The New York Times has finally revealed to all that want to know about why it takes so very long for a book to be pub­lished. The aver­age time from man­u­script to the actual fin­ished prod­uct takes about a year. The prob­lem? Mar­ket­ing says David Rosen­thal from Simon and Schuster:

It’s not only buzz, it’s a prod­uct intro­duc­tion — but with noth­ing like the adver­tis­ing or mar­ket­ing bud­get that a piece of soap would have,” said David Rosen­thal, the pub­lisher of Simon & Schus­ter. With the Inter­net and blogs, word of mouth trav­els more quickly today, but there’s a glut of infor­ma­tion. To help a book break through the sta­tic, pub­lish­ers have to plan months in advance.

And here I thought it was because author’s were tak­ing their sweet time writ­ing the next book. Inter­est­ing to note that Tar­get and Wal-mart reserve space for mega authors like Nora Roberts and Janet Evanovich. Midlist authors just have to take what’s left. The arti­cle gives more of a insider’s view of what goes on behind the publisher’s doors once a man­u­script has been bought. All the hype and build up months in advance must cre­ate sales which explains why cer­tain authors are forced to rein­vent them­selves in order to be given a sec­ond or third chance.  Pub­lish­ers are com­pet­i­tive, chang­ing release dates to assure their mega author has first dibs on the NYT list. No sur­prise really at what goes on with the pub­lic­ity of a book before it’s released. According to the arti­cle, it seems eas­ier to pro­mote a new book than a sec­ond or third.  Any­way, inter­est­ing arti­cle. You should read it.