Increased time to market?

dgaughran said:

Hi,

I just got the Publishers Lunch deals email, which was packed today, presumably it's a lot of deals that were done, announced, or held back because of, the London Book Fair.

Lots of the stated publication dates are set for Spring 2013. Is this a new trend - two years from agreeing the deal to publication - or are these figures just some sort of 'worst case' figure, and the actual publication date will be sooner than that?

Dave

Click to expand...

Depends on the publisher, and other variables. In my experience, over the last 4-5 years, the time from sale to publication has remained pretty consistent, in that it is a widely variable number.

I have friends who went from sale to publication day in a year, and others who are on 3 year timetables. I sold in the summer of 2010 and my book will be out fall 2012. No delays or issues, just a house with longer lead times and fall 2012 is the list they bought it for.

I haven't seen a trend to longer lead times, but I do see lead times continue to be all over the map, largely falling between 13-24 months for larger, trade publishers.

~suki

That's not terribly unusual. Eighteen months to two years has always been pretty common for new writers, and for writers already publishing in other imprints.

It's writers the public can't wait to read who get the one year or shorter publication dates.

As James said, nothing unusual. One year is quick. Eighteen month or two years is pretty much the norm. Of course there are always reasons (few) for exceptions.