Despite technology, publishing still a slow process

In a world with Print On Demand (POD) publishing, the internet and other digital technology, you’d think that the time between when a book is accepted for publication and the time it’s actually shipped off to the bookstores is shortening. But then you’d be wrong. The time authors have to wait to see their books in print is actually getting longer.

Why? I came across an interesting essay from the New York Times book review section that attempts to answer this very question. The answer is surprising, and also kind of expected at the same time. We’re talking about the traditional publishing route (the key word being "traditional") where things change very little.

Yes, the technology is improving. However the problem isn’t technology that keeps a book off the shelf for so long after it’s accepted by an editor – the problem is human.

"It’s not only buzz, it’s a product introduction — but with nothing like the advertising or marketing budget that a piece of soap would have," said David Rosenthal, the publisher of Simon & Schuster. With the Internet and blogs, word of mouth travels more quickly today, but there’s a glut of information. To help a book break through the static, publishers have to plan months in advance.

That’s right, marketing is what takes publishers so long to get a book on the shelves. With all the books that are published each year, every book has fierce competition once it hits the shelves. The publishing company tries to minimize this the best they can by creating a "buzz" around the book. All this begins as soon as a manuscript is purchased – the slow gears of marketing begin to turn:

As soon as a literary agent has sold a publisher a book, and even before it’s edited, copy-edited, proofread and indexed, the publicity wheels start turning. While writers bite their nails, the book editor tries to persuade the in-house sales representatives to get excited about the book, the sales representatives try to persuade retail buyers to get excited, and the retail buyers decide how many copies to buy and whether to feature the book in a prominent front-of-the-store display, for which publishers pay dearly. In the meantime, the publisher’s publicity department tries to persuade magazine editors and television producers to feature the book or its author around the publication date, often giving elaborate lunches and parties months in advance to drum up interest.

But even all the preparation and large marketing budgets still can’t help a book garner sales when a big event happens (i.e. 9/11, Hurricane Katrina). According to the article, outside forces play a large role in a book’s scheduled release:

The presidential election in November should help move political books, but other titles may suffer. Nan Graham, the editor in chief of Scribner, said she was releasing very little fiction from July to January. "I’m never publishing a novel in the fall of an election year," she said. "I feel bad about every single person whose novel I published in the fall of ‘04 because they absolutely got no attention or no sales."

So what does all this mean? As I said in the beginning, it basically means that the traditional publishing world has changed very little. Literary merit doesn’t sell books, marketing dollars do. We can’t really fault the publishers though, as they are a business, and like any other business they want to turn a profit. When they purchase a manuscript, it’s an investment, and they want to make sure they get a return on their investment.

I don’t think this shows that traditional publishing is any better or any worse than alternative methods, rather, it’s just a different beast. An independent author can get a self-published book out into the marketplace fairly quickly, but the trade-off is that he/she probably won’t see his/her book on the shelves of Borders, Barnes & Noble and other large chain stores (although there are exceptions). This doesn’t mean an independent author can’t make big bucks.

Technology isn’t hindering the world of publishing, it’s very much leveling the playing field. Do you think that 50 years ago an author could have published their own book with the same reach as the internet provides today?  While traditional publishing has its place and has launched many prominent literary careers, those success stories are very few. Those who take advantage of newer technology in the realm of self-publishing, however, are also launching their own literary careers and the numbers seem to be increasing.

Waiting for it

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