worked in publishing or has self-published, you are free to start laughing at any time.)
No, obviously, publishing is more complicated than that, but if you’ve never done it before, it’s not exactly a business model we talk about very often. So, what are the elements a publisher must consider before saying yes to an author and their book?
Their Audience
This may be different with larger publishers, but if you are planning to go with a smaller press, audience is key. For small presses, the audiences they serve are usually very narrow in interest, which limits the types of books they produce. For larger publishers, they may become known for a specific genre. For example, Baen and Tor are both known for science fiction and fantasy. Harlequin is known for various types of romance. If either Baen or Tor produces a contemporary romance novel, it won’t sell; likewise, if Harlequin had tried to publish Project Hail Mary, nobody would have read it. Publishers must consider their audiences.
Marketability
This is the same regardless of the size of a publisher. If your book can’t be easily marketed, they aren’t going to consider it. When I was a new, green, baby author, I used to scoff at tropes and recognizable genres. I had been told publishers and readers wanted original work, so I took them at their word. I wrote subverted tropes and genre mashups and stories that couldn’t be categorized. You know what happened? There was no easy, straightforward method to market something that couldn’t be put in a category. I always got great feedback on my characters, my world, my prose, but in spite of positive feedback, nobody knew how to sell it. So, no publisher would take it.
Production Timeline
How fast can you turn a novel around? How quickly can you draft it in the first place? How rapidly can you make edits? If you’re looking at a small press, they can get a manuscript to press in about a year. If you’re looking at a larger press, it takes much longer. But if you have a series of books you want to publish, you have to consider the time it will take to go through the entire production process. If you want to pitch a 12-book epic fantasy series, a small press may not have the resources to accommodate a production timeline like that. But a large press may not have the space in their catalog for an epic fantasy series, especially if it’s written for a very narrow demographic.
Production Cost
Books are expensive. Editorial costs, cover costs, formatting costs, etc. can run the production expenses sky high. There is also the cost of keeping editors who are experienced enough to provide professional feedback and direction on a given manuscript. Editors aren’t interchangeable. An editor who specializes in romance isn’t going to be the best fit for a hard science fiction manuscript.
Cost of Doing Business
The other element to remember is that publishing is a business, and all businesses are subject to taxes, insurance, employment regulations, and all sorts of other surprise costs that come out of the publisher’s pocket. While it would be lovely to believe that the publishing industry is solely focused on art and expression, it’s not realistic. Publishing is a business, and if the books a publisher produces don’t sell, they will go out of business.
Those are just a few considerations publishers have to think about. It’s easy to get focused on our own work and our own little ecosystem and forget how other industry professionals work. So, the next time you feel frustrated with the publishers who have to tell you and your project no, maybe take a breath and consider the industry from their perspective.
TWEETABLE
No comments:
Post a Comment