Pod Insights Life Kit Plus What it takes to get a book published About this episode Writing and publishing a book is just as much about money as it is about creativity. Planet Money co-host Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi walks us through how publishing works. He also explains the differences between publishing fiction and nonfiction, the chain of people that help get a book from rough draft to hard copy, and when self-publishing is a good option.
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Transcript 4,744 words · 11 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Speaker 00 This message comes from Google Workspace with Gemini. One subscription that does it all. Personalized AI and premium business versions of Gmail, Google Docs, Drive and more. Try it free for 14 days at g o o dot g l e slash Workspace with Gemini.
0:17 Marielle Segarra? You're listening to Life Kit from NPR.
0:25 Marielle Segarra? Hey, it's Marielle. Have you ever wanted to publish a book? Fiction, nonfiction, a mystery, a thriller, maybe a romance novel? That's what my friend Alexi wants to do.
0:37 Speaker 02 I really want to start a new genre of like financial romanticy. So I've been pushing us to try to get into the game by like writing 50 Shades of Green as like Planet Money's new kind of entrance into this world.
0:49 Marielle Segarra? This, by the way, is Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi, co-host of the NPR podcast Planet Money. Now, not only do I want to read this, but I also think Alexi can make it happen because he's become something of an expert on book publishing. Planet Money just published a book called Planet Money: A Guide to the Economic Forces That Shape Your Life. It's packed with narrative stories that'll help you understand things like how banks really work and why our money is worth less every year.
1:16 Speaker 02 And as part of that, I kind of was voluntold to go explore how it actually got made and what it told us about the publishing world and how books get made in this day and age.
1:26 Marielle Segarra? He learned a lot, and he's sharing it with us. On this episode of Life Kit, how to get a book published. Among other things, we'll talk about coming up with a book proposal, landing an agent, and understanding where your book fits in the marketplace. Because while you're probably making something you care about and you may consider it a piece of art, you are also trying to sell it.
1:47 Speaker 02 The book market is extremely competitive. There are tens of thousands of new books published traditionally every year. Bookstores and booksellers themselves can only stock a fraction of those. So you have to be thinking about this with a business sense as well.
2:01 Marielle Segarra? That's coming up after the break.
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3:21 Marielle Segarra? So if you do have a book idea and you want to try to get it published, where would you even start?
3:27 Speaker 02 Okay, so when we talk about publishing, we're usually talking about kind of traditional publishing. That's what's happened to the majority of the books that you're seeing in an independent bookstore, an airport bookstore. And for that, it's kind of useful to think of the publishing industry as this giant machine or supply chain. It begins with the authors who come up with the book ideas for fiction or nonfiction, and then it moves through this chain to book agents, then to book editors, and then the publishers who kind of work to design and actually manufacture the book, to get it out to bookstores, and then to publicize it to the world and get it sold. But the whole process of kind of getting your book published and sent out to the world begins with the agent.
4:04 Marielle Segarra? And what is an agent? What is a literary agent? What do they do?
4:08 Speaker 02 Yeah, so you can think of a literary agent a little bit like a yenta or a matchmaker. I spoke to this agent, Aliyah Hannah Habib. She's a literary agent. She represents a bunch of famous writers and she just wrote a new book about how to build a nonfiction writing career. It's called Take It From Me.
4:24 Speaker 06 A matchmaker is a good way to think about the job. Usually in a movie, the matchmaker might fix up the person they're trying to match. It can be like, I think of like the movie Clueless where our heroine is like, OK, we're going to kind of give you a makeover and then introduce you to the guy. So an agent kind of does that, too, where you're thinking of the target audience, but you're also thinking, OK, how can I present this person in the best way possible to get them the best match?
4:49 Marielle Segarra? I love the makeover idea.
4:50 Speaker 02 I know. And like, the best match in this world is going to depend on what kind of book you actually want to write. So let's take nonfiction to start. You know, memoir or reportage or history or whatever else. If you're writing nonfiction, an agent's going to help you develop the idea for your book and turn it into a book proposal. Proposals, by the way, nonfiction book ideas are bought and sold on the market. And Aliyah says you can think of the proposal as both a blueprint for the book you're going to write and also as a kind of pitch, like, sales document to persuade publishers that this would be a savvy investment for them.
5:23 Speaker 06 You're making a case for why you are the person to write it. You're explaining how the book will be organized and you're giving lots of sample material, giving us a sense of how the book will read. And a good book proposal is an engaging read.
5:36 Speaker 02 So a nonfiction proposal is often around like 40 pages and it might have a sample chapter, a sort of outline of the structure of the book and like a research plan to get it done. You'll also make a case like comparing your potential book to other comparable titles in the same category and kind of demonstrating who you think will be the actual audience who's going to actually buy it.
5:56 Marielle Segarra? And how do you find an agent?
5:57 Speaker 02 There are a couple of ways you can try to get onto an agent's radar. The first is to go out and do some detective work. Aliyah told me you want to go out and find an agent who has represented work like yours in the past and then pitch them on your book idea. And she calls this first part of the process literary sleuthing.
6:14 Speaker 06 Make a big pile of 10 books that have been published in the past 10 years that are roughly in the same category as your book. In the acknowledgements section, almost always, the writer will thank their agent. And that's a way to build a list of agents who might be good targets for your own book.
6:31 Marielle Segarra? Super resourceful.
6:32 Speaker 02 Totally. She's putting on her investigative journalism hat. We love that. The next step, once you have this list of agents you think might be good, is you then continue to do your sleuthing. You go find their emails or social media handles online. And then you're going to send them what is called a query letter, where you introduce yourself and your idea for your book. And you want to keep this letter short and to the point. There are all sorts of free templates online if folks want to see what they look like. And Aaliyah's book has a section about how to write them with some examples.
6:59 Marielle Segarra? Now, our inboxes are all full, I feel.
7:03 Speaker 02 We are drowning in cold emails. It's true. It's true.
7:06 Marielle Segarra? So when we're thinking about reaching out to agents, I mean, how many of these query letters should you be sending out?
7:13 Speaker 02 Yes, it is true. Agents are just as busy as the rest of us. They get a ton of these query letters. So Aaliyah says you want to kind of up your odds by casting a wide net. You know, that could be tens, dozens of potential agents. You know, whatever you have the bandwidth for, where you're not just spamming people, basically. And as a bonus piece of advice, she says you might also try sending query letters to some of the more junior agents at the agencies you come across in your sleuthing. Because early career agents are often eager to build up their client list. And they might be more willing to take a risk on a lesser known writer.
7:47 Marielle Segarra? All right, takeaway one. If you're trying to get a book published the traditional way, you're going to start with an agent. One way to find an agent is to look through the acknowledgements section of books that are similar to yours. Writers usually thank their agents. Make a list of names, find the contact info, and reach out. If you're writing nonfiction, you'll send a query letter, which should be short and to the point, to say who you are, what writing experience you have, and what your book would be about. There are free templates online. After that, you'll generally work with your agent to come up with a book proposal. There's another technique you can use to get on an agent's radar. Get shorter pieces published elsewhere.
8:27 Speaker 02 So the second thing that prospective authors should be thinking about is how to build a body of work and also a potential audience of readers that might make you attractive to both agents and to the publishers they're going to be selling your book to. Aliyah says you've just got to get out there.
8:43 Speaker 06 You can start publishing your own work. Essays, articles, shorter pieces, in literary magazines, in op-eds. Some writers self-publish through platforms like Substack. And the reason that could be a really good route is because a lot of agents, like myself, do a lot of talent scouting.
9:02 Marielle Segarra? Help them find you.
9:04 Speaker 02 Yeah, you like put out a little bat signal for yourself. You want to be writing and pitching smaller pieces to all sorts of publications on the topic that you'd eventually like to write a book about because, you know, it builds your writerly muscles, builds your credentials. And if you start at Substack or whatever, you might have an actual audience who might want to buy a book. And all of these things are things that are likely to put you on the radar of agents like her.
9:26 Marielle Segarra? All right, we've been talking about nonfiction. Is the process different if you're writing fiction?
9:31 Speaker 02 Yeah, so fiction largely works the same when it comes to getting an agent. Your best shot of getting picked up by a traditional publisher is still by finding an agent who represents similar fiction to what you are writing and convincing them to represent you. And similarly, the more small pieces of fiction you manage to publish, the better shot you'll have at convincing agents and publishers to take your book. There is one way that fiction is different, and that's that the majority of new fiction books that get bought and sold by publishers, they are based on full manuscripts instead of book proposals. So instead of handing over like a blueprint for the book you hope to write, you're actually handing over a fully drafted version of it. Because, you know, with fiction, agents and publishers want to know what it is that they're buying or selling.
10:13 Marielle Segarra? Something about that feels so vulnerable to me. Like you're sending your baby out there into the world and who knows what's going to happen to it.
10:20 Speaker 02 Yeah, hopefully it's like a boss baby who's ready to close deals. But, you know, yeah, it is vulnerable. You got to put yourself out there.
10:29 Marielle Segarra? How might you know that your fiction book is ready to send to an agent?
10:33 Speaker 02 This is one of those sort of nebulous questions without a super definitive answer. But Aliyah says you want to really do everything in your power to get your manuscript as close to finished or crystallized in your mind as possible. Because when you are querying a particular agent, that may be your only shot to convince them to take you on. And you want to make sure you're putting your best foot forward.
10:55 Marielle Segarra? Takeaway two: if your book is fiction, you'll want to have the full manuscript ready before you start looking for an agent. Though you should keep an eye on the literary agency's preference for submissions. Some prefer to receive a summary at first or just the first few chapters. We'll talk about next steps after the break.
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12:08 Marielle Segarra? Let's say you do find an agent who wants to represent you. They're all in on your idea. They want to help you sell your book. What happens now?
12:16 Speaker 02 OK, so if an agent offers to represent you and you, you know, you strike a deal, you go walking into the world of publishing together, their job is now to help you get your book proposal or your fiction manuscript into salable shape.
12:29 Speaker 02 The agent is a little bit like the first editor in this on the book. They're giving you directions and feedback to make the idea as attractive as possible to potential publishers. And once the proposal is ready, it's the agent's job to get it into the hands of as many acquiring editors at different publishing houses as possible, to drum up demand and interest. And to get a sense of what this flow of book ideas looks like from the editor's perspective, I spoke to a guy named Tom Mayer, who's a book editor at the publishing house WW Norton. And they're the ones who actually edited the Planet Money book. He explained it to me like this.
13:01 Speaker 09 I did the math a couple of years ago, and I discovered that I receive 500 roughly proposals from book agents every year. And out of those 500, I'm excited about 30, and I end up buying 10 or 12 a year. So out of what I'm getting submitted, I end up signing up 2%.
13:20 Marielle Segarra? Oof. Sounds like if you want to sell a book, you also need to be practical, to think about the book as not just a piece of writing, but also a product.
13:30 Speaker 02 Yeah. I mean, like, Tom, the editor, he told me that there are two minds that he has about it that are maybe useful for writers to be thinking about. Like, on the one hand, each piece of writing, he's looking at potentially publishing, he's thinking about it as like this aesthetic literary piece of art. Does it stir him emotionally? Is it something he, like, can't put down and wants to read all night and wants to tell all of his friends and family about? And on the other hand, like, every book is also a product. Publishers are thinking about their broad portfolio of books in terms of what's actually going to sell. What are the comparable titles out there to your book? What kind of marketing opportunities and kind of audience might you be able to leverage for this book idea you have? You know, does the book speak to the moment or the zeitgeist in some way? Like, you've got to be thinking about all of that.
14:13 Speaker 02 And the process of actually getting your book from a book idea to a physical copy you can find in your local bookstore, that can take several years. You know, so you're going to want to prepare yourself for a long process here.
14:27 Marielle Segarra? Takeaway three. After you land an agent, they will help you get the proposal or manuscript into shape, and then they'll get it to editors at different publishing houses. This is a competitive process. Editors only buy a small fraction of the books they get pitched, and it helps to know that so your expectations are clear, and so you remember to think of your book as a product you're trying to sell. Why does it make business sense?
14:53 Marielle Segarra? Well, let's talk about money. How much am I making off this book? After my book comes out, am I going to be like Scrooge McDuck diving into the pile of gold coins?
15:01 Speaker 02 I love that for you, and that is the image that I hope listeners will take away from this. But, uh, but yeah, like in terms of the money, uh, it's maybe useful to kind of think about the incentives here. Like, the agents who are helping you sell your book to the publishers, they are paid on commission, usually around 15%. And this is a big public service announcement that Aaliyah wants everyone to keep in mind as they're looking for agents. Agents should not be soliciting payment before they successfully sell your work.
15:29 Marielle Segarra? Okay.
15:30 Speaker 02 Because the way this is structured, that means they're incentivized to get you the best possible deal. As for the actual amount of money that a publisher is going to pay you for your book idea if they buy it, that is something called an advance, or an advance against royalties. And basically, the publisher is, you know, is taking a bet on you. They're paying you this sum for your idea to kind of carry it out. And the advance is, is money that the author gets to keep, no matter how well the book sells. If the book takes off and the publisher is able to sell enough copies to cover the cost of that initial advance, then the author is going to start seeing, you know, royalties on every additional copy of the book sold.
16:06 Marielle Segarra? Are publishers taking a loss on a lot of books?
16:09 Speaker 02 Around 20% of the books actually make 80% of the money. And a majority of books are not, you know, earning out of their advance or turning a big profit. So that means, in most cases, the advance basically just is the money that you're going to get for writing your book.
16:24 Marielle Segarra? Do you have any estimate on how much advances generally are for different kinds of books? Like, what are we talking about here? Are we talking about, like, tens of thousands of dollars, or like $100,000 or more?
16:38 Speaker 02 $100,000 would be a pretty sizable advance. Though, for like, the biggest blockbuster authors and celebrities, you might see seven-figure book deal advances, over $1 million. Publishers are generally pretty secretive about the exact advances they're paying. But there are some sort of, like, self-pulled author estimates online that put an average major book deal at around $60,000.
16:59 Marielle Segarra? And then do you get that money all at once?
17:02 Speaker 02 Yeah, when you're paid the advance, you don't just get it in some sort of lump sum. You don't just get your Scrooge McDuck pile of gold coins. You are getting it paid out in installments, tethered to big milestones in the process. So you might get like a quarter when you sign the book deal, another 25% when you deliver the finished manuscript, 25% when it's published, and then another 25% a year after that. So, you know, it's not like all of a sudden you just like strike it rich. You have a down payment for a house. It's maybe better to think about this as kind of an incremental way of, you know, helping to sustain yourself as you're going through the process of writing and publishing. In addition to getting your advance paid out in installments, you're also paying 15% of that to your agents every time you get paid. That's their commission.
17:48 Speaker 02 You're also paying income tax on all of that. So whatever that big shiny advance number is that you are hopefully able to get, you've got to think about how it's going to be parsed out.
17:58 Marielle Segarra? Takeaway four, in most cases, your advance will be the only money you'll get from publishing a book unless the book really takes off and then you might get royalties. You'll get the advance in installments, not in a lump sum, and you will have to pay a fee to your agent, often around 15%. And keep in mind, if you are writing a book to get rich, it's technically possible, but highly unlikely.
18:23 Marielle Segarra? One thing I am gleaning from all this is that it feels like a long shot to get a big book deal with a traditional publisher. Are there any other routes people can take? If they're hitting a wall or they want to go a different path, I've heard there's a way to self-publish.
18:39 Speaker 02 Yeah, there are all sorts of ways to self-publish these days. There are platforms where you can publish your own ebook. There are free versions of that. There are ways you can pay to get exposed to a broader audience. What's important to understand about this path is that instead of convincing a publisher to ideally pay you to write your book and then taking care of the manufacturing and marketing themselves, when you self-publish, you are often the one paying for things like editing and book design and printing costs if you make a real physical copy. Like you're the one taking on the financial risk for whether your book actually sells or not. On the flip side, if you do self-published, you are also likely to make much more money per copy. And Aaliyah says self-publishing can be a savvy move,
19:22 Speaker 02 especially in particular genres.
19:25 Speaker 06 Sci-fi, fantasy, and romance. People publish on fanfiction websites and get to, you know, go viral and get discovered. I think it's a great way to grow as a writer, to find an audience, and it's a fun world to be part of.
19:40 Marielle Segarra? OK, that's hopeful.
19:42 Speaker 02 Yeah, she reminded me, like, several books have found so much success in the self-publishing ecosystem that they were eventually snapped up by major traditional publishers and turned into like blockbuster series. These are books like The Martian or Fifty Shades of Grey.
19:57 Marielle Segarra? You know, I do wonder, writing a book is hard enough. You have to spend a lot of time on it very often.
20:04 Speaker 02 Totally.
20:04 Marielle Segarra? And then getting it out there is also tough and not super lucrative. So why do this?
20:12 Speaker 02 I think the first kind of like, somewhat obvious thing here is that if you're going to be trying to publish a book, it really has to be about way more than making money. Like, there are so many more efficient, lucrative ways of making money or earning a living than going through this whole publishing gauntlet and putting yourself out there for rejection. Like, you really have to kind of believe in the thing that you want to say to the world and have a real audience in mind that you want to connect with through writing this thing.
20:41 Speaker 06 If you are writing a book for the glory, know the glory is really limited. But if you're writing a book to communicate something to others, that's a much better place to come from. And you might not get all the readers that you want, but if even just 10 people read that book and take something from it, I think that's a victory.
21:06 Marielle Segarra? I like that.
21:07 Speaker 02 Yeah, so you really have to be in it for the love of the game, because writing a book and publishing a book is a real journey.
21:13 Speaker 06 Alexi, thank you so much.
21:15 Speaker 02 Thank you for having me. What a pleasure.
21:21 Marielle Segarra? Okay, time for a recap. You want to publish a book the traditional way? Takeaway one is to start with an agent. You can find one by scanning the acknowledgements section of similar books. Writers usually thank their agents. And then you'll send a query letter. Another technique you can use to get on an agent's radar is to get shorter pieces published elsewhere. Takeaway two, if your book is fiction, you'll want to have the full text ready to go when you reach out to agents. But keep an eye out for the agency's preferences. Some of them want to get just a summary or their first few chapters of the book, at least initially. Takeaway three, your agent will help you edit the book and send it to publishers, trying to drum up interest. This is a competitive
22:03 Marielle Segarra? process, so remember that in addition to being a work of art, your book is a product that you're trying to sell. What's the business case? Takeaway four, in most cases, your advance will be the only money you'll get from publishing a book, unless the book really takes off, and then you might get royalties. You'll get the advance in installments, not in a lump sum, and you will have to pay a fee to your agent, often around 15%. If you are writing a book to get rich, yeah, it is technically possible, but it's highly unlikely. Given how competitive the publishing industry is, you might also consider self-publishing. There are free platforms where you can publish your own ebook, and there are ways you can pay to reach a broader audience. Remember,
22:48 Marielle Segarra? if you do that, or if you pay to print your own book, you are taking on all the financial risk. But if it sells, you'll make much more money per copy. And self-publishing can be a way to get discovered. That's how the authors of The Martian and Fifty Shades of Grey did it. All right, that's our show. For more Life Kit, check out our other episodes. We have one on how to read more and another on how to write your memoir. Also, we love hearing from you, so if you have episode ideas or feedback you want to share, email us at [email protected] . This episode of Life Kit was produced by Sylvie Douglas. Our digital editor is Malika Gharib, and our visuals editor is CJ Riegel. Megan Cain is our senior supervising editor,
23:31 Marielle Segarra? and Beth Donovan is our executive producer. Our production team also includes Andy Tagle, Claire Marie Schneider, Margaret Serino, and Mika Ellison. Engineering support comes from Damian Herring. I'm Marielle Segarra. Thanks for listening.
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23:53 Speaker 07 Last year, insurance companies decided millions of seniors weren't profitable and shut down their Medicare Advantage plans.
24:00 Speaker 08 I was so mad. I was like, now what do I do? It was total chaos.
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