Authors Are In the Shark Tank.

Over the years, I’ve watched a lot of different shows at lunchtime.

Scandal. Selling Sunset. Grey’s Anatomy. Million Dollar Listing New York. House Hunters.

But in the last year, I’ve landed on a favorite. 

Shark Tank. 

Not only is this show great for entrepreneurs — you learn all sorts of things, particularly about how successful products and product-based businesses operate — but it’s also a great metaphor for the publishing industry.

As venture capitalists, the “sharks” are looking for investments that will 10x their money. 

Which is exactly what publishers are looking for. 

In a lot of ways, the people who hold the purse strings at a major publisher think exactly like Mark Cuban and Lori Greiner. (My favorite Sharks.) In multiple episodes I’ve watched, Mark and Lori have told entrepreneurs that their intention with every deal is to get an exponential return on their money within a few years.

Which is exactly how traditional publishing works. 

For the books I work on — how-to nonfiction, commonly known as prescriptive or as self-help — publishers act like venture capitalists. 

That’s because how-to books tend to rely on the same things that a product-based business does:

• Availability, marketability, and size of a given audience

• Ability of the entrepreneur to sell their product to their audience

• Past sales for similar products 

In other words: your ideal readers, your author platform, and books similar to yours. 

Just like Barbara Corcoran or Mr. Wonderful, publishers do quick math when they consider investing in someone. Most editors have to put together a rough P&L based on how much they’ll need to pay the author and how much their overhead costs are generally. That tells them (and their bosses) how many copies will be needed to sell in order to make a profit.

For most of the books I work on, that’s at least 11,000 books. 

Which doesn’t sound like a crazy high bar but when you consider that most books sell less than that (the stats vary depending on source, but what I have seen and agree with is 300 copies on average) because every follower you have won’t buy your book . . . it’s easier to understand why having a large audience and substantial author platform matters. 

The good news is that, like the entrepreneurs on Shark Tank, you can do your part to make your offer (or book proposal) the best it can be. 

By establishing yourself with your audience. 
By doing your homework on similar books (including whether they sold and why/how.)
By building an author platform and an engaged audience that buys.

And by watching Shark Tank, where you’ll notice that most decisions — aren’t personal. Because like VC, publishing is a business that has to be profitable in order to continue and succeed.