Jeff on Writing and Publishing

If you’re reading this, you probably fall into one of three categories:

1. You’re my mom, who reads all my blogs.
2. You’re one of my six loyal readers who check in and skim every few months.
3. You’ve been sent a link directly to this page because you emailed me with questions about writing and/or publishing.

Please don’t take the link to this page as a dismissive slight. I’ve addressed questions about writing and publishing in many emails, so I figured having one place with all of my thoughts on the subject would help everyone.

First of all, I’m going to assume you’re way past the “Where do I get ideas on what to write about?” stage. If you’re at that point in the journey, I can’t really help you. All I can suggest is to live life and pay attention. On any given day there are dozens of stories floating around you. You have to pick one that resonates with you and dive in.

Second, I’m going to assume that you want to take writing seriously enough that you wish to be paid for it. This is a job, it’s work, I believe it has value, and those who do the work should be paid for their time, expertise, and effort, just like in any other occupation. Don’t get me wrong, I love the job (most of the time), but I think of this as a job because it keeps me serious and focused when I have to make deadlines (and mortgage payments).

I’m going to speak mostly from the perspective of a non-fiction writer because that’s where most of my experience comes from, but you fiction writers will find plenty in here that relates to that part of the publishing world as well.

If you’re ready to get serious, there are three books that I recommend every writer own:

1. How to Write a Book Proposal by Michael Larsen ($10.87 on Amazon)
2. The Elements of Style by Strunk and White ($3.90 on Amazon)
3. Stephen King On Writing ($7.99 on Amazon)

With non-fiction, you don’t usually write the book before selling it — even if this is your first book. I know that may sound crazy, but bear with me. Let’s say you want to write a book called The History of the Fender Stratocaster Guitar. You’ll need to formulate a one-page pitch letter that offers a sexy introduction that will get an editor or agent excited about your idea, a paragraph that includes your writing and subject matter expertise, and a closing asking if the editor or agent would like to see a proposal for your book.

Next comes the proposal which includes competition analysis, sample chapters, your full bio, an outline, and a few other items that are necessary for a publisher to decide whether they’re willing to invest thousands of dollars in time and money into your book. I could go into great detail on the proposal here, but instead I’m going to direct you to Michael Larsen’s book, How to Write a Book Proposal. It’s all in there. Formatting, type face, order, plus a lot of insight on the business. Just do what it says. Don’t deviate. If you format your query and proposal the way Larsen suggests, you’ll easily be in the top 40% of submissions most publishers receive. There’s a certain style and format that pros use, Larsen will explain it to you.

Here’s an analogy I like to use regarding the pitch and proposal: You may be the most qualified financial analyst in the world, and if you write your resume out in crayon, it is possible that you still might get the high-paying job you’re going for, but you’ve already stacked the chips against you by not following proper protocol. Same in publishing. If you go to Kinkos and get your book bound, if you format it to look like a book, and get your spouse to help you design a cover, it’s the same as submitting your resume in crayon. You’re showing off how much you don’t know. Read Larsen’s book. Do what it says. That’s how I got my first book deal.

Beware of publishers that don’t want first-time authors to go through this process. Remember, if a potential deal is too good to be true, it is. If the publisher doesn’t want a proposal, it may be a self-publishing bait-and-switch scam, or maybe they aren’t willing to pay you anything and they’re hoping you’ll fall for it. The proposal process is a good one for everyone involved. It forces you to think your book through.

The other reason to propose a book before writing it is because the publisher may mostly like your idea, but they may want you to include other subjects, or maybe they’d be more interested in your book if you went in a slightly different direction. If you write the book first, the publisher is sometimes forced to take it or leave it as-is. Remember the golden rule here: He who has the gold makes the rules. The publisher has put out more books than you ever will. They know their markets, they know what works. Trust them. Or at the very least be accommodating to those who “have the gold.”

At this point you’ve read Larsen’s book, you have your idea down, you’re working at your writing, and now you need to go after the market. Get yourself to a big bookstore. Preferably one with a coffee shop. Bring a little notebook and a pen. First, go find my books and face them out so browsers can see the covers. If they’re on low shelves, place them higher up. Thanks! Now… back to you. Find other books like the one you’re going to write.

In our The History of the Fender Stratocaster Guitar example, you would be browsing the music section. Or the instruments section. Grab every guitar book and flip it open to the first few pages. First, you’re looking to see who published the book. Write the title, author, publisher, and price down. Next, read the acknowledgements section (if there is one). If the author writes something like, “I’d like to thank my agent, John D’oh”… write John D’oh’s name down. If the author writes, “I’d like to thank my editor, Richard Hertz,” write Richard’s name down too. These are two people who you might want to query.

Another valuable resource in this big bookstore is the booksellers themselves. Find the person who manages the section you’re looking in. Ask them what the popular titles are on guitars. These are the folks on the front lines and they have a lot of insight into each segment of the book market. If you’re also lucky enough to find a person really knowledgeable, ask them what they think is missing from the market. What kind of book should exist, but doesn’t?

Your next stop on the road to publishing is the Internet. At the bookstore, you’ve identified some potential competition as well as spotted some holes in the market. Next go to Amazon.com and look up each of those books. Check out their sales ranks, read the reviews. Know thy market intimately.

When you know your market, know the book you want to write, and you’re ready to introduce yourself to that market with a killer proposal, you need to make your next decision. Do I go to an agent or directly to publishers? Or Both?

Agent or No Agent?
This is a pretty individual decision based on your own strengths and weaknesses. If you really don’t know much about publishing, if you have little-to-no contacts in the industry, and if you’re timid in business dealings, then an agent may be the way to go. Agents are not necessary to break in, but some of the larger houses won’t communicate with an author that doesn’t have an agent. Even some of the mid-sized publishers will take you more seriously if you have an agent.

In my own experience, I’ve worked with two agents. I’ve sold ten book deals so far, and of the ten I had an agent get me only one of those deals. The other nine were on my own.

An agent will take 15% of the proceeds from any books they sell to a publisher (that’s for the life of the book). Many small- to mid-sized publishers won’t pay very big advances, so you may be giving away 15% of not much.

A downside to having an agent is that they will require you to sign a letter committing your work to them for a period of time (typically not less than six months and not more than two years). This commitment is fair because otherwise you could sell it on your own or go to another agent, and any work your first agent did would be for not. But the downside to this arrangement is that your work may end up being off the market for a long time. For example, if your new agent is excited about your work and shops it around heavily in the first month, but then doesn’t see much interest from the market, they may give up on selling your project, and they may not do another thing with it for the remainder of your commitment period, thus taking your project off the market because they couldn’t get an easy sale. A good agent will release you from the commitment to them if they’ve given up. A bad agent will just stop all communication with you.

Another warning regarding these commitment letters with agents: only sign a letter committing one project at a time with your agent. Don’t sign anything saying the agent will represent you and your work. In the first place, that’s too vague for a legal agreement. What if you write a monthly newspaper column and make $50 a month for that? Would you owe the agent 15%? To keep it simple, only sign a letter that states the agent will represent your work titled: The History of the Fender Stratocaster Guitar (or whatever your potential book is titled). If it turns out you have a good relationship with your agent, and you like working together, you can always sign more agreements for future projects as they come up.

There are more bad agents out there than good ones. So beware! A bad agent is much worse than no agent. Here are a few simple rules regarding agents: never pay an agent anything out of your pocket. Never pay a reading fee. If an agent reads your work and tells you it’s almost great, then he or she tries to sell you editing services — walk away. If an agent wants you to pay them a monthly fee to cover postage, phone, faxing, etc. — walk away. The agent should only make money when you make money.

If you do decide to get an agent, you’ll target them the same way you would a publisher.

Fiction Writing and Agents
If you’re writing a novel (fiction), the rules are a little different. First time authors will need to complete their entire book and get the work polished before shopping it around. According to my novel-writing friends, it’s just about impossible to break into the fiction book market without an agent. You would go about finding an agent for your fiction book the same way our non-fiction friends would. Hit the book store, and check the other novels that are like the one you wrote (i.e. historical thrillers, romance, children’s, etc.). Check the acknowledgements sections for sentences like, “I’d like to thank my agent, Jane Doe.”

Some Good Resources for Finding an Agent Online:
http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/
http://www.everyonewhosanyone.com/
http://www.aar-online.org/

Both?
Don’t target both agents and publishers at the same time. Go one way or the other. If you send your material to publishers then eventually get an agent, your agent may find themselves going back to some of those same houses. It undermines your agent.

What’s a Good Publishing Deal?
There are many factors that go into determining what a good publishing deal is. If you’re not a writer by trade, but want to get a book out on the subject of your expertise, you may be inclined to take a low (or even no) advance because you want the prestige of having a book out. However, if you’re a writer with experience, and a person who intends to work at this in the future, you should fight for all you can.

That first deal is all important. If you take a no-advance deal to get your first book on the market, make sure you’re getting at least a 10% royalty on your non-fiction book. Anything less than that, and the publisher is really taking advantage of you. If you decide to take a bad first deal because you really really really want to have a book out, at least make sure there’s no clause in your contract committing you to the same deal with the same publisher for any future works on similar subjects (i.e. right of first refusal clauses).

Remember, you may be a pro, and deserve to be treated as such, but there’s a dozen schmucks right behind you willing to work for much less because they just want to have a book with their name on it. You need to get that first deal, prove you can meet your deadlines, deliver quality content, and promote the hell out of your work so it sells to the benefit of all involved. Once you have a successful book, you’ll have a better leg to stand on in negotiating future book contracts.

Literary Contracts
If you are offered a literary contract from a publishing company, don’t sign it until you understand every word. Many of these contracts are several pages long (I’ve seen them run up to 15 pages) and are written in legalese to the point that they’re barely in English. There are many parts of a contract that can be negotiated, but to negotiate, you need to understand what’s being stated. If a publisher tells you they don’t negotiate any parts of their contract, beware. If a publisher advises you not to get a lawyer to review their contract, you may want to consider running away. The first pass of a contract can be quite unfair to the author. It’s not worth getting upset over, but shame on you if you don’t negotiate a better deal. An entertainment/publishing lawyer will run you anywhere from $250 to $700 dollars depending on how much you need them to do. It can be money well spent if your book is a hit and you find out later you gave away your foreign rights, TV rights, etc. A lawyer won’t call the publisher and negotiate for you (that’s either your job or your agent’s responsibility). A lawyer can tell you what is customary in the industry, and explain each section of the contract so you know what potential pitfalls you might be getting yourself into. After you’ve seen a few of these things, they are easier to read. And after you’ve made a few mistakes by signing off on a few of these clauses (yup, I speak from experience), you’ll recognize these potential landmines a mile away. The bottom line is that this is a business venture for you and for the publisher. Both of you should work to protect your best interest. And sometimes your best interest is not to sign.

Self Publishing
Repeat after me: Self publishing is bad. Self publishing is bad for the author, bad for the reader, and bad for the industry. And if you’re trying to be a writer as an occupation, your self-publishing book credits don’t count, in fact, they can hurt you.

Bad for the Author: You’re going to have to fork over a pretty good amount of money to get your book published. Anywhere from several hundred to several thousand dollars. Depending on what you pay for, your work may not get any editing, but it might get a good cover and layout. Once you have your book in hand, you’ll be blown away at how many retail outlets won’t carry your book. Sure, you may convince your local bookstores to put a copy on the shelves. You may even spend several eight-hour days driving to every bookstore and convincing local and regional stores to put it on their shelves. Let’s say you convince 20 stores. In the span of a year, maybe half of those stores will sell your one book. Sales of 10 in a year ain’t gonna cut it.

People in industries that deal with books can smell a self-published book from miles away (imprints like: iUniverse, PublishAmerica, BookSurge, Lulu, and Cafepress are the easiest giveaway). Book sellers, real publishing companies, magazine and newspaper editors, Web reviewers, and radio and television producers will all shy away when they hear your book is self-published because 99% of self published books are really awful, poorly written, not edited, and it tells the industry that you’re either not good enough or you didn’t try to find a legitimate publisher.

While there is the 1% exception, it’s still not a good idea to self publish because you’re fighting an uphill battle with marketing and distribution, and people in and around the industry will first assume that your book falls into the 99% category. These folks receive many books per day. Sometimes the only way they can weed through the junk is to check the spine. They toss the self-published books without opening them because they’ll assume they’re in the 99% category. These folks have come to trust (or distrust) even some legitimate publishing houses because of the consistent quality (or lack-there-of) of their books.

Also, if you plan to self-publish and then try to sell it to a legitimate publisher later, you better have significant sales behind your self-published book (like 10,000 to 20,000 copies sold). Here’s the deal: every publisher knows that if they give you a book deal, there will be a certain amount of guaranteed sales. Your mom, your friends, your associates, and your professional acquaintances will all buy a copy of your book. Those sales help lower the financial risk to a publisher. If you self-published first, then those sales are already gone. No one except your mom will buy the book twice. So you may shoot yourself in the foot if you try and self-publish first.

You will make more money per book sale with self-publishing. There’s no question about that. But you won’t sell anywhere near as many books as you will with a real publisher that can get your book on the shelves and into big marketing channels. Plus, most legitimate publishers will offer you a 50% discount if you buy your own books. So if you’re a person who can get yourself out there to hand sell your books at your own events, there’s still the opportunity to make several dollars per book with a real publisher when you sell on your own. Plus you get the benefit of all the other sales through traditional book selling channels that are closed to self-published authors. In the long-run, you’ll make more with a real publisher.

If you’re serious about your writing, if you know your market, if you know your subject, you can and will find a publisher for your work.

Platform
Many non-fiction publishers will tell you that the three items that matter most in regard to potential authors is: platform, platform, platform. Your platform is your built-in audience. Are you a radio host? Do you run a large Web site? Are you a lecturer on your subject? A media personality? A teacher with many students? A writer for a newspaper or industry magazine? Those are the people who have a platform. Platform will always get the attention of publishers. The bigger your platform, the more attention you’ll get.

If you don’t have a platform, get one. Show the world you’re passionate and serious about your subject. Write a column for a newspaper or magazine, start a blog, be a guest on podcasts and radio shows. Get serious and publishers will take you seriously.

The Good News
You can be a writer. It can be done. It’s work, it’s a worthy pursuit, and it’s incredibly rewarding. I used to work a 9-5 corporate job. I had a decent 401K to show for it, but nothing else. Today I have a bookshelf full of books that I’ve written, I have copies of my books in other languages, and I love what I do for a living. Even if I gave it all up tomorrow, I’ll have those books forever. I’ll be able to show them to my grandkids one day… but I don’t plan to stop tomorrow. I work to become a better writer with every new project I take on. I want to find better word choices, put twists on stories, and get more adept at my craft. I’m proud of what I do, and I believe you can do this too if you’re willing to work at it.

If you’ve read this far, if you’ve read the books I suggested, and you still have questions, email me. I’ll help anyway that I can. I’m a huge fan of writers — the people who do the work. But please beware… if you email me a question I’ll know in a second if you really read this entire blog and if you read the books I suggested. If you haven’t read the books and the whole blog, you will probably be sent a link right back to this page.

Now get to work! Read a lot, write a lot, and dream big.