Consolidation, fewer imprints, and editorial bottlenecks are changing the way fiction book deals are acquired and developed in today’s publishing market.
From Proposal to Publication is a series that takes readers behind the curtain of modern publishing as a business.
I’m so used to rejection that I brace myself for every email, even before I open it. Even if good news might be waiting after that click.
Writers, and to some extent all creators, have to get used to “no.”
An oft-cited study reported in the New York Times (early 2000s) found that about 81% of Americans feel they have a book inside them. Many people aspire to write and publish a book in their lifetime, but only a minority see their work officially acquired and published each year. A little over 2,000 fiction authors have announced deals on Publishers Marketplace in 2025.
What’s it like to write a bestseller? We tracked Lucy Score for a year to find out
One of the deals announced this year was mine. My debut young adult novel, How to Kill a Chupacabra, was acquired by independent publisher Tiny Ghost Press. I almost ignored the email confirming the offer as another rejection.
I started writing this novel in 2021. My father, who inspired this novel, arrived at the hospital as I was writing the outline. He developed complications from cancer. I wrote this book at home, next to my father’s hospital bed, on the weekend, before my shift at work.
That 2021 idea was eventually acquired in 2024, announced this week on Publishers Marketplace, and was scheduled to be published in the summer of 2027.
It will be 6 years from the beginning to the publication date. That’s not unusual. Two years from acquisition to publication is considered a “normal” schedule.
So when people ask, “Can anyone get a book deal?”, what they often ask is something else.
- Is it even possible for someone who is not famous?
- Need to know someone in the industry?
- And even if you do everything “right”, will it still take years?
In summary: yes, no, and maybe. Book contracts are possible to a certain extent. It’s not even the finish line. Here’s what novelists and readers need to know about the behind-the-scenes of novel publishing.
Where people can’t see: fewer chairs, louder music.
The publishing industry is becoming more consolidated, which means fewer publishers (and fewer editors). In a hearing on the proposed merger between Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster, Judge Florence Pan wrote in her opinion: “Significantly, PRH’s acquisition of S&S would strengthen the oligarchic structure of the market in a market that already appears to be prone to collusion and widespread coordinated conduct.”
Still, about 300 of the deals announced last year were “auctioned,” meaning publishers engaged in bidding wars over them.
When editors become tighter, the time it takes to develop talent, especially debut authors, decreases. The industry’s ability to slowly bet on and develop writers the way a record label develops a musician or a sports team develops a new talent is becoming increasingly rare.
I was fortunate enough to connect with Joshua Perry, founder and editorial director of Tiny Ghost Press, through a call for submissions on social media.
Story continues below.
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“The first question I ask[authors]is what goals they want to achieve with this particular publication,” said Michelle Herrera Mulligan, vice president and associate publisher of Primero Sueño, an imprint of Atria Books, a division of Simon & Schuster. “Are you trying to heal trauma, create change in society, or become a commercially successful author with one book after another? Those are all legitimate goals, but they deploy very different strategies and very different budgets.”
Independent publishers and small to medium-sized printing companies often stand out because of their personalized care. It’s a shadow of the Big Five: Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette Book Group, Macmillan Publishers, and HarperCollins, but novelists at the big houses compete for resources with celebrity memoirs and big-name authors. Their books are part of a busy (but highly effective) ecosystem.
Not easy, but doable
One problem with this process is that imprints belonging to the same parent company cannot bid against each other, which limits the number of deals.
The number of traditionally published books in the United States will increase 6.6% from the previous year to 642,242 in 2025, according to statistics compiled by Bowker for Publishers Weekly. Of these, 64,449 titles were novels for adults and young adults.
Even if the books are good, “there are fewer places to sell them than there used to be,” Carly Watters, senior literary agent at PS Literary, told USA TODAY. “A lot of things are based on the desires of fewer people…There may be separate imprints, but they all share an editorial board meeting.”
Regardless of quality, in order for a novel to stand out at a conference, it must be able to sell. “In my experience, (books) are easy to market: anything that can be summed up hook, line, and sinker in one sentence is the one that can get people’s attention,” Watters added. There are some great books that are hard to summarize, she said. It’s like you want to hand it to someone and say, “Read it and then call me.”
Those books will sell. But it’s difficult.
Eric Smith, literary agent and founder of Neighborhood Literary, agreed that for novelists, their work determines their trajectory more than who they are.
“I feel like there’s a lot of contrasting ideas about, ‘Oh, do I need X number of platforms or do I need someone who knows someone?’ But none of that is true,” Smith said. “We have a lot of clients who don’t have a social media following or whose first book they’ve ever written. They…get just as many book deals as someone with a million followers on TikTok or two MFAs.”
Many of his customers come from cold queries (email or form suggestion submissions) with no industry connections. But also, his inbox can reach thousands of posts in a few months if he’s accepting submissions. Smith estimated he received about 3,000 submissions in about 90 days last year and signed several.
This number may seem scary until you remember something important. That means that most of the submitted works were not “bad writers.” It just wasn’t a good fit. Or was it bad timing? Or has the market become saturated? Or maybe the editor just got something similar. or the imprint is closed. Or perhaps the editor was fired. Or the editorial board says, “We already have a slot like this.”
Even if you do everything right, you can still succumb to the industry’s invisible calendar.
Integration makes it clearer. Smith made it clear. Agents cannot submit five projects in a row to the same editor without bridging.
Yes, it can be even more difficult now. This is not because the “gatekeepers” dislike writers, but because the number of lanes maintained by the gates is decreasing.
“I think anyone can get[a book deal]but I would say they have to really want it, and[authors]need to know why they want it,” Herrera Mulligan said. “A significant portion of your time in your life will be spent making this book, more than you can imagine…No one knows your platform better than you. No one knows your audience, and more importantly, no one knows your work itself and how special it is to you.”
Is it easy? No, but it’s possible. The industry moved so slowly that my father passed away before I could show him the book that inspired him. Aspiring traditionally published novelists should be aware of these trade-offs.
As Watters said, people who aren’t optimistic don’t last long in this industry.
