Here’s a piece by Michael Hyatt, President of Thomas Nelson, that writers shouldn’t miss.
FIVE PUBLISHING HURDLES
If you’re an aspiring author, have ever
wondered what happens to your book proposal after it arrives at the
publishing house? Sometimes, I’m afraid, the acquisition process
appears to be a sort of “black box.” Proposals are inserted into the
black box and then disappear for weeks. At some point they pop out.
Most are sent back to the author with a rejection letter. A precious
few actually become a book.
But what happens while the proposal is inside the box? In this post I want to describe the internal proposal review process. If you have ever wondered how in the world publishing houses decide what to publish, this post is for you.
First, you need to understand that the entire proposal review process is designed to do one thing: kill all but the most worthy projects.
This may be hard to accept, but you have to understand that the supply
of hopeful authors is infinite while the supply of publishing resources
is finite. Publishers can only publish a fraction of the proposals they receive.
Therefore, every publisher employs a screening process of some sort.
You might think of it as a series of hurdles a proposal must jump
before it crosses the finish line and becomes a book. These hurdles may
vary in number from publishing house to publishing house. But at Thomas
Nelson, there are five.
To read about those five hurdles, jump on over to From Where I Sit and read the rest.
-rlh-
