Hidden Secrets of Publishing

by Cindy Layton

So much in publishing is a secret.

You’d be hard pressed to find the word count for a particular book. Want to know how many copies of your favorite title have sold or what marketing techniques give the biggest bang for the buck in the book selling world? Me too.

And then there’s the trendy stuff that everyone’s chasing. Do you want to stay ahead of that? Once a trend is identified it’s typically on the downward spiral.

Want to know what the heck agents and editors are really looking for? I don’t mean the Manuscript Wish List asking for Gone With the Wind, only shorter, and told from the point of view of a futuristic female defending her galactic plantation in a time of interstellar social upheaval. All that does is ask writers to duplicate the success of others for the benefit of the agent/editor.

In publishing, the bottom line is not trends or marketing or word counts, it’s story.

I am still novice enough to believe if you have a great story it will transcend what are widely held views about what sells.

Otherwise how do industry professionals explain the multiple rejections for all the now classic literature we hear about? It’s cliché to even mention how some minor agent took a chance on an obscure debut author with nothing to lose and voila! Bestseller.

But it’s also the thing that has writers holding on to hope.

And, it’s what spurs the indie- author revolution and the self-publishing poke in the eye to the gatekeepers in New York.

One of those gatekeepers, Jonny Geller, literary agent and joint CEO of Curtis Brown, gave a TED Talk on What Makes a Best Seller. He explains the five essential elements he needs to identify in a manuscript: The Bridge (identifying the nature of the book, i.e. Gone Girl meets The DaVinci Code), Voice, Craft, The Space Between Sentences (allowing the reader in) and finally, Resonance. When I hear a line about “the mysterious combination of factors that conspire to hit the zeitgeist and make books pop and hit the mainstream” I know there’s no marketing plan, no trend analysis that will explain the connection between the words and the reader. Resonance occurs when the zeitgeist aligns with the book. It’s elusive. A kind of ‘I know it when I see it’ but otherwise it doesn’t exist situation.

Resonance is the true secret in publishing. Geller says a reader selects a book that promises to take them on a journey to where they’ve never been, a confirmation of the value of originality. To create resonance, though, Geller instead, looks for a book to take us on a journey back to a place where we’ve already been.

Maybe you grew up in a house full of sisters in a time when young girls wore lovely green linen Easter suits and patent leather shoes to church and so you loved The Poisonwood Bible.

What young girl hasn’t had a moment when she misses her mother, or searches to know how she emulates her? And so you read The Secret Life of Bees with an ache in your heart for Lily and all that she yearns for.

Whether by chance or by examination, some authors have that tiger by the tail. Only good fortune will match them with an agent and a publisher smart enough to also have that eye into the angst of the popular mind.

Or even more (or less?) incredibly, a savvy writer bypasses the industry and publishes just what the reading world is looking for, to great success. 

For those who still need to know:

The Accelerated Reader Finder identifies word count for children’s and young adult books.

Katherine Sherbrooke gave a great presentation at the Grub Street Muse and the Marketplace conference this year about what it really takes to launch your book. As the task of marketing falls more on the shoulders of writers, a better analysis of book marketing will surface. Coming from the business world, Sherbrooke tackles this beast through the lens of an entrepreneur.