Writing and Publishing News from

I’m flying out to North Carolina today to the Carolina’s Writers’ Conference in Wadesboro. I will luck out—the weather, it appears—is the same there as it will be here this week—mid to high 70s during the day. So there will be no need to carry a heavy coat. Of course, there is often a chill inside during these events because of the air conditioning. So a jacket or sweater will be part of my ensemble.

I’m speaking tomorrow on how to take charge of your book’s success. I hope to instill in attendees the importance of heads-up attention to their projects throughout the writing process and beyond. I will talk about how to produce a viable product rather than simply a nice little book. I will urge them to study the publishing industry and to learn more about their project and how it will fit in with the competition by writing a book proposal.

I can only hope that the authors and hopeful authors will hear me when I say that publishing is not an extension of their writing—it is a fiercely competitive business and should be approached as such.

Here is my tip list reflecting an author’s responsibilities. I recommend that you take time with each tip so that you fully understand their significance.

1: Write the right book for the right audience.

2: Keep your audience in mind as you write.

3: Study the publishing industry so you know how to approach it with your project.

4: Write a book proposal. This is your business plan for your book.

5: Study your publishing options and choose the one that is best for you and for your book.

6: Establish your author’s platform and continue building on it.

7: Understand that you are responsible for promoting your book no matter which publishing option you choose. And that your book will sell for as long as you continue promoting it.

Each of these ideas could be expanded into articles—in some cases, complete books. If you would like more information about any one of these 7 points, let me know and I’ll design a blog post around that topic.

In the meantime, there will be no blog post here for the next two days. I will resume my daily blogging on Monday, April 4.

So what are you getting from this blog? I hope you are recognizing the value. Just in the past few days, you’ve had the opportunity to receive some resources for finding printing companies and writers’ groups. You’ve had a lesson that many writers miss—when to capitalize “mom,” “father,” “aunt,” etc. and when not to. You’ve learned about the concept of and how to test-market a book. You’ve had a lesson on public speaking for novelists and we’ve talked about the author’s platform. You’ve also received an invitation to take my new “Establish Your Author’s Platform Workshop” http://www.matilijapress.com/course_platform.htm and to participate in the gigantic Los Angeles Times Festival of Books: http://www.spawn.org/latfb2011.htm

We’ve given you the information and offered you the tools, so what is your next step? I’d like to know. Do you know?

Some of you are writing books. Your next step is hire an editor to fine tune it before you send it off to a publisher, agent or launch out to publish it yourself. Contact me: PLFry620@yahoo.com.

You should also be thinking about establishing your platform before you get too far down the road. A platform will help you to sell your book to an agent, a publisher and your potential readers. Publishing a book without having established a platform is like going out in the rain without an umbrella, boarding an airplane without a ticket. You’re not prepared for what’s ahead.

If you have a completed book and you are trying to find a way to get it published, you MUST read my book, The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book (only $14.95 now). http://www.matilijapress.com/rightway.html

If you are contemplating hiring a pay-to-publish company, PLEASE read Mark Levine’s book, The Fine Print of Self-Publishing before signing any contract. He tells you which ones are best and worst. This step could save you a lot of money and heartache. Just because these companies exist, does not mean they are the right company for you and your project.

Join SPAWN (Small Publishers, Artists and Writers Network) and get the ebook version of this book FREE. SPAWN is also a good place to continue learning about the publishing industry and networking with other authors and publishers at all levels of success. http://www.spawn.org

If you have a published book and you are in the process of promoting it, your affiliation with SPAWN will help immensely and so will my book, The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book.

I met writers the other day who hope to become published authors, but who did NOT want to think of publishing as a business. Sure, publishers run businesses, but they didn’t want to consider the publishing of their books to be a business venture, yet they want readers and sales and money to put in the bank. I hope the panel convinced them that they can’t have it both ways. It’s like a game of poker—either you are in or you’re out.

I apologize if this seems rambling. I hoped to make some points this morning, but I am rather distracted by clients, students and SPAWN members this week—thankfully. I love my students and clients and SPAWN members. They just sometimes keep me soooo busy. I complained about a slow week last week. When am I going to learn to appreciate the lulls—use this time to replenish so I am better prepared for the crazy times? I’ll bet this is something some of you are working on, as well. If not, you aren’t completely embedded into the world of writing and publishing, yet. And you certainly aren’t opening yourself up to help or advise others.

Yesterday I sat on a panel with three esteemed authors and we talked about publishing. It’s always interesting—and possibly a bit confusing for the audience—when each panelist comes from a different publishing experience. On the other hand, audience members certainly get a wide range of possible scenarios—they are privy to, perhaps, a larger picture than they would be with just one author speaking from one perspective.

While chatting with members of this audience after the program, I discovered that many of them were narrowly focused. They had no desire to go into the business of publishing. They wanted only to print a few copies of their memoir for family members or produce a booklet to hand out to friends and others interested in their topic. One woman was working with a museum to produce a book on local history. If there were any hardcore writers interested in writing as a career, I didn’t meet them. But this is the author the panelists were addressing as we responded to the commentator’s questions. Audience questions went a completely different direction. They wanted to know about printing companies—who would we recommend?

Being unprepared for that question, I jotted down email addresses, did a little research and responded to these folks this morning. Maybe you would be interested in the directories of printers that I sent them. Here are two:

http://www.printingnews.com/content/documents/2010OnDemand.pdf

http://printing.directoryusa.biz

I use 360 Digital Books
http://www.360digitalbooks.com

Here’s a question that comes up once in a while and it came up yesterday. When do you capitalize mom, father, dad, mother, etc? When I responded to the gentleman who asked, he attempted to argue with me. He said, “That’s not right.” I think he misunderstood me.

This morning I sent him this from the Chicago Manual of Style 16th edition, which is the style manual authors should be using.

On page 400 (item 8:35), “Kinship names are lowercased unless they immediately precede a personal name or are used alone, in place of a personal name. Their examples are as follows:

my father and mother
the Bronte sisters
Let’s write to Aunt Maud.
I believe Grandmother’s middle name was Marie.
Please, Dad, let’s go
She adores her aunt Maud.

So, you would write, “I adore my mom.” but “I adore Mom.” See the difference?

Do you have questions such as these that I might be able to help with? Situations like these come up daily when you are writing. At least these are things that, if you don’t know the answers to, you should be inquiring and/or researching.

Here are a couple of other things that came up yesterday. I found them interesting. Maybe you will, too. Someone said she heard that if you were to read everything that was posted to uTube just yesterday, you would be reading for 100 years. Zowie!

Someone also stated that, while there are thousands of books being produced each year, there are still hundreds of authors who only talk about writing or publishing a book and never actually follow through.

Are you one of those authors? Or are you on a path to living your publishing dream? If you are stalled—you need help moving forward—contact me and let’s see if I can help you experience the success you desire. PLFry620@yahoo.com

http://www.patriciafry.com
http://www.matilijapress.com

It’s sometimes overwhelming and intimidating to think of finally producing that book you’ve been dreaming about and/or working on for months or years. You’re afraid of what the response will be. You’re concerned that you won’t find a publisher. That’s why some authors come out with a test copy first.

For some, the term, “test product” is just psychological—the author isn’t ready to commit to being an author. He doesn’t want to put himself out there and become vulnerable, so he produces a book and calls it a test product. Others don’t want to spend the money to do it up right, so they have a few copies of their books printed and bound at a business store. Still others self-publish or hire a pay-to-publish company to publish their book in order to test it.

If their book is well-received, they go forward with their projects. Some authors move ahead even when the test isn’t all that successful. If they do decide not to publish, they aren’t out much. Sure, their ego will be a bit bruised, but not as severely as if they had done a bona fide printing of the book.

Some authors who do a test product, will actually listen keenly to their audiences—find out what they like/don’t like about the book—and make appropriate adjustments on the second printing. Others, after test-marketing their books, do more editing (or not) and begin the process of finding a traditional publisher, even if the results weren’t very good. Some authors actually like the idea of self-publishing and, based on feedback from their audience, they establish a serious company around their books and develop a hard-hitting marketing plan.

Testing the market with your book isn’t a bad idea. But it is important that you enter into this sort of experiment with your eyes and your mind wide open. Leave your expectations behind. Listen keenly to the comments from and the actions of your readers. Make your ultimate business decision based on what you learned during the test period. Did folks love your book? How do you know? What were their words/actions? Did they buy more than one copy? Did their friends buy a copy? Did they offer any suggestions? Were their words full of encouragement or were they reluctant to comment? Did they go out of their way to comment on your book or did you have to drag the words out of them? Is everyone saying pretty much the same thing? Are you paying attention?

Through the process of test-marketing your book, you may discover the following:

• Your audience is not who you thought they would be.

• You have a strong secondary audience you hadn’t expected.

• The outlets you planned to sell books through did not pan out.

• Book promotion is much harder than you thought.

• You need to go back to the drawing board with your book.

• You are right on target with your book and should move forward and seek out a publisher.

Even experienced traditional publishers sometimes get it wrong and they rarely put any emotion into their projects like you and I tend to do. So I’m a fan of test-marketing your book. It can be an eye-opener for the hopeful author. But it is only useful if you approach the test project from a solid business standpoint and truly look, listen and learn from the process.

Check out Patricia Fry’s array of books—some of them are discounted!!!
http://www.matilijapress.com

Sign up for your FREE ebooklet: “50 Reasons Why I Should Write That Book.”
http://www.patriciafry.com