Book Publishing Facts Every Writer Should Know

 It's Lady Z coming at you again with some interesting publishing facts that every writer should know.  Hopefully, these facts will help you in your search to find the best publisher for your manuscript.

•·         There are six large publishers in New York, 3-400 medium-size publishers, 86,000 small self/publishers, 10,000 of them are non-profit publishers.

•·         The big six conglomerate publishers are: Random House, Penguin Putnam, Harper Collins, Holtzbrinck Publishing Holding, Time Warner, and Simon & Shuster.  Four of the six are foreign owned.   

•·         New York State has 7, 371 publishers. The six major publishers are located in New York City. California has 6x the number of small publishers than any other state.

•·         In 2006 books sales in the industry amounted to $24.2 billion, net revenue $35.69 billion to $42 billion.  The major six account for only 45% of the sales revenue for that year. The other 55% came from small publishers throughout the United States.

•·         54% of small independent publishers are male, 42% are female. 

•·         Small publishers publish an average of 7 titles each year.  They produce 4x as much non-fiction as fiction.  Juvenile and poetry are the most popular.  Self-help, how to and business lead in the non-fiction categories. 78% of the titles published come from small self/publishers.

•·         The average revenue per employee for a small publisher is $97, 713.  In 2004, small publishers grossed over $27 billion.

•·         A successful fiction book sells $5,000 copies.  Non-fiction sells 7,500.  A large publisher must sell 10,000 to break even.  The average book sells 500 copies.

•·         Internet sales and direct to consumer sales (book clubs, book fairs, other) account for over 35% of book purchases.  57.5 million Internet users buy online.

•·         An author must sale 1,000 book sales or more to make it to Amazon's best seller list.  100 a day to maintain it there. 

•·         Men buy more books but women buy 68% of all books.

•·         Word of mouth is the top seller of books, next comes author loyalty.

•·         81% of people feel they have a book in them and want to write it as well as have it published.  That's 200 million people in the United States.

•·         Small publishers have a distinct advantage as the big publishers will not publish a book unless they are confident it will sell 50,000 copies.