So if you’re really, really lucky, you’re looking at a minimum of about two years from the time you query agents till you see your baby sitting on bookstore shelves.
But by “going indie,” you can squeeze that publishing process into a few weeks. As I described in my previous post, it took just 17 days from the time I finished HUNTER until it was available for sale online. It took only three more weeks until the print edition went on sale.
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Touches on THE biggest problem, but doesn’t face it head on:
Book publishing attracts earnest incompetents who “luv boooookkkkssss!!!!!” but hate “business” and “money.”
I worked in book publishing for years. Believe me:
The only staffers who can afford to work at a publishing house tend to be either very young (and stupid) or older beta males who never had much ambition and talent to begin with (and resent your success, so subconsciously sabotage authors!)
Anyone listening to the Adam Carolla podcast these days has heard (again and again) the saga of the battle he had with editorial over the wording of a joke on the back cover. One of his guests revealed that her name was misspelled on the bottom of every single page of her book (which was released by a VERY big house.)
All for the privilege of making a buck a book, a year after its sold, if you’re lucky.
