Monday, June 05, 2006

Free-Press tells us "How to sell a book"

“How to Sell a Book” was the headline on an interesting article by Marta Salij in the Sunday, June 4, Detroit Free-Press.

In an occasional series, Salij promises to give us a behind-the-scenes perspective on how someone can get a book published. To do so, she’s pitching her own novel and writing about the experience.

The initial article is about Salij’s experience at the fourth annual BookExpo America/Writer’s Digest Book Writers Conference. Held last month in Washington, D.C. , the conference is a one-day boot camp for literary hopefuls.

A few interesting tidbits from Salij’s article:

  • About 80 percent of all Americans believe they have a book in them.

  • About six million of those have manuscripts.

  • Agents say they take only about two out of every 1,000 manuscripts submitted. Fewer than that get published.

  • In 2005, 172,000 titles were published in the U.S. By comparison, an all-time high of 190,000 books were published in 2004 and 115,000 in 2001.
I know at least one person with a manuscript in his desk drawer and suspect I know many more.

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