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Teresa Edgerton · 17th July 2006, 06:48 PM

John can give you an accurate idea of what you can expect from UK publishers, but in the meantime I can tell you something about the US. (Your prospects in Australia are unlikely to be any better than either of those.)

If you are exceptionally lucky and your book is exceptionally good, you might get an offer from a major publisher in about six months. It is far more likely to take much, much longer -- this is assuming that you sell the book at all -- because things move slowly in publishing, and even if the first editor who reads it is absolutely blown away, he or she will still have to pass it around to other people within the company and get their support before a final decision is made.

But let's say that you get the offer in about six months. It will take the publishing company a couple of more months (at least) to get the contract out. After you sign it, six weeks to three months before you get the first half of your advance. You'll get more money after you revise and edit the book to their standards -- this will be done on their time not on yours, because first someone has to tell you what needs doing and that, too, could take months. (Even though books are getting humongously long, 370,000 words is enormous, and you will almost certainly have to find a way to divide your series up into more books, or else ruthlessly cut this one.) So now we are well over a year, and all the money you have received will in all likelihood total quite a bit less than $10,000. (Forget what you have read about first time writers who get six figure advances. That doesn't happen in the SF/Fantasy genre.)

If you sell to a small press or go the self-publication route, things may move a lot more swiftly, but the money at this point will be far less, and you may, additionally, have been required to kick in a few thousand dollars of your own.

But continuing with the best case scenario that a major publisher loves the book and buys it: It will take at least 18 months from contract to publication. Even if your book is the next Harry Potter, it will probably be another year before you start seeing royalties. This all adds up to three or more years from the time you send the book out to a publisher (remember, this is if you are exceptionally lucky and have written something extraordinarily good) before you begin to be rich -- assuming you ever do.

So no, unfortunately, you should not expect, or even hope, for your book to provide any relief for your immediate financial difficulties.

17th July 2006, 06:48 PM	#3 (permalink)
Teresa Edgerton Ink-stained Wretch Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: California Posts: 4,613	Re: Selling to publishers... John can give you an accurate idea of what you can expect from UK publishers, but in the meantime I can tell you something about the US. (Your prospects in Australia are unlikely to be any better than either of those.) If you are exceptionally lucky and your book is exceptionally good, you might get an offer from a major publisher in about six months. It is far more likely to take much, much longer -- this is assuming that you sell the book at all -- because things move slowly in publishing, and even if the first editor who reads it is absolutely blown away, he or she will still have to pass it around to other people within the company and get their support before a final decision is made. But let's say that you get the offer in about six months. It will take the publishing company a couple of more months (at least) to get the contract out. After you sign it, six weeks to three months before you get the first half of your advance. You'll get more money after you revise and edit the book to their standards -- this will be done on their time not on yours, because first someone has to tell you what needs doing and that, too, could take months. (Even though books are getting humongously long, 370,000 words is enormous, and you will almost certainly have to find a way to divide your series up into more books, or else ruthlessly cut this one.) So now we are well over a year, and all the money you have received will in all likelihood total quite a bit less than $10,000. (Forget what you have read about first time writers who get six figure advances. That doesn't happen in the SF/Fantasy genre.) If you sell to a small press or go the self-publication route, things may move a lot more swiftly, but the money at this point will be far less, and you may, additionally, have been required to kick in a few thousand dollars of your own. But continuing with the best case scenario that a major publisher loves the book and buys it: It will take at least 18 months from contract to publication. Even if your book is the next Harry Potter, it will probably be another year before you start seeing royalties. This all adds up to three or more years from the time you send the book out to a publisher (remember, this is if you are exceptionally lucky and have written something extraordinarily good) before you begin to be rich -- assuming you ever do. So no, unfortunately, you should not expect, or even hope, for your book to provide any relief for your immediate financial difficulties.