Authors On The Net

I often ask authors, do you want to publish the book you have written or do you want to become a published author? The two ideas may appear similar, but they are not. Millions of authors write the book that is inside them and then go out looking for market, either through Indie Publishing or by trying to sell the rights of their book to a royalty publisher. Of course, millions also use POD publishers. These authors will have, in general, a more difficult time getting published with a royalty publisher, but may have some success if they self-publish.

But if you want to land a royalty publishing contract, the following Mr. Robert’s advice is not a bad idea. Here’s his article:

How to Come Up With a Bestselling Book Idea
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Douglas_Robert]Douglas Robert

Ideas are everywhere. And all it takes is one idea, expanded, explored and developed into a simple ebook to launch a successful info product venture of your own.

To make a significant impact (and a lot of money in the process) you need to provide the kind of information your specifically targeted niche market desires. Give people what they want and you’ll capture their attention and interest. Give them more of what they want and you can build an empire. Read the rest of this entry »

Somehow I came across this site called Plain Language (www.plainlanguage.gov) and not only found it funny, but also a simple and effective tool writers can use to keep their grammar in check. Here’s a brief sample of what you’ll find when you click over:

1. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
2. Avoid cliches like the plague—they’re old hat.
3. Employ the vernacular.
4. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
5. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.
6. Parenthetical words however must be enclosed in commas.
7. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
8. Contractions aren’t necessary.
9. Do not use a foreign word when there is an adequate English quid pro quo.
10. Always avoid alliteration.

I strongly believe the author’s main job is telling a good story or conveying a compelling message and then it is up to the editor to fix all the mistakes. However, many authors, especially self-publishing authors, do not invest in editing. If paying a good editor is out of the question for you, you might want to print this list and keep it handy as you edit your own book.

One reason published books have more credibility than independently published books is the vetting process these books go through. Mainstream publishers have expert editors they use to take the great idea the author has created and polish the grammar, spelling, flow and other aspects of the book.

http://www.plainlanguage.gov/examples/humor/writegood.cfm

Every month I attend the Utah chapter of the National Speakers Association and each month we spend about 3 hours learning how to build a solid speaking business. I’m not a public speaker by trade, but as a preferred guest I get to attend these meetings and mingle with some of my perfect profile customers. Last month we learned how to come up with titles that sell.

You may find this advice a little strange but that’s okay because most of us attendees did too. The speaker, Sarah Victory (http://www.thevictorycompany.com/index.htm) told us to buy all the tabloid magazines in our neighborhood grocery store. Tabloids like The National Enquirer, she said, are full of examples of great headlines, like this one: Read the rest of this entry »

In my last entry, I compared “Mainstream” Publishing with Self-Publishing. In this entry, I’ll be comparing Vanity or Subsidy publishing with Self-Publishing. There is quite a bit of bad press out there regarding Vanity publishing. It’s not my place to criticize the Vanity press business model and therefore I will not be mentioning names in this article.

My understanding of a Vanity press is these companies sell themselves as a publishing company to authors. As a publishing company, they own the ISBN number which means they own the rights to the book. While this may not be the case with all Vanity Publishers, who owns the ISBN is a major red flag I think the self-publishing author needs to watch out for.

The second red flag is that when you are working with a Vanity press, you, the author, are still paying the bills as you will with a self-publishing company like ZDocs. So I guess my point here is, why would you pay all the up-front costs for a book you don’t own. Many authors choose this method because they believe the Vanity press will be able to sell their book. This is why Vanity presses get the bad press.

In my earlier entry, I produced a laundry list of what the author pays for and what the “Mainstream” Publisher pays for. Below is the same type of list if you choose to use a Vanity press.

1. The Author writes the book
2. The Vanity Publisher may own the ISBN number
3. The Author pays the Vanity Publisher to design the cover and the inside pages
4. The Author pays the Vanity Publisher to edit the book
5. The Author pays the Vanity Publisher to print the book
6. The Author builds his/her own website or pays for someone else to do so
7. The Author and the Vanity Publisher jointly promotes the book
8. The Vanity publisher takes a large portion of the profit

If you compare the laundry list above to the laundry list if you decided to self-publish (reprinted below) or to publish, then you can begin to see why using a Vanity Publisher may not be a good choice. Or if you do decide to go with a Vanity Publisher, at least you should do so with your eyes wide open.

(The self-publishing laundry list reprinted from earlier entry)

1. The Author writes the book
2. The Author gets his/her own ISBN number
3. The Author designs the cover and the inside pages - or pays someone to do so
4. The Author pays someone to edit the book
5. The Author pays someone to print the book
6. The Author builds his/her own website or pays for someone else to do so
7. The Author does his/her own promotions
8. The Author takes home most of the profit

To summarize the last two entries, you have three basic ways to publish your book.

Get accepted by a “Mainstream” Publisher like Random House

Use a Vanity or Subsidy Publisher

Use a Self-Publishing company (like zdocs)

There are pros and cons to each method and my intent with these two entries is to simply layout the different options. While I would love every author to print with ZDocs, more importantly I hope authors will find the right place to publish their works and find the success they are looking for.

PS I should mention that places like Kinko’s and Alphagraphics and just about any other print shop can help you print your books and these places are not a bad choice at all. You will get the books you pay for, which is half the battle and usually a better option than the Vanity press in my opinion. The downside of working with a Kinko’s-type place is the staff will have little knowledge about self-publishing or even the best way to print your books and as far as I know these places do not offer marketing services.

While I am often asked about using Ghost Writers to help authors complete a project, the purpose is usually just to get help with writing. However, according to today’s article, a good Ghost Writer may be able to help you find the right agent or publisher as well. Here’s the article:

Self- Publishing is Easier With an Experienced GhostWriter on Your Side
September 28, 2008

The hardest part of writing a book isn’t always the writing. After your ghostwriter has completed the final revision, the real work begins. Now you have to get the book published.

Most beginning writers are completely unprepared for this part of the process. They figure when the time comes, they can submit their manuscript to a publishing house and wait for the praise to start rolling in. Unfortunately, that’s not usually how the story ends. Most publishing houses will not accept submissions from just any writer; manuscripts must pass through a literary agent first. Even then, the chances of your manuscript being selected for publication are slim. Editors receive thousands of completed manuscripts each week. With so many submissions, even books written by the best ghostwriters fall through the cracks.

So what’s an author to do? If you have already worked with a ghostwriter, you have a valuable resource. Great ghostwriters are experienced authors, and know quite a lot about the publishing world. They can help you publish your work in a variety of ways, but this article will focus on the two most important advantages.

To read the entire article, click here:

http://ghostwriterpress.com/2008/09/28/self-publishing-is-easier-with-an-experienced-ghostwriter-on-your-side/#comment-25

The next few entries will evaluate the different options authors have to publish their books. This entry will compare “mainstream” publishing, i.e. Ballantine Books, with self-publishing. Later entries will compare the different types of self-publishing.

Mainstream publishers are like venture capitalists. These publishers are going to take on several books each year, invest money into the production and promotion of the book and in return take most of the profit from the book. That is, if the book is successful, which many are not, so the publisher is taking on a lot of risk.

For the author, going with a mainstream publisher is usually a love/hate experience. I was having dinner with an author last Friday and she showed me a book she published years ago. She seemed a little sad when she explained she had to sell her book (and all the rights to it) to a publisher because she needed the cash. Read the rest of this entry »

When authors ask me how to copyright their material, the first three things I tell them are, 1) your work is already copyright protected, in fact, it’s protected from the moment you create it, 2) make sure you use the copyright symbol - © (in most books you will see “Copyright © 2006, by Author’s Name”) and 3) mail yourself a copy of your manuscript so you can prove the date that you wrote it. And that is really all you need to do, unless you find that someone has used your work without your permission.

If you find that someone has used your work and you decide to litigate, you’ll need to make sure your material is registered. Registration costs $35.00 online/$45 paper and you can register fairly easily by going to http://www.copyright.gov/ This website will tell you all you need to know about copyrights. One point I’ll make here is that the earlier you register, the more you can recover should you go to court. If you register after you find an infringement, you can still recover your actual damages and the infringer’s profits from your work, but if you register before someone infringes, then you can also recover “statutory damages,” which are rewarded by the court and may exceed what you actually lost and attorney fees.

So the fourth thing I tell authors is to go to www.copyright.gov and register their work. It’s inexpensive, easy to do and it’s a good, street-smart step to take.

My guess is that most published authors have received at least one rejection slip, especially when they were getting started and were still officially “unpublished.” I have yet to meet a literary agent or publisher who wants to work with an unpublished author. But at one point all published authors were unpublished. So how does an unpublished writer become a published writer if no one in the industry wants to take the risk with an unpublished author? It’s the proverbial catch 22.

Published writers are people who believe in themselves, who are persistent and who, over time, figure out their audience and learn how to write to that audience. Published writers are also people who understand that a good editor is someone who knows the target audience better than the author.

Once an author knows his audience, it is his job to do his best to write engaging stories with that audience in mind. The editor’s job is to know the audience on a more intimate level and to make changes in the spirit of helping the author’s work resonate with the audience. For example, If a writer is doing an article on restaurants in New Orleans, the writer will have a general idea of his or her audience. But the writer may not know that the readers of the magazine she is writing for may be offended at writing that is too colloquial. The editor’s job is to know the specifics about the audience and to make changes to the author’s work to help the author and the reader connect. Read the rest of this entry »

I started reading a new book, well it’s actually a collection of four short stories, by Stephen King, one of my favorite authors. The collection is called Four Past Midnight. As with all the books I have read by Mr. King, I started off by reading the preface pages. Because of his incredible success as a writer, I think Stephen King has a genuine desire to give back to the writing community. So sometimes he devotes a few pages in the beginning of his books to tell us about his writing experiences.

His little “golden nugget” of wisdom this time went something like this: “Writing is about the love an author has for the craft and the particular story he or she is currently working on, but publishing is about earning an income from that craft.” I had never consciously made this distinction before.

Many (not all) authors who have finished a book face the conflict between the love for the story and the desire to earn an income from that story. And I think this conflict is one reason authors fear or dislike having their story edited. I think this conflict is at the root of why an author would not welcome constructive advice regarding a book’s title or tense or ending or any other part of his or her work. Read the rest of this entry »

One topic that comes up a lot when I speak with authors is the need to open up to all kinds of feedback. And from a value-add perspective, negative feedback is much more valuable than positive feedback. But it hurts, no doubt about that.

Negative feedback tells us what’s wrong with our piece. Maybe the title doesn’t grab our potential readers. Maybe the story starts out too slow. If we’re writing a business or how-to book, maybe the tone is too dry and boring. All of this feedback can be considered negative, but it’s also incredibly valuable if the author opens up to it.

Some negative feedback is useless. If someone simply says he or she didn’t like the book or makes some other general comment like the author must be crazy, well, this kind of feedback stings a little, but essentially it is useless as the feedback doesn’t give insight into what might be wrong with the piece.

Positive feedback can also be valuable if the author learns something from it. If a reader tells you they loved such and such a character, for example, that feedback is good as it tells you those kinds of characters resonate with your readers. But just hearing the piece is good or having someone tell you they loved reading your book is just as useless as someone telling you they hated the book.

On NPR radio a couple of years ago, All Things Considered ran a story on Erica Jong’s recent book review. Here’s a little blurb and if you want to read the whole article simply click on the link below and you can hear the interview.

All Things Considered, April 26, 2006 · Seducing the Demon, the latest book by novelist Erica Jong, received a bad review in The New York Times this past Sunday.

In the past, Jong says she would have curled up in bed and thought about changing careers. But now she says that perhaps she could learn something from a critic’s harsh words.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5364767