Publishers
I went to a publisher's web site and saw they were looking for books to publish in 2010. That's three years from now!
Can anyone list the blow-by-blow events that publishers follow, and explain the three-year process?
--ray
Well, 2010 is really only a bit more than two years from now, and this schedule is about average, which is eighteen to twenty-four months
from the time the book is bought, excepting already selling writers who may have a book or more coming out each year. Add the length of time it takes a book to go through the submission, rewrite, etc. process, and you're lucky if any book you write is published sooner than three years from the time you first submit it, even if the first publisher who sees it, buys it. I don't think there really is a blow-by-blow list of events. It's just having books on hand to publish, exactly as magazines have a stockpile of from six months to a year always on hand. Publishing is often a
slow process.
And things change. A timely book can still be bought and published within a couple of months, if the need is strong enough. New, exciting books can also be found and moved ahead in the queue, etc.
But
things change is what you need to remember. Just because a publisher is looking for books they can publish two years and three months from now really does not mean all that much. In one real sense, it makes it much harder to sell this publisher a book. With a two plus year stockpile, you can be very picky about new books you take on, and there's still time to change your mind about some you've already asked for.