Hi JoAnn, I’m the author of 10 non-fiction books (5 are literary travel genre), and for the past decade have worked part time, managing my own imprint at John Hunt Publishing.

This has been sobering! About 1.5 million new books a year are published in English. The Average number of sales in the first year is between 300-500 copies. Basically, half all authors never break out of their own friend groups and immediate networks.

So, my advice would be to think carefully about how you define success. Writing a book is easy these days. Getting people to read your book is getting harder and harder all this time. Very few authors earn enough from their books to call it an actual income.

Second, publishers care a lot about the size of your platform and your ability to connect with others in promoting your book. This is at least as important to them as the quality of the writing itself.

Third, it is very hard for a first time author to get an agent. Agents work on commission, and unless you have a publishing track record, an agent will assume, rightly, that getting you published will be a long shot. My advice would be to first pitch to midsized and small publishers who do not work exclusively through agents.

Cheers,

Tim