Writing and Publishing News from

I’m getting a lot of response to my survey (see February 17, 2010 post) from SPAWN members. That’s Small Publishers, Artists and Writers Network http://www.spawn.org. But very very few from those of you who read this blog. So it occurred to me that maybe most of my blog visitors are not published authors who are promoting books.

Perhaps you could help me to more accurately target my blog posts to the right audience by letting me know where you are within the huge, competitive, daunting process of publishing. If you love some of my blog posts—they just resonate with you like crazy—but some of them do not relate, help me to help you in a more meaningful way. Please fill out the questionnaire below and return it to me at PLFry620@yahoo.com.

1: Where are you in the publishing process?

• Are you thinking about writing a book?
• Are you in the process of writing a book for publication?
• Are you attempting to find a publisher or trying to choose a publishing option?
• Are you working with a publisher, agent or publishing service now?
• Do you have a published book and you don’t know what to do now?

2: What are your greatest concerns with regard to your publishing/writing project at this time?

3: What subjects are most important to you at this time? What do you want to see me cover in my blog?

4: Do you have a copy of any of my books? Which ones?

I look forward to discovering how I can best serve you through this blog.
PLFry620@yahoo.com.

You keep hearing and reading that publishing is a business and that one should adopt a business head when contemplating producing a book. But how business savvy must you be in order to successfully launch a memoir, a book of poetry, a novel or a children’s book? Isn’t it enough to just know in your heart that this is what you want to do?

As writers, we are also artists who create with words. We develop a theme for a book and then design it by choosing and then moving words. Of course, those words—the way they are strung together—represent thoughts, concepts, truths and emotions.

Most books start out as emotional projects, wouldn’t you agree? Even the concept of a business book is often conceived within the area of the emotions. The author has a passion for teaching this theory or subject—he has a burning desire to share what he knows in a way that will make a difference in someone’s life.

It is fact, that, despite what you know—publishing is a business and should be approached as such—in most cases, books have their beginnings as an emotional thought rather than a business decision. “I want to help,” is emotional. “I want to make a difference,” is emotional. “I have something to say and I must say it,” is emotional. “I truly want to share what I know,” is emotional. “I have this story running around in my head and I must put it on paper,” is emotional.

Many authors eventually flip over to business mode where their emotional projects are concerned. Once it is written, they begin to justify their reasons for seeking publication. They may write a book proposal and even take note of the truths it reveals—“Wow, there are a lot of books on this subject already,” or “I’m having trouble establishing my target audience,” or “I really don’t have a platform.” And most go ahead and pursue publication anyway. Others will make adjustments to their original plans and try to create a more publishable project.

We each enter into the world of publishing from a different angle—with varied knowledge, hopes and expectations. And each of us have different outcomes. This is due to emotions, as well. For example, if you hate public speaking, you’re going to avoid doing it even if this may be the best way for you to promote your particular book. Maybe you have little interest in hawking your book at all—you can’t get out much, you don’t have the know-how to promote online.

Every book comes with a side-story and, if the author cares to share it, you’ll discover that it is laced with emotion. I believe that it is the nature of the emotion invested, as well as the balance of emotion and business savvy that will determine the measure of success for that book. It is a wise author who detaches him/herself from their emotional grasp at least enough to determine whether this book is the right book for the right audience and whether it is being produced at the right time.

How do you know? If you’ve written a well-researched book proposal, you know. It’s now a matter of having the courage to make the right decision on behalf of your book. This might mean, rewriting it, changing the focus, self-publishing rather than going with a pay-to-publish company, holding out for a traditional publisher or trashing the project and starting over. And this sort of decision certainly does take courage. It’s not easy to stomp all over one’s emotions.

For assistance in determining the potential for your book, read my book—I wrote it for you. The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book. http://www.matilijapress.com/rightway.html

If you need additional help producing a pristine, useful, telling book proposal, sign up for my Book Proposal Course. http://www.matilijapress.com/course_bookproposal.htm

Are you aware of the importance of Submission Guidelines? Do you always check the guidelines for a publisher before submitting your project? If not, you are probably often rejected.

Sure, there might be any number of reasons for being rejected, but an acquisitions editor at a publishing house doesn’t need a good reason for rejecting a query letter, proposal or manuscript in these days of high (over the top) competition. Just send your material helter skelter, without consideration for that publisher’s submission process or his current needs and your otherwise excellent project might be rejected on the spot.

What is the best way to get your foot in the door with a publisher of your choice? Locate, study and adhere to each publisher’s Submission Guidelines.

Now locating the guidelines is sometimes tricky. I cannot believe how difficult some web designers make it to find the Submission Guidelines (Writer’s Guidelines, Guidelines for Authors…). Have you experienced this in your pursuit of guidelines? I’d love to hear some of your stories.

All I can advise is that, if you can’t easily spot the guidelines link, try logical thinking to discover them. Click on “Contact Us” or “About Us.” In some cases, you then must scour the entire page to locate a link to the guidelines.

If logic doesn’t work, and it does not in way too many instances, just start looking everywhere throughout the site. You may be surprised at where you’ll find the guidelines. And make notes; otherwise, you may never find your way back through the maze to the guidelines again. Yes, they’re sometimes hidden that well.

Once you locate the guidelines, study them. What type of manuscripts does this publisher want? What is his preferred word count? Are they open to submissions year round? How do they want to be approached—via query letter or do they want a full-blown proposal? Some actually want to see the manuscript first. Do they prefer or accept submissions via email?

Some publishers really put potential authors through some rigorous paces. They state, in their guidelines, that they want to receive a proposal including 3 pages of this and 6 of these. They’ll dictate the margin depth, how many words allowed per page and so forth. Some authors adhere to every request and get rejected. Others present their projects in styles of their own and capture the publishers’ attention. I typically recommend to my clients and students that they follow the guidelines as closely as they can assuming that there is a good reason for the publishers’ requests. Secretly, I think that some publishers try to make potential authors jump through their hoops just to see if they can. It’s a sick game they play.

That said, I still adhere to my original advice—never send anything to any publisher without first locating, studying and following their Submission Guidelines (at least as closely as makes sense with your particular project).

For more about locating, approaching and working with a publisher, read my book, The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book.
http://www.matilijapress.com/rightway.html

Today’s blog entry is excerpted from my latest book—an ebook: The Successful Author’s Handbook

Do you have an amazing life story that’s just burning to be told? Did you overcome a major obstacle and hope to share it with the world? Are you an expert in your field and you want to educate others? Or have you always dreamed of writing a novel?

According to a Jenkins Group 2002 survey, eighty-one percent of Americans believe they have a book in them. And technology has made it possible for more of us to actually write and produce our books. Sadly, most authors fail. Why? They approach the publishing industry all wrong.

Few first-time authors understand that while writing is a craft, publishing is a business and a published book is a product. As an author in today’s highly competitive publishing climate, it is imperative that you follow some measure of publishing protocol. What if you disregard this advice and bring your book out on a whim, hoping for bestseller status? It could happen. But it is highly unlikely. Here are some statistics to help you see the bigger picture:

In 2006, RR Bowker, the keeper of publishing data, recorded 291,290 new books published that year. There were around 1.5 million books in print. Ten of those titles in print sold a million or more copies in 2006. A whopping 948,000 of them (or over seventy-six percent) sold fewer than 100 copies. (As I understand it, these figures exclude self-published books, those published through “pay-to-publish” companies, text books and other books that are not in the mainstream.)

For the 2008 tally, Bowker announced that there were 560,026 books produced. This includes self-published and pay-to-publish books. Only 275,232 of those books were from traditional royalty publishing houses.

The sad truth is that, while technology makes it easier for ordinary citizens to become published authors, it has created an arena of failure for most of them.

A typical hopeful author will spend months and sometimes years writing his memoir or the novel of his dreams. He lovingly completes it and then turns it over to the best editor he knows—a high school PE teacher, a 1957 college graduate or a neighbor with a large vocabulary. He then jumps on the Internet in search of a publisher. Bingo! Google brings up a whole list of publishers seeking manuscripts—any manuscript. These publishers offer to help authors “self-publish” their books. His is accepted right away. All he has to do is send money—in some cases, lots of it. And when the book is finally published, the author is invited to purchase as many copies as he wants. I refer to these as “pay-to-publish” companies. You might know them by names such as iUniverse, AuthorHouse, Xlibris and Infinity. (This list represents just a fraction of all pay-to-publish companies.)

It doesn’t take this disillusioned author long to discover that, contrary to what he remembers reading in the publishing contract, his book will not be sold through bookstores. In fact, the only books that sell from this point on, are those that he hand-sells to family, friends and a few neighbors. If he’s lucky, sales will number around 200, or so—maybe generating enough revenue to pay the publishing bill. Most are not that fortunate.

This example, fellow authors, is a good representation of the thousands of authors who fail every year.

So how does one experience success as an author? There are two simple steps.

Step Number One: Study the Publishing Industry.
• Read books by publishing professionals such as Patricia Fry, Dan Poynter, Brian Jud and Marilyn Ross.
• Read magazines about the industry, in particular, Publisher’s Weekly, (subscribe to their free ezine, www.publishersweekly.com) and SPAWN Market Update (for members of Small Publishers, Artists and Writers Network, www.spawn.org.)
• Attend writing and publishing conferences. Locate conferences at http://shawguides.com or do a Google search to find conferences near you.
• Join publishers’ organizations, such as SPAWN (Small Publishers, Artists and Writers Network) www.spawn.org; IBPA (The Independent Book Publishers Association) www.ibpa-online.org and SPAN (Small Publishers of North America) www.spannet.org.

There’s much more where this came from. Let me know if you’d like to see more excerpts. And keep in mind that, while this news seems a little disheartening, it is nothing compared to how disheartened you will feel if you take your book project down the wrong publishing road without a reliable map.

Order your copy of The Successful Author’s Handbook (an ebook) here:
http://www.matilijapress.com/successful_author_handbook.html

Leave your comments or questions here.

I have not refreshed my blog content as frequently this week because the promotion for my latest ebook, The Successful Author’s Handbook, has been attracting hopeful authors. Order your copy at http://www.matilijapress.com/successful_author_handbook.html

We’re down to the wire with the new print version of Catscapades, True Cat Tales. My goodness, how things have changed within the world of self-publishing since I produced my last print book just three years ago. Every entity requires (or at least strongly encourages) that their forms be filled out online and then they make it so doggone difficult to even locate the form, let fill it out. I now know why so many people choose the pay-to-publish (vanity publishing) option. Donahue will accept payment for the PCIP only through PayPal. I was finally forced to get my first PayPal account. I’ve been relying on my partner’s account when we had to use PayPal. But Donahue insisted that the payment has to come from me personally through PayPal.

The copyright office wants you to use their online forms and then make it practically impossible to locate the form. Bowker prefers that you use their online form for Books in Print. Even our State Board of Equalization has a new policy that requires using an online form to file for paying your sales tax. And I don’t have a problem with any of that, except that they make something that could be so simple, so difficult. Are you struggling with this, as well? Or is it just me? I guess all of these entities will get us trained eventually.

We’re just a barcode and a PCIP away from sending Catscapades, True Cat Tales to the printer. Exciting!

In the meantime, while working on the revision of Over 75 Good Ideas for Promoting Your Book (now to be Over 100 Good Ideas for Promoting Your Book), I’m also in book promotion mode. Of course, any author knows that you’re always in book promotion mode, but when you have a newly published book, you kick it up a notch or two. While promoting my new collection of 50 of my best articles for authors (many of them revised and updated), The Successful Author’s Handbook, I’m just about to launch my prepublication promotion for Catscapades. It is a busy period in the Matilija Press offices.

Want to help? Here’s how. Let me know if you want to receive information about Catscapades. And go ahead and place your order for The Successful Author’s Handbook.
PLFry620@yahoo.com

It may seem contradictory, at times—what you hear from publishing professionals. But this is only because we each have different areas of strengths, interest and passion. We have varied backgrounds—some professionals come directly from publishing houses or literary agencies, others are relatively new to the industry, but they’ve learned rather quickly, others, like me, have trudged around in the industry muck experiencing it from an author’s point of view for over 35 years.

While we all might offer different messages—we’re rather adamant on certain things—most of us agree on some important points. For example, you must have some money designated toward your publishing project. You’ll need it for a good book editor. PLEASE, don’t turn your manuscript over to a retired professor, your son’s English teacher or a coworker of a friend who is “good with words and spelling.”

In fact, plan to run your manuscript by your book editor of choice twice, especially if there is quite a bit of rewriting after the first edit. Plan to spend anywhere from $800 to $3,500. In some cases, more.

You might need money in order to get your book published. Hundreds of authors, each year, self-publish and countless others go with pay-to-publish companies. By the way, Ron Pramschufer just came out with a new FREE ebook called, Publishing Basics, Navigating the Self Publishing Minefield. Check it out. I haven’t read it yet, but I believe that Ron has the same mindset as I do with regard to self-publishing. We’d rather see you self-publish (establish your own publishing company) than to turn your book over to a pay-to-publish company.
http://www.selfpublishing.com

Also be sure to read my book, The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book. It will help you to sort through your options and make the right decision for you and your particular book. http://www.matilijapress.com/rightway.html

Here are a few other things that publishing professionals generally agree on:

• Publishing is a business and should be approached as such from the moment you decide you want to become a published author.

• It is imperative that you know something about the publishing industry before making any decisions. In other words, study the publishing industry before getting involved.

• You’ll have a more positive and possibly successful experience if you make decisions based on knowledge rather than emotion. You may love your book and are eager to see it in print, but this doesn’t mean that publishing it is a good business decision for you.

• Authors who expect to sell copies of their books outside of their circle of family and friends MUST be willing to promote their books.

• Your book will sell for as long as you are willing to promote it.

• There is an exercise that, if seriously pursued, will help authors determine whether or not they have a viable product. This exercise also shows authors how to create a more viable product. This exercise is called “writing a book proposal.”

The truth that most professionals understand is that not every author is cut out for the world of publishing and not every book is a viable product. (The pay-to-publish people don’t seem to have learned this, yet—or don’t care.) We see hundreds of authors fail every year. The rate of failure used to be 76 percent. Now it is being quoted at 79 percent. I was pretty sure that this figure was rising with the influx of authors who enter into publishing with crummy books, and who have the freedom to publish even if they aren’t ready, educated about the publishing industry or able to understand the difference between a good book and a bad one. (The failure rate is determined by the number of books sold—I believe that 79 percent of books sold less than 100 copies in 2004—when this statistic was documented. And I imagine that now, in 2010, the rate is even higher.)

Professionals work diligently to educate authors and the good news is that there are also more excellent books being produced and there are more savvy authors entering into the world of publishing.

For those of you who are new to publishing, don’t avoid these publishing professionals. Read what they write. Visit their blogs often. Listen to their teleseminars and attend their workshops. Ask them questions. Follow their recommendations, hire a good book editor, write a book proposal and you may be one of the 21 percent who sell anywhere from 1,000 books per year to 100,000.

Contact me with your questions and concerns. I also do editorial manuscript evaluations. PLFry620@yahoo.com.