One of the things that makes book publishing unique is people tend to stumble into book publishing as a profession, usually from a background in the humanities. “Book publishing is a backwards business” Apart from the submission process of book publishing, other functions can sometimes be slow as a result of this “mañana” attitude among some book publishers. Of course, just like writers, literary agents wish editors could read much faster. Three to four months is usually a reasonable amount of time to expect to hear from editors at publishing houses, once they’ve received a manuscript submission from a literary agent.Įspecially after that three- to four-month period, it’s more than reasonable to expect a literary agent to follow up with editors still considering a submission. “This is a hurry-up-and-wait business”Īn impatient author may want to hear back on their submission quickly, but publishing is generally a slow-moving business, as it takes time to read.
Tolkien-that just gets eye rolls from literary agents and editors.
However, you write a fantasy, don’t go and compare yourself to classics and masters such as J.R.R. This might also be a way of selling the book to readers. In the eyes of an editor, comps help to place the manuscript under consideration in its proper place on a publishing list and answers any questions for a publisher on where a book would fit in at a bookstore. None of this is ever to merely compare an author’s manuscript to similar works, but rather to hold an author’s manuscript in high esteem.Ī good comp is usually a similar book genre/age group, published within the last hree to five years, that was an award-winner or bestseller. In book publishing, comps generally stands for competitive or comparative titles/authors.Ī literary agent will often request two to three of these from an author to work into the literary agent’s pitch to publishers. When a literary agent or editor speaks about “comps”, they are not referring to computers, nor anything that may be complementary. Here’s some book publishing terminology you should know. This serves as a light glossary of key terms for new authors unfamiliar with the phrases and abbreviations casually tossed around in the book-publishing world. As a literary agent in major trade publishing at the Trident Media Group literary agency, I often have to explain many of these key book publishing terms and phrases to new clients.
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