Most blog posts on publishing related websites talk about how important it is to have Literary agents represent authors. So it is only inevitable that the reverse question comes up frequent, specially from authors who’ve tried their best to reach out to the best literary agents in town (and outside) and haven’t had much luck.
Aren’t there any advantages of not having a literary agency offer representation? You bet there are.
Literary agents and publishers reject an overwhelmingly large number of query letters than they accept. With those odds, it’s hard not to have gone through the rejection and dejection phase. In many cases, it’s not even an outright rejection of the query letter through a template responses. It’s that eerie silence from the other side that gets on the nerves of new authors. There are ways for authors to deal with rejection.
But does a rejection (implied or explicit) from a literary agency that was on the top of your wishlist mean it’s the end of the road for you?
This question came in as a reader comment on one of the earlier blog posts. This question about average word count was on my mind as well, when I started writing my book. Most blogs and writer websites had the more-or-less the same advice – forget the length and the average word count of your novel. Write your story and forget the rest.
I wouldn’t dispute that rationale to a large extent. But the follow-your-heart recommendation needs to be considered in the context of commercial and business interests of the publishing company too. So I continued searching for the other side of the story. Where word count translates into a specific number of pages, which in turn influences how painful it would be to publish your book.
I found several high level guidelines on the internet. These were to do with whether the book would be categorised as a Novel or a Novella or an Epic or something else. In this post, I’d like to share some thoughts on word count considerations.
Steven Piersanti (President, Berrett-Koehler Publishers) recently published a top 10 list on the trends in the publishing industry. Though the numbers that are cited in the article are from the US, I’m guessing that some trends might be applicable to the world market as well.
First a quick summary of the post and then we move on to what new authors can do apart from popping anti-depressant pills.
In traditional book publishing, authors get the short end of the stick. You already knew that. We are talking about income in the form of book royalty.
So if an author does all the hard work of writing the book and the reader does the (harder?) work of patiently reading it, where does the rest of the money go?
This is where the supply chain comes into picture and it might help understanding the behind the scenes dynamics, so you are better positioned to write that bestseller.
‘Print run’ is a term you’ll start hearing about, once you sign your publishing contract. It might get a small mention in the agreement, but you’ll realise how important it is for the success of your book when you really understand the implications of that number.
What is a print run?
In simple terms, a print run is the number of copies your publisher will print each time. Once a print run gets sold out, the publisher orders another set of copies after taking a call on the number again. The first print run (i.e. the first time your manuscript gets sent to the printing press) can have the biggest impact on whether your book will be considered a success or failure. And ironically, it can be pretty relative and subjective perception, decided by