How competitive is the book publishing industry?

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James Frey
Owner, American Literary Press
www.americanliterarypress.com  
410-882-7700, 800-873-2003

James V. Frey is the current owner of American Literary Press, a Baltimore, MD-based book publisher that has published books written by more than 1,300 first-time authors during the past 20 years.

Jim is a Cum Laude graduate of Dartmouth College. Following graduation from Dartmouth, he served as a high school teacher in Southern New Hampshire. Subsequently, he spent 15 years with Xerox Corporation in various Sales and Marketing capacities, accountable as a senior manager in his last two assignments. During the 1990’s, he was a General Manager for several large office technology firms and served as a director on five companies’ Board of Directors. Since 1999, he has been an owner of/investor in six entrepreneurial ventures, including American Literary Press. 

In 2001, Jim self-published his own industry-targeted “how to” book, based on his experience with both big and small business, that generated $25,000 in sales. In his estimation, Jim considers the publication of his 86 year-old father’s autobiography by American Literary Press in 2006 to be one of one of his major professional accomplishments.

With nearly two decades of experience, American Literary Press has the knowledge necessary to produce books exactly as our authors envision them. Our ability to adapt to the wishes of our authors is one of the primary reasons our company has been chosen by more than 1,200 aspiring and first-time writers. Not a single book is published unless it is one that we can proudly claim as our own, for we require that our books meet the highest standards for editorial accuracy, design and production.

American Literary Press provides authors with a wide variety of options from which to choose, including author-marketed publishing and programs that include professional marketing services. One of these options is certain to serve your needs. First, let’s evaluate your publishing project.

American Literary Press is your best solution if:

You want a book of first-rate bookstore quality and durability perfectly suited in design and format to your work and its market.

You want to see your work published in an edition you will be proud to present to the literary marketplace.

You want to work with a publisher you can trust to stand behind its commitments.

No other company can do more to satisfy your expectations because publishing is our only business. We are a full-service publisher, not simply a printer or bookseller with a high-tech copy machine.

We can show you how to save money without compromising on quality.

We offer cost-effective alternatives designed for your specific needs.

We use our extensive database of current marketing and sales contacts to ensure that your work will get the kind of exposure you seek.

How competitive is the book publishing industry?

This video series will show how to get a book published. Jim Frey answers many questions surrounding how to write a book and get it published.

This expert: 82,342 views

This series: 18,654 views

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Transcripts

Jim Frey: Hi! I am Jim Frey. I am the owner of American Literary Press and I am going to talk to you about how to publish your book.

Host: How competitive is the book publishing industry? Jim Frey: The book publishing business is very competitive. Industry figures indicate that 3500 plus books a week are published in the United States alone; and if you think of that that's a massive number over a year. Book publishing is also more competitive when you include some of the e-books that may be obtained online. For authors, 30,000 manuscripts, meaning that manuscript of your book, similar manuscripts are sent to publishing houses in New York every week, 38,000 of them. We sometimes tell people that we were not sure if there are more writers then there are readers in the United States. So from a publishing perspective, there is some big number of books that are published and there are thousands of manuscripts that are in trans and back and forth between publishers and authors everyday. In terms of the bookselling business, you see the changes in bookstores probably during your lifetime where there a lot of smaller independent book stores and very few large ones. Today, you can go into any major shopping mall and probably find two or three mega bookstores and not see as many independent bookstores in your town or city where you live.

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