Writing and Publishing News from

So you want to write a book. And then what? What is your dream or desire?

Do you hope to:
• Change the world?
• Make a difference?
• Change a mind?
• Be heard?
• Be noticed?
• Get something off your chest?
• Add to your credibility?
• Make an impression
• Make a point?
• Share your point of view?

Writing and publishing a book has become a frivolous pastime for many Americans. We produce books on a whim—to fulfill our own, sometimes, selfish impulses. And then we wonder why we can’t find a publisher who’s interested.

Publishers, in the meantime, are seeking books that have wide appeal, even if it is for a niche market, because, unlike the author, the publisher is looking at your book as a product and he will invest in it only if he thinks he can make some money.

Shucks, there goes your vision of a publisher actually appreciating your beautiful, well-written story. But then, maybe you aren’t the best judge of good writing. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had someone send me a manuscript to evaluate, saying it is “well-written,” only to discover that it needs a whole lot of work—a total rewrite, in some cases.

What gives a book wide appeal?
• Is it truly well-written?
• Does it fill a definite need?
• Does it include benefits/information not found in other books?
• Is the author either well-known or an expert in his/her field?
• Does the author have a strong platform and an even stronger marketing plan?
Authorship is not something to be taken lightly, unless you have written a fun or meaningful book strictly for family and friends with no aspirations of bestseller status. If, on the other hand, you hope to enter into the fiercely competitive world of publishing and bookselling, you’d better do so with the proper tools.

Here’s my recommendation:
1. Study the publishing industry.
2. Write a book proposal.

Prepare by arming yourself with knowledge. Start by reading my book, The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book. Not only will you come to understand more about publishing, your options, the possible consequences of your choices and your responsibility as a published author (all majorly important), you will learn what goes into a book proposal. A book proposal is the business plan for your book.

How would you respond to these questions?
• Why you are writing this book—the reason?
• Is it valid or frivolous?
• What is the purpose of your book?
• Is there an audience for this book?
• Who are they and how will you reach them?
• What makes you qualified to write this book?
• Do you have a platform—a following—a way to attract readers?
• Are you aware that you will be responsible for promoting and selling your book?
• Do you know how hard it is to sell books in this publishing climate?
• What is your marketing plan?

Oh there are so many questions I could ask you, but let’s leave it at this for now. This has definitely given you something to think about. If you have questions, contact me here or at PLFry620@yahoo.com

Visit my websites: http://www.patriciafry.com
http://www.matilijapress.com

I saw a Google Alert with this heading this morning and followed the link. Someone had posted to a board that they thought they’d write a book on the subject of their interest. And it got me to thinking about the vast number of people who write books just because they know something about a particular subject.

Yes, I’m aware that professionals (including myself) recommend that you write about what you know. But if you’re considering a book, it should also be something that a large segment of others are interested in. If you don’t have an eager audience for your subject matter, your idea probably isn’t a good one.

The very next thing that should come after the, “I think I’ll write a book about…” statement is a book proposal. Generally, I recommend that hopeful authors study the publishing industry first—but, in a case where you have a specific book in mind and a burning desire to write it, you really need to take the steps to find out if this is actually a good idea or not. A serious and honest approach to a complete book proposal will tell you. It may show you that you’re on the right track with this idea, or that it is a way too common topic and approach—that it is overdone—or it might convince you to change your focus before moving forward with it.

Unless you are so involved in the topic that you know for a fact what readers want—what they are asking for—and you have a unique and salable way to approach it, you will need to develop a book proposal to find out. If you don’t enter the publishing arena fully aware of a need for your particular book, you may miss your mark and contribute, yet, another book destined to fail.

Once you have a clear idea as to whether there is a need/desire for this book and an audience, THEN study the publishing industry to find out how it works, what your options are, what are the possible consequences of your choices and what your responsibility as a published author are. You will need to know something about the craft of writing, the various types of publishers out there now, book promotion, distributors, online booksellers and so much more.

How do you get this knowledge? Books, magazines/newsletters, conferences, writers’ group meetings, and so forth—lots of them. I would suggest spending several months completely enmeshed in study before taking any steps to move forward with your project. I recommend my book, The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book as a good starting place for your study.

Next, if you haven’t done so already, write a book proposal. Then, devise a plan. That is, after an extensive study and, with a complete book proposal in hand.

Maybe you have discovered your niche market and you realize that there are a couple of publishers who produce books within that market and you’d like to go with them. In the meantime, you will work to build your platform and create a workshop and a workbook around the theme of your proposed book. I’d even suggest testing the workshop locally before putting your time, energy and money into the book. Let your potential audience help you to most accurately focus your book content.

Perhaps you want to write a series of mysteries. This is a solid genre. But are you good enough to enter into it? After doing your study, you might decide to start submitting short stories to appropriate magazines and newsletters in order to test your abilities and to start building your platform (following).

Or you might have an idea for a spiral-bound how-to book on fun garden projects for homeschooled children. Each page might include a seed packet and you may consider packaging the book with child-size garden gloves. In order to have full control, you may decide to produce this project yourself through your own company.

Don’t make the mistake that so many authors make by writing a book on a whim. Whims are okay, but only if they are followed up by solid study, in-depth research and informed decisions.

Visit my websites:
http://www.patriciafry.com
Sign up for a free book. Learn about Patricia Fry’s services.

http://www.matilijapress.com
Visit Patricia Fry’s bookstore.

Kudos for a Successful Author of a YA Fantasy
Before I get into my topic for today’s blog, I have to share with you the success of one of my clients. Diana Zimmerman, the author of a young adult novel, Kandide, Secret of the Mists, just got her pay-to-publish book picked up by Scholastic Books and landed a major article in Publishers Weekly. In case you think Diana is just lucky, let me tell you that for two years, she has been promoting hard. She says she has done around 350 live appearances throughout the US—even selling 250 copies of her book once at a bookstore signing. She has sold 12,000 in all.

Now, if anyone tells you that an unknown author cannot succeed today, that young adult books aren’t selling, that a major publisher will not express interest in a pay-to-publish or self-published book, just remember Diana Zimmerman and Kandide. I am thrilled for this author and highly impressed by her efforts.

Your Publisher Search
Are you seeking a publisher for your book? Do you ever launch a Google search to find a publisher? I notice that if I do a search using keywords, “publisher seeking manuscripts,” or “find a publisher,” or “publisher seeks manuscripts,” quite a few options come up. You might also try, “publisher seeks novel,” or “young adult mystery publisher.”

But beware, just because a publisher has a listing related to your search doesn’t mean he is legitimate or that the listing is current. The search is just the beginning. It is your responsibility to find out more about the publisher via his/her website. Be thorough. Do further searches using this publisher’s name and the word “warning” or “scam” to see what comes up.

Patricia Fry’s online Courses
I’ll be starting a new article-writing course session soon. If you want to take my article-writing course and learn how to earn a living through article-writing or promote your book using articles, you might want to sign up now. http://www.matilijapress.com/course_magarticles.htm

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

I hope you enjoyed (and learned from) yesterday’s blog post about building your platform. Some of you will decide that this advice doesn’t apply to you and will disregard it. Others will produce their books still not understanding the concept of “platform.” A bunch of you will wake up one day with a book to promote and wonder how in the heck you’re going to entice consumers to buy it.

Like many authors starting out, you may trust that your book will sell simply because it has been published. All you have to do is get it into bookstores where readers shop; where it will be noticed, purchased and read. That’s what I expected when my first book was published in 1978. There was no mention of author promotion or platform in my first publishing contract. However, I was asked for any and all contacts I had that might lead to promotional opportunities. The staff at the publishing company took it from there.

When I decided to self-publish my next book (in 1983)—a substantial local history that I produced through my own publishing company—I also took on all of the promotional responsibility. But it was fairly simple. Despite the fact that the local newspaper refused to run an article about the book because (unbeknownst to me), they were getting ready to publish their own local history book, sales for my book were quite brisk. I promoted this book by getting coverage in the county and many other regional newspapers, speaking to various groups throughout the area, using my extensive mailing list and making the book available through many independent bookstores and museum gift shops throughout the county and beyond.

This was before the Internet, so I did a lot of library research to locate libraries and museums nationwide through which I promoted this book—also considered an excellent genealogy tool.

My platform for the local history book was the fact that I was a published author, a career writer and that I was a fifth generation resident of this community.

While some things were easier then—there was MUCH less competition, for example—today’s authors certainly have some advantages that we didn’t have when I was starting out. You have many people who can advise you with regard to publishing and promotion. You have people like me who have kept their fingers on the pulse of the industry for many years and who are willing to share benefit of our expertise. Why do we reach out like this—eager to guide fledgling authors?

I can only answer for myself. As the president of SPAWN (Small Publishers, Artists and Writers Network) for many years and now the executive director, and as a frequent presenter/speaker at various writing/publishing conferences, I meet many, many authors. Numbers of them have come into the publishing arena ill-prepared and they fail. I spend a lot of time and money traveling all over to speak, writing a daily blog, writing articles for numerous publications, developing SPAWN’s Market Update newsletter, responding to questions via email and so forth. Most of my books for authors were inspired by the authors that I meet. I’ve written and published them in an attempt to address your publishing/book promotion issues. In order to sustain myself, I have also created a business around my expertise.

I offer online courses on 6 publishing-related topics. I work as a private consultant in the areas of editing, writing a book proposal, publishing and promotion. And I also hire out as an editor to help authors shape their manuscripts into something more publishable.

As you have probably learned, there are countless folks lined up eager to help you with your project for a fee. I’m going out on a limb when I say that most of them are legit—but I have known authors to have encounters with some Johnny-come-latelys who jumped on the bandwagon simply because they see this field as a great opportunity in which to make some quick money. While we all admire people who can establish businesses to meet a need, beware of those who’ve come into the publishing arena without the appropriate experience or credentials.

I think I promised to talk about the post-publication platform today. But I got carried away in another direction. I hope that you get something out of this post—it just spilled out this morning as if it had to be written. Tomorrow, unless the word gremlins interfere again, I will present a piece featuring how to build the post-publication platform.

To learn more about me and my work, visit my websites:
http://www.matilijapress.com
http://www.patriciafry.com

What does it take to become an author? Notice that I didn’t even insert the word, “successful” in this sentence. Success is relative, anyway, isn’t it? I know authors who don’t believe they are successful until they sell 100,000 copies. And then there are authors who celebrate their success if they earn back enough to pay their printing costs.

But what does it take to become an author? I’ve narrowed it down to 5 P’s. Ask any author who has been around the block and they will tell you that it takes:

• Planning
• Preparation
• Proofing
• Publishing
• Promotion

There are no shortcuts. One cannot deviate from this established path to authorship. If you want to become an author and experience whatever measure of success you desire, you must consider each of these 5 P’s. (It wouldn’t hurt to throw in the word Patience, either.)

Planning
Before you start writing the novel or the nonfiction book of your dreams, put some thought into the potential for your project—a lot of thought. I suggest writing a book proposal. You wouldn’t open a business without a business plan. Consider the book proposal a business plan for your book. At the same time, look at your book as a product. If you view this project any other way, you are already starting down the wrong path.

Preparation
Once you establish that your book is a viable product, begin outlining, organizing and writing it.

Also work on your platform:
• Create a massive mailing and emailing list.
• Become known among leaders in your book’s genre/topic.
• Write and submit articles or stories to appropriate publications.
• Develop workshops and seminars on your book’s topic and present them.
• Publish your own newsletter.

Proofing/Editing
Once you’ve completed your manuscript, you’ll become involved in self-editing. Proof and edit as thoroughly as you possibly can.

• Check for inconsistencies and repeated material.
• Make sure your spacing and punctuation is correct.
• Examine your manuscript for muddy writing and run-on sentences.
• Eliminate those sneaky mistakes that aren’t picked up by spellcheck.
• Correct any misuse of apostrophes or words.

Once you have done your self-editing, hire an experienced book editor for your final edit. Yes, this is necessary and the expense must be factored in. Hiring a good editor is an investment in your publishing success. But I must repeat—this should be an experienced book editor.

Publish
You now have a choice to make—you have options. Will you try to land a traditional royalty publisher for your piece of fine work? Will you go with a pay-to-publish company? Or will you self-publish (establish your own publishing company)?

People ask me, which is the best publishing option? My response is, “It depends on you and it depends on the project.” Your job is to study the publishing industry so that you understand all of your options and the possible consequences of your choices. My book, The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book, provides a good start in that direction. If you are considering a pay-to-publish company, also read Mark Levine’s The Fine Print of Self-Publishing, wherein he rates and ranks 48 of these companies and scrutinizes their contracts for you.

Promotion
Do not even consider producing a book for publication if you do not have the money, time, experience, interest, enthusiasm for and/or knowledge about book promotion.

One of the things you will learn from studying the publishing industry is that the competition for books is fierce. You may have already noticed that everyone is writing a book. Did you know that over 75 percent of all published books sell fewer than 100 copies? And lack of promotion is only one reason why so many books fail. What are the other reasons?

• Lack of appropriate planning.
• Improper preparation.
• Inadequate proofing/editing.
• Ineffective publishing methods.
• Lackadaisical promotion.

Put your P’s in a row before you even put your pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) and you will have a much greater chance for publishing success.

Note: You’ve been used to reading a new blog post here every single day for years. I’m taking off for a much needed vacation tomorrow and wanted to let you know that my posts might be a bit sporadic during the next 10 days. This might be a good time to review some of the posts in my archives. You’ll find posts on many aspects of writing, publishing and promoting a book.

Don’t wait until you have a book to start building your author’s platform. This is something you should have in place before you even think about writing a book.

Too many authors produce books on a particular topic or in a particular genre without any background in that topic or a track record in that genre. They complete the book, put it up for sale and then wonder why no one will buy a book on childcare from someone lacking credentials or a novel from someone unknown.

Sure they make preliminary sales to friends and family. In fact, many authors base their decision to publish on their friends’ and acquaintances’ expressed interest in their books. They believe that if their friends are interested in buying their book, others will be, too. Not necessarily true!

Let’s examine why your friends, coworkers, distance cousins and a few neighbors will purchase your book. Because they know you. It’s that simple. They want to know what you have to say, how you come across—some are interested in critiquing your efforts. They find it hard to believe that you—someone with no writing experience, a failed marriage or two, an out of control kid and a few bad habits could write a useful or legible book.

I had been writing articles for magazines for about 18 years when one of them appeared in “Entrepreneurial Woman Magazine.” It was a piece featuring how various women define success. Well, one night, after that article was published, I got a call from someone I knew only slightly. She started talking about having seen that article and how she couldn’t believe it. Well, I thought she was calling to compliment me on the article. But the more she spoke, the more it became obvious that there were some sort of sour grapes involved. To this day, I don’t know what her problem was, but she began telling me that she was going to write to the editors and tell them that I have no credibility—that I am a fake. Why? I guess because she knew me and, in her mind, did not believe that I was qualified to write such an article.

Obviously this woman did not understand the premise of this article—to explore how various women defined success in their lives—or the concept of research. I’m still confused when I think about that hurtful, mean-spirited call. I guess that since she knew me within one realm of reality—as an ordinary mom of three girls, volunteering in the school library, playing on a women’s softball team, taking aerobics, sewing many of our own clothes, shopping at the same local stores as she does, visiting yard sales on occasion—I wasn’t, in her eyes, qualified to write this article on this topic. My editors, however, saw me as a decent writer, an excellent researcher and a reliable contributor.

Well, now I am the author of 31 books and I have a fairly solid platform for most of them.

So what can you do to establish a platform for your book? Start working on your platform before you even start writing. How? Become known in your field or genre.

For nonfiction:
• Submit articles in your topic over and over again to many different publications.

• Present workshops on and off line on your topic.

• Create a newsletter and a blog related to your topic.

• Build a website that is attractive and useful.

• Participate in other websites related to this topic.

• Join organizations related to your topic and participate.

• Attend conferences related to your topic.

For Fiction:
• Submit stories in your genre over and over again to many different publications.

• Build a website related to the theme and genre of your proposed book.

• Create a newsletter or blog for folks interested in your genre.

• Participate in other websites related to this genre.

• Join organizations related to your genre and participate.

• Enter writing contests.

• Attend conferences related to your genre.

As you can see, the two lists are fairly similar. I separated them, however, because I find that if I don’t speak directly to the fiction writer, he/she often doesn’t “get” it. Novelists will complain that I neglected to consider the fiction writer when I wrote my book, The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book. Noooooooo. It’s just that the author of fiction doesn’t want to (or, perhaps can’t) acknowledge the fact that they, too, must step beyond the comfort of their writing room and promote their work and themselves.

Learn more about your responsibility as a fiction or nonfiction author and so much more in my book, The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book. http://www.matilijapress.com/rightway.html

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

Over the years, I’ve responded to a lot of questions from authors at all stages of their projects. Here are a few I’ve had lately—along with my answers:

Q: What can SPAWN do for me?

A: SPAWN (Small Publishers, Artists and Writers Network) is an online networking organization and resource center for anyone who is interested in or involved in publishing. We offer information and networking opportunities for authors, freelance writers, artists, publishers and others. So, along with this being a networking organization it also has collaborative possibilities for our members. (Authors connect with graphic artists or illustrators, freelance writers land jobs writing promo material for authors and others, authors hire editors/proofreaders and so forth.) What you get out of this organization depends on what you are willing to put into it—to what degree you decide to participate.

We don’t find a publisher for you, coach you through the publishing process, etc., although we have members who provide various services such as editing, proofreading, publishing, printing, legal counsel, etc. But we present information and resources at our website, through two monthly newsletters and monthly teleseminars with experts as well as a discussion group where you can network and learn from other members. We produce a catalog of members’ books and services for an additional fee and we sometimes offer space at major book festivals for members in the SPWAN booth at a reduced rate.

Sign up for SPAWNews FREE and receive a free booklet on promoting your work whether you are a writer, author or artists: http://www.spawn.org
Join SPAWN at $65/year using the same link.

Q: I write in both English and Spanish. Which language should I write my book in?

A: Write in the language that you are most comfortable with and/or the language that the majority of your reading audience speaks. You can have the book translated to the other language later.

Q: What if I’m not outgoing enough to promote through public speaking.

A: First, I would recommend doing whatever you can to build your confidence and your speaking skills. Join a local Toastmasters Club or a storytelling group and participate. Practice, practice, practice. Of course, there are people who can’t get out and promote personally. I’ve known authors who are bedridden and others who have physical limitations. I also know at least one woman who travels and promotes her book through speaking engagements despite the fact that she’s in a wheelchair.

If you are mobile, I would urge you to work through your fears of or distaste for public speaking and go for it. If you can’t possibly get out of the house, use your energies toward promoting via the Internet.

Q: Okay, I’ve finished my book. Now, how do I get it published?

A: Set the book aside. Spend some time studying the publishing industry—learning what your options are, the possible consequences of your choices and your responsibility as a published author. This study will also reveal how to go about locating, approaching and working with a publisher. Next, write a book proposal. Once you’ve done these two things, then you are ready to move forward.

But it still may not be the appropriate time to begin the search for a publisher. You may discover through your study and through the process of writing a book proposal that you have written the wrong book for the wrong audience or that there are techniques you can use with your manuscript that will make it more salable.

Never rush a publishing project. As the author, it is your responsibility to prepare your manuscript and yourself appropriately before entering into the fiercely competitive field of publishing.

Do you have a question you’d like to see me answer here: Leave your comment here or contact me at PLFry620@yahoo.com