What does it mean? One-off, Series, Career? What or who are agents and publishers?

In business, we sell products or services. That translates into the book business as books (products) or ancillary book related functions, such as writing workshops, how to promote, or sell books (services.) This is a simplification, but for our purposes, this will help us in our discussion.

Businesses have products, like shampoo, and then they add product extensions, like shampoo for dry hair, gray hair, shampoo to increase body, shampoo that adds shine. One could add conditioner as a shampoo extension, but conditioner can also be its own product line, as there are similar extensions to conditioner—for dry hair, gray hair, to add body or shine.

Companies add complementary products to gain shelf space or awareness, say in a grocery store. They can have one shampoo and add a conditioner which gives them two faces on the shelf. But to have multiple shampoos and conditioners gives them additional visibility and gives the purchaser the chance to try not one, but multiple products.

Books are similar. You can have one book and stop there. One book gives you a presence. And if you stop there you have your one-off. You can check it off your bucket list.

To add to your presence, you can create a series. For example, you can create the butterfly book, then add Butterflies of North America, Butterflies of South America, Butterflies of Europe, etc. Each book adds to your presence and gives your readers motivation to buy more of your books. This is a series or in biz parlance, product extensions.

A career might include any combination of the above. You can have a one-off book on caterpillars, a series on butterflies, and a service extension might be seminars or webinars on specific topics related to butterflies or speaking engagements as a butterfly expert.

So why is this important?——-

Agents and Publishers

If you are entering the book business, one goal is to make money. It can be as little as covering your costs or as big as generating enough money to make a living/pay the rent.

And that’s where agents and publishers come into the picture. An agent represents the writer to the publishers. They make their money from selling a book to a publisher and getting a cut of the money the book generates from the publisher.

They add value to the writer in several ways. First of all, they handle the business of selling the book to the publisher. That can include negotiating royalties, fees, and rights. They can also help with the marketing postproduction, setting up book tours and managing the writer’s time. Agents can also edit the manuscript to make it more palatable to the publisher and ultimately to the target reader. Agents can be the writer’s biggest cheerleader.

From the writer’s perspective, an agent is appealing because it can take the business load off their desk. From an agent’s perspective, they are looking for revenue streams. An agent’s business goal is to create a stable of authors (the agent’s products) who will produce books regularly so that the agent has a money stream coming in. With this in mind, how do you think a person who has one book compares to a person who has a series or career combination of books and services available? Which author looks more desirable to an agent and ultimately to a publisher?

The publisher, sometimes referred to as a publishing house, is so called because they not only print the book, but provides developmental, line and copy editing to proofing and steps in between. They can provide resources to create covers and sales promotion. These services are normally provided by experts in their fields. Ultimately the publisher has channels to get the book into distribution and may also provide sales promotional aid.

An agent and/or publisher is a middle person in the supply chain of books. They provide all the above because they expect to make money off their authors, and the better the author in their target market, the better the sales will be. It behooves us to understand the agent/publisher’s motivations because in fact, if you decide to self-publish, you will need to polish your manuscript in a similar way that the agent/publisher does, and you will have the same concerns that the agent/publisher has—how and to whom will you sell your books?

As you can well imagine based on the brief discussion above, agents and publishers invest a significant amount of money and resources in their business. As a writer, you will find agents and publishers that provide the services listed above at varying levels of professionalism and cost. For example, a hybrid publisher will provide services a la carte, for a fee. The benefit of a hybrid publisher is that a writer can get top notch services, pay, and be published in months instead of years.

Today’s book industry has been systematically impacted by technology. After reading all the above, ultimately you, the writer, must decide if pitching to agents and or publishers is worth the time and money that process will take, or if going the hybrid or self-publishing route is a better fit.

Going forward, I will address how to self-publish and why I decided to self-publish myself.