Getting Published

So, I haven't really had a whole lot of interest in marketing my stories to publishing companies. This has been partly because I haven't got anything that I think I could send to a publisher without getting sued (written too much fanfiction), partly because I'm lazy, partly because I can't stand rejection (even if it's good natured), and partly because I haven't had the faintest idea what to do besides E-publishing and just sending a manuscript to a publishing company. Well, lately I have been sort of educated on the subject (by the only person who has the power to educate me).

Did you know that most publishing companies receive 100 unsolicited manuscripts a day? This means that your average publishing company gets 36,500 unsolicited manuscripts a year. Lots of the companies I've looked at in my spare time haven't published anywhere near that many books in their entire history. To add to that, they say that about 150,000 books are published in one year in the U.S. I'm curious to know how many of those are published by return authors and not by brand new talent. I'd also like to know how many of those books are fantasy, sci-fi, smutty romance, teen, child, historical fiction, mystery and so on. And I'd also like to know how many are essentially fanfiction that is being written with permission (like Buffy books and other series that have multiple authors).

Also, the amount of creative control you get when you write for a publishing company sounds unreasonable. For instance - you might not even get to select the title for your book.

And, you probably won't make any money. It'll take too long for me to explain this angle, so I'll just leave it at that.

I'm sort of left with this sick feeling that the probability of getting something is probably somewhere between winning the lottery and convincing a Hollywood producer to take a chance on you. Yet, you see new books coming out all the time and so it seems like it must be possible.

I've decided that the only thing is to start my own publishing company and see how well I do. Otherwise, I think my online writing career may be the best I'll ever get. But that's not so bad. Occasionally, I get an email from a beautiful girl (always a different one) saying that she spent all night reading my Escaflowne trilogy. She was so entranced that she couldn't put it down. In a way - that's really all the reward I need if the other other avenue includes fear and death.