To submit to a publisher, you must write a proposal. Here you spell out your book’s overall objectives, who you are, what else you’ve published, who the book is targeted to and who’s your competition. You also provide an outline of all the chapters, and include 2 – 3 sample chapters, correctly formatted.
Oh, and don’t forget word count. The publisher wants to know the number of words, so they can estimate how many pages, and hence figure out what it will cost to print your book. A novel is generally at least 40,000 words but not above 100,000. For non-fiction, there are really no guidelines, but my publisher and I had a small argument because the MS came in at 135,000 words and they wanted it cut to fewer than 100,000. I got to 104,000, and they were satisfied, and by the way it made for a much better read. I say small argument because I offered very little resistance, because if I didn’t cut it down, they might not have published.
If they like what they’re reading from your proposal and sample chapters, your’re going to get published — hooray for you. So next you sign a contract, in which the publisher agrees to print the book and keep about 90% of the revenues. You get some cash up front, and I do mean some, but that’s actually deducted from your commissions on future sales — so it’s not a signing bonus, it’s an advance. Now, assuming you didn’t write a “Harry Potter”, you can expect to sell about 3,000 copies of your book (that’s the average over it’s full lifetime nowadays, not per year). If it sells for $20, you will earn $6,000 in total — let me say that again — in total. Fork over your agent’s commission and you get to keep $5,100, and it will take you 8-10 years to collect it all, so, you earn about $500 per year. Keep your day job.
But we’re not in it for the money, right?
