Welcome to the book publishing blog

Posted by Simone Preuss Nov 5, 2008

Hi, welcome to the book publishing blog!

I’m hoping to supplement our article resources here with current trends, news and my own experiences in publishing. It is an industry that is not at all just about publishers but also writers, literary agents, distributors, printers, translators, illustrators, and many others.

I still remember my first job in publishing – jobs, I should say, because I did a couple of internships before landing a long-term job – and my initial confusion to understand the many players that are involved in putting a manuscript into the hands of a reader as a published book. Each of those short-term assignments has taught me a lot about the inner workings of publishing, how publishing houses differ depending on their publishing lists, if they are for-profit operations or not, independent or part of a conglomerate, established or newly founded.

A constant were the kind of people I worked with – all dedicated, hard-working professionals, in it not for the money but because they love what they do – being a part of the complex process that is book publishing.

And the peculiar product that a book is. Though physically, it does not require special handling and in fact, ships quite easily, the content requires quite a bit of work and needs to go through various stages before it becomes a competitive, sellable product.

And even then, the financial risk is looming because publishing is an advance business. While the print run is catching dust in the warehouse, profits will only be achieved once a certain percentage of it has been sold – often almost all of it as publishing is also a low-margin business. Compare this with, let’s say, manufacturing shoes, where the initial investment is low and the manufactured quantitiy is increased only when the demand for the product calls for it.

My goal is to bring this high-risk, low-margin business closer to anyone who is interested and to share my passion for this industry. I would love to hear from you and hope we will get many a good discussion going!