Publishing Disrupted
Exploring the ways in which book publishing is changing and how writers can best meet the challenge. A conversation between two publishing veterans and friends, editor Mick Silva and publisher and literary agent David Morris.
MickSilva.com / DavidRMorris.me
Publishing Disrupted
Navigating the New Publishing Maze
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"Do I need an editor?" "Is my book any good?" "Do I need an agent?" These have been the common questions of hopeful writers for generations. But these days, looking to navigate the ever-shifting landscape of publishing is far more complex. In this conversation, we pull back the curtain on what really happens behind the scenes in book publishing, and offer some honest insight and guidance about what authors need to succeed, regardless of whether they're publishing conventionally or going independent.
Whether you're pursuing traditional or independent publishing, in this episode we aimed to help answer the typical questions, and provide some of the education that separates future authors from the rest of the pack.
Publishing Disrupted is at PublishingDisrupted.substack.com
Mick Silva is at MickSilvaEditing.substack.com
David Morris is at dvdmorris.substack.com, LakeDriveBooks.com, and Hyponymous.com.
Introduction to Publishing Disrupted
Speaker 1Hey , this is Publishing Disrupted and I'm editor Mick Silva .
Speaker 2I'm publisher and literary agent , david Morris .
Speaker 1And we are two former Christian publishing industry professionals learning to navigate the massive independent book market .
Speaker 2Yeah , woo-hoo .
Speaker 1Yeah , this podcast is basically exploring the ways in which book publishing is changing and how writers can best meet the challenge . So we're just trying to bring our knowledge to the audience of authors out there , and a lot of recent changes have disrupted the industry and continue to . So there's a lot to talk about .
Speaker 2Yeah , and I think it helps to talk about it because we we get it's . It can be pretty , uh , fluid and bewildering and you have days where you feel like , well , I don't really know what I'm doing , but I've been in this 30 years and I know more than like 99% of the population . You're yeah .
Speaker 1You're at 30 . I'm at uh 20 , 25 , 25 this year .
Speaker 2I started in 2000 , so yeah , you still have that feeling like I don't know .
Speaker 1No , I know you know it's growing so much and and has been changing so much within the last , I would say , 10 years , um , and not just because of amazon , although that's one of the biggest disruptors we talked about yeah , yeah yeah yeah , Probably self-publishing is what's changed the most Right right In the last 10 years .
Speaker 2If you were to pick something that was connected to 10 years , Absolutely .
Speaker 1Because the retail .
Speaker 2The digital retail revolution has already started and was even maturing in the last 10 years , to be honest .
Speaker 1Yeah , I look at that as like the blog , like this shift from just someone had a blog and you know they're now building a platform to actually having viable options for self-publishing . Yeah it's about 2015 . But anyway , we had some questions we were thinking we would like to answer , because we get top questions from people all the time and we hear them , whether it's at parties or over the transom on email , and probably Take up the bulk of our time in terms of what we we tend to answer for people .
Speaker 1When they come to us for help . For me , obviously , as an editor , it can run the gamut you know from . Will you just take a look at this to you know ? Do I need an agent ? You know ?
Speaker 2and that's .
Speaker 1that's something that I think we could , we could cover here , but I mean probably the biggest one for me , I mean obviously with , with writers just starting out is you know , is this any good ? Do I have anything here ? You ?
Speaker 1know , and they , they really just want to know is this worth pursuing ? And I think that's often . I mean , that's a fair question , but it's often a really difficult question to answer because you know , you know as well as I it has as much to do with your fortitude and your interest and your . I mean , why are you writing the book ? You know , I think that's generally the question I ask back to them .
Speaker 2Right . The why is a really good question . What's ?
Speaker 1the passion behind it . Why did you think a book other than something else ?
Speaker 2Yeah , because things like quality of writing , or whether you're on topic , or the structure of the book .
Speaker 1Right , those things can all be worked on and we've talked yeah , we talked , uh , maybe first or second uh episode about excellence and and what that means , um command of language . You , you've talked about like proficiency and um facility with language and and for writing . I think that's something we could get into , but , yeah , that's yeah , nothing to say for you know , is this any good yet ? Cause it could be , you know , I guess . Or , or the related question is well then , do I need an editor ? Yeah , and , and that's where I generally , as an editor , will say yes you need an editor .
Speaker 2Pretty much always , everyone does you need an editor .
Speaker 1Pretty much always , everyone does . I need an editor . So , to shift thinking from just , you know , general John Q Public , who's written a manuscript , and comes to me on an email and asks you know , do I need editing ? I would say yes , you need editing . You need to know what makes a book ready and what makes an author ready . You know , after the book is done , now what and then that's when they need you , a literary agent or a publisher , just to talk about their options , you know . So I'm kind of maybe first step for a lot of people , you know well as a in in the indie publishing .
Speaker 2That I do , and to some extent agenting , but but more in the indie publishing , um , I have authors who get the idea that they should have it edited before they turn it in . Um , and that might be because they have an idea that maybe it's the indie publisher or the hybrid publisher isn't going to edit it , and that's not always the case , right , so you don't need to do that necessarily yep um , but oftentimes , uh , a publisher , any publisher , only has so much bandwidth .
Speaker 2Their editor only has so much bandwidth to do what we call the first edit , the development the developmental edit is what we call it . It's typically the first edit a publisher does , but you know as well as I that you've got a stack of other things to do . You've got an email inbox to deal with .
Speaker 1Right .
Speaker 2And if that manuscript isn't really that great , hopefully you've got the time and the resources and the mandate from your superiors to put a hold on a book
Do I Need an Editor?
Speaker 2until it gets worked on better , but not always .
Speaker 1But you don't always .
Speaker 2And then to some extent it's the author's obligation to make sure it's in good shape . That's what's called getting a manuscript that's acceptable . Right right , and if you've got to spend an inordinate amount of time getting it to the acceptable phase , then that's a consideration .
Speaker 1Yeah , yeah , and that's going to be tough .
Speaker 2With authors whose advances are really high , you know , and their platforms are really big . Usually the publisher finds a way to stop the presses and work on that , which does happen . Or they just publish it . That happens .
Speaker 1No , they don't do that . Yeah , no , no .
Speaker 2Big publishers don't do anything like vanity publishing , of course not no . Celebrity authors' books are always wonderful , yeah , yeah .
Speaker 1So I mean just to back up a little bit , because the developmental edit is what we're talking about , and when when someone comes to me asking for you know , does this , does this need editing ? They are often asking about proofreading , or that's what they think editing is development is basically taking your idea and making sure that it's correctly not just formatted but presented , and for development .
Speaker 1I think often I try to simplify that by saying you try to augment what is there to make sure that it's on topic and flows in a logical manner , and then you try to diminish what's distracting Right . There's often a lot of digressions , sidebar material that needs to be turned into sidebars and is trying to hide as chapter material or vice versa , things that need to be expanded Right that you haven't sufficiently supported .
Speaker 2That's probably the hardest thing as an in-house developmental editor is the things that need to be expanded , because you don't really have a lot of time to sort of send this back to the author . The typical turnaround time would be three weeks . Well , if you've got two or three chapters that aren't as strong as the rest of the chapters because they lack material , right , that's not something that can be solved . No , it's not quick in two or three weeks , in addition to all the other little things you've asked about right , right .
Speaker 1so so often it will involve shifting uh even the vision a bit to say , okay , this book isn't going to be able to cover that uh , can we uh either include a note or some supplemental material ? Oftentimes that's why you'll see an appendix or even notes within the text to say check the website .
Speaker 2Well , that sounds a little bit like a workaround too , or a candy at times . Oh yeah , no very much .
Speaker 1It's workarounds in-house Any more as just an editor working on independent manuscripts or even for independent publishers . We do have the time and the schedule to develop that and it will be a better book for it .
Speaker 2If you're a first-time author , it's probably something you should try to have done and spend some money on . Even if you've got a conventional and I prefer the word conventional a contract with a conventional publisher , I think that you'd be surprised what they'll catch . Oh yeah .
Speaker 2And if you're working with an editor who's editing , if they've got a big workload , you're not going to learn a whole lot about your writing from the in-house editor all the time . You can't , you can't a hundred percent count on that . And if you you suspect they're publishing a lot of titles a year or they're busy and you probably always suspect that , but uh , and it might not be true and they might take a lot of time with your manuscript , but oftentimes they only have a , you know , a very well-defined window before they have to move on to something else , right ? So if you think , if you're a first-time author , having someone like you or or another editor to , uh , you know , kind of help you tackle some of the global issues with , with the manuscript in your writing , that would be that would probably be well worth your time and money .
Speaker 2But for a 60,000 word nonfiction manuscript or even fiction , you know you're talking two , three , four thousand dollars depending on how much needs to be done .
Speaker 1Yeah , 60,000 words for me is yeah , that's , that's starting around three thirty five hundred .
Speaker 2Uh-huh , uh-huh .
Speaker 1So it is . It's an investment , and you don't know what you don't know , and so it's . It's one of those difficulties that I have I know you have them too where you're trying to convince the author of something they don't know they need .
Speaker 2Right .
Speaker 1So you're basically just trying to show them .
Speaker 2Hey , what do you mean ? My writing is not good . My friends love this . I've had this read by four people and they all love it . They all thought it was great . I only need proofreading . But they were your friends . Yeah , yeah .
Speaker 1Well , and often you know , you're getting into situations where you've charged a certain amount for a book and now it needs more work because you weren't quite aware of the level of editing required . So you know , I've told my wife Sherry a few times I'm an uncredited ghostwriter on several books and I may have been paid for a developmental edit . But , yeah , sometimes you're doing a lot more . I couldn't do that in-house .
Speaker 2The rewriting as an in-house editor ? Right , there was no way . Spending time rewriting page by page , yeah , yeah , and rewriting page by page .
Speaker 1Yeah , yeah , no , and I mean the publisher bought the book .
Speaker 2So they're not going to . It's a lot of
Understanding Developmental Editing
Speaker 2hours .
Speaker 1Yeah yeah , they're not going to notice you doing all that work anyway , so you just generally will publish it . This is one of the things I would love to know . I mean , are independent books actually better than some of the conventional books that are published now because of just the crunch in time schedules ? And the reality that you know , an editor who's on staff is not really motivated to put in the work that a manuscript necessarily needs , and most do need it .
Speaker 2So I have seen , I think , a range where some editors like I can think of one at a very major , very large broad market house , one of the big five New York publishers , where the editor spent a lot of time working with the author on the developmental edit not an inordinate amount of time but a lot , and the manuscript needed it and the author was capable of doing the . Responding to that , it's quite well to what ? To authors who , like they turn in the manuscript and they get the , they get the revision back . It's like wait , what happened ?
Speaker 1right , yeah , it's good , yeah , this is way under under edited . Yeah , I was seeing that a lot , just even by colleagues um on staff , that they they were not the type of editor who would dig in on a manuscript if , if it needed it , they'd hire , hire that out , right , but a lot of times that wasn't happening in-house a lot of pressure was on is on an acquisitions editor right in a major imprint , right to go to acquire and that takes a lot of relationship work , a lot of hand-holding .
Speaker 1Yeah , the incentive is on the editor to acquire books and to get bigger names .
Speaker 2To lobby for the biggest possible advance that the publisher can pay so they can beat the other publisher . You're trying to beat the other publisher . Yeah , that's how it works . I was continually asked pay so they can beat the other publisher . You're trying to beat the other publisher .
Speaker 1Yeah , that's how it works . I was continually asked who are the biggest authors you can go after , and every month or quarter at least , there was kind of an audit of all the relationships that you could go exploit , basically for new books , and that's what's taking up most of in-house editors' time not working on books . So all of that to say it does behoove you to get an editor and to hire it yourself before you seek publishing , and maybe even before you seek representation , I think , depending on your goals .
Speaker 2And there are a lot of editors out there . You know publishing has contracted . In terms of the number of positions that are out there In the last 30 years it's contracted quite a bit . So that means there's a lot of experienced , knowledgeable editors in your area of content .
Speaker 1Yeah , I think you can go on on reedsy . Um , I'm I'm on there , but a lot of experienced editors are on on reedsycom and that's that's a great place to go and at least uh get familiarized with with some of the developmental editors there upwork , maybe has some work haswork has great ones . Reedsies is more focused on publishing . It is , and yeah , design as well .
Speaker 2But yeah , I've found most of my colleagues independent editors and definitely ask around . You know , as an author , you should be networking with other authors . That's right and not like the New York Times bestsellers . But the people who are a couple steps ahead of you , a couple steps further down the road in publishing and they've got some experience under their belt and say who do ? You know that edits books that you really like and then collect probably a number of names .
Speaker 1Get some names , that's right .
Speaker 2Because you kind of need to understand not just so much whether they're good , but are they the right fit ? Right fit for you ? Yeah .
Speaker 1Yeah , and why ? From a content point of view , what does that mean ?
Speaker 2Maybe even a personality or cost point of view . Yeah , yeah .
Speaker 1What does it mean to fit , be a good fit with a particular editor , or even a publisher or agent ?
Speaker 2I think it's personality obviously initially know . Do they read the kind of ?
Speaker 1material that you're asking them to . Yeah , edit , I mean yeah , that's kind of yeah . Number one I was working with someone recently and it was for a sci-fi book and I don't do a lot of sci-fi and I told her up front I'm not the right editor for you . You should find someone else she said well , I'll just take a look at it anyway I did .
Speaker 1But you know , yeah , um , I think , yeah , you definitely want to read pretty widely in your own area , in your own field , and then read acknowledgement pages and find who are the editors and agents that you can reach out to and ask for independent help .
Speaker 2Speaking of agents , this reminds me of an experience I had as an agent . That's what I do . I do that part-time . That's what I do . I do that part-time , and I also do indie publishing a little more than part-time which means a lot of time .
Speaker 2But I had somebody recommended to me who was a psychologist and that's my thing . That's my background . I want to work with more psychologists . I can be really helpful working with psychologists and I have a PhD myself and I love getting into the deeper learning . But I ended up having an exploratory call with a person who was a psychologist and my background is psychoanalysis psychoanalytic theory as a methodology for cultural critique .
Speaker 1Very cool .
Speaker 2Yeah , so that's a pretty specific but very deeply and historically intellectual pursuit , Less clinical . And I don't know you may know this , but in the psychology world , in American psychology psychotherapy practices , there's a lot of different schools .
Speaker 2And this person just didn't like Freud . Freud was like someone to have currency with the knowledge , but only in a way to . Oh , we've moved on from that and I'm like , well , you know , for me that's like well , wait a minute , that sounds like resistance , hang on , that sounds like you're protesting too much , and oftentimes it is because American psychology is its own brand . Oh for sure , there's all these different . You know , if you go from country to country , there's differences , it's not ?
Speaker 2just a science , you know , and so that was an instance where it was like okay , you know what , we shouldn't be working together , because this is just not Fundamentally disagreeing . We use different languages and different meanings to things , whether we're agreeing or not . I'm sure there's common ground , but we just can't find it very quickly . Anyway , it felt weird . Honestly , it was kind of unpleasant .
Speaker 1I was ushered off the call pretty quickly by this person . I'm like , okay , win some , you lose some . We just have different opinions , yeah , yeah . Yeah , that's interesting . I think I've had authors where I know I'm not a fit for them , but it takes them a little while .
Speaker 2That's right To figure it out . That's more the case .
Speaker 1Yeah , and I'm not necessarily trying to convince them that I'm not . I just want to educate them somewhat open-handedly and let them make their choice Right . Yeah , yeah , I think sometimes when they have a professional in their grasp , they're reluctant to let go . Yeah , I understand that that can be hard .
Speaker 2Yeah , I get that a lot as well , like can you tell me more ? And I usually have to say I can only say I can only I can just somehow hint in the email . You know , here's what to do next if I were you Right . Next steps yeah .
Speaker 1Yeah , I'm quickly moving to next steps when that becomes
Finding the Right Editor
Speaker 1clear . But yeah , shifting a conversation that way is not what I like to do . It's just something that we have to do . It's like being asked at a party as a , as a doctor , you know , you can look at this weird rash or something you're like that's not really appropriate right here . I don't do weird rashes , I only do uh I'm not even that kind of doctor , I'm not even gonna say what came to my mind yeah , yeah , so that does happen .
Speaker 2So , listening to so , do I need an editor ? Yeah , you know , I . And do I need an agent ? Or people say I think I need an agent . It's really more I , I need an editor yeah , you know , and do I need an agent ? Or people say I think I need an agent , I probably need an agent . I need someone to help me . Right , go , take from , take what I have and help me navigate the world of publishing . And that's and that is true , you need help navigating the world of publishing . Do you need an agent ? I would say yes , yeah , you need help navigating the world of publishing . Do you need an agent ? I would say yes , you do .
Speaker 1At least for the knowledge that they're going to offer you . Right , right .
Speaker 2I mean , the first thing that comes to mind and to get out of the way sort of , is well , you're kind of not ready even for that , because an agent also has limits on their time and only so much capacity to help help you through , like , for example , the you know it's . I don't . I don't believe it's an agent's job and I know there's some agents that maybe think that it is to to help an author with their developmental edit type oh no , work right um Actually editing their manuscript .
Speaker 2Yeah , or just seeing a whole , like I know one agent that used to , or maybe still does , requires an author to write the whole manuscript before they start pitching Right . And I can kind of get that . It doesn't necessarily mean it has to be edited , perhaps .
Speaker 1Or to show up with a proposal .
Speaker 2Or maybe what's more common is that the author wonders can you help me sort of structure what this book should be ? And to that I think an agent can help . But if it's like a series of calls to finally get to the right thing , that's probably too much time for most agents to devote , unless you're an author that can command a million-dollar advance .
Speaker 1Sorry folks only a few of you can do that .
Speaker 1If you have a huge platform , go ahead , but otherwise , yeah , right , yeah , yeah that's or you've written or you've published really well in the past and you have a track record you probably don't need that kind of help , but , um , but yeah , that learning and and this is this is difficult , because educating an author is largely what we do and how we spend a lot of our time . One of the reasons I'm wanting to do this podcast is for that . So it becomes this kind of like education process . Where can you learn about what you don't know ? And books are the best place . I'm still going to say it you have to go to your library , where we are right now Books about publishing .
Speaker 2you mean Learn about publishing ?
Speaker 1Yes , read books . Read the research books , read the writer's market
Do I Need a Literary Agent?
Speaker 1. There's a ton of articles . They're freely available to you to go get educated on what publishing is and what you need to do in order to enter that industry . But most people will not do that . They will just call me and then use our time basically to try and figure out how can I get my book published .
Speaker 2Yeah , and to try to get to the level of having an agent that will take an interest in you and everything depends . There's always exceptions , but it usually means you know an interest in you and everything depends . There's always exceptions , but it usually means you know I'm not an agent that's always angling for like the higher , bigger advances . But I still have sort of a baseline . If I don't think an author can get a certain advance , let's say at least $5,000 .
Speaker 1It needs to be worth it yeah .
Speaker 2Then it starts to . It starts to not really be worth either the author's or the agent's time for the compensation that comes along with that . And you're at 15% .
Speaker 1Yeah , 15% is like the standard commission that an agent makes on the author's royalties and the advance that is paid on those royalties . So even off of $5,000 , I mean , and it's paid in installments 15% is not much money For the amount of work that you might put into it You're talking about .
Speaker 2So that's actually kind of low . I know some agents are like if I don't think an author can get a six-figure advance , I'm not really going to work with them and I and I get that they're trying to work at that kind of level or in that kind of context .
Speaker 2For me , my context is different so I'm trying to work with authors who have a particular angle right , are doing kind of creative things , who are saying things that aren't with the status quo , and I'm fortunate that I'm able to try to do that , but it it's hard work and it yeah , well , there's difference in agents you kind of noted there .
Speaker 1Uh , you're more boutique , or you're more content driven , where you can afford to basically go after the authors you like and you don't necessarily have to just be mercenary and try to get the six-figure advances Right , but sometimes you're not really ready even for that .
Speaker 2That usually means for a publisher to pay a $5,000 advance . You always have to keep in mind that they're spending more than just that on you , that's right .
Speaker 1Yeah , a lot more .
Speaker 2In terms of their actual costs for editing and designing , typesetting , managing overhead , publishing your book , we're talking like that's another $15,000 . And if they do upfront print runs , that's another maybe $2,000 , $3,000 , $5,000 . Rent runs , that's another maybe two three $5,000 .
Speaker 1So now for your small platform author $5,000 advanced book , that's .
Speaker 2We're like up to $25,000 investment on the part of the publisher and that's . You know , they've got to sell a pretty good number of books to make that money back .
Speaker 1And a lot of times they do not . Yeah , and that goes for even the big advances , and sometimes even more so . The margins are are crazy and right publishing it's not um . You know the the uh uh cover price yeah cover price for a book .
Speaker 2You know , sometimes we have to like , tell an author to go go back and work on your audience some more . Look at your personal and professional network . How much are you connecting with people outside of just writing ? Depending on your topic area , can you develop a stronger online platform and connect with people that way ? Um , sometimes people ask how many do I need ? I think you need , well , I mean , I'd say , a strong social media platform like Instagram , like 5,000 , would be really good to you know , as long as your engagement is good too .
Speaker 1It's not just .
Speaker 2It's not just 5,000 , and then you get like two likes on most of your posts it's 5,000 and you get 100 likes or so on a lot of your posts . Yeah , that's regular posting and there's
Building Your Platform
Speaker 2ways to get there .
Speaker 1Yeah .
Speaker 2And people get frustrated and cynical about that , but honestly , it's really just think of it as a different medium to get your content and make an impact . Yeah , and that is very , very doable if you find the right attitude .
Speaker 1Well , you just got to be a systematic kind of thinker . A lot of people use social media . I'm guilty of this , just something comes to mind . I think it would be helpful . I put it up on Facebook . Instead of having a plan . Basically , I'm going to post twice a day and do it at these times , and I have a list of things that I'm going to cover and they're ready to go . That's . That's someone who's building their platform .
Speaker 2Mm , hmm , mm , hmm . Yeah , that's very doable , but then . But then let's say you are someone who warrants , has that potential with your manuscript and your platform . It's a growing platform . It may not be big , but you're doing some good things . It's growing . You can demonstrate that you have some understanding of what it takes to market the book long term . So let's say you've got . You qualify as being an agent's author . Why go with an agent ? Yeah , yeah , there's a lot to know about publishing , right . Even for someone who's published a bunch of books , you still don't know a lot , right ? I was even amazed . Sometimes it's some very experienced agents that we worked with when you were at Harper , yeah , and so on .
Speaker 2When we had our big corporate publishing jobs yeah , like whoa you don't know about that you don't know about that . You don't understand how that works in the sales marketplace , yeah , and it's like , oh yeah , well , that person actually never worked in publishing . Sure , In this case they were a lawyer . Yeah , yeah .
Speaker 1Don't know . In-house operations .
Speaker 2Don't necessarily know what's going on with a lot of aspects to publishing and that's not a disqualification , it just means it's . Sometimes it's a strong qualification , but people just don't know what's going on . And I think it starts with how do you put a good proposal together ? There's a craft to that . There's a lot of things Everyday . Common sense doesn't quite work that way . The most obvious one are the comparative titles that you put in there . They shouldn't be . Don't pick a giant bestseller .
Speaker 2Don't compare yourself to a giant bestseller . Don't pick something that's 20 years old . Those things sound like they're obvious , but authors do it all the time .
Speaker 1Oh yeah , and so do some publishing people . No , it's true . Oh , it is difficult .
Speaker 2I think a lot of times the feedback from the sales team will be conflicting At a publishing house yeah , and so there's a craft to putting a good proposal together . Then it's a question of you know who are the publishers I should target , and there are a lot of them out there .
Speaker 1Right , yeah , if you're going conventional , you know there's different tiers of publishers and kind of getting to know that , yeah , if we're talking about Christian publishing specifically , I think there is a good resource with the Christian writers market guide , because that will give you the the different tiered um publishing resources available to you , and not a lot of the uh , hybrid and self publishing is in there , but I think it's helpful . It's put out by Steve lobby , who is an agent Um and , and that's just a resource that I think everyone needs to know if they're trying to get published in the Christian market .
Speaker 1If you're going toward independent book publishing , you need to be familiar with IBPA , and IBPAcom is Independent Book Publishers Association . And they have a lot of useful tools and materials . Publishers Marketplace .
Speaker 2That's true they do . It's another one to be familiar with Publishers Marketplace
Navigating Publishing Options
Speaker 2, which is more of a clearinghouse of information for the publishing industry , Publishing industry at large . It's not so much geared toward authors .
Speaker 1Right , they do have author resources available in that and they're subscription-based most of them .
Speaker 2They track a lot of the deals . That's what I think agents and publishers look at . Publisher's Lunch .
Speaker 1Yeah , and being aware of what's selling is a helpful tool for any author . But go to your library because all those resources are available at a good well-stocked library . And just to say , you know , getting educated that's what this episode , I think , is probably about and being able to you , you know , command some respect on your topic and write a good business document proposal , uh , for your book . Uh , is is absolutely something you need to learn how to do .
Speaker 2Yeah , if you're going to publish books , you know I say this a lot too is is it context ? Is everything in publishing ? You know ? What kind of author are we talking about here ? What ? Kind of topic area . Are we in what kind of level ? What ? Kind of book Fiction , nonfiction .
Speaker 1Specificity yes .
Speaker 2You know how do you position this Right . You know what are the numbers involved . Who are the publishers ? I mean the agenting I do I . I can pitch to just about any publisher . I'm pretty , pretty proficient at it . I have a narrow list of authors so I can't say I've done it . I've landed in a lot of different publishers by the range of publishers actually did a body and stir publisher recently yeah , and and came close to actually actually oh and actually a sexuality hey publisher what's the right word ?
Speaker 2not sexualized . That's not the right word . What am ? I trying to say right , yeah yeah , the wrong words are coming to my mind . All the wrong words come to my mind sometimes not the right word no , me too it's .
Speaker 1It's an age thing .
Speaker 2Romance . That's really steamy . What's the right word for that ? Yeah , erotica . There we go erotica . I was going to say , if it's fiction , yeah , yeah , yeah yeah , but mostly my area would be what I know are the progressive house , I mean I know the conservative , evangelical ones , and they actually form the majority of religious-oriented publishers . Right , they far outpace combined their annual dollar amount . Dollar revenue is bigger than all the other kinds of religious publishers combined .
Speaker 1Right , it's just by a lot , it's just unbelievable the difference .
Speaker 2So when you look at the more progressive Protestant publishers , mostly of them are nonfiction too by the way .
Speaker 1Oh for sure .
Speaker 2And when you're talking about houses that are more denominationally structured they're more connected to existing denominations . That's a small . It's a much smaller playing field . If you're an author , that fits with me editorially Right same here . And that's what I actually kind of enjoy . I say , well , you know , there's really , there's only a few good options here for you .
Speaker 1And are you ready for that publisher ?
Speaker 2And I'll tell you exactly what you ready for that , for that publisher , and I'll tell you exactly what you need to do to get ready , and it's a great . It's a great way to be focused , even though your options are very quickly limited .
Speaker 1Yeah , and that now you have you have some focus to your research as an author and you can go look at the books that they're publishing , even even within the span , like what's coming up right , and say , okay , do I see where I might fit with this cadre of authors ? Yeah , that's great . And to be able to . I want to talk more about this next time and get into some of that progressive Christian space , because that's where I'm spending most of my time too . But like , being able to quickly assess something and narrow down and get specific for an author gives them some next steps , and we can be able to quickly assess something and narrow down and get specific for an author gives them some next steps , and we can be able to hopefully with this podcast as well help people figure out their next steps .
Speaker 2Yeah , there you go .
Speaker 1Yeah , let's keep going . I love it .
Speaker 2Yeah . Okay , Well we didn't get to all our our questions . We can do that next time . More questions for later . We have plenty of questions . Send us your questions .
Speaker 1Yeah , there you go .
Speaker 2I want to hear about it .
Speaker 1Yeah , we will actually get this podcast up and published at some point .
Speaker 2We're the typical book editors . We take forever to get something done . Yeah , I know .
Speaker 1We've got four in the hopper . We need to get this out there . But yeah , who knows how far it will go ? We'll keep it going as long as it's helpful . So thanks for being here .
Speaker 2Thank you .
