I'm coming in a little late on the conversation regarding
unpublished novels and their relative merits, but I have a
bit of a different perspective.
Kevin is correct when he states that it's the
PUBLISHER'S money that is at risk when they put a story into
print. Whether you are publishing mass-market paperbacks
using web-fed presses or trade paper through a POD press, the
cost is not inconsiderable. At Back Alley Books, the average
cost to put a book into print is about $1000, including
having the cover designed, the time to set the book up,
assigning an ISBN number, and the fees to have it placed in
Lightning Source's data system, along with a yearly
maintenance fee to keep it there. That cost is chickenfeed
compared to the average cost of putting out a novel in mass
market paperback format - the average there would be between
$5000 and $10,000.
Because of that, the average publisher has to be very
careful what he or she publishes. For micropresses, the risks
are even higher.
When I started Back Alley Books in 2001, I was much
less focused on marketability than I was on the quality of
the work. I owned and drove racing cars for 28 years, so I
know a thing or two about throwing money down a hole.
Publishing is cheap by comparison. My goal at Back Alley,
among other things, was to preserve and nurture the
hardboiled genre, find new voices, and give them a chance.
The intent was to find the right books, and nudge their
authors into the limelight a little, see if they could stand
on their own.
I won't go into the financial problems we encountered
almost immediately, and which kept us from doing books by
outside authors, because my theme in this post is the quality
of the work that started streaming in over the transom - or,
more precisely, into my email in-box. In order to help
authors determine whether their work met my needs, I
published and distributed a fairly lengthy set of guidelines.
Some people actually used them. Most didn't. I received
cozies, traditional mysteries, thrillers, and one piece that
I can only describe as a kung-fu movie in novel form. None of
them met the requirements I had set out. They were all
politely rejected after I read ten pages. Some only took
five.
In addition, even for those novels which did fit the
guidelines, the writing in many cases was atrocious. People
sent in first drafts, replete with misspellings and grammatic
errors, long paragraphs which should have been multiple short
paragraphs, uninspired dialogue, and improper formatting. (By
the way, to the two Jacks and to Richard P., I am NOT talking
about your books.) I finally got a taste of what the major
publishers experience day in and day out. Lemme tell ya,
campers, the vast majority of submitted manuscripts ARE
crap.
About thirty years ago, I had the very great pleasure
of having dinner with Theodore Sturgeon. I had admired his
writing for years, and was admittedly agog at breaking bread
with him. I brought up his statement that "ninety percent of
everything is crap".
He chuckled, and said, "When I said that, I must have
been drunk."
He waited for a beat, and then added, "And
charitable."
Here's the deal, guys, from the publisher's side of
the aisle. Sometimes books get rejected for reasons other
than quality. Not everything that gets rejected is crap. Most
of what is rejected IS crap. Just because it is published
later by someone else doesn't mean it ISN'T crap.
Getting published is the easiest thing in the world.
All you have to do - at the highest levels - is convince one
agent and one editor and one small group of marketing drones
that what you have written will sell. In theory, nothing
could be simpler. The real problem is finding that one agent,
and that one editor in the morass of agents and editors in
the business, and in catching the marketing department on a
good day. And, finally, sometimes there is just no accounting
for taste.
The trick is to keep writing, keep improving, find
your voice, and don't give up. If you stick with it, you will
find that agent and that editor, and you will eventually
convince that marketing department to take a chance on you.
For most of those who have - up to that point - labored in
the self-publishing world or with small presses, they are
likely to discover that this stroke of luck mostly means
continuing to starve under a larger roof.
It isn't intended to be easy. If it were, everyone
would do it. R
Richard Helms Three-Time Shamus Award Nominee http://richardhelms.net
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