A Column by Dale Ketcham

While spring cleaning my bookshelves I came across a fabulously depressing book entitled: THE AWFUL TRUTH ABOUT PUBLISHING: Why they always reject your manuscript–and what you can do about it. The author, John Boswell (co-author of What They Don’t Teach You at Harvard Business School), speaks from his experience as a literary agent and book packager. Published in 1986, the book’s numbers need updating, but the “truths” still stand. Boswell tells us how publishers think and how to “package” our product (manuscript) in order to sell it to them.

Since this column is nothing but a teaser for the book, here are the ten truths. But this only covers one chapter. For the real scoop, you need to get the book. It’s ISBN 0-446-51208-7 and currently available used on Amazon, B&N, and Half.com.
Awful Truth #1
There are 53,000 new titles published annually (1986). The person directly responsible for selling your book probably doesn’t know it exists.

#2 You must sell a book three times. First to the publisher who turns it into a book, second to a bookstore owner who agrees to stock it, and finally to the customer who actually pays money for it.

#3 Distribution and feedback are inefficient. Has to do with “time” and “returns” factors…and pesky problems such as Jong’s Fear of Flying being stocked in the Travel and Aviation sections.

#4 Book publishing has no test marketing apparatus. Few if any outside sources are consulted when a book’s market appeal is unknown, leaving the decision solely to those within that publishing house.

#5 Books are not food, shelter, or clothing. Books are not one of life’s essentials, or even a second choice on a bad TV night. A huge bestseller sells to about one percent of the population.

#6 A massive promotion budget won’t buy 30 seconds on “60 Minutes.” Almost no book is given the promotion it needs.

#7 Blink and you may miss your book’s publication. Many books go out of print within six months; paperbacks won’t be around that long.

#8 Every book is unique, but almost none can be treated as such. Because of the number of titles published, most books are promoted, displayed and treated much the same. If you’ve written a book that appeals to a specific audience, it will be sheer luck if that targeted reader finds it.

#9 Bad air drives out the good. A trend surfaces; publishers jump at it; quickie bad books hit the market; trend is saturated; a year later trend is dead. The excess of titles turns them into lame genres and kills off all but the hardiest of survivors.

#10 The bad gets worse. In the words of a major publishing executive who, to everyone’s surprise, suddenly resigned, “The whole publishing process began to seem like a losing proposition to me.” Out of stock, out of time, out of luck–blunders happen in publishing every day. Publishers and editors are as much victims of the system as authors are.

Are you totally depressed? Boswell closes this chapter with “The Magic Factor,” stating a book can survive no matter how much a publisher benignly ignores it or unintentionally tries to kill it. If a book strikes a responsive chord with a sizable audience, it will not only survive but thrive. Ahhh! So don’t give up. We authors have the magic factor going for us that can make our books publisher-proof.

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