Book Publishing

To write what is worth publishing, to find honest people to publish it, and get sensible people to read it, are the three great difficulties in being an author. ~ Charles Caleb Colton

If you thought writing a book was hard enough, then you must know that getting it published might be even harder. The book publishing industry has a standardized process that every manuscript has to pass in order to get published as a book. With this article we will try and have a look at the book publishing process:

Author Submission: An author usually submits the manuscript with a letter of query or proposal to the publishing house. While the well-established authors have their own literary agent to represent them in front of the publishing house, the first-timers or unpublished authors get transferred to a ‘slush pile’. The editors in the publishing house scan the works of the unpublished authors in order to find quality work.

Negotiation: After a certain manuscript is accepted, the commissioning editors of the publishing house negotiate the purchase of intellectual property rights and settle on the royalty rates with the author. The format of publication that is mass-market paperback or hardback is also decided with the consent of the author and the publisher. The royalties paid to the author, are somewhere between 10-12% of the recommended retail price of the book.

Editing: Once the royalty charges and other legal norms are set, the author is asked to revise his work. This stage includes rewriting and other changes as suggested by the house style. The publishing staff also edits the book, and could suggest further changes to the author. In case of non-fiction books, fact checkers might be employed to verify facts as well.

Pre-Press Activities: Once the final manuscript is ready, it has to be taken to the designing level whereupon the layout and the artwork for the book is finalized. The book is given a final proof reading as well. Once the manuscript passes this phase with typesetting, dust jacket composition, the paper quality and the method of binding and casing are also decided. After this the book is ready for printing and distribution.

Printing and Distribution: The book publishing house might either have their in-house printing facilities or might outsource it. Nowadays with the mushrooming of retail bookshops and supermarkets, specialized companies handling sales to bookshops, wholesalers and chain stores for a fee have grown rapidly. Earlier it was the dedicated in-house salespeople who handled the book sale to the bookstores.

Innovations in Book Publishing

With the advancements in the field of mass communication, book publishing has grown tremendously providing increased opportunities for writers to publish themselves. Most of the unpublished authors, who do not make it to the big publishing houses, now have the option of self-publishing or publishing via small publishing houses. The greatest change has been the e-book, which is nothing but an electronic version of books that can either be sold through CDs, or sold/downloaded for free over the Internet. These e-books are either sold in individual CD covers or at times sold as a complementary accompaniment. Although e-book publishing has a disadvantage in terms protection of copyright over the Internet, it comes with a wider reach over the World Wide Web, and can be aided with reading software, or even audio books. Audio books are also a latest trend in book publishing, a trend rather neglected by the avid readers, but a blessing for people who simply dread reading.

Everyone has his or own story…there are millions of stories waiting to be told…The Book publishing industry is a medium that gives voice to the these untold stories. The publishing industry is humongous. Every day a number of manuscripts are accepted and passed via numerous short-listing processes that decide whether or not a book is worth publishing, some get through and any others die a silent death. The trauma of rejection is tremendous, but most of the authors keep on trying, with new manuscripts, new publishers or perhaps new media. The book publishing industry makes and breaks many authors, the meek ones give up, but the determined ones keep trying…After all a great piece of literature coming straight from the writer’s heart never goes un-noticed…