How Book Publishers Work

The dream of every writer is to sell his book to people and become popular. To do this, he must publish his book.

Publishing is the process of producing and disseminating literature or information so that such information is available to the public. The source of this information is mostly from authors. In some instances, authors may self-publish.

In a traditional sense, the word publishing is about selling and distributing printed works such as books, magazines, and newspapers. Recently, it includes electronic resources such as ebooks, periodicals, websites, blogs, games, and others due to introduction of the Internet and digital information systems.

The biggest hurdle of writers is actually the book publishers themselves. Book publishers have to make sure that the book sells; the bulk of their revenue comes from part of the book's sales. Publishing a non- or poor-selling book can result to losses from printing expenses and a waste of space in warehousing.

Because of this, book publishers carefully check every manuscript that is submitted to them for grammatical errors and content. The manuscripts are also evaluated for their profit-earning potential. Manuscripts that do not satisfy a publisher's criteria are rejected.

Book publishers follow a certain process in publishing a book.

1. Book publishers focus on by buying or commissioning. In a small press, it is possible to survive and profit from commissioned material. But as the business grows, the need for works may exceed the publisher's supply of writers.
   
   At this point, book publishers rely on the manuscript submissions from outside writers. In fact, most of the submissions come from previously unpublished writers. These writers first write a proposal letter then submit their manuscript. The manuscript goes through a publisher's slush pile were acquisition edit
   ors select manuscripts of sufficient quality and good revenue potential. Selected manuscripts are then sent to the editorial staff. Established authors are usually represented by their own literary agent to market their work and negotiate in their behalf.
   
   
2. Book publishers then call the author whose manuscript is selected. Commissioning editors then negotiate with the author for the purchase of intellectual property rights. They also negotiate on the royalty rates (Royalty is a payment to an author for each copy of a work sold). This is quite a tricky process because the book publisher must approximate the potential sales and the projected revenue against the book's production cost. Typically, the author gets 10 to 12 percent of the recommended retail price of the book.
   
   Also, the book publisher and author agree on the formats of publication whether it would be sold as paperback, trade paperback, hardback, or some other format. This negotiation becomes more complex if both are agreeable to electronic formatting. This is due to the possibility of illegal downloading from the Internet without the ability to restrict physical distribution.
   
   
3. After the negotiations, the book publisher may ask the author to rewrite or make small changes to his manuscript to improve the work according to the book publisher's standards. Book publishers will then edit the book to match its house style. Editing can also include structural changes and fact checking.
   
   
4. When the book publisher and the author are satisfied with the final draft, the prepress stage begins. This is where artwork is then incorporated. The book is then subjected to other processes such as typesetting, dust jacket composition, specification of paper quality, binding method and casting, and proofreading. Presently, the prepress process is computerized, making subprocesses easier and faster. If the book is to be distributed electronically, the files are saved in appropriate formats such as PDF.
   
   Once the final book is printed, it is then distributed to bookstores.

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