Graves How To Publish Your Book: The Simple ABC's of Traditional Hard Copy Publishing and the New Ebook Market

1. Auflage 2011
ISBN: 978-1-61842-204-0
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 140 Seiten

How To Publish Your Book is a simple but lively guide that tells you exactly what you need to know about preparing and publishing your book, in both hard copy and the exciting new ebook format. Author Tom Graves, who has published two award-winning books through traditional publishing means as well as five well-received ebooks, tells aspiring authors precisely what they need to do to get through the gauntlet of publishers, literary agents, print-on-demand services, and ebook providers to get their book in print. With humor and warm wit, Graves also provides anecdotes and personal experiences that will help nudge authors through what is ordinarily a perilous process.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Graves, Tom

Leseproben

Okay, About That Book Of Yours A Note for the Novice (and You Published Writers Too) All right Mr. or Ms. Novice Writer, either you have actually accomplished the unthinkable – you actually sat down and wrote an entire book – or you are contemplating doing the same, either by yourself or enlisting the aid of a co-author or ghostwriter to help you with a book. Let me take care of the latter first thing in this chapter. If you have an idea for a book, but you’ve never published anything and know that your writing skills are, shall we say, limited, you are going to have to be brutally honest with yourself about the chances of any financial or critical success with your book idea. They are practically nil. Imagine, if you will, a devoted son who has marveled at his father’s war stories since he was a child and thinks he and his dad can write down all those stories, because after all they are great, and make a load of money selling them to a publisher who, in turn, can sell them not only to their friends and relatives, but to the public too, which surely will be just as enthralled with these war stories as they are. Before you laugh at this scenario, this is precisely the kind of call I get most often. Most recently a fellow who could barely pronounce the word motivational bent my ear for 30 minutes about a motivational book he wanted to write. Another lady who had worked for the Mary Kay cosmetics empire wanted me to partner-up with her on an insider, gossipy expose of the company. The terms these wannabes offer me are always the same. They’ll give me half of the profits of their book, everything fifty-fifty. In other words, they do the talking, I do the note-taking, the research, the writing, the sweating, and all the other incredibly hard work it takes to produce a book, and they get the big byline on the cover and half of all the proceeds and I get the other half – if and only if the book gets published. If the book doesn’t get published, I get nothing, zip, zero, nada. Well, maybe a handshake from the “author.” I asked this particular lady if she could afford half a year’s salary for me, because that’s exactly what I would charge her for six months of work on her book. I could practically hear her swallow her false teeth. I explained that no professional writer would agree to a fifty-fifty arrangement, that they wouldn’t work “on speculation,” meaning work without a guarantee of payment. I further explained that professional writers work “on assignment.” They are paid for the work they do just like everybody else. So, what if someone who is in the headlines, such as Monica Lewinsky (remember her?), decides to write a tell-all book and goes to one of the big publishers to work out a deal? By the time someone like her decides to write a book, she is already surrounded by advisors, publicists, handlers, agents, and lawyers. Either through one of her attorneys or a top-flight literary agent, she would cut an astronomical deal with a major publisher in New York. Then she would get on her typewriter and pound out a first draft, right? Wrong. The publisher or agent would find a suitable ghostwriter of high standing who would work with her over a period of time to turn out a saleable manuscript. Sometimes the writer gets a small byline on the cover, sometimes they simply get a thank you way back at the end of the book. Sometimes this ghostwriter will work for a straight fee, sometimes for as high as 50% of the book’s royalties. Both the celebrity and the ghostwriter would be given an advance, often in six or seven figures, which would have to be earned back out of royalties accrued before further payments. In the business, this is called “earning out your advance.” Let’s go back to our loyal son for just a minute, the one who wants to publish his dad’s war stories. Do you suppose this fellow knows anything about the literature of the war his dad fought in? For example, if the father was a Vietnam veteran would either the son or his dad know about writers such as Denis Johnson or Tim O’Brien or books like Chickenhawk by Robert Mason? Would they know about the whole range of literature, both fiction and nonfiction, that has defined the market for the subject of the Vietnam War? If the answer is no, then they haven’t remotely done the homework required of them to know what would constitute a good book about Vietnam, much less one that would sell. The best they could hope for is to self-publish a book and pray that a few kindhearted friends would read such a book if it were given to them for free. Because it’s a virtual certainty that nobody will buy it. And why not? After all, this dad tells great stories. Beginners, you must understand this: if you have never published any of your writing, you are like a fan in the stands who thinks he can bat a hundred-mile-an-hour fastball out of Yankee Stadium. It ain’t gonna happen, podna. A professional writer is leagues, miles, furlongs ahead of even the best A-plus Ivy League schoolboy writer. At the risk of offending many English and Journalism teachers – very few of them write well enough to sell books either. Professional writers – I can’t say this enough – are at a whole different level of talent and expertise than wannabe writers. Recently a book came across my desk that I was more or less obliged to read, at least a few chapters out of politeness. The subject was, you guessed it, Vietnam. This book was self-published and the author very obviously had no one but herself to edit and proofread the manuscript. Just as she had written it, there it was, in cold, hard, unforgiving print. On just the first few pages there were so many errors of grammar, spelling, and facts that I threw the book down in disgust vowing to never pick it up again. Thank God I wasn’t asked my opinion of the book. One small example of the problems I encountered: A character in the book was talking on the phone to another character and stated that the monsoon had ended last week. I don’t want to give you the exact quote here, but it was painfully obvious the writer didn’t know precisely what a monsoon was and that they don’t just up and end on a specific date. That, dear reader, is the work of an amateur. This is why if you are a beginner you need the help of a professional. Let’s say you are still convinced that you have a great book idea and are certain that such a book could be successful. You’ve read those stories about how John Grisham had to self-publish his first novel and was snubbed by all the publishers until he published The Firm. Let me give you another comparison: Thinking you might be the next John Grisham is like thinking those songs you and your friends plunk around with are going to break out big and make you the next Beatles. So, let’s bring it down to Earth; if you feel like you have a great book idea, want to pursue it till the bitter end, yet you are self-aware enough to know you can’t compete with professional writers, then what should you do? You can’t afford hundreds or thousands of dollars for a pro to take over your work and knead it until it shapes up enough for a sale. You’re also honest enough to know that even with the best co-author your book still may not sell to a publisher and even if it does may not attract a lucrative market of readers. My suggestion to you, dear novice, is to find a hungry samurai. That expression comes from the great Japanese film, The Seven Samurai. In the film, a village is terrorized by vicious outlaws and needs samurai warriors to protect them, but they are without money and can’t afford such protection. What’s a poor village to do? The answer? Find hungry samurai. No matter where you are located, there is bound to be a college or university close enough to contact and drive to. Most major schools have Creative Writing programs headed up by well-published writers. Lots of students working on their master’s degrees or M.F.A.s (I’m an M.F.A. myself) in Creative Writing would work for a low but reasonable fee to help you get a book off the ground. They might even get school credit for such a project. They are your hungry samurai. Before you approach the head of a Creative Writing program at a college or university, you need to first have a very clear idea of what you want to do with your book. You don’t want to approach your hungry samurai with half-baked ideas. You should have notes prepared, chapters planned to help logically divide the narrative of your story, and be prepared to discuss with the Creative Writing head and the student recommended to you everything you can about the book. If you are articulate, sincere, and knowledgeable about your goals with the book, the Creative Writing professors will probably be glad to refer you to a talented student who should be willing to help you for a reasonable fee of – I’m just guessing here -- $500 or so. Keep in mind that this doesn’t mean the student will type your manuscript for you. It means they will edit and revise your manuscript and make helpful suggestions. You also want to find a student editor/helper who at least has some appreciation of the type of book you wish to write. If you think you’ve got the makings of a great romance novel or children’s book, you might not want to be paired with a guy who hates “chick lit” and “kid stuff” and is into cyber-punk sci-fi. The more serious you are about your book, the more serious you want to be about finding the right partner. Let me detour briefly...