Althogh I had already published about a dozen short stories, I knew if I wanted to make a decent living at writing, I'd have to move to novels. This was fine with me--my stuff tended to run longer than shorter. It took almost two years for me to write In the Company of Mind, a science fiction novel about a man with multiple personality disorder. Now I had to sell the thing.
I had sent outlines of The Company to several different publishers. They all rejected it. Then I sent it to Baen Books. Six months later, they asked to see the full manuscript. Ecstatic, I sent it in. Six more months passed, and I wrote them a letter asking about the book's status. I got a form reply that stated their turnaround time was between six months and a year. Six more months passed and I wrote them again. One more month later, I got a phone call from Jim Baen. He wanted to buy my book. At last!
Jim also told me how my book was selected for sale. It happened this way:
The folks over at Baen get something like 25 or 30 unsolicited novel manuscripts a week. (That's over 1,300 a year!) The pile had grown to mammoth proportions, and Jim Baen finally paid a friend of his to sort through the pile and use a time-honored method in the publishing industry.
He told her to read the first page of every manuscript. Anything that didn't enthrall her by the end of the first page, she should reject. This would clear out 90% of the pile, since this would wipe out any manuscript that wasn't typed and double-spaced with at a 1" margin around the page. It would also clear out anything that wasn't science fiction or fantasy or had enough typos to make her eyes cross.
After that, she was to go through and read the first twenty pages of all the manuscripts that had survived. Again, anything that didn't absolutely enthrall her by page twenty-one, she was to reject. This would get rid of another 90%, leaving 1% of the original pile remaining. She was to read those manuscripts all the way through, reject all but the ten best, put those in a pile in order from first to tenth best, and give them to Jim Baen to read.
My book was on top of the pile.
Now you know what you're up against with that book you're writing. So if you're writing a book, your first page must be absolutely stunning. Your first twenty pages must be gripping. After that, you can slow down a little. Good luck with it!