Imagine you and a group of friends are
are in a strange city on a holiday. Every restaurant is closed for
the holiday, and you can't find anywhere to eat. It's almost noon.
You remember seeing signs earlier for some sort of event in a park,
so you go there... only to discover there are two events. Due to
annoyances of timing, there are two cooking competitions scheduled
for the same park at the same time, and you pause between them,
taking them in. They don't open for another hour, so you have plenty
of time-- as your stomach starts to growl-- to choose.
On the right are twenty tables in a
neat square, each with two people standing behind them, tending to
their hugely over-sized pots and adding last-minute ingredients. The
cooks are all wearing aprons, have their hair tied back or otherwise
out of the way, and are very nicely dressed. A quick read of the sign
posted by the entrance tells you that these are the recent graduates
from Hungry Harry's Cooking School. For $20, you can sample a cup
from each of their chili's, then fill out a form on your favorite.
The person with the most popular chili will get $5,000 towards
opening their own restaurant.
On the left are at least a hundred
tables, arranged in haphazard squiggles. Some tables have one person
standing behind them; others have five or six. The cooks range from
teens to grandmothers, some with hair tied back, others in hats, some
with it loose; they range from wearing three-piece-suits to
bathrobes. Each table has one or two pots on it, some very
professional, others chipped and cracked but still holding. A quick
read of the sign tells you that every entrant paid $1. You'll be
given a mug for $5, and then you can wander the rows, sampling chili
at will. Some people are giving away their chili, others are charging
a nickel or even a quarter a ladle. When you leave, write down the
name of your favorite chili, and the most popular person will get
half the profits towards opening their own restaurant.
Which cook-off will you go to?
For those who haven't guessed right
now, yes, the cook-off is a metaphor for the publishing industry.
Right now, there are two main forms of publishing.
Traditional Publishing
is when an author gets a publisher to publish their book. This is a
long process, involving many negotiations. In the end, the publisher
pays the author for the privilege of publishing that book, puts it in
stores everywhere, and-- in return-- gets a large cut of the profits.
Self Publishing
is when an author goes it alone. This is a much faster process. The
author either pays someone to help or does every step themselves,
advertising, creating cover art, getting it into bookstores, and
covering the costs of doing so on their own. However, the author gets
100% of the profits, and can be published in a matter of days or
weeks, not years.
Which
of these is better?
A lot
of people are saying the publishing industry is dead; I am not one of
them. Yes, self-publishing is alive and well; however, the problem is
the lack of gatekeepers.
If
you went to the cook-off on the right, you were guaranteed to get a
chef who had been to cooking school. Of those 40 chefs, one or two is
probably lazy-- used canned ingredients, found a recipe online, didn't practice-- but the vast majority are good. To get there, they went
through several classes, pleased several people, and spent a lot of
time cooking.
To
get traditionally published, you must do much the same. None of the
major American publishers will accept unsolicited manuscripts, so
most authors have an agent; an agent is a person that publishers
trust to have good taste. Without an agent, when you submit your
manuscript to any publisher, it will have to go through roughly six
rounds of editors to get approved, and if any one rejects you, you
get no further. With an agent, you still have to please one or two
editors, but getting an agent is a challenge. A professional will
edit it again for you (or suggest improvements to your recipe), a
professional will do the cover art (or make sure you have an apron
and your hair is out of the food), and a professional will advertise
for you (or make sure they know you went to cooking school).
If
you went to the cook-off on the left, you have no idea what you're
getting. Everyone who couldn't get into cooking school is there.
Sure, some people were just too young, too poor, or just didn't want
to go to cooking school... but most are the cook-school rejects.
Still, there might be some good chili in there.
If
you self-publish, there is no way to let anyone know your manuscript
is better than anyone else's. Everything, and everyone, is out
there... and there's no way to know who's who. Some people have good
presentation, good cover art, good grammar and spelling (they didn't
need to be taught about aprons and hair). Some people are really good
cooks, but only cook traditional Chinese food (you might have a great
story, but if the publishers don't think they can sell it and make
money, they won't buy it). And there might be some wonderful stories,
but the author doesn't understand grammar or spelling very well
(chili with hair in it, anyone?).
In amidst all this stuff, there are a few handfuls of people who could
get published traditionally, a few chefs who went to cooking school
years ago but couldn't afford their own restaurants. But, on average,
1/1000 self-published books are good quality. On average, 950/1000
traditionally published books are good quality. There may be
accounting for taste, or genre, or anything else... but if you go
traditional publishing, you are more likely to get somewhere.
And
both places have the same eventual goal, don't they?
I'm
trying for traditional publishing. If you're not, that's okay, but
I'm going to talk about it now.
Future
posts will cover query letters, synopsizes, and
other minutiae.
Are
you trying to get published yet, either the traditional way or
self-publishing? Why? If you're not, are you planning to in the
future?
Happy
Writing,
-Alaina
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