I'll bump this in a years time. What do you want to have achieved by then?

[sophie]

Yes, getting a deal with a publisher can be very difficult, and one greatly irritating obstacle for many is that most publishers virtually do not care at all about any 'quality' of the book, but just if they are told by their book market people if it is likely to sell.

Why would that be irritating? Publishing books they think are going to sell is kind of their job.

 

[Borachio]

Well, like a lot of things, it's a Catch 22.

You can't get published unless you've already been published. I bet Joseph Heller had the same problem. If Catch 22 was his first novel, and I believe it was, he very likely had problems finding a publisher even though it's a remarkably good story.

But when it came to Something Happened, a decidedly inferior work when compared with Catch 22, imo, I bet the publishers were only too pleased to publish it for him straight away.

Success, as they say, breeds success.

 

[Traitorfish]

Why would that be irritating? Publishing books they think are going to sell is kind of their job.

It's the reluctance to take a chance, I think, is what's pissing him off. If publishers are deferring to marketing goons, they're just going to be chasing existing trends rather than trusting either authors and readers to try something different. Even if you accept a certain caution given that it's their money on the line, it's got to be disheartening.

 

[Kyriakos]

It's the reluctance to take a chance, I think, is what's pissing him off. If publishers are deferring to marketing goons, they're just going to be chasing existing trends rather than trusting either authors and readers to try something different. Even if you accept a certain caution given that it's their money on the line, it's got to be disheartening.

Well, yes, it is their own money and that should always be seen as a very respectable reason for anyone to want things run their way. And if the publisher is paying for your book (ie if it is not the author funding it) then the publisher will naturally want to secure this is going to be a book which will make its money at least. Which is why despite my own publisher liking my work and us having co-operated already in many things like public speaking, she still works through any needed changes to the texts, as she very well should. And i accept the changes, or propose different ones till we agree.

That is only normal. But at least in that there is some mutual respect between writer and publisher, which in my case comes from both of us having common background/studies, and her being a university lecturer as well. I had dealed with other publishers before, and they tend to be cruder.

That said, yes, any publisher (career publisher) will be more interested in what kind of prospect the book and writer have in generating an audience, rather than just see the book as a book by itself. That makes a lot of sense too, despite not being directly tied to the quality of the work itself. Eg that i have some kind of established presence in a facet of cultural life here (libraries), does play a role in having gotten this nice book deal.