How "Prove Yourself" is the new publishing norm

[Steven Lake]

I originally posted this in my blog, but figured to post it here to get your guy's thoughts on this.

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How "Prove Yourself" is the new publishing norm

For the past couple of centuries, ever since the modern publishing industry got its start back in the late 1500's, thanks in part to the Elzevir family who started the first official publishing company in 1583, publishing has been a "Sell Yourself" industry. In order to become a famous, published writer, you had to write a very powerful, professional query letter that told about you, your book, and why the publisher should even bother with you. Some might say that's actually a "buyers market". Well, in a way it is. But that's taking it from the publisher's point if view, and not the authors, which is what the majority of people care about.

Shattering a Myth
The first thing I want to do in this article is completely shatter a long standing myth that's rampant in the world today. Too many prospective authors write a book and expect to get published with the sole goal being to become rich and famous. I hate to break it to my readers, but you'd have better luck playing the lottery than becoming the next Dan Brown. The odds are just NOT in your favor. Out of all the books submitted to the traditional publishing houses, only 1% gets picked for further review. Of those that get picked, less than 1% of them are actually chosen to be published. Then, of those, maybe 10% make it into print, the rest get shelved and never see the light of day....ever.

So for every 100,000 books submitted to traditional publishing houses, only one ever reaches publication. That's a 0.001% chance of getting published! Now I will explode this myth even more. Of that itsy bitsy, teeny weeny number of books that successfully make it into print, only 5% of those ever reach Harry Potter, or Clive Cussler level fame. The rest usually either break even, or come up short and fail to make back their advance. So, if you are interested in getting published through a traditional big house in order to become the next Dan Brown, I recommend playing the lottery instead. You'll have a better chance of winning the lottery than becoming the next big writing superstar.

Now, if you're doing it because you love it, you don't care if you ever become rich and famous (which is really the approach you should take), and you would do it even if you never made a dime at it, then you're doing it for the right reasons. So remember, if you're doing it for the money, I would highly recommend taking up a different occupation, because unless you can defeat 1 billion to 1 odds consistently, your chances of fame and fortune are pretty much dead where they stand. But, if you love writing, there's still a chance to achieve some level of fame. How? Allow me to explain.

The New Market
As I stated in my opening, for centuries the market has relied on a "Sell Yourself" method of winnowing out the bad books from the good. It's not a perfect system, but it was all that we had. However, that's changing, and has begun to do so quite noticeably in the last decade. The new method of finding successful, quality writers and books is a system called "Prove Yourself". As the name suggests, it requires you, as the author, to prove that A) you have a good book, B) you can sell yourself (and your book) well, and C) that your book is profitable (and/or you as well).

The reason for this is two fold. The first is money. It's expensive processing that many manuscripts and query letters per month. The second is the success rate. The old "Sell Yourself" system is rapidly coming apart at the seams, and publishers are looking for a new system that will guarantee profitable results. That's where the new "Prove Yourself" system comes into play. From a business standpoint, it's a perfect solution. The publishers save money, and they only get winners. They let the little guys get all the new prospective authors and let them take the risk.

But at the same time, this new system puts extra power in your hands. If you can prove that your book is good, profitable, and successful, don't be surprised if the big presses come and snap you up. It's happened to a couple of authors at the publisher I work for. Yes, I actually work for my publisher. But that occurred after I published with them, not before, and only because I was already so helpful to him beforehand with web work. He liked my web design and cloud development skills enough that he snapped me up and put me to work.

But all that aside, the point is, if your work is good, and you can market them effectively, and they're a success, you'll get noticed. Yes, the big houses are watching. They're now very closely following all of the small presses out there and watching for successes. They know what the sales rates are on your books, what reviews it's gotten, who's got it on their shelves, and more. They know as much about you as your publisher does, and sometimes more. Part of that is due to the federal reporting laws.

Some of it is just good old fashioned sleuthing. If they see you doing good on the official records, they'll dig further and find out more about you to see if you're a good match. Case in point, one of our authors did so well under us (2 moon publishing, that is) that one of the big presses snatched him up. To add to the wow factor, one of the big movie studios came in and bought the movie rights to his book. Yep, they actually came into the office, talked to my publisher, called the author in, signed some papers, handed him a nice, fat check, and send him away smiling.

But again, he had to "Prove Himself" first before any of this happened. And he did. So if you're trying to publish through a big house, or you want the fame, fortune, etc, you need to start out small. I'm not saying you have to go with my publisher, because no publisher is right for every author. Depending on your genre and writing style, you might do better with someone else. I'm obviously going to highly recommend my publisher, of course, but it's best if you find the one that works best for you, whoever that is.

Also, as one last little aside, even agents that are in the market for new authors, are starting to follow the small houses looking for potential new clients. So don't be surprised if your book is doing good and an agent contacts you out of the clear blue wanting to represent you to the big presses.

Surviving The New Market
So what do you need to do then? Well, it actually starts way back at the beginning. First, sit down, and if you already have a book, go through it top to bottom, end to end, and make sure its PERFECT. I'm not talking the kind of perfect you think is perfect. I'm talking about getting it picked over by someone who's objective and will give you a bluntly honest answer. Don't give this to friends and family. They won't give you an objective answer. Only a third party who is unaffiliated with you in any way, and stands to gain nothing from you will give you proper criticism.

Next, remember that if they do give you criticism, take it, learn from it. If the answer is, "Burn it and start over", then listen to them. If they say "This is great, but you need to fix this and this", listen to them and make the changes. Don't assume that just because you think it's great, that it is. The more critical you are of yourself and your writing, the better it'll typically be. Be sure the book is good and will be well accepted BEFORE it ever goes to print. Use writers groups to help you get better, or other means of constructive criticism, and always be humble about what you do. You are never the greatest thing since sliced bread. There will always be someone far better than you. Always.

Once it's good enough to publish, go to a small press, pay to publish, or some other small publishing house and get your book in print. While you're waiting for it to be completed, study up on how to market yourself and your book. Learn everything you can. Once it's out, market the book to death. Seriously. Market yourself, the book, get interviews, signings, go to conventions, events, etc. Get your book into stores (if your publisher doesn't already do that for you), advertise it in the paper, or do whatever works best for your genre.

Case in point. If you're big into horror or vampire stuff, they have numerous huge horror conventions, most notably in Salem, MA that is perfect for your book. If you're into kids books, get permission to come in and do readings to the kids. If you're into romance, get yourself into romance festivals. It's things like this that make your book sell. Oddly, if you're able to market yourself well (good appearance, good people skills, etc) you'll do good with book sales. But more importantly, if your book is good, it will pretty much sell itself.

If it does not, step back, learn what you did wrong, try again. Eventually you'll get a winner and the attention of the big boys. In the meantime, be patient and stick with it. It's a long road to trek, but you'll get there soon enough.

[kennyc]

Well Said Steve. Guess my comment is that in the end an author still has to "sell one's self" but with the changes in the market one can sell themselves directly to the consumer moreso.

[Steven Lake]

Oh, absolutely. In a way, the growing "Prove Yourself" market is more or less just shifting the "Sell Yourself" part of publishing from "Author to Publisher" to "Author to Customer", the latter of which is a LOT harder, believe it or not. After being knuckles deep in this a while, I understand why the old system survived as long as it did. Going it yourself just to prove you're worth publishing is a hard roe to hoe. But from a business standpoint it makes complete sense.

[VydorScope]

But all that aside, the point is, if your work is good, and you can market them effectively, and they're a success, you'll get noticed. Yes, the big houses are watching. They're now very closely following all of the small presses out there and watching for successes.

You think that holds true for authors like me on Smashwords, Lulu, and etc... basically self-published?

[Steven Lake]

Yeah, the big houses are even watching the self published authors now. I figure that within the next 5 years you'll see all the big presses moving to proven authors only and completely abandoning their current manuscript query systems. Of course, if the small press and self publishing market continues to grow like it is, there may not be any large presses within the next 5-10 years.

[Steven Lake]

How interesting. I found someone else who more or less agrees with me but says it in a different way. His base thought, that our success as indie authors is catching the attention of big houses who in turn snap us up, is right on. However, he extends the thought further and says that our success is also killing the indie market. I disagree with that, as I think that the indie market is now the great proving grounds of the future generation of big house authors, and as such, new talent will regularly be flowing in to replace those who are plucked out. So if you have a self regenerating source, it can never really be destroyed.

[VydorScope]

The one traditional publisher I tried talking to originally told me the same. He siad go get a few books (3-5) via self publish and after that you become marketable to traditional publishers.

[Steven Lake]

Exactly. There's fewer and fewer publishers that want to take a risk on a new, untested talent. They've gotten burned WAY too many times, so I can totally understand their apprehension. I'm hoping very soon to prove myself to the main stream publishers that I'm worth looking at, and it's coming in the form of a review from a very widely read book reviewer. I can't say who, or what or any of that till the review comes out, but I can say that, if the review is what I think it is (crossing my fingers and hoping), then I can't see why Random House or one of the other big names wouldn't snap me up.

Yes, I know I've ranted against the big houses for a long time, but not so much anymore. Most of my ranting was over what I thought were really dumb practices. Oddly, the longer I've been in the publishing world, the more I've realized how "not so dumb" those practices actually are. lol. So if a big house wants to snap me up, I'm totally game. That's one reason I'm loving this new "Prove Yourself" market.

[Joonbug1]

Good article and thoughts, Steven.