Hi, I must know as specifically as possible estimates on submission, acceptance, and completion of print copies of a biography for ages 10 - 15 from a major American publishing house, including obtaining permission to use quotes from published sources and photographs whether previously published or not. I am extremely knowledgeable on the subject. This will not be either the first children's or adults' biography on the subject but I have tried to improve in various ways on the others. A draft was finished a couple of years ago but due to personal issues and lack of encouragement from the right quarters, I set it aside. An anniversary is coming up in a little over two years for which if I had the book published and if events are held for this anniversary (which they will be) I could attend said events and sell copies. My main question is, on what exact date should I panic? Is it already too late to submit a manuscript, obtain any necessary permissions, and have a completed print book in hand by two years from now? If it is not too late, how long do I have before I need to panic, give up, collapse and die? Any advice, except to self-publish, appreciated, thanks!
I can't give you precise numbers as I have no experience with non-fiction, but for fiction I've found that it's 10-12 months from acceptance to publication with big houses. It takes a while to get to the acceptance stage, obviously... But a lot of that 10-12 months seems to be hurry-up-and-wait scenarios. Your project is queued up in each department separately, etc. I think it could all be streamlined if necessary in order to hit a specific date for promo. We certainly see books about big news events hitting the shelves more quickly than my experience with fiction would suggest.
I would guess that this is also going to depend on the general saleability of the project. You selling some books at events will not be of major interest to a publisher, the real question will be the potential to sell books through shops and online. If the events are the sole source of sales you would be better off self publishing as that level of sales alone is not going to be a priority for a big company
Also you could start obtaining permission for photo use etc now, the more you've already got sorted the more attractive a proposition it will be to agents etc
You set this project aside years ago because of lack of encouragement and now you're in a super rush to have have all the right doors open? If you haven't worked on your book in years, it likely has the same problems it did back then. And, in my experience, people who are in a rush to get published, usually don't last long enough to get published. Even if this works out for you, you could easily get 50 rejections before you see any interest. Nonfiction books are usually sold on proposal. You'll have to look up the details for this, but a google search should give you plenty of examples on how to do this. When I did a proposal it was probably about 70 pages. So, there is a lot of work that goes into it. I think it's probably just as hard as writing the book. With your proposal ready, you query agents. You could hear back in a day or many months could go by. In my experience, quick responses are almost always a no. It's always been the ones that take forever that come back at me with any sort of good news. Depending on who your agent is and their relationship with publishing houses, will have a lot to do with how quickly they look at your project and make a decision. It's a process, for sure, and not a quick one. An agent and/or editor will give you the best answer on seeking permission for things, but the more work an author is, the less appealing he or she is to work with. Is there a reason you haven't sought permission for the things you want to use already? Is this going to be costly? You really can't just wait for a publishing deal to fall in your lap and think that's going to take care of things. I don't think you need to panic, but I also wouldn't pin everything on this upcoming anniversary. How good you are, your credentials, and demand for such a book are all going to come into play. And the publishing world has always seemed to move a lot slower than I want it to.
The anniversary is not the only chance or venue for selling the book; I was just hoping to motivate myself to the point of even being able to query an agent or publisher. The event could go either way...I might attend but not want to spend the whole time selling books, for instance.
