tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2970680985985989972024-03-13T18:59:56.013-07:00How To Get Publishedalya.senhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13860695185096745845noreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-297068098598598997.post-44279732216655841712006-12-14T22:24:00.000-08:002006-12-14T22:26:56.310-08:00DefinitionsAdvance<br />An amount of royalties paid to a writer before the product is released.<br />Agent<br />A specialist sales person trusted by publishers to filter out bad or<br />uncommercial writing. Agents will handle all contractual negotiations,<br />chase royalty payments and take a percentage of the author’s income<br />for their troubles.<br />AI sheet<br />Advance Information sheet. A single page document produced by<br />publishers to alert the trade to a forthcoming title.<br />Back list<br />Titles already in print by a particular publisher. These should be<br />studied, together with their front list, before submitting proposals to<br />them.<br />Blurb<br />The short description of a book that is usually printed on the back<br />cover or in the jacket sleeve.<br />Cover<br />This refers to the outer layer of paperback books only. Hardbacks have<br />jackets.<br />Draft<br />A stage in the life of a manuscript. The first draft is the first complete<br />(or almost complete) version of the manuscript. Early drafts are<br />sometimes called rough drafts because they’re not fully developed or<br />polished. A final draft occurs many drafts later when the work is<br />deemed to be finished. Differences between drafts can vary from just<br />a few spelling corrections to a fundamental rewrite of the entire body<br />of the text.<br />eBook<br />A version of a book designed to be sold as an electronic download<br />from the Internet.<br />Front list<br />The list of books a publisher is planning to launch in the coming year<br />or so.<br />ISBN<br />International Standard Book Number. This identifies every edition<br />of every book to enable efficient ordering and stock control in the<br />bookstores.<br />Jacket<br />The loose paper jacket that wraps around some hardback books.<br />Manuscript<br />Literally means a handwritten book, but the word is in general use<br />today to mean any unpublished work whether typed or in a word<br />processed format.<br />Proposal<br />A suggestion of a book idea made by an author to a publisher. Similar<br />to a submission, but sometimes relating to a book not yet in existence.<br />Proofreading<br />Carefully reading a manuscript to look for errors.<br />Royalty<br />A payment made to an author based on sales quantity or sales income.<br />Self publishing<br />When an author arranges and pays for the publication of their own<br />book, either in print or on the Internet, and in effect becomes a<br />publisher in their own right.<br />Slush pile<br />The pile of book proposals, samples and manuscripts that sits on an<br />editor’s desk. Usually it refers to unsolicited manuscripts which hang<br />around for longer because they are a lower priority than submissions<br />that the publisher has actually asked to see.<br />Spine-on<br />A bookshop shelf can display books either face-out with the covers<br />showing, or spine-on, where only the spines are visible.<br />Submission<br />Typically a covering letter, synopsis and a couple of sample chapters<br />submitted to a publisher.<br />Synopsis<br />A summary of a book or other written work, usually not much more<br />than a page in length. Typically a book chapter would be summarised<br />in no more than one paragraph in the synopsis.<br />Typescript<br />Refers to an unpublished book in typed form, although usually<br />synonymous with ‘manuscript’.<br />Vanity publishing<br />When an author pays a publishing company to publish their book.alya.senhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13860695185096745845noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-297068098598598997.post-68020609788326520832006-12-14T22:21:00.000-08:002006-12-14T22:24:02.386-08:00Why books get rejectedE<br />ARLIER IN THIS<br />book I mentioned that publishers<br />reject about 98% of book proposals and<br />manuscripts. It sounds like it must be almost<br />impossible to get published with statistics like<br />that. Actually, things are not so bleak. Many of<br />the rejections will be for reasons that are entirely<br />avoidable. This is a list of reasons for rejection<br />that need not happen:<br />1.<br />The author fails to read the publisher’s<br />website and submits the wrong genre of<br />book.<br />2.<br />The author fails to follow the publisher’s<br />submission guidelines.<br />3.<br />The cover letter is photocopied or generic.<br />4.<br />The cover letter contains spelling or<br />grammatical errors.<br />5.<br />The envelope was sent without sufficient<br />postage and the publisher had to collect it<br />from the sorting office in the rain, and had<br />to pay for the privilege.<br />6. The sample chapters are not sufficiently<br />edited and checked.<br />7. The author angrily demands a response a<br />couple of weeks after submitting the<br />proposal.<br />8. The author phones the editor and talks too<br />much or too slowly, so the editor decides<br />against initiating a working relationship with<br />an author who seems likely to take up too<br />much of their time.<br />9. The author fails to mention positive factors<br />that might influence the publishing decision,<br />such as guaranteed sales, self-publicity,<br />related external events or previously<br />published books.<br />10. The author’s envelope and cover letter<br />displays evidence that they are clearly mad.<br />Using a purple felt-tip pen to address the<br />envelope is a sure sign of this!<br />11. The proposal is hand-written.<br />12. The proposal is typed on a typewriter.<br />13. The author doesn’t have an e-mail address.<br />Authors without e-mail cost more to contact<br />and cause delays in the editing process.<br />14.<br />The cover letter quotes praise from other<br />publisher’s rejection letters.<br />15.<br />The sample chapters have obviously been<br />submitted elsewhere and returned.<br />16.<br />The author has not obtained permission<br />to use photos or quotes taken from other<br />writings, and the publisher shies away from<br />the administrative hassle and additional<br />cost involved in buying those permissions.<br />Quality of writing<br />The rejection rate is always going to be the same<br />regardless of the quality of the books involved.<br />Even if every author was able to write at a<br />professional level there is no way that publishers<br />have the infrastructure or cash to sign up every<br />good book that comes their way. It’s similar to<br />the exam qualifications needed to get into a top<br />university: even if all the candidates achieve the<br />entry grades it doesn’t mean the college has more<br />places to offer. Poor quality of writing is only one<br />of the factors in the decision to reject the majority<br />of book submissions, and still the high rejection<br />rate will always remain whether or not quality of<br />writing improves.<br />How to avoid rejection on the grounds of<br />quality of writing<br />From a publisher’s point of view, top quality<br />writing is surprisingly hard to find in new<br />submissions. Rejecting the bulk of them is easy.<br />Selecting for further consideration the rare gems<br />that really sparkle is easy.<br />The tough part of the publishing process is<br />selecting the books in between: submissions that<br />are not badly written, but are not brilliant either.<br />Working hard at your craft to improve your<br />writing can make a difference here.<br />It’s not hard to avoid being instantly rejected<br />for absent literary skills. OK, for some people it<br />can be hard to write moderately well. It depends<br />on your writing skills at the outset. Anyone can<br />eventually write at a professional standard, but<br />whether it takes one year or twenty years of effort<br />depends on your starting point.<br />Read plenty of books that are similar to your<br />own kind of writing. Join a writing group and<br />get feedback. Above all, just write and keep<br />writing.<br />Improving the statistics<br />The 98% rejection rate doesn’t mean you only<br />have a 2% chance of getting published. Actually<br />the odds are better than that because you have a<br />2% chance every time you submit the same book<br />to a different publisher. Assuming your book is<br />appropriate for every publisher you send it to and<br />that your writing is good enough, if you submit<br />it to ten publishers then your 2% chance is<br />multiplied by ten, giving you 20%.<br />The logic doesn’t quite extend as far as giving<br />you a 100% chance of getting published if you<br />submit to fifty publishers. The odds definitely<br />get better for you, but it’s unlikely that there are<br />as many as fifty publishers for whom your book<br />is suitable.<br />Even if there are that many out there you could<br />still trip up each time on the other factors that<br />come into play each time a publishing decision<br />is made.<br />Automatic rejection<br />Many book ideas are rejected on the phone or by<br />e-mail before the author even sends in a proposal<br />or manuscript. Sensible authors call or e-mail the<br />publisher before submitting to ask if their idea<br />for a book is something the publisher would like<br />to look at. If the idea is entirely inappropriate then<br />the author can be told immediately.<br />Usually this will be due to the book’s genre: a<br />novel suggested to a publisher that doesn’t want<br />fiction; poems offered to virtually any publisher<br />other than the handful of specialists who actually<br />handle that kind of work; trade books offered to<br />a science publisher. These are all examples of<br />automatic rejection. Nothing is read or considered<br />in these cases. The genre of the book is enough<br />for the publisher to say no. This shouldn’t really<br />happen in the first place because the author<br />should carefully research potential publishers<br />before calling, but sometimes a change of policy<br />will mean a company that seems promising from<br />examination of their backlist will not be<br />interested in your type of book after all.<br />Rejection by mistake<br />Authors like to assume that their book proposal<br />was rejected by mistake, due to the idiocy or lack<br />of foresight of the publisher. Mistakes are a real<br />problem, partly due to the mass of material that<br />flows through a publisher’s offices. It’s hard for<br />them to track and<br />evaluate the piles of<br />submissions and ideas<br />fairly and evenly.<br />The top people in all<br />but the smallest<br />publishing companies<br />have<br />too<br />many<br />pressures on their time<br />to be able to look at<br />every submission that is<br />received. They have to<br />employ editors to look<br />at the proposals and filter them so that only the<br />best ones come their way (perhaps 5% of the<br />total). It wouldn’t be possible to publish books if<br />senior publishers did nothing but read<br />manuscripts. A side effect of this inescapable<br />reality is that the most junior people are making<br />rejection decisions. Sometimes unpaid work<br />experience staff make rejection decisions in order<br />to clear slushpile backlogs. Inevitably mistakes<br />get made and potential bestsellers are overlooked<br />by inexperienced staff.<br />As an author there are only limited things you<br />can do to minimise the effect of mistakes. Firstly,<br />you can send your proposal to as many publishers<br />as your research indicates could be interested.<br />Secondly, you can<br />attempt to leapfrog the<br />most junior editorial<br />assistants by phoning<br />each<br />publishing<br />company and asking<br />for the name of the<br />commissioning editor<br />or other editors and<br />addressing<br />your<br />proposal directly to a named individual. They may<br />pass it on to a junior editor, but if they glance at<br />it and the title grabs their attention they may ask<br />for the submission to be given careful consideration.<br />A final option open to an author who thinks<br />they may have been rejected by mistake is to re-<br />submit to the same publisher. Larger publishers<br />keep databases of authors and book titles, so<br />they’ll know if something comes back again. So<br />if you do re-submit, be honest about it and say<br />so in your letter. It doesn’t impress a publisher<br />to see an author sending a proposal back that<br />they’ve already rejected so you have to work extra<br />hard to win them over, otherwise they’ll think<br />you’re wasting their time. So how can you avoid<br />annoying them?<br />1. Rewrite the book in accordance with any<br />constructive criticism you may have received<br />in the original rejection.<br />2. Inform the publisher that some external<br />factors have changed since you first<br />submitted your proposal. Perhaps a similar<br />book to yours has become a hit and you think<br />the publisher could compete by taking on<br />your book.<br />3. Inform the publisher that your public profile<br />has increased or is about to increase due to<br />publicity you have achieved.<br />Rejection letters<br />If they contain constructive criticism, should you<br />follow their advice? The value of a rejection letter<br />as a free critique depends on whether anyone in<br />the editorial office has actually read your<br />submission in full, or whether your book’s<br />concept alone triggered an automatic rejection.<br />If the letter seems genuine and refers to specific<br />aspects of your writing (and the same comments<br />could not be applied to any other book) then you<br />should take notice and consider those comments<br />in a rewrite. Ideally you should discuss the<br />feedback with other members of a writing group<br />before committing to massive changes in your<br />text.<br />Some rejection letters actually express an interest<br />in seeing the proposal again subject to changes<br />being made. These are always worth following up<br />and you should do everything they ask you to do.<br />Dealing with rejection<br />People drive different cars, wear different clothes<br />and eat different food. They also watch different<br />films and read different books. There’s never<br />been any product or literary work that manages<br />to please everyone. If everything written appealed<br />to every reader the world would be a pretty dull<br />place. I mention this purely to give you a sense<br />of perspective when you receive the inevitable<br />rejections to your writing. I use the word<br />inevitable because rejection is part of the learning<br />process as well as part of the selling process.<br />Negative feedback with constructive criticism can<br />help you to remould your writing into a product<br />that someone with influence in the market likes.<br />It’s not enough that your dentist thinks you<br />should be published: you need to convince a<br />publisher.<br />The problem for all writers is that even when<br />your writing is perfect and your manuscript is<br />professionally presented you may still encounter<br />rejections. When a publisher tries to sell a new<br />book into the bookshops many of those shops<br />will reject it. But this doesn’t necessarily reflect<br />any inherent flaw in the book, which may still<br />go on to be a bestseller amongst those shops with<br />the sense to stock it.<br />Part of the reason for good manuscripts to be<br />rejected is that most writers create their works<br />of art in a vacuum, with little regard for what the<br />publishers actually want. They then waste<br />valuable time trying to hammer a triangular peg<br />into a semicircular hole that’s probably boarded<br />up anyway.<br />For the average new writer it’s not easy to find<br />what publishers are looking for. They certainly<br />won’t get a phone call asking if they can come up<br />with a book on X by Y date for Z amount of<br />money like some established writers. A writer<br />who comes up with the apparently brilliant idea<br />of a novel written entirely in rhyming couplets<br />with twenty bonus recipes at the end is going to<br />be highly disappointed by the rejections that will<br />follow. Although you don’t have access to a<br />publisher’s editorial meeting in which they<br />discuss what kind of books they want to look out<br />for in the next season, you can be sure they won’t<br />be looking for rhyming novels with recipes. The<br />way to be sure is easy. Go to a bookshop. Look at<br />the shelves and how they are labelled. Where is<br />the shelf that says ‘rhyming novels with recipes’?<br />Exactly. If the book doesn’t fit squarely on one<br />particular shelf, the bookseller won’t know where<br />to place it. And if the bookseller doesn’t know<br />where to place it the buyer doesn’t know where<br />to find it.<br />The only thing you can do is to look closely at<br />the actual labels of the shelves, look at the books<br />on those shelves and see how similar they are<br />within each genre. Commercial writing is not<br />about art for art’s sake. It’s about creating a<br />product that can be marketed and sold as easily<br />and quickly as possible in order to create a profit<br />for the publisher and the bookseller. Without that<br />profit they can’t survive, and they’re looking to<br />you to provide them with the raw materials for<br />their next slice of profit.<br />So learn what you can from each individual<br />rejection. Try to re-read your work from the point<br />of view of the person who rejected it. (And<br />remember they rejected it, not you.) If they<br />provided any feedback it’s vital to read the work<br />with their comments at the forefront of your<br />mind. Are they right? Can you think of a way to<br />fix it?<br />They may not be right, of course. Your writing<br />could be rejected for a number of reasons aside<br />from its inherent quality. During many years as<br />a publisher I’ve rejected books because they were<br />similar to books that had just flopped, and I didn’t<br />want to risk losing more money with another<br />book like it. I’ve declined books on the grounds<br />that my acquisition budget is fully allocated for<br />the foreseeable future (which meant that we’d<br />run out of money and couldn’t pay any more<br />advances or print bills for a time). I’ve said no to<br />writers because despite my personal interest in<br />the book others in the company have persuaded<br />me not to publish it. I’ve had to reject authors<br />who are quite clearly mad and unprofessional in<br />their approach and who would be too much<br />effort to deal with. Sometimes the rejections have<br />been because we had already decided to produce<br />a similar book either in-house or using our<br />existing author contacts. Or it could be that I’d<br />decided on a change of direction and was no<br />longer interested in commissioning new titles in<br />a particular genre which I felt wasn’t right for<br />my company. I’m sure there are editors out there<br />who have rejected books simply because they’re<br />having a bad day and want to take it out on<br />someone. And don’t forget, of course, that most<br />books are rejected because they are simply not<br />good enough to publish.<br />Laugh off the rejections. Frame them and<br />mount them on the wall of your bathroom. When<br />you’re a bestseller they’ll be priceless. And<br />remember you’re in good company – the<br />company of virtually every other writer on the<br />planet.<br /><a href="http://www.stewartferris.com/" target="_blank">Visit my website for reassurance – I have</a><br /><a href="http://www.stewartferris.com/" target="_blank">links to rejection letters received by other</a><br /><a href="http://www.stewartferris.com/" target="_blank">writers: www.stewartferris.com.</a><br />Should authors ever give up?<br />Writing a book is such an intense and personal<br />experience that it’s hard to be objectively critical<br />about your own work. No matter how hard you<br />try to make it a great work of literature there may<br />be fundamental reasons why it will never sell.<br />What I’m about to say is going to sound harsh,<br />but it’s true. If you’ve written your autobiography<br />and you’re not famous then it will never sell. If<br />you’ve written a book of poems or short stories<br />it will never sell. Your efforts to bring fictional<br />characters to life in a novel may fail despite your<br />opinion that they succeeded. Perhaps you write<br />fiction with no sense of conflict or drama, or you<br />write non fiction with no sense of authority.<br />Publishers see these weaknesses but you don’t<br />because you’re too close to your pride and joy.<br />I’ve seen it happen far too often and it’s a shame<br />that some writers reach a skills plateau beyond<br />which they do not progress, or they put an<br />enormous amount of effort into writing books<br />that fundamentally have no market.<br />The paradox is that if you are aware of any such<br />shortcomings in your writing then you are in a<br />position to do something about it. There’s no<br />need to give up your dreams if you can recognise<br />what needs to be fixed in your work, even if it<br />means starting a brand new book in another genre<br />altogether – a marketable one this time. It is only<br />those who are not aware of the problems who<br />should give up, but they won’t stop trying to get<br />their book published because they don’t realise<br />they have no chance of success.<br />There is another way out of this situation,<br />however. Self publishing is a means for books<br />with insufficient commercial market to get into<br />print. Your autobiography, poems and short<br />stories can only be self published. Don’t waste<br />your energy trying to get someone else to pay for<br />getting them into print. Do it yourself so that<br />you can enjoy seeing your name on the front<br />cover, and sell it to friends and family. You won’t<br />make a profit but it doesn’t cost much more than<br />the price of a holiday to get a few hundred copies<br />printed and it’s a fun process.<br />Self publishing is also a way for books to show<br />their potential. An author with just one book to<br />sell can achieve better sales figures than a<br />publisher trying to promote fifty books at once.<br />All you need is the time and energy to travel and<br />meet bookshop staff plus the courage to ask them<br />to buy it and to remind them to reorder when it<br />sells.<br />If you self publish books in genres that could<br />potentially be taken on by other publishers, this<br />isn’t giving up: it’s giving your book a leg-up to<br />the point where you can impress those publishers<br />with genuine sales figures that might entice them<br />to sign you up.alya.senhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13860695185096745845noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-297068098598598997.post-36160240974392281612006-12-14T22:19:00.000-08:002006-12-14T22:21:10.295-08:00Specific points to negotiate1. The royalty rate<br />It’s normal for a publisher to offer a low rate to<br />first time authors. If your attempt at asking for it<br />to be increased doesn’t work for your first book,<br />you should ask for a higher royalty rate if you are<br />subsequently contracted by them to write a<br />second book. Suggest an increase of one or two<br />percentage points on their offer.<br />The basis for calculating the royalty rate is<br />either a percentage of the book’s cover price or a<br />percentage of net income from sales. Basing the<br />rate on cover price harks back to an earlier age<br />when bookshop discounts were small and<br />consistent. The last twenty years have seen shops<br />demanding ever higher discounts, but the old<br />royalty calculation system meant that authors<br />received the same amount of money per book<br />sold regardless of the price at which it was bought<br />by the bookshop. This can lead to the ridiculous<br />situation where the publisher makes a loss<br />because it has to pay the author more than it<br />received for the sale of the book. This is usually<br />avoided by switching to a reduced royalty amount<br />when discounts hit a certain level, usually 50–55%.<br />Royalties based on cover price have<br />traditionally averaged 7.5% for a paperback and<br />10% for a hardback (profit margins are higher<br />on hardbacks). But from the publisher’s point<br />of view it’s much fairer to give the author a<br />percentage of whatever they earn. Since they give<br />away up to half of the book’s cover price in<br />discount this means the author receives a slice of<br />a smaller cake, so to make up for it the percentage<br />is usually higher, ranging from 10–15%.<br />Modern publishers don’t bother<br />distinguishing between rates for<br />paperback and hardback editions, but<br />traditional ones may still offer a higher<br />percentage for hardbacks.<br />Some contracts include an option clause giving<br />the publisher the right to acquire the author’s<br />next book on the same terms. Don’t agree to this<br />if you want to keep your negotiating options open<br />for the next book.<br />2. The threshold at which the royalty rate<br />increases<br />A book has a break-even point. This is a number<br />of copies that need to be sold before the publisher<br />has made any profit.<br />It isn’t possible to say that the first copy sold<br />has a profit margin of 10%, for example. The first<br />copy sold has a loss of 10,000%! But the losses<br />decrease as sales increase until eventually enough<br />copies have been sold to cover the costs of editing,<br />design, printing, marketing, a share of the office<br />administration and rent, and the author’s<br />advance. Depending on the publisher’s overheads<br />and the price of the book this break-even point<br />can happen at sales of between 1,000 and 10,000<br />copies.<br />To reflect the greater financial exposure the<br />publisher faces prior to reaching the break-even<br />point it’s normal to offer a lower royalty rate on<br />the first few thousand sales. The rate will increase<br />by one or two points once sales exceed, for<br />instance, 5,000 copies, and may then increase<br />again if sales exceed 10,000 or 20,000 copies.<br />Having covered the initial investment, the<br />publisher’s only significant ongoing costs are the<br />reprints, which are cheaper per copy for<br />successful books due to economies of scale. The<br />bulk of printing costs are incurred in setting up<br />the presses, and once they’re running it’s cheap<br />to keep them going a little longer to produce<br />more copies.<br />So publishers should always offer a higher<br />royalty for books once they have broken even,<br />unless they were generous enough to start on a<br />high rate at the beginning.<br />If you don’t get offered a rising scale of<br />royalty rates, ask for one. The publisher will<br />have a figure in mind of how many books<br />they expect to sell, and if the royalty<br />increases above this amount then they won’t<br />mind agreeing to it because they won’t<br />expect sales to trigger it. But if you have<br />written a surprise bestseller then the financial<br />reward will be significant.<br />3. The royalty advance<br />An advance is not money paid in addition to your<br />royalty: it is your royalty. The publisher takes a<br />chance that the book will sell by paying a chunk<br />of your royalties to you before the book is even<br />printed. You won’t get any more money until the<br />advance has been earned back through sales.<br />Once this has happened you will receive<br />payments once or twice a year. But it’s common<br />for an author to receive nothing from the<br />publisher after the advance. This happens when<br />the advance was particularly high or when the<br />book didn’t sell too well.<br />The advance is usually split into two or three<br />payments. A chunk is paid upon signature of the<br />contract, followed some months later by another<br />chunk when you deliver a complete manuscript<br />of acceptable quality, and then you’ll get the rest<br />when the book is published. If the book is already<br />complete at the time of signing the contract then<br />the full amount is split between the advance on<br />signature and the advance on publication.<br />It might be worth asking for the percentages<br />paid on each occasion to be weighted towards<br />the earlier dates so that you get most of the money<br />sooner, but for business cashflow reasons it’s<br />unlikely that the publisher will agree to give you<br />the entire advance immediately.<br />Size matters when it comes to royalty advances.<br />Indirectly, a large advance means that the book is<br />more likely to be a success. By ‘large’ advance, I<br />mean an amount that is large for the publisher<br />concerned. It could be a four, five or six figure<br />sum, depending on the size of the publishing<br />house. Books do tend to sell better if the author<br />is paid more up front. Hooray, you’re thinking –<br />surely that’s in everyone’s best interests and so<br />you’re bound to get a high advance for your first<br />book? Ideally that would be the case, but<br />publishers would quickly run out of money.<br />By definition, not every book can be a<br />bestseller. Not every book can be hyped up by<br />the publisher as the next Harry Potter. They have<br />to select a small number of lead titles to focus<br />their sales campaign on. And the lead titles are<br />usually those for which the highest advances were<br />paid. Publishers will only offer large advances on<br />books they think have the potential to be their<br />lead titles, and having committed so much money<br />it’s in their interests to work hard to make sure<br />they earn it back.<br />If a publisher offers you a low<br />advance, it might reflect the low<br />priority they have set for your book.<br />Their risk is lower so they have less<br />incentive to push your book hard. If<br />you can persuade them to pay you<br />more then they will have to work<br />harder to earn their money back and<br />you have a greater chance of being a<br />bestselling author.<br />4. The percentages for rights sales<br />The contract will usually contain a long list of<br />rights that the publisher will try to sell for your<br />book, together with the amount you will receive<br />from any such sales. The rights include large<br />print, translation, film, extract, merchandising<br />and others. You shouldn’t receive less than 50%<br />of the publisher’s net income from any of these,<br />and depending on the size of the company you<br />can potentially go far higher with your share of<br />some of the rights: ‘first serial rights’ can be as<br />high as 90%. But bear in mind that most books<br />don’t sell most of the rights in the list. The most<br />likely ones to be sold are translation rights, but<br />unfortunately those rights tend to offer the lowest<br />rates.<br />5. The accounting period<br />This is the length of time you will have to wait<br />between royalty payments. If this is set at one<br />year you should ask for six monthly reports, at<br />least for the first couple of years of the book’s<br />life.<br />6. The number of free copies sent to you<br />This is usually set at ten free copies. It’s a<br />reasonable quantity for an expensive hardback<br />book and for larger paperbacks, but if your book<br />is a small or cheap paperback then it’s worth<br />asking for the contract to be changed to allow<br />you to receive twenty copies instead of ten.alya.senhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13860695185096745845noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-297068098598598997.post-76238684569407934562006-12-14T22:18:00.000-08:002006-12-14T22:19:29.221-08:00HagglingC<br />AN A WRITER<br />haggle over their first contract? Will<br />it seem ungrateful or egotistical if you ask for<br />better terms? Will it put the publisher off<br />altogether?<br />The answers to these questions all depend on<br />how desperately the publisher wants your book.<br />If they are in any way indifferent to whether they<br />get you signed up or not then your negotiating<br />powers will be nil. The deal will be take it or leave<br />it. If they think your book concept is gold dust<br />then they’ll play along with your requests for<br />better terms.<br />The problem is that you have no way of<br />knowing how much they really care about your<br />book. You don’t know if they see it as central to<br />their growth for the next financial year and are<br />planning for it to be a lead title, or whether it’s<br />just one extra book to add to the list that may or<br />may not sell and they’re wondering if they’ve<br />already signed up too many books for their staff<br />to cope with anyway.<br />The only way to test the waters in these<br />instances is to read the contract and suggest a<br />slightly higher royalty rate, a slightly lower sales<br />quantity threshold at which the royalty rate<br />increases, a slightly higher advance, slightly better<br />percentages for rights sales and a few extra free<br />copies. If they want you badly they’ll agree to<br />everything. Chances are they’ll agree to some,<br />but not all, of your requests. They might meet<br />you halfway on some items. Just ask nicely and<br />you might be lucky.<br />Publishers often begin by negotiating the basic<br />terms of a contract before the author actually gets<br />to read the contract itself. These terms are<br />outlined in the following chapters. If you receive<br />a full contract make sure you take the time to<br />read it carefully and ask questions about any<br />sections you don’t understand.alya.senhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13860695185096745845noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-297068098598598997.post-2101685988744255322006-12-14T22:16:00.000-08:002006-12-14T22:18:26.960-08:00What to submit to a publisherW<br />HAT PRECISELY COMPRISES<br />a book proposal will<br />vary according to the publisher. Most companies<br />state clearly on their website what would-be<br />authors should supply to them.<br />You’ll find that some of the largest publishers<br />actually say they won’t even consider submissions<br />that don’t arrive via agents. This is an unfortunate<br />obstacle for unpublished, unagented writers but<br />it’s a fact of the industry that cannot be avoided.<br />The smaller publishers will usually ask for a<br />single page proposal or a covering letter, a<br />synopsis and between one and three sample<br />chapters.<br />Your sample chapters must be cleanly printed<br />on fresh paper. If your toner or ink is running<br />low make sure you replace it before printing<br />anything. Publishers don’t want to read weak and<br />smeary text.<br />That’s straightforward enough, but it doesn’t<br />tell the whole story. The purpose of a proposal is<br />to give enough information to an editor about<br />your manuscript for them to make a judgement<br />as to whether they would like to read more.<br />But there are other ways to tantalise a<br />publisher, as we’ll see later.<br />WHAT TO SUBMIT TO A PUBLISHER<br />Accompanying the submission with<br />a large envelope and sufficient<br />postage for the sample chapters to<br />be returned is actually a pointless<br />thing to do because you should<br />never re-use those samples anyway.<br />It’s far better to enclose a postcard<br />(with a stamp on it) addressed to<br />you so that the publisher can<br />acknowledge receipt of your<br />submission. If the proposal is<br />rejected the sample chapters can<br />then be thrown away or recycled<br />by the publisher. Make sure your<br />e-mail address is included in your<br />covering letter so that the<br />publisher can send you a reply<br />without incurring any costs.<br />What to put in your covering letter<br />Three things should be in your covering letter:<br />1.<br />You<br />2.<br />Your book<br />3.<br />Reasons to publish it.<br />You<br />When writing about yourself, aim for a paragraph<br />summarising relevant points about what qualifies<br />you to write this book. If you want to say lots<br />more about yourself constrain the extra words<br />to a separate C.V. to make sure your covering<br />letter isn’t so long that it gets confused with the<br />book itself.<br />The publisher needs to know if you have had<br />any publishing successes before, if you have any<br />relevant qualifications for writing your book, and<br />if you plan to write any more books on the same<br />subject.<br />Your book<br />Describe the book in one short paragraph. There<br />is plenty of space to explain its intricacies in more<br />detail in the synopsis. Here is where you write a<br />short ‘teaser’ that will intrigue the editor<br />sufficiently to make them want to know more.<br />Imagine you’re writing the publisher’s blurb<br />that they will use to describe your book on the<br />back cover, in their catalogue and on their<br />website. There’s no need to give away the full<br />plot – leave it open for the editor to wonder how<br />it resolves.<br />Then add a short line to describe how you<br />envisage the book in its printed form. For<br />example you might see the book as a bargain<br />paperback or a lavish hardback.<br />If the book is similar to a bestselling book or<br />to another book by the publisher you’re writing<br />to then make that comparison. It makes it easier<br />for an editor to visualise the kind of book you’re<br />proposing.<br />Reasons to publish it<br />List any significant reasons why the publisher’s<br />risk will be small in taking on your book. Perhaps<br />you have contacts in the media who have<br />promised to help you publicise the book. Or<br />you’ve done some research into the likely level<br />of demand for your book and can demonstrate<br />that the market is crying out for it because there<br />is a gap in the market. Maybe you’re involved in<br />a society whose membership is sufficiently large<br />to create enough guaranteed sales to justify a full<br />print run. Or you’re a lecturer on a subject and<br />are sure the students at your college and others<br />will all buy this book. Or you have the ability to<br />sell the book through your own business.<br />Taking this principle further, imagine you<br />planned to purchase a substantial number of<br />copies of your book at the author’s discount<br />(usually between 35% and 50%) for selling<br />privately to friends, family and colleagues or to<br />sell in your own shop.<br />You mention to the publisher that you think<br />you can sell 500 copies of the book, should it get<br />into print, and that you would make a firm order<br />to buy those copies, non returnable, so that they<br />can be delivered direct from the printer.<br />If your book is up against similar, equally well-<br />written manuscripts for consideration, this kind<br />of offer could clinch the deal for you. It won’t<br />help you if the book isn’t good enough, or it’s<br />wrong for the market, or the publisher doesn’t<br />specialise in that kind of book, but it can make a<br />difference in the right circumstances.<br />What kind of a difference does a guaranteed<br />sale of 500 copies make to a publisher? Actually<br />quite a lot. It depends on the size and price of<br />the book, but in most cases it’s enough to cover<br />as much as half of the printing costs and therefore<br />reduces the chances that the book will lose<br />money.<br />How to write a synopsis<br />Generally speaking, one paragraph per chapter<br />is adequate. As long as the synopsis fills one or<br />two pages and no more then it’s the right length.<br />It’s not easy to distil your masterpiece down to a<br />few hundred words unless you’re clear in your<br />mind as to what the important themes and<br />concepts are.<br />Leave out all unnecessary detail. As with the<br />‘blurb’ you wrote in your covering letter, don’t<br />feel the need to answer all questions – leave some<br />things hanging tantalisingly in the air so the editor<br />wants to read the whole book to find out more.<br />10 ways to leapfrog other submissions<br />1.<br />Call the publishing company and ask for<br />the name of the appropriate editor for<br />your genre of book.<br />2.<br />Ask to speak to that editor. If you get<br />through to them, summarise your proposal<br />in a couple of sentences and ask if they’d<br />like to see it.<br />3.<br />Make sure your submission is personally<br />addressed to that person.<br />4.<br />The covering letter inside must not be a<br />generic, photocopied ‘Dear sir/madam’. If<br />you’ve already spoken on the phone,<br />mention it.<br />5.<br />If you have enough relevant experience and<br />qualifications, include a separate C.V.<br />Otherwise, don’t bother. Leave out jobs,<br />swimming certificates and exams that have<br />nothing to do with your book.<br />6.<br />Think of a stonking title and subtitle<br />combination, or an enticing tag line if the<br />book is fiction.<br />7.<br />Schmooze with publishers at book fairs,<br />launch parties and award ceremonies.<br />8.<br />Use ‘friend of a friend’ contacts mercilessly.<br />9.<br />Offer to buy a chunk of the print run.<br />10.<br />Prove to the publisher that you can attract<br />publicity for yourself.<br />Gimmicks<br />Submissions are often made to publishers in a<br />gimmicky way. I’ve seen a proposal written on a<br />scroll wrapped up in a cardboard tube,<br />submissions printed on expensive coloured paper<br />(a gold cover page is the worst offender), and<br />ideas for books packaged with ribbons and bows.<br />Needless to say, all were rejected.<br />You might think a gimmick is an effective way<br />to get noticed in the slush pile – it will get your<br />proposal noticed, but for the wrong reasons.<br />Editors sigh at the sight of coloured paper and<br />fancy packaging. They know from experience<br />that authors who wrap their submission in such<br />a decorative way are, either consciously or<br />unconsciously, trying to divert attention from<br />weaknesses in their writing. Such attempts have<br />never worked and never will. Keep your proposal<br />looking professional, and that means print it on<br />standard 80gsm white paper. If you need to bind<br />a few pages, use a staple in the top corner. If there<br />are more pages than a stapler can manage, bind<br />them in a simple and plain way that won’t attract<br />attention.<br />Generating a cover design<br />Some authors go to the extent of designing a<br />cover for their book when sending in a proposal.<br />This can help the editor to imagine your book in<br />print and how attractive it would look, but only<br />if your design is of a professional standard. If<br />you’ve never designed a book cover it might be<br />advisable to avoid attempting one to send in with<br />your idea. Instead, you<br />could commission a<br />design from a local<br />graphic designer or art student. If the design turns<br />out to be stunning, giving the book a similar style<br />to a bestseller in its genre, then things could start<br />to go your way more easily. You should supply<br />the designer with any high quality photos or<br />artwork you possess that might be suitable, advise<br />them on the target audience and show them<br />similar book covers that you like. This will help<br />them to understand the style of drawing or design<br />they should aim for.<br />A mock-up of your book cover is not essential,<br />since most books that are published do not come<br />from illustrated proposals, and the wrong kind<br />of design can actually put editors off. But if you<br />can get a design that excites a publisher in the<br />same way that customers in bookshops get<br />excited by attractive designs that make them want<br />to buy books, then you’re a little further on your<br />way towards being a published author.<br />How long to wait for a response<br />Wait a reasonable period before chasing the<br />publisher for a response: this means at least a<br />month. It takes time to make publishing decisions.<br />Books aren’t picked on a daily basis. Even after a<br />month you may not get a very satisfactory answer.<br />Finding an editor who knows about your<br />submission (or pretends to) is a challenge in itself.<br />Many rejections occur quickly, as do requests to<br />see more of a book if only a sample chapter was<br />received initially. But the wheels of publishing turn<br />slowly because so many factors besides the quality<br />of the writing have to be taken into account before<br />making a decision. It’s better to think of your<br />submission as planting a seed that may bear fruit<br />after many months. Don’t sit around waiting to<br />see if it grows: keep making and planting new seeds<br />all the time.<br />Copyright protection<br />Anything you write is automatically your<br />copyright and will remain so until seventy years<br />after you die. But if someone tries to steal your<br />work that’s of no help to you unless you can prove<br />that you wrote it. Digital technology is making<br />theft of writing texts much easier than in the past,<br />so if you want peace of mind just follow these<br />basic procedures:<br />1.<br />Keep copies of all your different drafts. They show the<br />progression of ideas as you developed the writing. The<br />person who stole your writing would not be able to<br />show the court any evidence of how the writing evolved.<br />2.<br />Mail a completed copy to yourself and if it arrives with<br />a clearly dated postmark leave it unopened. It’s not a<br />failsafe system, but if you open it in front of the judge<br />it can help to demonstrate that at that date you were<br />in possession of the writing.<br />3.<br />Register your work with a copyright protection agency,<br />either online or with a physical copy of the manuscript.<br />4.<br />Clearly write your name, contact details and copyright<br />date on all copies of your work that you send out.alya.senhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13860695185096745845noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-297068098598598997.post-59110316152048115002006-12-14T22:12:00.000-08:002006-12-14T22:15:38.541-08:00Why it’s vital to target the right kind of publisherA<br />BOOK IS<br />not just a book. Publishers’ reputations<br />are not built on the fact that they can simply<br />publish books. Their skills, expertise and<br />reputation are all based on the kinds of books in<br />which they specialise. Even the larger publishing<br />houses, whose lists cover many genres, are<br />usually divided into internal ‘imprints’. Each<br />imprint can be a specialist division with their own<br />editors who are experts in their subjects. These<br />imprints are sometimes created by the parent<br />company, but often they are the remnants of<br />smaller companies that were swallowed up<br />during a takeover or merger.<br />So you’re not going to send your book proposal<br />to every publisher you can find. It’s a waste of your<br />time and money, not to mention theirs. You’re<br />going to find the right publisher, a company that<br />from the outside appears to be a perfect match for<br />your book. And then you’re going to find lots of<br />other firms that would be equally good matches.<br />Do publishers sometimes commission books<br />from genres in which they haven’t published<br />before?<br />Yes, they do. If no one occasionally tried<br />something new the industry would be very static<br />and dull. But the jump from one genre to another<br />has to be fairly close, otherwise the publisher will<br />lack the courage to attempt it.<br />You might be able to persuade a publisher of<br />local history books to take on a military history<br />title, but you’ll be wasting your time asking them<br />to sign up a historical novel. This is because local<br />and military history are both subsets of the same<br />genre and will be sold to the same bookshop<br />department manager. But a historical novel is<br />fiction and will be sold into the fiction buyer.<br />That can mean an extra appointment for the sales<br />rep, which isn’t cost effective for a single book.<br />Fiction is also an entirely different and<br />challenging market that the average non fiction<br />publisher wouldn’t enter without first imbibing<br />a stiff drink to steady their nerves.<br />Generally it’s not worth the effort of trying to<br />tempt publishers away from their comfort zones.<br />The decision to try something new is not always<br />in reaction to specific book proposals anyway<br />(often it’s a managerial choice). There are already<br />enough publishers specialising in whatever genre<br />you want to write and those are the ones you need<br />to target.<br />Compare your book to others<br />Read other books by each publisher on your<br />target list and think about what those books<br />contain that may have encouraged an editor to<br />sign them up. Would your book fit in well<br />amongst them? If you don’t think your book is<br />in the same calibre then go back to the re-drafting<br />stage. If your book matches the quality but not<br />the genre, look for different publishers.<br />Writing for an existing series<br />If your aim is to write a book that stands<br />completely alone from other books already on<br />sale then it will be statistically more difficult for<br />you to get it published than if you were to write<br />for an existing series, style or subject area.<br />Publishers of non fiction series are always looking<br />for new writers to help them expand their list, so<br />if you have the expertise and ability to assist them<br />in that process you just need to tell them. Writing<br />a novel that fits a precise and identifiable sub-<br />genre such as one of the Mills and Boon romantic<br />fiction imprints will make it easier to get<br />published than writing a novel that can’t be<br />compared to anything already out there.<br />Sending your proposal to more than one<br />publisher at a time<br />Authors are often nervous about this. It seems<br />discourteous, unfaithful even, to send out a<br />proposal to more than one publisher. The trouble<br />is that it can take three months to hear a reply,<br />even a negative one. Ironically the more they like<br />your submission the longer it will take for them<br />to reject it because it will get read by various<br />people, talked about in meetings, forgotten about<br />for a bit while the publisher gets ready for a book<br />fair, and then found again and finally decided<br />against. If you go through this process with one<br />publisher at a time it<br />could take ten years for<br />the book to fall into the<br />right hands.<br />Take care to inform a<br />publisher of any genuine<br />interest from rival<br />companies at the earliest<br />possible point. No one likes to spend hours<br />debating the merits of a manuscript only to be<br />told it has been sold to someone else.<br />Bidding wars<br />A bidding war is the main way in which a first<br />time author can achieve a six figure advance (the<br />other way is for them to be a high profile<br />celebrity). When an agent is really excited about<br />their newly signed author – usually we’re talking<br />about a novelist – and they successfully manage<br />to convey that excitement to more than one<br />publisher at a time, a situation arises in which<br />publishers try to outbid each other in order to<br />sign up the book. Their normal caution and<br />powers of reason melt away amid the heat of<br />excitement and suddenly a new author is fast-<br />tracked to superstardom.<br />Bidding wars where agents are not involved<br />tend to be at a more mundane level, but still result<br />in higher than average royalty advances for the<br />author.<br />How to find the right publisher<br />Most authors identify one publisher that they<br />think might be appropriate for them and they<br />pin all of their hopes on that one submission. As<br />often as not, this publisher isn’t actually<br />interested in that kind of book anyway. The<br />author receives a rejection letter and gets<br />disillusioned by the whole business of being a<br />writer. They give up.<br />But that won’t happen to you. You’re going to<br />be systematic and professional in your approach.<br />First, you need to create a target list of publishers.<br />Aim to send your proposal to no more than ten<br />of them at a time in order to keep things<br />manageable.<br />You can find suitable publishers for your book<br />using the following methods:<br />Bookshop<br />Browse among the shelves, noting the imprints and<br />addresses of books that are similar to yours.<br />Internet<br />Search the book’s subject to see if any publishing company<br />names crop up.<br />Amazon<br />Search for comparable books to yours then look up other<br />books by those publishers to see if it is a one-off or<br />something in which they specialise. Note whether the<br />similar books were published recently or not.<br />Book fair<br />Walk around the booths looking for displays of books that<br />appear similar to yours, then stop and chat to the<br />publishers about whether they’re interested in seeing new<br />books in that genre.<br />Listings in writing guides<br />Publishers are sometimes listed by subject category, but<br />since these can be vague it’s worth double checking on<br />the Internet or in bookshops.<br />Personal contacts and networking<br />An editor develops a working relationship with<br />every writer they commission. We all want to<br />work with people we like, so it’s only natural for<br />editors to want to work with authors they already<br />know. And this doesn’t only mean authors they<br />have already published – it could be friends they<br />have made at a party or business event.<br />Networking is about finding ways to meet the<br />right people who can help you in your career.<br />Introductions made at social events where editors<br />are relaxed (and preferably intoxicated) are<br />perfect ways for authors<br />to quiz them about their<br />publishing programme,<br />what they’re looking for<br />and whether they would<br />like to see your efforts. It’s<br />a way of forming<br />friendships that will<br />develop into working<br />relationships in the<br />future. Getting a personal<br />introduction to a publisher at a party will more<br />than double your chances of selling your writing.<br />Even if they don’t buy it from you they may be<br />prepared to give you their expert opinion for free.<br />I’ve been known to give my opinion on books<br />submitted to me via friends of friends. If it’s not<br />suitable for my company I sometimes pass it on<br />to other publishers who might be interested. This<br />wouldn’t happen for a submission that arrives<br />from a stranger.<br />Use any legitimate tactics you can think of to<br />gain access to the inner circle of publishers. It<br />isn’t an impregnable fortress. They’re nice people<br />who live ordinary lives. If you’re not in the same<br />town as they are, travel. Find out where they hang<br />out. Go to their offices for a quick chat, even if<br />it’s just with the receptionist: you might learn<br />something valuable (remember not to waste<br />anyone’s time, though, because there’s a fine line<br />between a brief business-like conversation and<br />being a nuisance). If you can’t get to their location<br />use the phone. People often phone me out of the<br />blue for advice or to ask if I’d like to see their<br />book. It takes courage to do that, but what’s the<br />worst that will happen? A brush-off is all you’ll<br />get if they don’t want to speak to you. It won’t<br />end your career.<br />Go to the international book fairs to meet<br />publishers. Chat to the people on the booths.<br />Find out what kinds of books they want to<br />publish next year. Take their cards. Hang out at<br />the parties in the hotels – the networking<br />opportunities really begin when the wine starts<br />to flow. Flirting skills are a bonus here!<br />Working in publishing or bookselling<br />I’ve emphasised in this book the importance of<br />understanding the publishing and bookselling<br />industries in order to assist your attempts at<br />entering this literary world on a professional level.<br />Writing the book is just the first step: a basic<br />grounding in the terminology and procedures of<br />the business you’re trying to become a part of<br />will help you to get the deal in the first place. It will<br />also enable you to maximise sales and to increase<br />your chances of being asked to write a follow-up.<br />But will it help you to get published if you go<br />the extra mile and actually get a job in the book<br />industry? Absolutely it will, provided you choose<br />your employer carefully and are prepared to<br />exploit your position.<br />Working for a publishing company is your best<br />bet, but it stands to reason that the company you<br />try to work for should be one that already<br />publishes the kind of book you’re writing.<br />When I attend editorial meetings at which the<br />editors discuss the submissions recently received<br />and the kinds of books they would like to publish,<br />I know that if I were an undercover author I would<br />be able to go home and prepare a proposal that<br />would get them very excited the next day. In fact<br />I once did this as a joke – I listened to what my<br />editors were saying that they would like to sign<br />up, then went home and prepared a couple of<br />proposals in a different name and sent them to<br />the commissioning editor. He came to see me the<br />next day looking very excited and proceeded to<br />show me this proposal which was miraculously<br />what he had been looking for.<br />Access to the inner sanctum of a publishing<br />house is a great way to generate book ideas that<br />will have a guaranteed positive response. But it<br />doesn’t have to involve subterfuge because many<br />publishers come up with ideas for books in-<br />house and ask their editors to find a suitable<br />writer. Sometimes editors or other staff within<br />the company will offer to write the book<br />themselves, and even unpaid work experience<br />staff have been known to make contributions to<br />the odd book or to assemble collections of<br />quotations for anthologies during their<br />internships.<br />Getting a job as a bookseller has different<br />advantages. Your contact with publishers is<br />limited to their sales representatives, but you have<br />the opportunity to quiz them on whether they<br />think your idea for a book has legs. Their opinion<br />is part of the publisher’s decision-making process<br />so if you can quote a positive response from a<br />rep in your proposal then your book can at least<br />avoid instant rejection.<br />Working in a bookshop you also have the<br />chance to study sales patterns, noting which of<br />your potential rivals is selling the best and talking<br />to customers and colleagues about whether they<br />like the sound of your idea for a book. And of<br />course it wouldn’t hurt to tell the publisher to<br />whom you submit your manuscript that you<br />might be able to influence your employer to<br />order large quantities of the book when it comes<br />out.<br />What to do when your proposal has been<br />despatched to suitable publishers<br />If the book is not written, start writing it. If you<br />sent just a book outline with no actual samples<br />then you should aim to have three chapters ready<br />within the next month or two in case a publisher<br />asks to see them. If you have already sent three<br />chapters then crack on with the rest of it in case<br />they want to read the whole thing.<br />If your entire book is already complete and has<br />been re-drafted sufficient times then use your<br />waiting period to give it a final proofread.<br />The next thing to do is to prepare your target<br />list for the second batch of publishers you want<br />to approach. Start collecting names, numbers and<br />addresses, call them all to find the name of the<br />appropriate editor and to ask if they are interested<br />in principle in viewing your proposal. Then as<br />soon as you receive a rejection letter send out a<br />proposal to someone else.<br />And when that is done? Keep up the writing<br />routine. Think up a new book idea, but don’t<br />write the book. Just the idea.<br />Then think of another idea.<br />And then ten more.<br />Make some of the ideas fit a series theme if<br />possible.<br />Don’t write any of those ideas into full books,<br />just type them up in no more than a hundred<br />words per proposal and send them to some<br />suitable publishers asking if they’d like to see<br />samples of any of them.<br />Rejection at this early stage is relatively<br />painless. It’s also less likely because you’re<br />offering a range of potential products to each<br />publisher.<br />If they ask for samples then write them and<br />send them off. This route is far less likely to lead<br />to rejection because you’re virtually writing to<br />order. You know the editor is already interested<br />in the idea and the only thing that might trip you<br />up from then on is if your execution of that idea<br />differs from how the editor expected it to turn<br />out.<br />On many occasions I have asked to see samples<br />from a list of excellent book ideas, only to be<br />disappointed when those samples arrived. But<br />I’ve also received samples from idea lists that have<br />led to published books.alya.senhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13860695185096745845noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-297068098598598997.post-91242594320448374492006-12-14T22:11:00.001-08:002006-12-14T22:11:47.531-08:00Self publishingB<br />ECOMING A PUBLISHER<br />in your own right is a<br />legitimate way of getting published. If your book<br />is an autobiography, poetry or short stories then<br />you have practically no other option anyway. You<br />don’t need to know about typesetting, cover<br />design or printing – just employ one of the many<br />firms who specialise in providing these services<br />for authors who want to get into print. When<br />the books are delivered to you they belong to you,<br />so all the income from sales is yours to keep.<br />Don’t expect to make money from printing<br />your own book. You might get back some<br />of your investment, but it isn’t possible to<br />make a real profit from a short print run<br />(less than a thousand copies) of a book.<br />Selling more than a thousand is possible<br />and I’ve seen plenty of self published<br />writers do so, but it takes dedication to<br />achieve it.<br />Self publishing can be a step towards getting a<br />major publishing deal. Some editors prefer to see<br />a bound book because it helps them to visualise<br />what their edition could look like, or they might<br />like your impressive sales figures. Others,<br />however, might be put off by the fact that your<br />book has already appeared in the shops and may<br />be concerned that you’ve tapped the market for<br />yourself and there’s nothing left.<br />There’s a new trend amongst the bigger<br />publishing houses towards looking at self<br />published books in the hope of finding a gem<br />that they can take on. <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0552772968/summersdalecom" target="_blank"></a><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0552772968/summersdalecom" target="_blank">A Year in the Merde </a>by<br />Stephen Clarke and <a href="http://www.summersdale.com/product_info.php?cPath=2_31_74_86&products_id=360" target="_blank"></a><a href="http://www.summersdale.com/product_info.php?cPath=2_31_74_86&products_id=360" target="_blank">The Sea on Our Left </a>by Shally<br />Hunt are both examples of self published books<br />that became bestsellers when taken on by larger<br />publishing companies.<br />Vanity publishing<br />This is when authors pay a publisher to take on<br />their book. The vanity publisher makes a profit<br />out of the author and therefore doesn’t need to<br />sell any copies of the book to make a living. Any<br />copies they actually print belong to them, not the<br />author, so if the author wants stock to sell to<br />friends and family they have to pay for it (again).alya.senhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13860695185096745845noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-297068098598598997.post-33311238878451932992006-12-14T22:10:00.000-08:002006-12-14T22:11:09.059-08:00AgentsA<br />LITERARY AGENT<br />provides a filtering service for<br />publishers. They select only the best writers and<br />attempt to sell the work of those writers to the<br />major publishing houses. Agents develop<br />working relationships with the publishers in<br />order to ensure they are able to supply the right<br />kind of book each time.<br />The largest publishers will only look at book<br />proposals submitted by agents, so if you want to<br />get published in a big way then you need an agent.<br />They’ll take a percentage of any earnings you<br />make, but they’ll probably be able to negotiate a<br />better deal for you in the first place so there’s no<br />doubt that they earn their money.<br />The trouble is that getting a deal with an agent<br />is just as hard as getting one with a publisher.<br />They won’t sign you up unless they are confident<br />that they can sell your writing. In order to<br />continue to provide a good service to all of their<br />existing client authors, an agent won’t sign up<br />too many new writers.<br />Realistically, then, the top agents present a<br />closed door to most new authors. You won’t have<br />so much difficulty getting signed up by a new<br />agency or one that is based in a small town, but<br />their clout with publishers won’t be much<br />stronger than your own.<br />Agents are listed in the same writing directories<br />as the publishers, and usually they want to see<br />the same kind of proposals. Bear in mind that<br />agents like to nurture long-term relationships<br />with writers, so if you can persuade them that<br />you will be a full-time author with a string of<br />exciting forthcoming books lined up then the<br />proposition becomes more attractive to them.alya.senhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13860695185096745845noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-297068098598598997.post-79797518585733671622006-12-14T22:09:00.000-08:002006-12-14T22:10:24.164-08:00eBooksCOMPARED TO THE<br />printed version of a book, the<br />eBook offers several benefits:<br />•<br />The eBook can be downloaded instantly<br />from a website into a computer, mobile<br />phone, PDA or soon into an iPod.<br />•<br />The text is searchable.<br />•<br />The eBook can contain hyperlinks to<br />relevant websites for further information.<br />In the same way that people are ‘ripping’ their<br />CD collection into their iPods, boxing up the old<br />discs and putting them into the attic, we now have<br />the same option available to us for our book<br />collections.<br />It’s not a concept that appeals to everyone, but<br />the ability to carry an entire library in your pocket<br />will at least lighten a few holiday suitcases that<br />were previously stuffed with heavy novels.<br />Internet publishing<br />There are publishers who only produce eBooks.<br />Their investment in each title published is much<br />lower than in the traditional model because they<br />avoid print, storage and delivery costs for their<br />products. Therefore they can publish more books<br />than other firms and do not need to reject such<br />high percentages of the submissions they receive.<br />But most authors don’t want to let go of the<br />dream of seeing copies of their book on the<br />shelves of a bookshop and are reluctant to accept<br />publication only in eBook formats.<br />I’ve published books that have gone<br />straight into eBook editions for sale on the<br />Internet. No printed copies were ever<br />made. This was done because the market<br />for them seemed too risky to warrant any<br />investment in a physical print run. Internet<br />publishing eliminates 90% of the costs<br />associated with bringing out a book, and<br />therefore enables more authors to have<br />their work read by readers than would<br />otherwise be possible.alya.senhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13860695185096745845noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-297068098598598997.post-23054861159003953392006-12-14T22:06:00.000-08:002006-12-14T22:09:27.984-08:00The business of bookshopsI<br />T<br />’<br />S USEFUL FOR<br />an author to understand the<br />workings of the high street bookshops in order<br />to have a realistic sense of what publishers have<br />to do to sell books and how you can help them<br />to develop the products they need.<br />Buying decisions<br />Bookshop staff need to make commercial<br />decisions regarding which new and old books<br />they want to stock in their shops. Some will meet<br />regularly with representatives of publishing<br />companies and wholesalers to be shown<br />information about forthcoming books; others<br />will buy from catalogues, customer requests or<br />the Internet. Choosing which books to keep in<br />stock is a tricky art. The bookseller needs to be<br />aware of the social class and ethnicity of its<br />customer base, who the ‘hot’ authors of the day<br />happen to be, and whether there are local reasons<br />why particular titles need to be stocked such as<br />those related to courses at local colleges. The track<br />record of an author, publisher, or series of books<br />is also taken into account together with the<br />limitations of a monthly purchasing budget.<br />I spent many years ‘repping’ new books<br />into bookshops, and it was often a struggle.<br />It could never be guaranteed that every<br />book I published would be stocked by<br />every bookshop. Frequently as many as<br />half the shops I visited would say ‘no<br />thanks’ to a forthcoming book. Some shops<br />would be sufficiently excited to order<br />enough copies to create a pile on a table<br />or a ‘pocket’ on the shelf (where the books<br />are face-out instead of spine-on), but<br />others would reluctantly take a single copy.<br />Buying decisions appeared arbitrary, so<br />each book’s coverage of the country would<br />be patchy at best. In some towns it would<br />be impossible to find our books. In others<br />we’d find everyone was buying them.<br />Some of the problems I had in persuading buyers<br />to stock the book in their shops were related to<br />personal opinions or prejudice. Understandably,<br />we all tend to make purchasing decisions based<br />on what we like, and booksellers are no different.<br />It’s their job to be objective and to select books<br />for their customers, not themselves, but<br />inevitably personal preferences get in the way.<br />Many bookshop workers I encountered were<br />poorly paid and not sufficiently motivated to care<br />too much about being objective. But this is<br />understandable because profit margins for<br />bookshops are very tight and, like publishing, it’s<br />a risky, investment-heavy business.<br />When a publisher attempts to sell their new<br />titles to a bookshop they face a similar challenge<br />to that of an author trying to sell their book<br />concept to a publisher. The publisher, like the<br />bookseller, should be objective and neutral in<br />their commissioning decisions. But that isn’t the<br />way the world works. Publishers have<br />preferences and prejudices too and they will reject<br />books they simply don’t like or don’t approve of,<br />even though other readers might like them. But<br />in the same way that a publisher simply visits<br />another bookshop after failing to make a sale, an<br />author must try another publisher as soon as the<br />book proposal is rejected.<br />Shelf space<br />Go into any bookshop and the chances are that<br />every shelf and table is full of books. It makes<br />sense: the shops are trying to offer the widest<br />range of books possible in order to attract the<br />most customers, so all the space in the shop is<br />used to its fullest extent.<br />Many authors and customers assume that what<br />you see on the shelves is just the tip of the iceberg<br />of a shop’s available stock, and that for every copy<br />at the front of the store there will be ten or twenty<br />hidden away in their stockroom out the back.<br />Bookshops do have stock rooms, but they are for<br />processing incoming<br />parcels and outgoing<br />unsold books. Only<br />exceptionally fast-selling<br />books will have spare stock<br />kept out of sight of the<br />public.<br />So if the shelves are full,<br />how can they order new<br />books?<br />Fortunately,<br />customers buy books each day. That creates just<br />enough slack in the system to be able to slot in<br />the new stock. It’s a difficult balancing act,<br />frequently requiring older books to be returned<br />to the publishers in order to make way for the<br />new ones. And that is why a newly published<br />author is often shocked and disappointed to<br />discover that their book is not in stock in all<br />bookshops and where it is stocked there is only a<br />single copy available.<br />Subject areas<br />Bookshops have to divide and label their shelf<br />space according to standard subject areas. This<br />enables the customer to find the right kind of<br />book easily. History is on one shelf, cookery is<br />on another. Easy.<br />Complications arise when a book is published<br />that is about the history of cooking. Which<br />section should it go in? The bookseller may make<br />a random decision between the available options,<br />which means a customer who reads a review and<br />comes in looking for that book only has a 50%<br />chance of finding it unless they visit both shelves<br />(which might be on different floors of the<br />building). For this reason it is vital to write a book<br />that will fit into a pre-existing genre. Don’t try<br />to invent a new genre: there won’t be a shelf for<br />it and it won’t sell.<br />Time given for a book to sell<br />Bookshops have agreements with the publishers<br />whose books they stock allowing them to return<br />unsold books after a certain minimum amount<br />of time. Books fail to sell for a number of reasons.<br />It could be that the shop arranges a particular<br />subject alphabetically by the author’s name,<br />resulting in books by a writer whose surname<br />begins with a Y being placed on the bottom shelf<br />where no one can see it without getting down<br />on their knees. It could be that the book is wrong<br />for the kind of population in the bookshop’s<br />catchment area. Maybe it received bad reviews<br />or didn’t get any publicity at all. Thin books<br />placed spine-on can get lost amongst larger<br />books. The bookseller may have placed the book<br />on the correct shelf only for a browsing customer<br />to pick it up and place it on a different shelf so<br />that no one finds it again.<br />These and dozens of other reasons explain why<br />at least a fifth of all books sold into bookshops<br />by publishers are returned some months later.<br />This can have interesting effects on royalty<br />statements, because the author is paid when a<br />bookshop makes a purchase but if the books ‘sold’<br />are subsequently returned and there are more<br />returns than sales in a subsequent royalty period<br />then there could be negative royalty due. This<br />will be carried forward to the next statement –<br />the author won’t normally have to hand the<br />money back.<br />If a bookshop was not able to return unsold stock<br />they would gradually clog up with books, forcing<br />them to cut back on purchases of new books until<br />their business ground to a halt.<br />Prime space<br />Certain areas of bookshops are regarded as prime<br />selling space: the till points, the entrance, the<br />windows and the tables on the ground floor.<br />Prime space represents less than 1% of the<br />available space for books. Most new authors<br />imagine that their book will automatically be<br />positioned in prime selling space and feel let<br />down by their publishers when this doesn’t happen.<br />Prime space in the large bookshop chains is<br />often allocated for in-store promotions, such as<br />‘3 for 2’ (buy two books, get one free). Publishers<br />are asked to pay a share of the cost of the<br />promotion and to give extra discount to<br />compensate the bookseller who is effectively<br />giving away some of their stock for free. But<br />however keen a publisher may be to promote a<br />particular title in this way, the bookshop’s head<br />office will make the final decision as to which<br />titles to include. That’s one reason why your book<br />may not appear in the promotion. Another reason<br />is that the costs to the publisher of including it<br />are simply uneconomical and the publisher<br />refuses to take part.<br />Seasons<br />Bookselling is a seasonal business. More books<br />are bought as gifts for others than are bought by<br />people who actually want to read them<br />themselves. So gift books and humour books sell<br />particularly well as Christmas stocking-fillers.<br />Little romantic books sell in early February just<br />before St Valentine’s Day. Travel guides sell in<br />huge numbers in early summer as people prepare<br />to go on holiday. Exam guides sell prior to any<br />exam dates.<br />To make the most of this seasonal effect,<br />booksellers sometimes have to clear out books<br />in order to make space for the big seasonal titles.<br />As an author, this means you might see your book<br />disappear from the shelves only to return a few<br />months later.<br />Very few books sell evenly<br />throughout the year, and<br />this is primarily due to the<br />huge market distortion<br />caused by Christmas.<br />The difficulties of being a bookseller<br />A typical bookshop stocks 70,000 titles (out of<br />almost a couple of million currently in print).<br />Many of them are steady backlist sellers that any<br />customer would expect to find, such as<br />Shakespeare plays, Jane Austen novels and<br />Wordsworth poems. In order to stock new titles<br />a bookseller has to drop old ones. Making<br />decisions like that whilst dealing with customer<br />questions and operating till points and unpacking<br />stock parcels is not easy. How many new titles<br />should the shop take on when there are over<br />100,000 new books published each year?<br />In order to be able to keep in stock the range<br />of backlist titles that customers expect the choice<br />of new titles is limited to as little as 5,000. So<br />95% of new books will not be stocked and the<br />bookseller has to reject new titles presented to<br />them every day.<br />However, it’s not quite the case that 95% of<br />new books are turned down: many books are not<br />intended for sale in high street shops in the first<br />place and the bookshops are never told about<br />them. Specialist text books, for instance, are sold<br />to libraries and through other channels. Some<br />publishers don’t have reps to show the books to<br />the shops. Some of the ‘new’ books are, in fact,<br />new editions of older books and don’t need to<br />be re-sold into the trade.<br />Wholesalers<br />A wholesaler stocks books from all publishers,<br />thus providing a useful service for any shops that<br />want to lower their administration costs by only<br />dealing with one supplier instead of hundreds of<br />publishers. The publisher sells books to the<br />wholesaler, and the wholesaler then sell the books<br />to the shops.<br />The Internet<br />Currently the dominant player in Internet<br />bookselling is Amazon, which has sites catering<br />for several countries. Its drawbacks include the<br />inability to hold a book and flick through its pages<br />before buying and the delay between purchasing<br />the book and its arrival by post. But the<br />advantages of this business model are<br />considerable. Firstly, every book in print (and<br />even those not in print) is listed on the website.<br />Armchair shopping is an obvious bonus, and the<br />listing of reviews by readers of each book adds a<br />dimension that high street shops could not<br />match.<br />Amazon buys some of its stock from wholesalers,<br />but many of its titles are kept in its warehouses<br />‘on consignment’. This means that publishers<br />deliver stock to them without an invoice: Amazon<br />only pays the publisher once the books have been<br />sold. This can create a distortion in royalty<br />accounts if the author knows the initial print run<br />and the current stock levels because significant<br />amounts of stock can disappear from the<br />publisher’s warehouse without the author<br />apparently receiving royalties from it. The royalties<br />from Amazon sales will appear in later statements<br />once Amazon has provided its own statements to<br />the publisher for books sold.alya.senhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13860695185096745845noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-297068098598598997.post-56069003216018016832006-12-14T22:03:00.000-08:002006-12-14T22:06:46.954-08:00The publishing process in a nutshellT<br />HE PRECISE DETAILS<br />vary according to the size of<br />publishing company involved, but the following<br />twenty stages are fairly typical of most companies.<br />1.<br />Manuscripts are submitted by authors and<br />agents to the editorial department for<br />consideration for publication.<br />2.<br />Some are rejected instantly, others are<br />discussed at editorial meetings.<br />3.<br />In-house or external readers will read and<br />report on the merits of the manuscript.<br />4.<br />If the reader’s report is positive, the sales<br />department will be consulted regarding<br />the book’s selling potential.<br />5.<br />Many factors are taken into account when<br />comparing manuscripts shortlisted for<br />publication.<br />6.<br />An offer to publish may then be made,<br />usually with a view to printing the book a<br />year or two from that date.<br />7.<br />This gives enough time for the editor to<br />work on the manuscript, suggesting<br />rewrites, re-structuring and correcting<br />errors.<br />8.<br />Meanwhile a designer will work on a cover<br />image.<br />9.<br />The publicist will request a photo and<br />biographical information from the author<br />to help create the press release.<br />10.<br />Other editors will write a blurb for the<br />book’s jacket and will register an ISBN<br />from which a bar code can be generated<br />for the back cover.<br />11.<br />The sales department will create an<br />Advance Information (AI) sheet consisting<br />of the cover design, the ISBN, the title<br />and author details, the blurb, and the<br />book’s price, dimensions, binding, release<br />date and selling points.<br />12.<br />This AI sheet will be duplicated for the<br />sales reps to take into bookshops in order<br />to achieve advance orders.<br />13.<br />The company website will be updated to<br />include details of the forthcoming book,<br />and an entry will be included in its next<br />printed catalogue.<br />14.<br />All of the book information will be<br />submitted to the publisher’s warehousing<br />company and to the industry databases<br />from which Amazon and high street shops<br />obtain their computer book data.<br />15.<br />A small number of uncorrected ‘proof’<br />copies of the book may be quickly typeset<br />and printed some months ahead of the<br />publication date and sent to key reviewers<br />and book trade buyers.<br />16.<br />The book will be typeset.<br />17.<br />A final proofread is done.<br />18.<br />The book is sent to the printing presses.<br />19.<br />A month or so later it arrives in the<br />warehouse with a few weeks to spare<br />before it is delivered to the shops.<br />20.<br />In the couple of weeks following the<br />publication date the publicist will attempt<br />to get the author interviewed as widely<br />as possible.<br />After that, there is little the publisher can do. The<br />book has to make its own way in the harsh world<br />of retail bookselling. The publisher has given it a<br />strong push, but doesn’t have the resources to<br />keep pushing it forever. After all, there are other<br />books coming along which need its attention.<br />If a publisher releases fifty titles a year, that’s about<br />one per week going through its system. Every<br />person working on that book must get their job<br />done in less than forty hours, otherwise they’ll fall<br />behind schedule. That’s why as an author it’s<br />important to be realistic about what a publisher<br />will be able to do for you after the book is printed.<br />You will only be the number one priority for forty<br />working hours!<br />Editorial<br />The most senior editor is usually the<br />commissioning editor. The choice of which<br />books a company should publish is crucial to its<br />success, so that role tends to be reserved for<br />experienced individuals. Editors nurture<br />relationships with authors and agents, sometimes<br />working with the same authors for many years.<br />Editors work on manuscripts through various<br />stages. Initially there may be structural editing,<br />involving the rearrangement of the order of<br />chapters or the elimination or addition of an<br />entire theme. Usually suggestions are made and<br />the author carries out the actual restructuring,<br />but sometimes the editor will do the work.<br />Following the structural edit comes the copy edit,<br />in which the text is examined at a closer level.<br />An editor may recommend rephrasing of<br />paragraphs with repetitive vocabulary, for<br />instance, or they may identify inconsistencies of<br />style. Zooming in still closer the editor finally<br />comes to the proofreading stage. This often<br />happens after the typesetting of the book has been<br />completed, enabling them to spot layout errors<br />as well as spelling and grammatical errors that<br />have slipped through the net.<br />Sales<br />The sales department consists of a sales manager<br />and teams of national and international sales<br />representatives. The sales manager will ensure<br />the reps on the road are kept supplied with up-<br />to-date sales literature and samples, and may also<br />visit the head offices of key accounts such as<br />wholesalers and major bookshop chains. The<br />reps themselves visit individual shops and other<br />head offices to show the buyers what is coming<br />out in the next few months and to take orders.<br />The orders are then sent to the warehouse to be<br />entered into a computerised invoicing system.<br />Long before the publisher sends the book to be<br />printed they know the number of orders already<br />achieved and can adjust their print run<br />accordingly.<br />Normally the number of advance orders<br />will be multiplied by at least three to take<br />account of late arriving orders and<br />reorders from shops where the initial<br />stocks of the book sell through quickly.<br />Publishers aim to print about six to twelve<br />months’ worth of stock at a time.<br />Warehousing and distribution<br />Publishers normally employ third party<br />distributors to handle their book storage,<br />invoicing and despatch. This tends to be more<br />cost effective than doing it themselves because<br />distributors can take advantage of lower postage<br />costs by bundling orders from various publishers<br />into the same box to be delivered to a bookshop.<br />So when books are printed only a small quantity<br />of them is actually seen by the publishers: the<br />rest are delivered into a warehouse many miles<br />away from their offices.<br />Publicity<br />Selling a new title into the bookshops is only<br />halfway to making a genuine sale because unsold<br />stock will be returned for credit. The best way to<br />avoid returns is to make sure the public hears<br />about the book and makes the effort to visit the<br />bookshop specifically to buy that title. Publishers<br />employ in-house or freelance publicists to liase<br />with press, radio and television media in order<br />to get coverage for the book or the author in the<br />form of reviews, competitions, interviews, news<br />stories, extracts or features. The process begins<br />with a press release that is posted or e-mailed to<br />suitable recipients, and may be followed by a<br />launch party and schmoozing lunches. Don’t<br />assume all new books are celebrated by launch<br />parties, though. It usually doesn’t benefit sales<br />very much, so unless you’re prepared to fund and<br />organise it yourself the chances of your first<br />published book having the honour of a launch<br />party are only slightly better than the odds of<br />getting published in the first place.<br />Design<br />The design department has the crucial task of<br />typesetting attractive pages, creating irresistible<br />covers, designing trade catalogues, adverts,<br />leaflets, posters and press releases. This work is<br />sometimes outsourced to freelancers or design<br />companies. The success of a book product hangs<br />almost entirely on its design. Over-eager authors<br />have been known to put pressure on their<br />publishers to use their own artwork despite its<br />inappropriateness for the market. Publishers, too,<br />make mistakes in the design of their book covers.<br />It’s an art, not a science, and it’s very easy to get<br />the look of a book so wrong that it doesn’t sell.<br />Publishers appreciate ideas for cover designs from<br />authors, and it’s useful when the writer provides<br />quality photos or artwork that can be used on<br />the front cover, but ultimately the publisher must<br />decide whether it is in everyone’s best interests<br />to use those materials or not.<br />Accounting<br />Authors who receive royalties for their books will<br />be sent statements of sales either annually or<br />every six months. In larger publishing houses<br />there will be a department that deals with these<br />reports and their subsequent payments. Editors<br />and owners of smaller publishers tend to work<br />out the royalties themselves. Most contracts will<br />state that the publisher is obliged to pay any<br />royalties within three months of the statement<br />date. My publishing company always tries to pay<br />royalties with the statement, which usually means<br />the author receives their money more than two<br />months early. But I’m aware of other companies<br />(which I won’t name) where the unofficial policy<br />has been to prepare a royalty statement only when<br />the author chases it.<br />Keep a note in your diary as to when the<br />statement is due and don’t be afraid to chase late<br />payments. It’s also vital to keep the publisher<br />informed when you change your address because<br />royalties often get sent to the wrong place.<br />Rights<br />Publishers have two ways of earning money from<br />books. One way is to sell copies of the book,<br />either printed or electronic, and the other way is<br />to sell rights. The kinds of rights that are<br />commonly sold are translation, large print,<br />extract, serial, film options, and overseas English<br />language. No physical product has to be<br />produced by the publisher when these rights are<br />sold, so their profit margin per transaction is high<br />and that is why the author usually receives a<br />higher percentage of the income than they do<br />for the sales of the printed book.<br />What happens to the books?<br />It’s not quite as simple as saying that all the copies<br />printed will be sold and the author will receive<br />some money for every one. Let’s say an author is<br />told by their publisher that 3,000 copies of their<br />book will be printed. How many copies are likely<br />to be available for sale?<br />The following numbers are typical of what could<br />happen:<br />• For technical reasons the printer is not obliged to<br />deliver the correct amount – it can vary by about 5%<br />up or down, and in this instance only 2,900 books are<br />delivered.<br />• The publicist will send 50 copies to reviewers.<br />• The sales manager will send 30 copies to key bookshop<br />managers.<br />• The author will receive 10 free copies.<br />• The sales reps (let’s say 8 of them) will each have 3<br />copies to show off to the bookshops.<br />• The rights manager will send 30 copies to publishers<br />in other countries who may be interested in buying<br />translation or territorial rights and will keep 20 copies<br />available to take to book fairs.<br />• The publisher will also keep a small stack of 20 copies<br />of the book in their office just in case they receive<br />enquiries from other reviewers or potential customers<br />in the months after publication.<br />• 10 copies will be damaged in transit or in storage.<br />• 6 copies will be bound incorrectly by the printer.<br />That amounts to 200 copies that are not available<br />for sale, plus the 100 copies that the printer<br />delivered short, which comes to 300 copies in<br />total.<br />So in this example, 10% of the stated print run<br />never makes it onto the author’s royalty statement.<br />The percentage can be much higher if books are<br />lost, the warehouse is flooded, half of the print<br />run arrives with the covers bound upside-down,<br />or the publisher decides to spray free copies of<br />the book at every reviewer in the land. They, not<br />the author, own the books after all. The publisher<br />pays for the books and can give away as many as<br />they like. But they have the same interest as the<br />author in selling as many as possible, so however<br />many they give away it’s probably in the<br />expectation that the freebies will lead to extra sales.<br />What happens when a book stops selling?<br />Most publishing contracts permit the publisher<br />to remainder unsold books if they deem it<br />necessary, usually not less than two years after<br />the date of publication.<br />They will only do this if they consider your<br />book to be no longer commercially viable. Sales<br />will have dropped to about zero (or may even be<br />negative due to returns) and the cost of storing<br />the books will outweigh the income from them.<br />Remainder dealers buy this kind of ‘dead’ stock<br />at knock-down prices, often just token amounts<br />of money, and sell the books in discount book<br />stores. When this happens, authors are normally<br />entitled to purchase as many copies as they want<br />at the discounted remainder price.<br />If no buyer can be found for the stock then<br />the publisher will offer it to the author for free.<br />If the author is not excited at the prospect of<br />clogging up their house with dusty boxes of<br />unsaleable books then the publisher will arrange<br />for them to be pulped.<br />In the past, the sale of stock to a remainder<br />dealer or the pulping of every last copy meant<br />the end of the life of the book. But new<br />technology has created other options for books<br />at this stage of their life.<br />Print-on-demand means that a book is<br />officially available as far as Amazon and high<br />street bookshops are concerned, but the publisher<br />holds no stock at all. When an order arrives it is<br />automatically diverted to a specialist printer who<br />holds digital files for that book, from which they<br />can print and despatch one copy direct to the<br />bookshop.<br />This sounds so simple that you’d expect<br />publishers to do that automatically so that they<br />can do away with their warehousing expenses,<br />but unfortunately the cost of printing a single<br />copy of a book is many times more than the unit<br />cost of a print run of several thousand.<br />The other ways in which a book can continue to<br />live beyond its physical print run are as an eBook,<br />an audio book, or as an edition published in<br />another country.<br />Book fairs<br />Publishers get together at trade fairs to meet with<br />each other and agents to buy and sell book rights.<br />The London Book Fair, the Frankfurt Book Fair<br />and Book Expo America attract the highest<br />attendance, but there are also many others around<br />the world.<br />A publisher based in one country may choose<br />to sell the right to translate (if necessary) and sell<br />one of their books in another country. It’s possible<br />for a book published in one country to be sold to<br />a dozen or more publishers in other countries,<br />each of which will arrange their own translations.<br />Authors do well from foreign rights sales, usually<br />earning at least half of the net income received.<br />Book fairs are ideal opportunities to chat with<br />the smaller publishers and if you’re lucky you’ll<br />be able to pitch your book to them. But<br />publishers aren’t there to sign up new books –<br />they’re there to sell rights to their existing list<br />and they hate being cornered by an author who<br />talks for so long that a potential rights customer<br />walks away. So publishers are often wary of<br />catching the eye of any passing writer.<br />You may feel anonymous walking around a<br />busy book fair but actually it’s very easy<br />for a publisher to spot an author amongst<br />the suits. Apart from the fact that authors<br />have to wear a badge with their name and<br />the word ‘AUTHOR’ on it, they tend to<br />wear hats, carry small rucksacks and dress<br />in a way that is uniquely authorian.<br />Publishers have been known to pretend to<br />be in a meeting simply to avoid having to<br />talk to them.<br />At a recent London Book Fair one of my own<br />authors came up to me wearing a suit and a badge<br />with his company name on it, rather than his own<br />name. He told me it was easier to get to talk to<br />publishers when hiding behind a company name<br />(albeit the company consists solely of him)<br />because they prefer talking to perceived<br />professional business people rather than writers.<br />He wrote humorous books – I don’t think this<br />approach could be applied to weightier books like<br />novels. If you want to take advantage of trade fairs<br />to get useful networking time with publishers,<br />just remember three things: editors of larger<br />companies don’t always attend the fairs, so you<br />might not meet the right people; dress like a<br />publisher (smart, but not too smart); leave your<br />hat at home.<br />Creating a (fake) company to hide behind is<br />simple. Just call it something like YOUR NAME<br />LITERARY SERVICES and explain that you<br />write books to order. I know it’s silly, but for some<br />reason it can open more doors for you than<br />simply calling yourself an author.alya.senhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13860695185096745845noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-297068098598598997.post-14529334392010759492006-12-14T22:02:00.000-08:002006-12-14T22:03:14.107-08:00The perils of publishingE<br />VERY BOOK PUBLISHED<br />is a new product, so<br />publishers have to keep on finding, developing,<br />perfecting and releasing new products. New<br />products are inherently risky. No one knows in<br />advance how many copies will be sold or whether<br />the readers will like it. It costs money to get the<br />new product known to the public. So publishers<br />are gambling large sums of money with every<br />book they bring out.<br />Compare this to other industries, such as<br />producers of food or drink. They can rely on sales<br />of the same product for decades. Customers will<br />buy the same beer, orange juice, bread or<br />chocolate all of their lives. But no one (in their<br />right mind) buys the same book more than once,<br />and certainly not every week for sixty years.<br />Publishing is a tough business, but it does have<br />its rewards. After years of struggling, a publisher<br />can release a surprise bestseller and its profits<br />can go through the roof. But this success<br />brings its own problems. Firstly, there is the<br />disappointment that comes the following year<br />when there is no bestseller and the company’s<br />income drops back down again. Secondly, if extra<br />staff and financial commitments are taken on<br />during a period of success, this can act like a lead<br />lifebelt when that run of success is over. No<br />books remain in the bestseller charts forever, and<br />no one can guarantee to publish books that will<br />duplicate the success of previous winners.<br />The cashflow of a publishing business is<br />challenging at the best of times. Almost three<br />quarters of all book sales occur in the run-up to<br />Christmas. Therefore during most of the year a<br />publisher’s income is limited. When an author<br />is paid an advance on royalties, that money comes<br />out of the publisher’s pocket up to two years<br />before any income is received from sales of that<br />book. If too many expensive authors are signed<br />up in quick succession, the negative effect on the<br />publisher’s cashflow can be devastating.alya.senhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13860695185096745845noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-297068098598598997.post-4332590634296445522006-12-14T22:00:00.000-08:002006-12-14T22:02:20.495-08:00The publisherT<br />HE EMPLOYEES OF<br />the publishing company make<br />the decisions that will determine whether your<br />book is to be printed or not, and these people<br />consider not only the book, the author and the<br />market but also internal factors such as the size<br />and direction of the company, its state of financial<br />health and issues of internal politics.<br />1. Size of a publishing company<br />The size of a publishing company will affect how<br />many people are in each department and whether<br />it even has any departments. One person can run<br />a small publishing company, either doing<br />everything themselves or using freelance workers<br />as needed. Large publishing houses employ<br />hundreds of staff.<br />The larger the company, the greater the<br />number of people who need to be convinced of<br />the viability of your book in order for it to be<br />accepted. The Assistant Editor has to convince<br />one or two more senior editors, who in turn have<br />to convince an Editorial Director that your book<br />will be right for their list, will increase the<br />company’s reputation and will earn it money.<br />Offer it to a one-man band and there’s only<br />one obstacle in the way of publication: the owner<br />of the company. The trouble is that the amount<br />of money on offer from a large company will<br />usually be much<br />higher, as will the<br />chances of the book<br />being a success.<br />So how does the<br />size of a publishing<br />house fit into the<br />decision-making<br />process? On one<br />level, the size<br />affects the number<br />of titles they are<br />able to release in a year. Budget and human<br />resource restrictions will mean that some small<br />publishers would be spreading themselves too<br />thinly if they signed up more than ten books a<br />year. Of those ten books, typically two of them<br />might be by authors who have already been<br />published by that firm and one will be a new<br />edition of an older book. Two more might come<br />from publishers in another country (rights<br />purchases). That leaves just five books to be<br />selected from the slush pile each year.<br />Small firms receive fewer submissions than the<br />big boys, perhaps ten per week instead of a<br />hundred, but that still means they have to reject<br />about 98% of everything they receive, regardless<br />of its quality or suitability. Do the odds get any<br />more favourable for the author when looking at<br />the statistics of large publishers? Actually, no they<br />don’t. Very roughly, 98% of submissions will, in<br />fact, be rejected from all publishers.<br />2. Direction of a publishing company<br />Managers at the helm of a publishing company<br />normally want to take the firm in a particular<br />direction. That’s because publishing isn’t just<br />about the money; it’s also about the branding.<br />Publishers won’t take on any old book that they<br />think will make money, regardless of genre. They<br />are constantly thinking about the ‘direction’ in<br />which their company is going. That is to say they<br />are conscious of the kind of book they publish,<br />the kind of readership they attract, and the profile<br />of their brand in the trade. OK, so branding is<br />also about money, but in the wider sense than<br />the profitability of individual titles. Strong<br />branding helps to increase the value of the<br />company, which keeps the shareholders happy.<br />The idea of a publisher worrying about their<br />brand perception seems a little odd to the average<br />book reader who would be hard pressed to name<br />any publisher other than Penguin Books. But to<br />overseas publishers who regularly buy translation<br />rights, to freelance sales reps who have learned<br />how to sell that company’s products into the<br />shops, and to the bookshop workers who know<br />which companies have made a reputation for a<br />certain kind of book, the branding is essential.<br />Gaining a reputation in a particular subject area<br />enables a publisher to attract better-known<br />authors. It makes it easier for them to sell their<br />books into the shops and it makes direct<br />marketing more cost-effective. This book, for<br />instance, is part of a series of books on various<br />aspects of writing. This is more cost-effective<br />than having just a single title of interest to authors<br />because it costs the same to promote ten books<br />as it does to advertise one.<br />The direction in which a company is led means<br />that certain kinds of books will be off-limits to<br />its editors. The directors may decree that a genre<br />of books is to be dropped. Perhaps fiction is to<br />be their speciality and all non-fiction titles are to<br />be phased out. Equally they may actively<br />encourage their editors to sign up authors in a<br />particular genre. On a whim or for carefully<br />researched commercial reasons a publishing<br />director may decide to add a science list, a range<br />of gift books or a children’s list. Editors will know<br />in what direction their company is headed and<br />will consider this factor when commissioning<br />new books.<br />3. The publisher’s financial health<br />It’s possible for a company to shrink as well as to<br />grow. Publishers can suffer cashflow problems,<br />especially in their early years, and the financial<br />state of the firm can influence publishing<br />decisions. When times are hard there has to be a<br />reduction in the number of new books signed<br />up. Lower royalty advances will be offered. It’s<br />even possible for books already contracted to be<br />postponed or cancelled.<br />A publishing house riding on the back of recent<br />bestsellers will have enough cash in the bank to<br />be able to take risks with new books. Risky books<br />can bring greater than average rewards if<br />successful, but can also flop disastrously.<br />Publishers can afford a few failures every year so<br />long as they have enough hits to cover the losses.<br />But when a publisher is suffering from too many<br />misses and not enough hits, they analyse potential<br />risk very carefully before signing up a new title.<br />The following list contains the most important<br />factors they take into account when deciding on<br />the relative risk of a title.<br />How a publisher perceives risk<br />High risk<br />• New author<br />• Author has no agent<br />• Author has no reputation in the subject<br />• Author is paid an advance on royalties<br />• Book is expensive to print<br />• Book comes with only single country rights<br />• Book has no chance of sub-rights sales<br />• Book requires higher than average editorial input<br />• Book needs marketing campaign<br />• Book subject is outside of the publisher’s experience<br />• Potential readership is disparate<br />Low risk<br />• Established author<br />• Author has an agent<br />• Author is an acknowledged expert in the subject<br />• Author works for flat fee (or for free!)<br />• Book is cheap to print<br />• Book comes with world rights<br />• Book has potential for many rights sales<br />• Book requires little editing<br />• Book sells on the back of pre-existing publicity or demand<br />• Book is similar to previous titles successfully published<br />• Potential readership is easy to target<br />4. Internal politics<br />Editors are trying to build a reputation and a<br />career in publishing. They want to get noticed<br />by their boss for being the first to spot a potential<br />bestseller. The last thing they want is to make<br />the mistake of overlooking your proposal if you<br />subsequently send it to a rival publisher who<br />turns you into a celebrity author. Internal<br />publishing company politics is on your side from<br />this perspective. At the same time, editors want<br />to protect their positions by not signing up too<br />many books that don’t sell. To safeguard their<br />jobs they try not to take too many risks with new<br />kinds of writing. Sticking to a writing formula<br />that works or to subject areas or authors that they<br />know will work for them is a safe option that<br />many editors will take.<br />Also, individuals have agendas. They know the<br />prejudices and foibles of their boss and may try<br />to sign up books that they know will earn that<br />boss’s respect and appreciation. Or an editor may<br />disagree with an author’s world viewpoint<br />sufficiently to reject a book before anyone in the<br />company has a chance to see it.alya.senhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13860695185096745845noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-297068098598598997.post-27964973800681465182006-12-14T21:58:00.000-08:002006-12-14T22:00:43.261-08:00The marketA<br />QUARTER OF<br />the publishing decision is based<br />on what is happening in the book market and in<br />the economy as a whole. Publishers consider the<br />success of competing books and authors. They<br />examine shopping and literary trends, and they<br />pay attention to events in the outside world.<br />Finally, they consider whether your book fits an<br />identifiable niche.<br />1. Competition<br />When a publisher looks at your proposal they will<br />do a little research to find out how many<br />competing books are currently in print. Editors<br />will usually be familiar with the competition if<br />your proposal is in a subject area that they publish<br />all the time, but sometimes they will have a steep<br />learning curve to climb.<br />It doesn’t hurt to do your own market research<br />into competing books and to present that to an<br />editor with your proposal. Giving the dates of<br />publication of rival books will help: generally<br />speaking the older the title, the less significant<br />will be its market share.<br />Explain in your analysis of the market any<br />shortcomings of rival books and tell the editor<br />specifically why you are better qualified to write<br />on the subject than the other authors, and why<br />your book will tackle the subject in a more<br />authoritative and interesting way.<br />2. Trends<br />Fashions, crazes and trends all manage to twist<br />the buying patterns of the book-buying public.<br />Remember those ‘magic eye’ books that<br />swamped the market, sold millions then<br />disappeared? That’s a classic craze. Anyone able<br />to push a new magic eye book in front of a<br />publisher in those heady days would have walked<br />home that evening with a fat contract in their<br />pocket.<br />OK, so that’s not really about writing, but I’ve<br />published many successful books about people<br />buying houses in hot countries and their<br />experiences living there. In doing so I was<br />reacting to the market trend which indicated that<br />people had an insatiable appetite for this kind of<br />book and as long as they continue to sell I’ll be<br />following that trend and looking to publish more<br />of them.<br />3. Related events<br />If you propose a book about a historical event<br />and its publication date could coincide with a<br />significant anniversary of that event, then the<br />publisher has an extra angle upon which to get<br />publicity and more sales.<br /><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=210617" target="_blank">I recently published a book called </a><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=210617" target="_blank">Arthur: King</a><br /><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=210617" target="_blank">of the Britons</a><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=210617" target="_blank">. It was a fascinating exploration of</a><br /><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=210617" target="_blank">the King Arthur character and attempted to find</a><br /><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=210617" target="_blank">out what historical truth existed behind the</a><br /><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=210617" target="_blank">legend. But the quality of the writing was not</a><br /><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=210617" target="_blank">the only factor in deciding to publish this book:</a><br /><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=210617" target="_blank">the author wisely pointed out in his initial</a><br /><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=210617" target="_blank">proposal that a major Hollywood film about</a><br /><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=210617" target="_blank">Arthur was currently in production. The film</a><br /><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=210617" target="_blank">would be getting publicity for itself and raising</a><br /><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=210617" target="_blank">the profile of Arthur in the media, and we knew</a><br />we could benefit from that ‘free ride’ of publicity<br />to sell more books.<br /><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=221373" target="_blank">The paperback</a><br /><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=221373" target="_blank">edition of </a><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=221373" target="_blank">The Age</a><br /><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=221373" target="_blank">of Scurvy </a><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=221373" target="_blank">was</a><br /><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=221373" target="_blank">brought out to</a><br /><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=221373" target="_blank">coincide with the</a><br /><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=221373" target="_blank">double centenary</a><br /><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=221373" target="_blank">of the battle of</a><br /><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=221373" target="_blank">Trafalgar. The</a><br />media hype gave the book a free publicity ride<br />and increased sales because people saw<br />documentaries about the battle on television or<br />read about the anniversary in the press and then<br />went into bookshops looking for books on the<br />subject.<br />Whenever I mention that I published a book<br />for this kind of reason, don’t think that the book<br />was accepted just for those external reasons.<br />Every book was also well written and researched.<br />They fitted our publishing programme, they had<br />fresh ideas with an original angle. But they also<br />had that extra magic ingredient of being tied to<br />events that were about to happen. Hundreds of<br />other books that were also well written and<br />researched would have been under consideration<br />by my editors at the same time, but it was those<br />external factors that in some cases made the<br />difference and helped us to choose one book over<br />another when combined with the other factors<br />listed in this chapter.<br />Publishers who jump onto passing<br />bandwagons in this way can achieve impressive<br />book sales very quickly, but they can also lose<br />money if they jump on too late and find<br />themselves left with thousands of books that<br />won’t sell. Print runs to satisfy the demands of<br />market hype have to be huge. When the fourth<br />and long-awaited <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0001ZE1OU/summersdalecom" target="_blank"></a><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0001ZE1OU/summersdalecom" target="_blank">Star Wars </a>film was released the<br />publisher of the official tie-in books<br />overestimated the demand and was nearly<br />crippled by hundreds of thousands of books that<br />were returned unsold from the shops.<br />Despite occasional bad experiences publishers<br />in general will be keen to sign up a book that<br />they think can hitch a ride on a bandwagon<br />because they want to be in with a chance of a hit<br />publication. If you’re aware of any forthcoming<br />dates, films, television series, sporting events or<br />anything else that is relevant to your book<br />proposal, let the publisher know about it,<br />preferably a year or two in advance.<br />4. Niche<br />My publishing career started in 1990 with a self<br />published book called The Busker’s Guide to Europe<br />which revealed the best spots throughout the<br />continent for earning money from street<br />entertainment.<br />I knew at the time that the market for such a<br />book would be limited, but I was reassured by a<br />book I’d read about self publishing which stated<br />that a book would succeed provided it fitted a<br />niche, no matter how small. I would now qualify<br />that advice by pointing out that the smaller the<br />niche the more important it is to be able to<br />contact potential readers within that niche easily.<br />Buskers are not the easiest group to contact by<br />mailshot: I found myself visiting town centres<br />and dropping order forms for my book into<br />buskers’ guitar cases and hats (I still remember<br />the hundreds of disappointed faces when they<br />realised it wasn’t cash I was giving them). The<br />thousand copies I printed took about six years to<br />sell, which is not a rate of sale that could be<br />considered a success in the publishing business.<br />Be aware of the best way to contact your<br />potential readers and<br />list those ways in<br />your cover letter to<br />publishers.<br />Examples of ways<br />to contact niche<br />readers could be through:<br />1. Specialist magazines<br />2. Clubs<br />3. Unions<br />4. Societies<br />5. Charities<br />6. Colleges<br />7. Websites<br />8. Extended families<br />9. Local communities<br />How many guaranteed or highly likely<br />potential sales to niche customers would<br />persuade a publisher to keep your<br />manuscript out of the rejection pile?<br />Number<br />of sales<br />Effect on the editor<br />10 copies<br />won’t make a difference.<br />100 copies<br />would be nice but won’t swing<br />things your way.<br />500 copies<br />will make an editor think twice.<br />1,000 copies<br />would put a smile on their<br />bespectacled faces.<br />When you present a book submission with clear<br />evidence of a quantifiable market you know that<br />the niche aspect of the decision making process<br />will go in your favour.alya.senhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13860695185096745845noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-297068098598598997.post-90756591574280169662006-12-14T21:56:00.000-08:002006-12-14T21:58:48.536-08:00The authorY<br />OU<br />,<br />AS THE<br />author of a manuscript, can play a<br />significant role in influencing an editor’s<br />decision. They will consider your reputation as<br />a writer or expert, your personality, your previous<br />books (if any) and whatever publicity you may<br />have achieved about yourself and your writing.<br />1. Reputation<br />An author is a brand. Your name stands for<br />something when you become a published writer.<br />People read your work and form an opinion<br />about you – that is your reputation. If they<br />enjoyed your book they will be predisposed to<br />consider purchasing your next book, just as if a<br />person buys a particular brand of car and has a<br />good experience owning that car they will be<br />likely to buy that brand again.<br />So building a reputation under your name is a<br />way to ensure a guaranteed readership for your<br />future books. You are building a brand name, and<br />brand names have value. That is the reason why<br />successful authors can command higher royalty<br />advances than first time authors. The brand<br />building is already done. The publisher hasn’t<br />got to go through the expensive business of<br />promoting a new book on the basis of its contents<br />– simply announcing ‘the new Dan Brown<br />thriller’ or ‘the new Delia Smith cookbook’ is<br />enough to get booksellers racing to their shelves<br />to make space for something they know is going<br />to be popular.<br />But ‘the first Joe Bloggs book’ won’t generate<br />the same kind of excitement. Therefore the risks<br />are higher for the<br />publisher because<br />they have to spend<br />more money to tell<br />the public about this<br />author.<br />Promoting a new book by a famous author is<br />cheap and easy: television chat shows will<br />interview the author and plug the book;<br />newspaper and magazine reviewers will feature<br />it; bookshops will place it prominently; the<br />Amazon website will make sure there are plenty<br />of links to it.<br />Everything is tougher with a new author.<br />Television appearances are not out of the question<br />(I’ve plugged many of my books on television,<br />starting way back with my first book – all it took<br />was a press release sent to the production<br />companies of various chat shows) but it’s not<br />something that can be counted on because it<br />depends on the type of book and whether it can<br />be presented to the media with an interesting<br />angle. Reviews will be shorter, smaller and fewer.<br />Bookshops will stock a single copy, spine-on, if<br />at all. Amazon will have a page for the book, as<br />they do for all registered books, but won’t make<br />a big song and dance about it.<br />So the only option left for the publisher who<br />wants to achieve high sales for this new author is<br />to spend money (which they hate doing) on<br />advertising and promotional materials to bring<br />the book to the attention of the public.<br />This is all very well, but you’re reading this<br />book because you want to get published for the<br />first time so there’s no way for you to develop a<br />following of thousands of devoted readers<br />beforehand. Don’t panic: an author’s reputation<br />doesn’t necessarily have to come from previous<br />books. There are a few more ways in which a<br />reputation can help you, but they still only apply<br />to a minority of writers.<br />Reputation as a specialist or expert in any field<br />will make it far easier to get a book on your area<br />of expertise published. For example, a reputation<br />within the scientific or academic community is<br />helpful when attempting to get a science textbook<br />published. Reputation as a stand-up comedian<br />will open doors when trying to get a joke book<br />published. Reputation as a record-breaking solo<br />yachtsman will help to get your sailing memoirs<br />accepted.<br />That’s the kind of thing that can help swing<br />the publishing decision in your favour. The<br />trouble is we’re heading towards celebrity<br />territory here, which by definition rules out the<br />majority of us. Virtually any celebrity will be able<br />to get a book published, unless they are regarded<br />as ‘has-beens’ or unless their book has nothing<br />to do with the reason for their celebrity.<br /><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=187119" target="_blank">When the late Buster Merryfield who played Uncle</a><br /><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=187119" target="_blank">Albert in the sitcom </a><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=187119" target="_blank">Only Fools and Horses </a><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=187119" target="_blank">asked if</a><br /><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=187119" target="_blank">I would be interested in publishing his book, I was</a><br /><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=187119" target="_blank">pleased to see that it was a memoir called </a><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=187119" target="_blank">During</a><br /><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=187119" target="_blank">the War</a><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=187119" target="_blank">, which was his television character’s</a><br /><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=187119" target="_blank">famous catchphrase at the time.</a><br /><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=187119" target="_blank">I published it because he had a reputation on</a><br /><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=187119" target="_blank">television and because the title was right. If he had</a><br /><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=187119" target="_blank">presented me with a book he’d written about</a><br /><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=187119" target="_blank">someone else, with a different title, chances are I</a><br /><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=187119" target="_blank">would have rejected it.</a><br />2. Personality<br />A commissioning editor has to enter into a<br />business relationship lasting several years with<br />any author that gets signed up. Editors know that<br />although these relationships are often at arm’s<br />length they can be fraught with problems.<br />Authors are sensitive creatures with delicate egos<br />that need praising. They need attention and<br />sympathy. Sometimes they just need someone to<br />talk to (it’s a lonely business, writing, after all).<br />Editors, on the other hand, are very busy<br />people. They work hard preparing the text of<br />every book to make them as perfect as possible<br />prior to publication and it’s difficult to<br />concentrate when an author they published a<br />couple of years earlier angrily rings up and starts<br />complaining because a friend’s aunt went into a<br />bookshop and couldn’t find their book and was<br />erroneously told by the bookseller that it was out<br />of print. This scenario happens all the time, by<br />the way.<br />With many pressures on their time it’s hard<br />for an editor to give every author the attention<br />they indubitably deserve. Editors can get<br />defensive of their time: experience teaches them<br />to steer clear of timewasters.<br />What kind of personality are we talking about<br />here? How can you avoid being tarred with this<br />grossly unfair brush that is ‘timewaster’? The<br />answer lies less in how nice a person you may<br />be, and more in your ability to understand<br />the publishing and<br />bookselling industries.<br />It’s about whether you<br />can communicate with<br />a publisher on a<br />professional level. You<br />must give them the<br />space to do their job and<br />be able to turn complaints into a positive<br />communication. Instead of moaning that your<br />book isn’t in stock somewhere, e-mail or write<br />to the sales manager (it’s less intrusive than<br />phoning) pointing out that a potential sale could<br />be made in this particular shop.<br />This kind of thing applies once you’re already<br />a published author, so what about the first<br />contacts with the publisher? How do you avoid<br />being considered a potential troublemaker? This<br />is where knowledge of the industry you are<br />attempting to join will be invaluable. An author<br />who understands how bookselling and<br />publishing works will appear more relaxed, more<br />professional, and more experienced. The editor<br />will feel that there will be less time wasted<br />explaining away pointless questions arising from<br />the author’s lack of understanding of industry<br />procedures. It’s not the most important factor in<br />making a publishing decision, but it’s something<br />that any author can turn to their advantage by<br />demonstrating knowledge and understanding of<br />how publishing works. Part 2 of this book<br />explains everything you need to know about this.<br />3. Previous books<br />A publisher will consider your previous<br />experience as a writer. If you already have books<br />published it will only really help you if they are<br />relevant to the current proposal. Having a<br />cookbook in print won’t help you much in your<br />attempt to become a novelist. The publisher is<br />looking for evidence of previous books by you<br />in a related subject in order to ascertain the likely<br />sales levels for your current proposal. Strong<br />previous sales will sway the publishing decision<br />in your favour. Being the author of a flop or two<br />will only make things tougher.<br />If you’re trying to get your first book in print<br />then you can increase your chances by<br />demonstrating that you’ve been published in<br />journals, magazines, newspapers or websites.<br />Anything that is relevant to your book proposal<br />and shows some degree of acceptance as a writer<br />by a third party will help to increase your credibility<br />and ensure that your book idea is taken more<br />seriously.<br />4. Self-publicity<br />Anyone serious about getting published should<br />get articles about themselves, their writing and<br />their ambitions printed in the local press. Even<br />though your town’s newspaper won’t make you<br />nationally famous, it’s nevertheless impressive to<br />receive a book proposal together with newspaper<br />clippings showing that you’re not afraid to<br />promote yourself and your book. A pro-active<br />author will sell more books than a timid author,<br />so evidence of self-promotion is a big tick in your<br />favour.<br />Getting your face in a newspaper is easier than<br />you might think. Local papers always run features<br />on local writers – all they need is an angle, and<br />that angle could be that after years of research<br />you’re now ready to find a publisher. Just phone<br />them up or write to them asking if they’re<br />interested in running an interview about you and<br />your work.<br /><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=183964" target="_blank">One of the factors that impressed me when Geoff</a><br /><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=183964" target="_blank">Thompson approached me with his first book,</a><br /><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=183964" target="_blank">Watch My Back</a><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=183964" target="_blank">, was the publicity he had obtained</a><br /><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=183964" target="_blank">for himself. He phoned me up to ask if I would</a><br /><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=183964" target="_blank">like to see his book and mentioned that he had</a><br /><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=183964" target="_blank">received substantial press coverage about it.</a><br /><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=183964" target="_blank">Although it wasn’t the kind of book I was publishing</a><br /><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=183964" target="_blank">at the time, I was intrigued enough to ask to see</a><br /><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=183964" target="_blank">the manuscript because I was certain that he would</a><br /><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=183964" target="_blank">make a hard working and dedicated author who</a><br /><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=183964" target="_blank">wasn’t afraid to promote himself and his book. The</a><br /><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=183964" target="_blank">manuscript arrived together with impressive press</a><br /><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=183964" target="_blank">cuttings from regional newspapers profiling the</a><br /><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=183964" target="_blank">author and his book. Twenty-five Geoff Thompson</a><br /><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=183964" target="_blank">books, several films and a BAFTA award later I’m</a><br /><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=183964" target="_blank">certain this was the right decision.</a><br />Another way to gain publicity and credibility at<br />the same time is to win a writing competition.<br />Increase your chances of this simply by entering<br />as many as you can and if you win anything at all<br />then make sure your target publishers know<br />about it! The more prestigious the award the<br />bigger the influence it will have on an editor<br />because they know the sales manager can use<br />your win to help them sell your book into the<br />bookshops.alya.senhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13860695185096745845noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-297068098598598997.post-15661038484280249712006-12-14T21:52:00.000-08:002006-12-14T21:56:32.890-08:00The bookL<br />ET<br />’<br />S START BY<br />looking at the most obvious part<br />of a publisher’s decision-making process and how<br />you can maximise the saleability of your product.<br />Only a quarter of the publishing decision will<br />be based on your book proposal. Publishers are<br />often faced with many equally well-written<br />manuscripts from which they must choose one<br />to sign up – that’s when the other three-quarters<br />of the decision-making process kick in. But in<br />order to get into that position of being considered<br />against all the other submissions, your book must<br />first satisfy the following criteria: high quality of<br />writing; fresh ideas and a new angle; appropriate<br />format; great title and subtitle.<br />1. Quality of writing<br />There is no excuse for submitting a poorly<br />written manuscript. If you send a publisher a first<br />draft of your book without bothering to work<br />on it again and again until it’s so polished that<br />the publisher needs sunglasses to look at it, then<br />I’m afraid you deserve to be rejected. In my book<br /><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=214403" target="_blank">How to be a Writer </a>I explain the ten drafts that a<br />fiction writer must work through in order to be<br />confident that their manuscript is as polished as<br />it can be. Here’s a summary of the drafts a novel<br />should go through:<br />Draft 1<br />Type out a rough version of the whole book<br />Draft 2<br />Tighten the structure, fill in holes<br />Draft 3<br />Develop the characters<br />Draft 4<br />Improve the dialogue<br />Draft 5<br />Work on the language and imagery<br />Draft 6<br />Restructure parts of the work<br />Draft 7<br />Add layers of conflict<br />Draft 8<br />Improve the crucial opening pages<br />Draft 9<br />More work on the character development<br />Draft 10<br />Proofread for mistakes<br />A non fiction book such as this one needs to be<br />tackled differently – something like this:<br />Draft 1<br />Type out a rough version of the whole book<br />Draft 2<br />Tighten the structure, fill in holes<br />Draft 3<br />Improve the vocabulary and rewrite awkward phrases<br />Draft 4<br />Check the facts, add references, websites, and footnotes<br />Draft 5<br />Read through noting problems, then fix them<br />Draft 6<br />Restructure parts of the work to fit the desired format<br />and word count<br />Draft 7<br />Improve the crucial opening pages<br />Draft 8<br />Proofread for mistakes<br />Writers frequently make the mistake of thinking<br />that publishers will accept a manuscript despite<br />it being poorly structured, inconsistent, clichéd<br />or rambling. Fixing that is the editor’s job, right?<br />Surely the editors can see the potential in their<br />work and fix it for them? But publishers don’t<br />have enough time to deal with writers who take<br />this attitude. They would have to be really excited<br />about a book idea to be prepared to work with an<br />author who apparently cannot write to a<br />professional standard.<br />So don’t rely only on the strength of your<br />book’s central concept to get you a deal. The<br />quality of your writing must also be as high as<br />you can possibly raise it prior to submitting it to<br />an editor. Would you try to sell your car without<br />washing it, or your house without tidying it? Your<br />manuscript or proposal is a product that you are<br />trying to sell to a publisher, so make it a quality<br />product. It will earn you respect, it will make the<br />editor see you are talented, and it will increase<br />your chances of acceptance.<br />The quality of your writing extends beyond<br />your book itself. It’s crucial that you spell<br />correctly the name of the editor to whom<br />you are submitting the work, that the text<br />of your covering letter is succinct and<br />accurate, and that your synopsis and list<br />of chapters won’t let you down with silly<br />errors and awkward phrases.<br />2. Fresh ideas and a new angle<br />There are thousands of subjects about which<br />books can be written. The problem is that most<br />of them have already been done, so if you want<br />to cover ground where others have been before<br />then it helps to be able to introduce fresh ideas.<br />Saying something new will encourage readers of<br />similar books to pick up yours too. Publishers<br />won’t mind releasing books on subjects that have<br />been written about before provided they can<br />convince the booksellers and the public that you<br />have something new to say.<br />I published a book of cheap and simple recipes<br />called <a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=225873" target="_blank"></a><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=225873" target="_blank">Student Grub </a>back when there was strong<br />competition in that sector consisting of three or<br />four similarly titled books. But because this book<br />was fresh, witty and more relevant to students<br />than the others that were already out there, I felt<br />confident it would hold its own in the bookshops.<br />Even though its subject was not original,<a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=225873" target="_blank"> </a><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=225873" target="_blank">Student</a><br /><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=225873" target="_blank">Grub </a>succeeded due to the freshness of its<br />approach. It is still selling in an updated form<br />fourteen years later, and has gone from being the<br />underdog to the market leader.<br />I’m clearly using the word ‘subject’ here in a<br />very narrow sense to mean something more<br />specific than just the genre. <a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=225873" target="_blank">Student Grub </a>is a<br />cookery book, which is its genre. Its subject is<br />recipes for students. Publishers of cookery books<br />would not object to another cookery book being<br />submitted to them, but they would need to be<br />given good reasons why they should sign up a<br />particular kind of cookery book that covers the<br />same subjects as their other titles.<br />Having fresh ideas in a book enables you to<br />present the subject from a new angle. There were<br />already several books written about the ideas<br />behind Dan Brown’s <a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=191035" target="_blank"></a><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=191035" target="_blank">The Da Vinci Code </a>when I<br />wrote<a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=226415" target="_blank"> </a><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=226415" target="_blank">The Key to The Da Vinci Code</a><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=226415" target="_blank">,</a> but my book<br />tackled the subject from a fresh angle which<br />covered areas ignored by the competition. My<br />book was also of a different size and price to any<br />of the others, which helped it immediately to find<br />its niche. This brings us onto the next factor:<br />format.<br />3. Format of the book<br />The format of a book is its size, binding (hardback<br />or paperback), price, number of pages,<br />illustrations (whether colour, black and white,<br />drawings, cartoons, paintings, photos or<br />diagrams). It’s all too easy to assume these<br />decisions have nothing to do with the author. You<br />write the book and it’s up to the publisher to<br />squeeze your book into whatever format they<br />choose, right? To some extent that’s true, but a<br />publisher’s options are limited by what you as<br />the author provide for them.<br />The most significant variable is the number<br />of words in your manuscript. You should always<br />aim for a word count that matches (to within a<br />reasonable amount – perhaps plus or minus 10%)<br />the word counts of similar books already on sale<br />by your target publisher.<br />Counting the words of a book in print isn’t all that<br />hard: just find a page that looks typical in terms of<br />its page coverage and count the words on that<br />page then multiply it by the number of pages in<br />the book.<br />If it’s a novel, choose a page that has mostly<br />description and a little dialogue because that will<br />provide a more realistic average than a page of<br />staccato dialogue. If the book is illustrated the<br />calculation becomes a little more complicated: first<br />add up the approximate number of pages of<br />illustrations and deduct them from the page count<br />before multiplying the pages by the average<br />number of words on a page.<br />4. Title and subtitle of book<br />How many books have you enthusiastically<br />picked up on the basis of the title alone? The title<br />and subtitle of a book can form the most powerful<br />selling tool available to a publisher. It’s a kind of<br />advertising message. The title shouts out what<br />the book is about, and the subtitle tells you why<br />you should buy it. ‘How to Get Published’ is the<br />title of this book, but a major reason to buy it is<br />that it contains ‘Secrets from the Inside’. The<br />subtitle explains enough about the book to help<br />customers make their buying decisions in a<br />couple of seconds. Most customers will then read<br />the third selling tool, the blurb on the back cover<br />or inside flap, and this will confirm or confound<br />the view that they had already formed that this is<br />the book for them.<br />If the title and<br />subtitle have a strong<br />impact on potential<br />customers in a<br />bookshop, then they<br />have the same effect<br />on editors who receive your proposal. Publishers<br />have been known to issue announcements to the<br />trade that they will publish a book of a certain<br />title and subtitle even though the book hasn’t<br />been written. How to Get Published, in fact, existed<br />only as a title and subtitle plus a short blurb when<br />it was entered into Summersdale’s catalogue and<br />pre-sold into the bookshops. Not a single word<br />of the text had been written until after the shops<br />had already placed their orders (this doesn’t<br />usually happen for new authors, by the way.)<br />This is the power of the title/subtitle<br />combination. Get them right and your book will<br />stand out from the others in the dreaded slushpile<br />– that teetering mountain of manuscripts that<br />blocks the light on every editor’s desk. But what<br />is the right title for your book? How can you<br />know if it’s correct? The first thing to do is to<br />look at the titles of competing books. Do they<br />use wordplay? Do they contain double entendres<br />or use a vocabulary that is unique to that genre?<br />If your book is a light-hearted account of your<br />experiences living abroad, for instance, you may<br />notice a distinct fruit theme among recent rival<br />titles:<a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=176981" target="_blank"> </a><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=176981" target="_blank">Snowball Oranges</a><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=176981" target="_blank"></a>; <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0953522709/summersdalecom" target="_blank">Driving Over Lemons</a><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0953522709/summersdalecom" target="_blank">;</a> <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0349114749/summersdalecom" target="_blank">The</a><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0349114749/summersdalecom" target="_blank">Olive Farm</a><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0349114749/summersdalecom" target="_blank">.</a> Publishers on the lookout for more<br />successes like these may pay more attention to<br />your book if it has the same kind of title.<br />The title should be as brief as possible. Two or<br />three words is ideal. Of course there are plenty of<br />examples of popular books with long titles: <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0099450259/summersdalecom" target="_blank"></a><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0099450259/summersdalecom" target="_blank">The</a><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0099450259/summersdalecom" target="_blank">Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time</a><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0099450259/summersdalecom" target="_blank">;</a> <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/034911675X/summersdalecom" target="_blank">The No.1</a><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/034911675X/summersdalecom" target="_blank">Ladies’ Detective Agency</a><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/034911675X/summersdalecom" target="_blank">; </a><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0747581088/summersdalecom" target="_blank">Harry Potter and the Half-</a><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0747581088/summersdalecom" target="_blank">Blood Prince</a><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0747581088/summersdalecom" target="_blank">.</a> But short titles are easier to remember<br />and can have a stronger impact. There is always<br />room to explain more with a subtitle. <a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=176981" target="_blank"></a><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=176981" target="_blank">Snowball</a><br /><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=176981" target="_blank">Oranges</a><a href="http://usa2.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=176981" target="_blank">,</a> for instance, doesn’t tell you much about<br />the book, but when the subtitle One Mallorcan<br />Winteris added the subject is much more obvious.<br />The hit book from Lynne Truss <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1861976127/summersdalecom" target="_blank">Eats, Shoots &</a><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1861976127/summersdalecom" target="_blank">Leaves </a>is another example of a snappy, clever title<br />that doesn’t mean much until combined with its<br />subtitle:<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1861976127/summersdalecom" target="_blank">The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation</a><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1861976127/summersdalecom" target="_blank">.</a><br />Then you realise the title is a play on words to<br />demonstrate the difference a comma can make<br />to the meaning of a phrase.<br />If your book is fiction then normally a subtitle isn’t<br />needed, but instead a ‘tag line’ can help illuminate<br />the potential reader as to what they might be<br />letting themselves in for. The tag line wouldn’t<br />necessarily make it onto the cover of the printed<br />book, so think of it as a way of whetting the editor’s<br />appetite.<br />For inspiration look at film posters. The movie<br />industry is very good at encapsulating the theme<br />of a film in one short sentence: <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00004W0VS/summersdalecom" target="_blank"></a><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00004W0VS/summersdalecom" target="_blank">Jurassic Park </a>– ‘An<br />adventure 65 million years in the making’; <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0006TL9RS/summersdalecom" target="_blank"></a><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0006TL9RS/summersdalecom" target="_blank">Bridget</a><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0006TL9RS/summersdalecom" target="_blank">Jones’s Diary </a>– ‘It’s Monday morning, Bridget has<br />woken up with a headache, a hangover and her<br />boss’.alya.senhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13860695185096745845noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-297068098598598997.post-56242069504295543982006-12-14T21:47:00.000-08:002006-12-14T21:51:36.166-08:00The whole pictureTHE PUBLISHING DECISION<br />is based on the ‘whole<br />picture’, not just the book. The whole picture<br />consists of all the different things a publisher or<br />commissioning editor must take into account<br />when making a decision to publish.<br />There are four main parts<br />to this picture:<br />1. The book<br />2. The author<br />3. The market<br />4. The publisher<br />I have also identified four subsidiary parts in each<br />of those areas, all of which will be examined in<br />the following pages. No single part is sufficiently<br />important to guarantee that your book will be<br />published, but combined they have the power to<br />influence an editor’s decision either for or against<br />you.<br />Getting published comes down to improving<br />your chances with all of the sixteen factors, but,<br />given the fundamental randomness with which<br />some publishing decisions are made, occasionally<br />the advice is going to appear contradictory.<br />At times I’ll make it seem like it’s<br />impossible to get published, at other times<br />I’ll make it seem easy. This is because in<br />some cases, for some books and some<br />authors, it is, frankly, impossible. In other<br />circumstances it’s easier than falling off a<br />greasy, rotating log. It all boils down to<br />your talent, your age, your persistence,<br />market trends and luck.<br />Most authors get better at writing over time. As<br />with most crafts, experience results in increased<br />skill levels. Given enough time anyone can write<br />to a professional standard – we all start from<br />nothing as children, after all. This doesn’t mean<br />you have to achieve the standards o<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0140620478/summersdalecom" target="_blank">f Thomas</a><br />Hardy or Virginia Woolf. <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0330418858/summersdalecom" target="_blank">Jeffrey Archer </a>will do.<br />The problem comes when, having achieved the<br />requisite writing skills, an author fails to learn<br />enough about the business of publishing to have<br />a hope of ever selling their work. They don’t<br />follow the fairly simple rules that would enable<br />them to place their submission immediately in<br />the top 10%. These are the few manuscripts that<br />get serious consideration by editors. The rest get<br />rejected after no more than one, two or three<br />pages have been read. Sometimes the cover letter<br />alone is enough to trigger a rejection. I’ll explain<br />why later in this book.<br />Getting published is about maximising your<br />chances of being considered, of making it to a<br />short list. This is something over which you have<br />control, and it accounts for 90% of the journey.<br />Successfully making the final leap from<br />submission to acceptance will always be a matter<br />of luck, but getting your book proposal into the<br />final 10% of submissions with a number of<br />publishers will make it mathematically likely that<br />your name will end up in print.<br />The sixteen elements that<br />influence a publishing decision:<br />The book<br />Quality of writing<br />Fresh ideas and a new angle<br />Format of the book<br />Title and subtitle of the book<br />The author<br />Reputation<br />Personality<br />Previous books<br />Self-publicity<br />The market<br />Competition<br />Trends<br />Related events<br />Niche<br />The publisher<br />Size of company<br />Direction of company<br />State of company<br />Internal politicsalya.senhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13860695185096745845noreply@blogger.com0