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Today's book publishing conundrum:
So many writers, not enough publishers. So many great ideas without a channel of promotion.
A quarter of a million books are published each year in the USA alone. How Manuscript Mart can help ideas and books find their way to market: - A database of info about as yet unpublished manuscripts. - Publishers can view abstracts in areas of interest and contact authors. - Readers may download copies and pay author royalties on unpublished books. - Authors can promote and test market demand for their new works. Would you like to tell the world about your manuscript? Send a brief description (100 words), table of contents, expected word count, brief author bio, subject area code, keyword list, and eventually a web address for more detailed info on your MS (e.g. a book proposal) to: info@progressivepress.com. If you don't have a book proposal, search the internet for Book Proposal Guidelines or Submission Guidelines and pick a format that works for you. |
The Write Stuff,
by Shashi Tharoor
Newsweek International, November 4, 2002
Eighty-one percent of the citizenry of the land of the free and the home of the brave
think they have a book in them, according to a survey of 1,006 adult Americans commissioned
by the Jenkins Group, a Michigan publishing-services firm...
Jenkins estimates that 6 million Americans have actually written a manuscript...
No wonder there’s a boom in independent publishing and self-publication.
In our torpid economy, indeed, it’s just about the only growth industry left.
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Entitled "Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America," the report builds on a
survey of 17,000 adults that was done by the U.S. Census Bureau in 2002...
(Erin O'Connor)
In 1992, for example, 60.9 percent of those surveyed indicated that they had read a book of
some sort during the previous year. By 2002, that figure had shrunk to 56.6 percent, a decline
of 7 percent.
Q. Can this be right: 56 from 81 leaves 25 - so a quarter of the population wants to write a book without reading one?
Contrary to the overall decline in literary reading, the number of people doing creative writing increased by 30 percent, from 11 million in 1982 to more than 14 million in 2002. However, the number of people who reported having taken a creative writing class or lesson decreased by 2.2 million during the same time period.
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Book Industry Study Group Press Release, April 6, 2005
New Study Reveals Billions More in Book Sales
Under the Radar reports that approximately 63,000 publishers with annual revenues of
less than $50 million generate aggregate sales of $14.2 billion.
The older, more visible segment of the industry generates annual revenues of around $25 billion.
While large publishers have been increasingly acquired by media conglomerates,
small and midsize publishers have been multiplying, and often prospering, and using routes
to readers beyond the bookstore world.
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Our conclusion: 200 million aspiring authors and 6 million manuscripts looking for a match with one of 64,000 publishers? Bringing them together is going to take some help from the Internet. Let's get started!