I found a very interesting article related to this!

One publishing house, out of 4,000 unagented submissions, publishes about 10 books.

Glimmer Train magazine accepts 0.1% of submissions. That's one story in a thousand. Agents accept between 1% and 5% of authors for representation. (As someone who has had two real agents, I now consider myself lucky. They did not manage to sell my books, however.)

I found a great source or related information as well. One of the sad statistics is that "70 percent of books published do not earn back their advance."

All these reasons and more are why I self-published, and why I eventually gave up writing fiction completely, and am now pursuing my MFA as a 3D Modeler. (Blogging and now, Mahalo, give me my writing fix.) You'd be amazed at how insulting people--mostly hopeful writers--can be to writers who have self-published. I think they must not grasp the realities of the publishing industry.
Source(s):
http://www.popmatters.com/books/reviews/s/78-reasons-why-your-book.shtml
http://www.humorwriters.org/startlingstats.html

Permalink | Report

According to one published author, only 0.03% of submitted manuscripts are accepted for publication - roughly one in every 10,000. Given that each manuscript is written by an individual author, that would mean about 0.03% of authors (with completed and submitted manuscripts) are published.

This statistic drops dramatically, of course, when you expand your definition of writer. Many writers never get to the point of submitting a manuscript, as they get trapped in the search for an agent, or get delayed by other roadblocks.

The fact of the matter is that it is incredibly hard to become a published author, and even harder to then make a living as such. Writing should be done for personal enjoyment or edification, rather than in search for fame and profit.
Source(s):
http://www.tarakharper.com/faq_pub.htm

Permalink | Report