Why does it take two years?

"Technology becoming more efficient" has very little impact on how long it takes to write a book, edit a book, market the book to the trade, sell it in, promote it, etc.

willietheshakes said:

"Technology becoming more efficient" has very little impact on how long it takes to write a book, edit a book, market the book to the trade, sell it in, promote it, etc.

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The OP is talking about what happens after a book is written, edited, and ready for publication.

And they listed examples where it doesn't have to take two years. Small presses, foreign presses, etc. can put out books far faster than the big pubs.

I'm no Amazon cheerleader, but Amazon's print publishing division also shows that a book going through a big publishing house doesn't need to take years to be released anymore. They're filling every role the Big Six do: paying advances, running marketing campaigns, doing the printing and distribution, etc. They're just doing everything more efficiently.

It is, quite simply, a matter of established business practices not catching up with technology.

The US publishing industry is antiquated in many ways. Books are bought years in advance to fill future catalogs. This made sense in the pre-internet era of snail mail and typewritten manuscripts. It doesn't make sense now. But when you have billion-dollar businesses built on these entrenched models, change is a slow and painful process.

I think Amazon is the major force that will drive the Big Six to streamline their processes. When Amazon is putting out books faster than they are, well...

There are fewer full-time staff in editorial offices to handle the launches than used to be the case.

Windcutter said:

Between a book contract and a book release.
It seems the amount of time is getting longer, not shorter, despite the technology becoming more efficient. Before my detour into screenwriting, the average time between contract and release was said to be one year. Now it's two.

I was amazed to discover things are different in some European countries. 6-8 months is pretty average. And in Russia, even though it's a big country, a major publisher usually takes only 4-5 months to release a book.

Why is it different for the big six? Is it the sheer amount of books? Or maybe it's not the production itself but the fact that books are bought in advance to fill up the schedule, so a publisher *could* release a newly bought book in 6 months, but the spot's already taken by a book that had been bought earlier?

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It depends.

If you are, for instance, Stephenie Meyer or JK Rowling and you've just completed the latest book of your super hot series - chances are that's going to be rushed out a lot faster.

Aside from that, it takes time - all the corrections, edits, rewriting and changes can take weeks to months. Then there's the cover art, and more proofing, typsetting formatting and last minute changes.

Also, trying to find a slot in the scheudle that works for your book - for instance, if you've written a chic lit novel do you really want to be competing with a Marian Keyes and a Sophie Kinsella which are released the same week? Probably not.

Then there's the publicity machine - setting up the promotion for your book is going to take time, getting advance copies to readers, garnering reviews and attracting attention - it all takes time, and it's all geared towards release date too.

Additionally, other books - even those with other publishers - can have an influence on your time scale - if mermaids are suddenly hot and there's another author with a mermaid book then they might well take priority while your book about talking kittens isn't such a major rush. However, if mermaids flop and talking kittens are suddenly hot, you could find your release date moved forward.

The point I'm trying to make is that 2 years is not set in stone. I've seen folks have their book out in 10 months and others waitng three years. There are so many factors that influence and change dates/

A fairly big issue is the retailers, who plan at least nine months in advance. I can probably get a book from MS to print in two months, so long as I don't mind if nobody stocks it.

leahzero said:

The OP is talking about what happens after a book is written, edited, and ready for publication.

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Not according to the first post they're not.

The only guidelines given are "Between a book contract and a book release." Which, actually, actively precludes "edited and ready for publication" and may or may not be based on a written (note: not final) manuscript.

Unless we're reading two different posts.

As to your description of the antiquated industry: there's a lot you're not taking into account, and a lot you're just plain misinformed about.

I'd also want to look at the overall published quality of the books that come out so quickly. Obviously there are exceptions on both sides, but I'd be willing to bet those that take longer are generally put together better than those that get rushed out the door. Personally, if I've got a contract and an advance, I'd rather the book came out later and the editing, marketing, and promotion was well done than have it come out early with slap-dash results.

leahzero said:

I'm no Amazon cheerleader, but Amazon's print publishing division also shows that a book going through a big publishing house doesn't need to take years to be released anymore. They're filling every role the Big Six do: paying advances, running marketing campaigns, doing the printing and distribution, etc. They're just doing everything more efficiently.

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This is certainly the image of Amazon that has been sold to the world by the anti-traditional publishing folks. However, I'm with Amazon Publishing (Amazon Children's Publishing, for my forthcoming YA novel Passion Blue), and in my experience the timeframes involved are no different from those I've had with other publishers. Editing, copy editing, proofreading, ARC printing, finished copy printing, trade reviews, and marketing are proceeding according to schedules exactly like the ones I've encountered in the past. Many of these are areas where human schedules are paramount, and technological efficiencies don't apply.

I think Amazon may have been able to be quicker with some of the books it has acquired through its Amazon Crossing imprint and with some of the self-published books it has transitioned to traditional, and possibly with some of the more high-profile Amazon advocates like Barry Eisler, for PR purposes. But for me and the other Amazon authors I've encountered who have sold not-previously-published manuscripts to the NY division, the schedules follow the traditional template.

- Victoria

victoriastrauss said:

I think Amazon may have been able to be quicker with some of the books it has acquired through its Amazon Crossing imprint and with some of the self-published books it has transitioned to traditional, and possibly with some of the more high-profile Amazon advocates like Barry Eisler, for PR purposes. But for me and the other Amazon authors I've encountered who have sold not-previously-published manuscripts to the NY division, the schedules follow the traditional template.

- Victoria

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Yeah. It's certainly possible for us to rush a book out in a couple of months; it just involves clearing the decks and convincing retailers to make room for it in plans they made six months ago. For Amazon, who are also the main retailers, the latter is easier, but if they're doing everything on much shorter lead times what that means is that they're working less efficiently in some ways - they'll need more staff to publish an equivalent number of books, and thus it'll cost them more money.

"Averages" always make me wonder -- ie, what is the true, mathematical, statistical, average and what is the mean (as opposed to the perceived ones), because I was two years from contract to publication date (for many reasons I'm perfectly comfortable with), but I know several authors who were sale to pub date in less than a year. So, I'd love to know the actual average and mean, and in what market/genre.

Assuming you mean YA, for example, in the US, then the answer is complicated but includes just how many YAs have been published by the same (or in many cases, less) number staff to edit, copyedit, format, design, oversee production, market, sell, etc.

And then you add in strategic list and timing decisions, and the answer gets even more complicated.

It's a complete fallacy that the acquisition, editing, design, production and marketing of a book would, on average, be significantly less than 10 years ago.

So...I guess I wonder why you think it would be a shorter time given it appears that in YA there are more books being published, with less staff, and less production outlets, etc.

But I guess the short answer is, because it does.

~suki

leahzero said:

When Amazon is putting out books faster than they are, well...

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Faster does not equal better.

I've seen small epubs here brag about putting books out in a few months.... and the quality of said books leaving something to be desired.

This isn't a race. The goal is to put out a GOOD book with excellent editing, cover art and do good promotion to sell said book.

It's not to bash out something in six weeks, slap a title and a cover on it and flog it to buyers who expect quality.

JMO, YMMV.

Windcutter said:

Between a book contract and a book release.
It seems the amount of time is getting longer, not shorter, despite the technology becoming more efficient. Before my detour into screenwriting, the average time between contract and release was said to be one year. Now it's two.

I was amazed to discover things are different in some European countries. 6-8 months is pretty average. And in Russia, even though it's a big country, a major publisher usually takes only 4-5 months to release a book.

Why is it different for the big six? Is it the sheer amount of books? Or maybe it's not the production itself but the fact that books are bought in advance to fill up the schedule, so a publisher *could* release a newly bought book in 6 months, but the spot's already taken by a book that had been bought earlier?

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Well, first, big country has nothing to do with how many books get released each year.

Anyway, it often takes less than two years, and eighteen months is closer to average for a number of publishers.. And once you've been published a few times, it can then take very little time. In the right genre, it can happen pretty much every month.

But think about it for a second. With no system to keep books in the pipeline, nothing would work. All businesses operate this way. You must have time to promote a book, to send out ARCs, time for those reviewers to publish their reviews, time for readers to read them, etc.

And it often takes as long for a book to actually be published in many European countries, it's only that time from signing to publication is shorter. You simply can't always tell how long it takes a book to be published just by the time from signing to release. Sometimes it's practice for the signing itself to be held up for many months because publishers don't want to commit time or money until the last minute.

And what difference does it really make? Six months or two years, who really cares. If you use those months to write another book or four, it won't be long before you have a new book being released on a regular basis.

Windcutter said:

Between a book contract and a book release.

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The publisher's budget governs the number of titles they can pump out in a year. But they likely see enough good manuscripts they want to buy that they develop an inventory. So the publication schedule will get longer and longer.

Also, they find opportunities for quick fluff books that they push to the head of the line. Recently-dead celebrities, for example, and things from the headlines.

For example, the biggest selling books right now are right-wing screeds purporting to discover awful things about Obama's past.



Most (if not all) are total fabrications pumped out by teams of ghostwriters. But the right wing nutjob market is huge, and the industry is making hundreds of millions of dollars from these books, especially since many are also subsidized by the SuperPACs. But after November 6, they'll be just so much scrap paper.

With that going on, everything else is on hold.

leahzero said:

The OP is talking about what happens after a book is written, edited, and ready for publication.

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The first post asked about the time between a contract and publication - I don't know anyone who didn't have rounds of editing and proofing after signing a contract.

And they listed examples where it doesn't have to take two years. Small presses, foreign presses, etc. can put out books far faster than the big pubs.

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You need to factor in the schedules, staffing levels, promotions for existing and expected big sellers. A small press might well have the time to dedicate to getting a book out in six months because they aren't juggling dozens of writers and schedules and liaising with retailers over in store promotions and stock etc etc. Many small presses don't have instore presence, so they only have to work on their own timescales and not work with retailers.

The US publishing industry is antiquated in many ways. Books are bought years in advance to fill future catalogs. This made sense in the pre-internet era of snail mail and typewritten manuscripts. It doesn't make sense now. But when you have billion-dollar businesses built on these entrenched models, change is a slow and painful process.

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The thing is, it doesn't make sense if you work in production - obviously you want to get a product out there as fast as possible. But it makes total sense if you work in retail. Promotions, stock, future lines, it's all planned months in advance. When I worked in retail for a very large supermarket, we would be ordering our seasonal stock up to ten months in advance - partly because, for example Christmas stock would go on sale in early to mid autumn. The level of planning involved is huge.

Ad to that that producers (in this case the publishers) will already have an idea of what are likely to be their big seasonal sellers - so, for instance, between summer and Christmas you'll see a lot more 'gift' books - celeb biographies, cook books, TV tie ins, box sets and blockbusters that have been timed to tap into the gift market and would have been planned that way months before hand. After all, there's no point in releasing a winter cookbook in July when what folk really want are beach reads. Consumer buying habits are taken into consideration too when it comes to timing a release.

I think Amazon is the major force that will drive the Big Six to streamline their processes. When Amazon is putting out books faster than they are, well...

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Faster does not necessarily equal better. And again, see my point above about timing and consumer buyign habits - I mean, as an author do I really want my book released in January when it would sell best in July only to see it sell a handful of copies in the first flush of release and be taken off the shelves by the bookstores before it's reached it key selling time? I really think you need to take that into consideration too - online it's not such a problem, but a lot of people still buy their books from physical stores - be that chain stores, supermarkets or whatever. When a book is published it doesn't sit on that shelf indefinately. It gets a couple of weeks, or a couple of months maybe, and if it's not selling it goies back and gets replaced with something that will.

As a side note, there can be other reasons for timing a books release a certain way - some of the Harry Potter books, for example, were only released over the summer holidays so kids wouldn't skip school to get them - us adults still pulled a sickie from work, but hey-ho, you can't win em all.

dangerousbill said:

Also, they find opportunities for quick fluff books that they push to the head of the line. Recently-dead celebrities, for example, and things from the headlines.

For example, the biggest selling books right now are right-wing screeds purporting to discover awful things about Obama's past.

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Agreed. In fact, I would bet a months salary that we'll be seeing a Jimmy Saville book before Christmas.

Windcutter said:

I assume the book is written completely by the date the contract is signed. I know it's not always the case, but it's like this for many books, especially the debut ones.

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That's a big assumption, and not one which is likely factored in when considering this vague "average" of two years, wherever you got it from.

(Arithmetically, I think it's a ridiculous misuse of the term "average", but I'm letting it stand.)

Windcutter said:

Two years spent editing a single book? Nope, not buying it. And buzz starts much later anyway.

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Did I say two years was spent editing a single book? I don't think I did.
And if you think buzz starts AFTER publication, you'd be sorely mistaken.

Look, you asked a question. You've received a lot of answers, valid ones. You just don't seem to like them.

willietheshakes said:

Look, you asked a question. You've received a lot of answers, valid ones. You just don't seem to like them.

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I'm wondering what the OP wants to hear.

Yes, go and rush to self-publish because the Big Bad Trade Publishers delight in screwing around for two years, holding up YOUR masterpiece because they're just having too much fun?

It takes as long as it takes. Some people get married six months after meeting their mate and stay married for decades. Some live together for decades and get married only to divorce after six months.

So it goes...

Windcutter said:

I've been thinking about this for a long time. I just can't imagine the actual working time spent on one book being long enough to justify it. Then I think you had better consider self publishing, or publishing in those foreign markets you believe more efficient. Because otherwise you are in for some serious frustrations and disappointments.

I worked in marketing & promotion, after all. That feels irrelevant to why the process and production times are as they are.

But I wrote the post after I'd met a person who is a bestselling YA author in Russia. Very different market than the US.

She told me how it went for her first YA book. She used to write regular fantasy for her publisher (a major one), then she decided to write a YA book. But the book had to be completed first. She signed the contract in late November, spent December exchanging emails and edits with her editor, and in the last days of March the book hit the shelves. There are micro and e-presses that could turn this around, I suppose, with minor edits. but I can tell you the first round of edits on my book alone took months - several between the edit letter and my work time. And that was just the first round...

And design, copy editing, etc. take time, as well, as does the actual printing.

And that is for each book. Every staff member at a major publisher is working on many projects at once, in different phases of the process. And it is the pipeline approach that keeps the business viable - ie, one book is being read and then negotiated and acquired, while another is being edited, and designed, and while another is in the copy-edits phase, and another in pass pages, and another is in pre-production, and then productions....

And, again, you don't seem to be hearing that publication dates are strategic - they don't always rush the book to shelves as soon as printed - they want to make sure there is not too much competition between books out at the same time, and that they can manage promo and marketing, etc. And sometimes there are other considerations, like the expected market strength - ie, beach reads will be held until spring even if feasibly ready in fall beforem, etc.


Two winter months were spent on promotion, the book received a rather nice chunk of promo money so there were posters, giveaways, ads in teen magazines, etc. Now she finished the last book in the series in May 2012, sent it to her editor in early June, and the release date will be around December 2012. I was super-amazed at the speed. I'm surprised, and skeptical, but the reality is - that's a different market. There are micro presses here that can match that speed, if speed is your primary concern. I suggest you seek them out. They can have your book from acquisition to printed in 60-90 days. Question is, where it goes from there...

I assume the book is written completely by the date the contract is signed. I know it's not always the case, but it's like this for many books, especially the debut ones.
Two years spent editing a single book? Nope, not buying it. Two years of non-stop work? of course not! But two years in the publishing pipeline described above. Absolutely. And, you've already heard some who think your "two year" average is off...

And buzz starts much later anyway. No, this is where you're wrong. The buzz that counts the most builds from pre-pub to the month after for many books. For some books, they have three months to grab a market share before the returns start pouring in. So...better take the time to get the reviews and buzz going before pub date or you're screwed.

I'm getting an impression it's almost like with agents. We are told that agents are super-busy, they simply can't read a requested full within two months or reply to a query within two weeks, they need a lot of time, etc. Yup. And for many that is absolutely true. My agent better not take time away from negotiating my contract or closing my deal or dealing with my crisis to read your not-yet represented manuscript. And if he has 12 clients, all with active submissions, manuscripts to read, deals in progress, you might wait 3 months for him to get to your requested full. Tough. And if he becomes your agent, then you would like knowing that your needs, as a client, take priority over requested material from prospective clients.

Yet there are agents--good, respectable ones--who are perfectly able to do that. Who regularly do that. Which makes one think others simply choose not to--rather than can't.

Gotta reply individually now.

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You may you need to educate yourself on the publishing options available to you. From this post, I suspect it may be that trade publishing will not meet your expectations, and you will be more satisfied, time wise, with small or micro presses or self-publishing.

I am not being at all sarastic. Trade publishing isn't for everyone. And I am all for an author being really clear about his or her objectives, and then making the decisions that meet those objectives most closely. For some, that does not include trade publishing.

~suki

What they all said

Not to mention the printers. They get booked up well in advance (that is they might well be booked up a year ahead). So you have to fit in with where/when they have a slot. It's not a small undertaking, and there are only so many printers that are capable of producing a large print run to an acceptable quality. Yes, sometimes there are cancellations, or things can be swapped about. But generally, where you can get your print run fitted in is at least part of the equation.

And buzz? Not as late as you might think. My book isn't out till February. ARCs are going out to reviewers now (because they can't read a book at a drop of hat you know - they've got a queue of things to read, but it's nice if the review comes out about the same time as the book) Promo stuff was in the goodie bag of a conference I went to last month. Getting the name/premise of the book out there.

It may seem simple on the surface - just edit, proof, cover and away! But it's vastly more complicated, and the bigger your print run (or anticipated sales), the bigger your stable of authors/books, the more complicated it gets.

PS: I'm going to be about 12 months from signing to publication with the Big Six.

I went back and checked, last two books were 11 months and 13 months from contract to publication. These are tech books, and they are not written until the contract is signed.

Current book, the last edit was submitted September 22, last PDF proof was October 9 and the book has a December 4 release date. Contract was March 16.

Not necessarily related to anything else of course.

Jeff

I think the ARC thing and the when to release your particular book thing are much bigger factors than the OP thinks.

Take my book out early December. I didn't know when it would be coming out, I was just told the fall. Why didnt they choose say September? Because they wanted to spread out the releases of their bigger books so they didnt overlap. So instead if releasing all fall books all at once they spread us out over four months.

It's called strategy, and I am more than happy with it. I got December. That adds 4 months and makes me a two year till publication kind of girl. But you know, I like December. That's the holiday season. I'm fine with having to wait. Anyway, it's not like I'm sitting around doing nothing. I'm promoting it, and I'm working on something else.

The ARC thing is important to take into consideration. Buzz is essential and must happen BEFORE a book hits the shelf. So copies if your book are available months ahead of time. And that is a very important step, one which I wouldn't want to skip either.

Lastly amazon. Yes they can produce faster as has been explained by others here. They also have a much smaller list. I've seen their catalogue. I am actually quite keen on them as a publisher and like the people who they've hired (I've actually worked with many of them). But they are new and still small. Let's see if they can maintain such speed and quality after time and with a larger list.

Also I have a friend bring published by them and the turnaround they are expecting to get her sequel from her so they can publish it quickly is insane. To the point where she told them she couldn't do it as fast as they wanted and they'd have to be patient. Sometimes fast turnaround benefits the author, sometimes it directly affects them negatively.

Windcutter said:

Do they need a finished package to start planning?

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Yes. They don't necessarily need a completely finished, print-ready book, but by the time you present to buyers you need to get the book to ARC standard, have a pretty much finished cover and all the cover blurb and metadata ready. You need a product, not just an idea.

The whole business relies on scheduling a long way in advance, otherwise you'd end up with a situation where your book comes out in the same month that Stephen King and James Patterson and JK Rowling bring out their new books with no warning. The bookseller wants to sell as many books as possible, so each month's offering needs to be carefully thought about to give it the best chance.

That all entails nine months or so of lead time. Add on top of that the months of editing you need to go through, and you're going to hit a year quite easily. Then we have to look at the fact we acquired the book in October, say, so a year from now is when all the blockbusters are coming out, and your debut novel is going to get swamped; let's put off publication until the spring. Or whatever. What I'm trying to say is, it's not just about when the book is ready for sale. It's also about when the market is ready to sell it.