But here at GPC, we're thinking about 2020 already!
Why?
Our licensees are looking to fill their new seasons, and those seasons are spring and fall 2020.
Although it might *feel* premature to be thinking about licensing opportunities for books that are publishing post-holiday rush and up to almost a year from now, your potential licensees are starting to make their inquiries, and will close their first selections within a few short months.
Generally, the spans and selection times for licensees like book clubs, audio publishers, and even early foreign rights buys follow this pattern:
Titles publishing January through June ("spring"): Pitches begin in May, and selections generally are complete by the end of July of the previous year, though some will continue to select for late in the season through October.
This means that the window is starting to close for spring 2020 titles.
Titles publishing from July through December ("fall"): Pitches begin in November of the previous year, and selections generally are complete by the end of February. A few may select for late in the season through April.
From this timeline, you can see that we are actually beginning to enter prime time for fall 2020 selections.
What does this mean for your title list?
Ideally, here at GPC, we like to have preliminary materials (i.e., bibliographic information, initial sell sheets and sample chapters) in hand for our first inquiries starting in October, with early manuscripts and other marketing material following in November and December.
This does not mean that pitches can't occur outside of these seasons, but the chances for more positive inquiries go up if we start pitches earlier.
We'd love to hear what you have going on in 2020 and how we can help you do more with your list!
