(Note: I gave this talk yesterday at the Write-To-Publish writing conference in Wheaton and thought I’d share it here–Travis).
1. There is and there always will be a pecking order
2. Forget the 80-20 principle (that eighty percent of your business comes from twenty percent of your books). It’s more like the 95-5 principle.
3. An author’s stock can rise and fall in a matter of weeks.
4. Most people at a publisher might understand publishing, but they don’t understand authors and the creative process.
5. Publishers expect authors to work hard at marketing themselves—from new authors to bestselling ones.
6. Authors develop reputations in a publishing house very quickly—and staff people TALK
7. Success takes time—and publishers are impatient
8. Marketing doesn’t always work—even with lots of marketing dollars and company support
9. Just because a publisher says so (even the big ones) doesn’t mean that they’re right.
10. Packaging and selling art—anything that is created by an artist—is not a science, no matter how many charts and reports you create. And every publisher is seeking to find the Holy Grail—a book that is excellent in its craft and that sells well.