Despite reading at least five books per month and having friends who have worked in publishing for the last decade, I never actually knew the role of a publisher. I’d heard of the big ones—Penguin Randomhouse, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan—but I didn’t understand why they were important. I knew that they employed editors who acquired and edited the books and I knew they were responsible for the literal physical creation of the book, but that was it.
Now that I know that publishers shell out anywhere from $1,000 to $10,000,000 to acquire books, it blows my mind how invisible they remain to their readers. Do you know who published your favorite book? Do you look for books by publisher? I’m guessing the answer is no to both. It certainly was for me until recently.
To oversimplify things, here’s how a publishing house works: an agent pitches an editor on an author and their book or they put the book up for auction, a publisher acquires (i.e. pays) for the book, the editor at the publishing house works with the author to edit the book and get it to its final version, the design team creates the cover and design of the book, and the marketing and publicity teams launch the book. There are other nuances (rights, etc.) that I won’t get into here.
An Agent Pitches a Book Directly or via Auction
Let’s say you’re an author of a fiction book and you’ve managed to get an agent. Your agent has connections with the editors and publishing houses who are likely to acquire your book, and it’s their job to get you a book deal. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of publishers in the world. They all have their specialty—some are known for cookbooks, others are known for commercial fiction, some are experts in literary fiction, others in niche socially progressive topics, and others for YA. But you’ve written a commercial fiction book, so you’re hoping to publish with Penguin Randomhouse or Simon & Schuster. They’re the powerhouses behind most commercial bestsellers. Your agent will either do an exclusive submission to an editor who they have full confidence will be the absolute best editor and publishing house for the book, or they’ll put the book up for auction if they think they can ignite a bidding war for your book.
Whichever way you go, you’re going to end up with an advance for your book, paid by the publisher who acquired it. This advance could range from a few thousand dollars to hundreds of thousands, even to millions (if you’ve already pumped out a number of bestsellers or you happen to be Prince Harry or Michelle Obama). You’ll have a contract that explains your rights, your royalties, and the publicity expectations of you as an author.
The Editor Works With the Author to Get the Book to Its Final Version
You’ve written a solid first draft, enough to get you $100,000 as an advance. But the work is just beginning—you are going to do multiple rewrites. Most people think of editing as correcting grammar, changing a few sentences around. But fiction editors do so much more—in some cases, they literally change the story. They’ll have the writer kill off a character, add a new character, rewrite the ending, add in a new storyline. Editors are real unsung heroes of the publishing industry as they play such an important role in the final version of a book, the version that you read. This is why selling your book to the right publisher is so important. You wouldn’t sell a fiction book to someone whose experience lies mostly in editing business books, and you wouldn’t sell a cookbook to a commercial fiction house.
Whenever I read a book with a highly unusual format (Trust, Fever Dream, Punch Me Up to the Gods, to name a few) I’m always so impressed with the editor. It’s hard enough to edit a book, it’s even harder when the blueprint for that type of book doesn’t yet exist.
The Design Team Creates the Cover and Page Design, Publicity and Marketing Launch the Book
You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but who doesn’t? The best book covers are iconic, recognizable parts of culture. The publishing house employs the designer and conveys a creative vision, bringing the book to life visually. Beyond the cover, there are so many aspects of book design that have a real impact on how the reader perceives the book—everything from the size, to the paper weight and color, to the typography, to the binding. You may think you’re reading the book solely for its content, but you’re also experiencing the physical book as you’re looking at it on your night table, flipping through the pages as you read.
Finally, once your book has a pub date and it’s done being edited, the publicity and marketing teams will step in and design a launch plan. The amount of marketing support and resources you receive is directly correlated with how much your advance was. If the publisher shelled out $1M for your book, they’re going to throw all their weight behind marketing it. If you got a few thousand dollars, well, most of that marketing and publicity will be your own responsibility.
Publishers Create Culture
Books, like any other piece of art, shape and reflect culture. And just as books wouldn’t exist without authors, they also wouldn’t exist without publishers. Publishers risk millions of dollars on books, they liaise with the buyers at Barnes & Noble and indie booksellers to get the books they have lots of confidence in on the front display shelves of the stores, they employ editors who impact the plots of your favorite books in ways you would never imagine. They design the entire package of the book, making it a memorable tactile and visual experience for you.
Readers don’t see this, and I wish they could. Take a look at your five recent favorite books—are there overlaps in publishers? When I did this exercise, I realized I’m a huge fan of almost everything Flatiron Books publishes. I’m also loyal to Europa and FSG. Now, when I look for new releases or something to read, I look at what my favorite publishers have just released.
Which publishers come up over and over again on your bookshelf?