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Yesterday’s blog post featured what it takes to be an author. Today, I’d like to say a few words about how to get that training, those skills and the information you need in order to move more comfortably and successfully through the publishing process.

By “publishing process,” I mean the writing, producing and marketing of a book.

It sounds so simple when contained in a brief sentence like this. “No big deal,” you might say. “People publish books all the time. What could be so hard about writing, publishing and selling a book?”

If you are still in this stage—where you are only thinking about becoming a published author or maybe you are in the process of writing a book and you think this is the hardest part—you really need a reality check. Talk to some published authors. Ask what it was like to produce a book. Inquire about marketing the book. Most of them will tell horror stories to match any scary Halloween tale.

Authorship isn’t for the weak. And I am an advocate for hopeful authors starting their training very early in the game. I teach that there are two keys to publishing success. I just gave a talk to the Redwood Writers Group in Santa Rosa, California yesterday featuring these two keys to publishing success. And what it all boils down to is knowledge, education and a keen understanding of the entire process of publishing and book marketing as well as a keen understanding of your particular book—your product.

What are the keys to publishing success? If you’ve been visiting this blog often over the years, you know that they are:

Study the Publishing Industry.
Write a Book Proposal.

Two simple, although not easy, tasks.

Start the process of studying the publishing industry by reading my book: The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book. I wrote it for new and struggling authors. I wrote it because I meet so many authors at various stages of the publishing process who do not understand anything about the industry they hope to pursue. They have erroneous views and unrealistic expectations with regard to what’s ahead in publishing for them. They have very limited knowledge and this limits their progress and success.

They also lack understanding when it comes to their books. Most people write a book for themselves. It’s true. They get an idea in their head and run with it. Sometimes it’s based on what they perceive as a need among a certain segment of people. But, until the author writes a complete book proposal, he/she probably has no idea as to their target audience, what they actually want in a book, whether or not there is a market for this book, whether they have what it takes to promote their book or how to get it published and sell it.

A book proposal teaches the author volumes about his/her book and how to proceed with it.
The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book also has a large section on how to write a book proposal. Or purchase my book, How to Write a Successful Book Proposal in 8 Days or Less. http://www.matilijapress.com

Neglect to study the publishing industry, reject the idea of writing a book proposal and you are more likely to end up a statistic. More than 76 percent of authors today fail. Most of them did not study the publishing industry, nor did they write a book proposal.

If you don’t want to be part of this statistic, then I suggest becoming proactive on behalf of your book project. Become an author in training and start studying and learning what it takes to succeed as a published author before simply stumbling into the world of publishing completely void of skills and tools.

The fact is that there are numerous companies out there quite prepared to shove you through the publishing process in conveyer-belt fashion with your cookie cutter book. But I want you to rise above that. Take charge. Be proactive. Be successful.

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

Anyone who tells you that authorship isn’t a business and that it doesn’t require a multitude of skills, has never fully enmeshed him/herself into the role of author. So what does authorship entail? You can either dive blindly into publishing and find out for yourself, which is, unfortunately, what too many newbie authors do. Or you can follow the experts’ advice and learn about the industry, the book business and the world of publishing before getting involved.

Here are some of the skills an author should hone:
• Writing. You’d think this is pretty obvious, but I know authors who aren’t actually very good at expressing themselves through writing. What do members of your writers’ group say about your writing? Hire a book editor to evaluate your skills in this area. If you cannot quite get your message or story across, don’t show your work to any publisher or produce it yourself without hiring a good book editor first.

• Business sense. Authorship, even if you land a traditional royalty publisher, should be considered a business. If you are self-publishing or considering contracting with a pay-to-publish company, you’ll have a multitude of decisions to make. Without a good business sense, you may flounder and drown in the deep sea of choices and options.

• Organizing. Authors need organizational skills in order to juggle the tasks involved with producing a book and marketing it. In some instances, timing is everything.

• Technology. The author who can build and maintain his/her own website, set up a blog, become comfortable managing social media sites, for example, is going to have more freedom within the world of technology than those who have to hire these things done. You’ll also save money if you can DIY. And do not minimize the importance of having and maintaining your own website. You can’t even imagine the number of opportunities you might miss if you are difficult to locate.

• Communication skills. As an author, you’ll be required to arrange various promotional opportunities for yourself and, hopefully, you’ll want to get out and do some public speaking. Communication is so important throughout the publishing and marketing processes

• Negotiating. There are distributors and wholesalers to deal with; book reviewers, booksellers and so forth to contact and negotiate with. The more comfortable you feel within this realm, the more successful your dealings with these entities will be.

• Marketing. The author is required to promote his/her own book. So the more clued-in you are about the book market and book marketing, the better chance you have to succeed in this business.
Study the publishing industry by reading my book, The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book. http://www.matilijapress.com/rightway.html

At what point does one become an expert or a professional? Have you ever considered this question related to yourself or others? Sometimes you read an interview with a celebrity who considers him/herself a “fake.” I believe that they say this because they reached a level of celebrity or perceived success rather quickly/suddenly or simply by working hard doing what they love.

Can you relate? Have you been happily enmeshed in your work or profession (writing or otherwise) for so long that it is strange to think of yourself as anything other than someone who is enjoying the process of the work?

A day may come when someone asks you a question with regard to your field. And you surprise yourself by responding quickly, confidently and accurately. Others may come to you with their questions, which you easily answer. You begin to discover that you really know stuff that, perhaps, other people don’t. While you’ve been working at what you love—learning, experiencing and meeting challenges—you’ve also transitioned (over the years) from eager beginner to seasoned expert.

This is a natural transition for many. But have you noticed that some people try to promote their expertise before they are ready? They put in a year or two, complete one project and become a teacher. Sure, we are all teachers and we are all students. But I become skeptical when a relative beginner launches out on a mission to teach others something they barely understand themselves.

Have you ever looked back over a long-term learning experience only to realize how little you knew in the early stages of your involvement? Let me use my experience with horses as an example. As a family, we bought a few horses. We spent a lot of time with the horses, read about horsemanship, hung around people who were knowledgeable about horses and learned a LOT in a short period. I remember thinking (after several months) that I knew practically everything there was to know about horses because I had learned so much and because I’d had so many experiences with the horses. But it wasn’t until years later that I learned how much I didn’t know during those early years. It takes time and numerous experiences and study to become a relative expert or specialist in your field.

Which person are you—the one who has incredible knowledge, experience and understanding in your field, yet feels like an imposter when you are held up as an expert? Or have you jumped ahead of yourself eager to work with others in your field even though your experience and knowledge are limited?

Interesting question, don’t you think?

To learn more about me, my books and what I do, visit me here:
http://www.matilijapress.com
http://www.patriciafry.com

They say that, in age, 60 is the new 40. But that isn’t because the world has slowed down for us. In fact, it seems to be speeding up. It used to be said that a potential customer spends 10 seconds looking at your book before deciding whether to pick it up or whether to buy it. Now, it is said that people spend more like 4 seconds before making these decisions.

Yikes!! You’ve lost 6 seconds someplace. Where are you spending it? Catching up with Friends on Facebook? Playing Farmville? Caught in gridlock? Arguing with your computer? Waiting in line?

What would you do if you could relocate those 6 lost or wasted seconds? If you could reclaim them, how would you spend them? Here are some suggestions:

• Go through the archives for this blog and study up on the topics you need most: article-writing, authorship, book proposals, book promotion and so forth.

• Sit down and actually read that book you bought months (or years) ago on how to establish your own publishing company or freelance writing business, book promotion ideas, etc.

• Order the book you’ve been putting off buying and finally organize that book proposal or start that book promotion program.

• Send a few sample chapters of your novel or nonfiction book manuscript to an editor for a free editorial evaluation. If you don’t have one in mind, consider Patricia Fry at http://www.patriciafry.com

• Review the article topics at http://www.matilijapress.com and study some of the articles. (I will have an announcement with regard to these pages at my website SOON.)

• Sign up for one of my 6 online courses. http://www.matilijapress.com/courses.htm

• Send Patricia Fry a writing or publishing question that has you stymied. PLFry620@yahoo.com.

• Study the list of resources at http://www.matilijapress.com

• Visit the SPAWN website and consider finally joining. That’s Small Publishers, Artists and Writers Network. http://www.spawn.org

• If you’ve been procrastinating, sit down today and write that article, work on that book, write a marketing plan for your book or start the revision you have been putting off.

Choose one or more of these 10 activities and start taking back all of those seconds, minutes and hours you have wasted or dwindled away doing something other than what matters—what you love… And let me know how it goes.

A trip to my storage unit yesterday has dictated how I will spend these next few weeks. I went there to pick up a box of my “Successful Book Proposal” book. Amazon has been ordering numbers of them, lately. And it is popular among authors visiting my website. I was surprised to discover that there was but one box of these books left. My supply of book proposal books has dwindled to a mere box of books and I hadn’t even noticed—until yesterday.

I guess that’s what happens when you are dealing with numbers of titles and many boxes of books. It’s easy to lose some of them in the confusion.

Are you keeping track of your inventory? Of course, if you use print on demand, you don’t even have to store boxes. Certainly, you must count copies so you can reorder before you run out. But, for the most part, I still keep boxes of books on hand rather than a mere dozen or so copies.

So what will I be doing during these next few weeks? I’ll be revising and updating my book: “How to Write a Successful Book Proposal.” I’ll be getting price quotes to reprint it. I want to check with Lightening Source to produce this book for amazon.com. I’ll contemplate a new look—although I happen to like the design of that book. I’ll update the bio and maybe rewrite the back cover copy. In other words, I’ll start fresh with a formerly produced book—keeping what is working and relevant and changing what needs changing. If I make massive changes, I can count this as a new book. But I rather doubt that the changes will be that extensive. I will consider customer comments with regard to this book, gather all of the new material and fresh perspectives I can find, go in search of important and useful new resources and make sure that all of the material is presented so that it is easy to follow and implement.

Isn’t that what revising is all about—making a good product even better?

If you have a copy of “How to Write a Successful Book Proposal in 8 Days or Less,” and you have suggestions that you feel would make this book more reader-friendly—easier to use—please let me know asap: PLFry620@yahoo.com.

In the meantime, visit my websites—they are both getting something new this week. I’ll be making a big announcement.
http://www.matilijapress.com
http://www.patriciafry.com

I’m experiencing an author’s letdown. I finished another book—well, booklet, Saturday. While this is a good thing—a nice accomplishment—as some of you have probably discovered, completing a book project can leave you feeling rather lost, directionless, without purpose. Sure it’s temporary, but uncomfortable, none-the-less.

How do you handle that lull that often occurs after you finish a large writing or even editing project? Do you take advantage of the time to relax and regroup? Or do you tend to sort of rattle around your office wondering what to do next? Do you mourn the loss of the intense and purposeful writing project that held your attention for so long?

Most of us, if we’ve been seriously writing for weeks or months, have mile-long to-do lists—things we’ve been putting off, setting aside or even shoving under the desk. Now is our chance to take care of those things. I can do that. But I still need a meaningful project that I can look forward to each day. How about you? What approach do you take after the book is finished?

In most cases, when the writing ends, the promotion begins. But what about that lull that occurs after you finish the writing and while the book is with your designer or the publisher, etc.? That’s actually where I am at the moment. My book is an ebook and I’m waiting for my very busy webmaster to put it on my website. I hope to make an announcement about that very soon.

For now, however, I’m already contemplating my next book project and I’m going to launch an article blast designed to help authors and to keep my name in front of my audience. That’s how I plan to redefine my purpose and feel as though I am accomplishing something.

How do you handle that sensitive period after you finish the writing? This blog site accepts comments. Please leave yours.

Also visit my websites:
Check out my array of books here—I will be making an announcement about some valuable additions to this site soon:
http://www.matilijapress.com

Learn more about my services here and sign up for your free copy of The Successful Author’s Handbook: http://www.patriciafry.com