How to Publish Your Novel
So you’ve written a novel. You’ve poured months of your time and a piece of your soul into 70,000 or so words of fiction. Now what? How do you go from here to holding your published book in your hands? This site aims to explain each of the different paths to publication to help you decide which is right for you and to create an action plan to get you started.
Traditional Publishing
A large, established publishing house publishes, distributes, and markets your novel. This path involves finding a literary agent to submit your work to editors at publishing houses. Things like editing, formatting, and cover design are supported by the publisher.
Small Press Publishing
A smaller, potentially more niche publisher publishes and distributes your novel. Support from small presses varies widely, as do submission requirements. Some require submissions from literary agents, others welcome direct submissions from writiers.
Self-Publishing
The writer takes on all aspects of publishing themselves, usually publishing their work as an e-book or using a print on demand service. The writer is responsible for cover design, marketing, distribution channels, everything.
The Market
675M annual print book sales in US (Source: Statista.com)
2019 Book Sales By Format
Source: Statista.com
2018/2019 New Titles Published Per Year
Sources: Bowker.com, Statista.com, tckpublishing.com
Details: Combined, the Big Five (minus Macmillan, which is unknown) published 98,800 new titles in 2019. In 2018, the latest year of data available, 1.6 million books were self-published. Data for small presses could not be found, however some definitions require that small presses publish on average 10 or fewer titles per year, and there are somewhere around 150-200 of them, so the estimate of 1,500 was used above.
Traditional Publishing
Traditional publishing means being having your novel be selected, published, and distributed by a large publishing house. The “Big Five” publishing houses that dominate the industry are Penguin Random House, Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, and Simon & Schuster. Each of these publishing houses is made up of smaller publishers or imprints that specialize in a specific genre or audience. For example, HarperTeen is HarperCollins’ young adult imprint, and Tor is Macmillan’s fantasy imprint. There are other large publishing houses outside of the Big Five, such as Scholastic, Disney, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Workman, and Sterling.
Overview of Traditional Publishing
Video Transcript
the Process
(Query Letter and Synopsis > Agent > Edits > Agent Subs Book to Editors > Editor Selection > Edits > Purchasing Decision > Contract > Edits > Copyedits > Formatting > Marketing > Distribution > Publication Day)
Infographic of the process?
Writing a Query Letter
Writing a Synopsis
Creating an Action Plan
Small Press Publishing
A broad definition of a small press is that it earns less than $50 million in revenue per year and publishes ten or fewer titles per year. Small presses are also known as independent publishers or indie publishers. Many focus on a specific niche. Some still require your work to be submitted by an agent. Others allow or encourage authors to submit their work directly. This is wide and diverse category that includes publishers with bestsellers in their catalog as well as brand new publishers that are operating out of someone’s home office. They offer different levels of value to their authors, so it is very important to do your research and evaluate each company you’re considering doing business with.
Overview of Small Press Publishing
Video Transcript
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Self-Publishing
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Overview of Self-Publishing
Video Transcript
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The Process
Finding an Editor
Creating an Action Plan
Writing Cover Copy
Cover Design