During a bout of statistics-ness today (which trust me, don't happen often. As evidenced by my use of the word "statistics-ness"), I took a look at the numbers for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. It occurred to me that this contest is a microcosmic example of the publishing world at large. A bunch of people submit, less people are considered, and far less people actually make it to the bookshelves.
But what percentage of books written are actually published?* Taking a look at the ABNA percentages can give you a small idea.
5,000 people enter. The judges read those 5,000 pitches, and decide which 1,000 of them will progress to the first round. So basically, 20% of submissions have pitches that are interesting/unique enough to pique a reader's interest.
In the next round, expert reviewers read the first 15-20 pages of each of the 1,000 entries. 250 make it through to the quarterfinals, based on these reviews. So that's 5% of our overall submissions which are well-written and hook the reader from the get-go.
From there, Publisher's Weekly reads the entire manuscript and selects the 50 best books to progress to the semifinals. We are now at 1% of the total entries. If we're using this contest as a miniature version of the publishing world, that means that 1% of books written in the world are well-written, engaging, unique, and completely ready to be published.**
That in itself is daunting. But now we come to the finals round. From those 50 books, 3 are selected as finalists. The public then votes on the winner -- but let's just stick with the 3 finalists. Suppose that all 3 of them have crazy-good books that snag them book deals (whether from editors in this contest or otherwise). That's still only 6% OF THE 1%.
So .06% of all submissions will actually get published. Even though 1% of all books written should be good enough to make it to the shelves, only .06% of them really do, for whatever reasons (marketability, cost of publishing it, etc.).
I realize that these numbers should depress me. Make me bury my head in the sand never to write again. But in reality... I feel a little bit better now.
Lately I've been going through a "WHY AREN'T I PUBLISHED YET?!" phase. It happens. I'm sure all you other writers out there have been here too. When you get to that point where you know you can write. You know your story has merit (even if it maybe still needs some polishing that you haven't spotted yet). But in spite of all the full requests and praise and "I love it!"s you're receiving, there's always a "but..." tagged on the end, and you get to the point where you start to wonder what's wrong with you.
Are you just delusional? Imagining that you can write? Maybe people only praise your work out of pity. Maybe the gods of the marketing realm think that your prose is too stuffy/weird/full of swear-words.***
At this point, you have to remember: You are not alone. Every writer who's made it to the bookshelves**** has gone through this at some point. You are good enough, you are in that 1%. Now you just need to be in the right place at the right time with the right story to make it into the .06%. And that will take time.
But let's face it, the odds are already turning in your favor.
* disclaimer: this data is in no way scientific or very accurate. just saying.
** and just to be clear, that doesn't mean you as a writer aren't ready to be published if you aren't in this 1%. it just means that your particular WIP of the moment isn't quite there yet.
*** cough.
**** with the possible exception of Stephenie Meyer or someone like that. but we pretend that travesty didn't happen.
It's amazing the loops a book has to go through to get published. No wonder self publishing has become popular. I have friends who've come very close to having their books sold. Very close. It's enough to make you want to cry.
ReplyDeleteI love the statistics. It puts things in perspective doesn't it? Sometimes it's just a crap shoot. Perhaps if that novel that's being rejected now had be queried five years ago (or five years from now) it would have been snatched up, or maybe it still would have been rejected. It's a crazy world we writers live in! (Stiger05 from AW)
ReplyDeleteExcellent post. And inspirational for all us 1%ers that didn't make the finals. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteWhat you didn't take into account, is the number of ABNA entrants that get published by other publishers after the contest including those picked up by Amazon Encore.
ReplyDeleteThere is a whole list of them in one of the ABNA threads.
um, thanks doll? this was a very interesting post, and i am highly impressed by the math work that went into it:) funny tho, i just came from ghenet's blog where she's like: don't worry about not being there yet, all our journey's as writers are different. and yours is: don't worry about not being there yet, the chances you will get there are infintisimle. (or however you more properly spell that word). we must all be going through the writerly won't happen worries. evidenced by my blog which is all about going to the beach and getting a sun burn on my ... and perhaps i will end my comment right there. but that's for the perspective. i like being reminded that I'm pursuing a damn, freakin' hard goal. it'll makes it all the more awesome when we get there, no?
ReplyDeleteI think the ABNA numbers definitely reflect real traditional publishing. And I'd argue the 1% are good enough to find publishers (with some polishing)--that .06% is just the subset that will find one of the BIG publishers. And I think one of the reasons it is such a small percentage is people who KNOW they have a best seller, don't go the contest route--neither do those with established track records--so this is the tiny subset of debut (or nearly so) that feasibly have a best seller on their hands. I had a semi-finalist last year and got an agent with it--she submitted to 8 publishers this fall and nobody was in love enough to even request revisions, so we took what we thought we COULD from the feedback, and i've been revising it. The book we will shop soon is significantly different from the version that made semi-finalist--there was still a lot of work to do. But I think that the judges were right to judge it a publishable book--the concept is good. I still have my fingers crossed.
ReplyDeleteThis is a really refreshing post! I've been thinking a lot about this lately. Every time I get discouraged, I have to remind myself that there are so many good writers out there, and that in the end, for all/a lot of us it is just going to come down to timing. Of course I can and will always try to make my work a little better, but so much of being published depends not on the quality of the work, but on the current market trends and timing, so that is actually very encouraging (for my self-esteem anyway, haha).
ReplyDelete