Good morning, friends and fans!
In this five-part series of short articles aimed at fellow writers – but also at anyone who might be interested in the process of writing and publishing, I will dispense some pearls of wisdom garnered from my years of personal experience, about publishing (and self-publishing) in order to give you some insight into the game! Since I’m in South Africa, this will naturally have a uniquely South African perspective, so if this is what you’re looking for, grab a seat – and welcome!
We pick up from the previous article, “A Brief Introduction To Self-Publishing – Part 1“…
The system of submitting manuscripts to publishers for their opinion, rejection and resubmission to other publishers is not seemingly always based on malicious intent, nor is it always based upon greed on the part of the publisher, although as a business, it’s likely based on the likelihood of profit. Traditional publishers are businesses and publishing and printing and marketing a single book just in one country alone has huge cost implications – as does processing say, a hundred individual titles from diverse authors in a single year – and worldwide. It will obviously be quite expensive. Then there’s the principle of supply and demand – nobody, not even a book reader or reviewer at a publisher can guarantee that a book written by Mr. Smith, janitor, about space travel, or Ms. Jones, attorney at law, about gardening will be a success, or that it will even sell enough copies within the first few months to cover the cost of production, marketing and so on.
You see, most traditional publishers only put out a limited number of new books per year – and if they just publish anything that comes along, they run a real risk of not making back what they put into those books that don’t deliver a return. Publishing actual printed paper books is a financial risk for the traditional publisher, and sometimes they just aren’t willing to risk making a loss just because Mr. Smith is dead certain his book will be a guaranteed hit, and he can already smell the toner on the Hollywood offer to buy the movie rights to it, which he’s sure is in the mail.
Historically speaking, I think it’s fair to say that no matter how many books a traditional publishing company can manage to work on during a year (that is, to read, edit, format, evaluate, print and market) the supply ALWAYS exceeds the demand, it always has, and it probably always will.
Once upon a time – as far back as the 1990’s, writing a book by hand, then typing it, and doing edits and revisions, took much longer than it does today. Nowadays we can type a book on a PC or laptop – even on a tablet or smart-phone, believe it or not – and do all the editing with spell-checkers and create a presentable manuscript in a fraction of the time it took before! That said, there are also a hell of a lot more people able to use computers now than there were ten years ago – and even more than there were people able to use typewriters in 1990! Thus, there has been a massive increase in supply, while in general, the demand for new reading material has remained more or less the same.
The increase in general PC use obviously also meant an increase in people who can type their own documents – and hence their own stories and books – which has undeniably resulted in an astronomical increase in the number of writers out there who are submitting their hopeful “best sellers” to every traditional publisher they can find online!
This article is an excerpt from “A Guide To Self-Publishing In South Africa” by Christina Engela. If you like it, consider buying the book.
“Traditional” publishers therefore, for the better part of the last two decades, have been literally swamped with submissions and book choices and get to sit there, chuck manuscripts in a pile, or delete or file emails in the “reject” folder. Relatively very, very few manuscripts actually get through this process to be accepted and published in this manner.
Writers – myself included, tend to take this kind of criticism and rejection very hard, and take it very personally, although in a sense it really isn’t meant to be – it’s really just a matter of economics and what and how much the publisher feels their staff and machinery can handle – up to an including how many emailed submissions they can go through per day, week and month in each year – and at which point they feel they’ve met their quota of books for that year.
Every writer who has spent any time trying to get published – be it short stories, novels, screenplays or articles – tends to build up a collection of rejection notes. Often these days they are dull – yet still dreaded – templates of the cookie-cutter “fill in the unlucky author’s name here” variety, but they can also be complimentary of the author’s writing ability, which in itself is a good thing rather than bad, and might be worth holding onto. More often than not, modern publisher rejection letters are a generic preformatted template with the submitter’s name filled in, and will say something like “Sorry Joe Smith, your submission was not successful. Try again later.”
Sometimes, however rarely, an author might receive a rejection note containing personal remarks or downright rude comments – but this is not typical and it certainly isn’t a professional way to conduct business, nor is it ethical – and if you ever do receive such a formal note from an entity purporting to be a professional publisher or editor, you’re probably better off for that rejection note, since your work and your name won’t be associated with such a low-class, unprofessional entity. Sometimes, believe it or not, rejection can be a good thing!
More about that next time, in part 3 of this series!
Read more:
- A Brief Introduction To Self-Publishing: A 5 part series of articles introducing the reader to the concept of self-publishing.
- Forewords, Prologues, Prefaces & Introductions Explained: this explains the differences and similarities and when it is appropriate to use them and for what.
- The Interrobang – What Is It?!: What is the interrobang, where and when should it be used? Should it be used at all?
- Asterism Or Dinkus – What’s In A Name?: Do you still write in actual chapters? For god’s sake – why?
- Afterwords & Epilogs Explained: this explains what afterwords and epilogs are for and when it is appropriate to use them.
- Word Length – When Is A Novel, A Novel?: This explains the word lengths for different categories of book or story.
- Which Self-Publishing Platform – Or All Of Them?: An article about experimenting with which self-publishing distribution platforms to use concurrently. Also read the follow-up article: More Isn’t Always Better – My Self-publishing Platform Strategy Revisited.
- A Guide To Self-Publishing In South Africa – a guide to being an indie author in spite of being stuck in South Africa by Christina Engela.
- Some Great Resources For Writers: A collection of useful tools and articles giving advice to new writers trying to make their way in a minefield of obstacles.
Cheers!
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All material copyright © Christina Engela, 2019.