How to Publish a Book: Changing Again

How to publish a book may finally be changing for the better. If you've been following my blog, or any publishing info at all for the last year or two, you know the publishing world is changing in twists and turns that most would not have thought of even 10 years ago probably. Some of it has helped but there's lots more to do in many people's opinion including mine. True, all of the upheavel remains exciting and somewhat daunting for authors and publishers alike, the thing is thing aren't going to settle down nicely any time soon.

One new project that will undoubtedly cause both encouragement and consternation is coming from Seth Godin, who is known for thinking ahead as well as doing something to fix the stuff that's broken. He has written several books and some have been published traditionally. Now he's going to try something else, a more direct to market approach. If it works, and I know it will to at least an extent, it will allow authors to get messages out in a more timely fashion and eliminate some of the nonsense that the traditional firms still hold to like returns and the ridiculously long time to actually produce a book.

If write non-fiction especially, I advise you to follow along. You can read the intro details to The Domino Project here and then follow along by subscribing or liking the page on FB.

As an author, why should you pay attention? Because the days of handing over a book to a publisher and then sitting down to write the next one while "they" do the rest are over. OVER. You are now a big part of "they" and you need to do your absolute best to play your part on the team.

Good Writing & God Bless,
Cheryl Pickett

One of These Things is Not Like the Other

Okay, so I'm giving away my age probably to some extent, but I'm guessing at least some of you, like me, know what follows the line in the header today. You also know it comes from a song on Sesame Street. For those of you who aren't familiar, the gist of it is that one of four items is not like any of the others. It might be an orange vs three apples or three blue items vs a yellow one for example and the exercise reinforces shapes, colors etc.

Somewhere along the line, that lesson often also turns toward the idea that it's not good to be that one that's different. It's better to be in the group of the same. And there are times when that concept can serve you well. There are times when we don't want to stand out in the crowd, or when we need to go with the flow. However, there are also situations when that strategy is detrimental instead of helpful. I'm pretty confident you've experienced one or the other at some point and likely each multiple times in your life. In publishing, you'll find most of the time you'll need to do a little of both.

First, particularly if you're hoping for a publishing deal, your book needs to be alike in that it falls into a recognizable category or spot on a shelf. If it's supposed to fit a certain genre' it needs to fall within expected norms of what a reader would expect from that style of book. Go to far to one side or the other and you may only have a fringe audience that won't make it widely marketable, which for a publisher means, it won't sell enough.

That said, the crazy thing is at the same time the book needs to be that one yellow one among the blue ones. It's good for it to stand out because it gives a reader who has hundreds of choices an incentive to pick yours over the others. If they like it, they'll also recommend it to others instead of saying something along the lines of "it's like most of the other ones you've probably read".

It's a very tricky balancing act to be sure. Does your brain hurt just trying to understand and apply all that? Here's a little help :-)

Good Writing & God Bless,
Cheryl Pickett

Another Glimpse Into a Day in the Life of an Agent

Sometimes, even when you have all the how-to info you can get your hands on, nothing truly compares to a personal story. When someone tells you real life experience (and does it well), I think you can get a much better feel for what you're trying to understand.

If you're considering getting an agent for your book, you'll definitely want to read this post from Sandra, a newer agent in Chip MacGregor's office, for some great insights into real life in the traditional publishing world. Even if you aren't going in that direction, you can find some tidbits that can help you with your decisions too.

Surprised by anything you read? Feel free to get the conversation started in the comments.

Good Writing & God Bless,
Cheryl Pickett

Be Careful What You Wish For

Imagine this:
You decide to independently publish your book. You've done the most professional job you can and you're marketing your little heart out. Sales start to pick up momentum, your Amazon rank is respectable. Life is good. Things continue to roll along and a few days after you appear at an event, you get an email. It's from someone you don't recognize, but the subject says "Would like to talk about your book". You open it and it's from a publisher, a legitimate traditional publisher.

What do you do? What would you say? Are you sure?

Admittedly, this doesn't happen a lot, but if you really do sell successfully it can happen. It did to an author I know personally. In fact, her books sell so well (home school topics) she's been approached more than once. And she turned them down each time. That's not a typo, she turned them down. After she read what they had to offer, she knew it wasn't the best thing for her business.

A lot of authors dream of getting such a phone call, but if it happened to you, are you truly prepared to answer it?

Good Writing & God Bless,
Cheryl Pickett

What Can Authors Learn From Susan Boyle?

If you've read or watched the headlines of almost any media outlet this week, you've heard about Susan Boyle, the previously unknown singer with a golden voice who's competing on a TV talent show. If by chance you don't know the details, in a nutshell, this ordinary woman with an ordinary life, walks out on stage for the competition and literally makes people cry. Even Simon Cowell, known for making people cry in other ways with his critiques, was wowed by her voice.

So what does this have to do with authors? I think we can learn two solid lessons here:

1. The show that Susan appears on and many like it are filled with "good" talent. Many good performers move on through the competition and get some breaks later. However, in this time of media overload, what it takes to be noticed, really noticed is being stand-out, stupendous, or amazing. Your takeaway here is simple- is your book, your writing, good or amazing? Based on that answer, what are you expecting when you send it out to agents or offer it for sale?

2. Even though the hoopla has gone on for several days now, this just hit me this morning: what about all of those with "good" talent? Prior to Susan's appearance, I'm sure many were thinking they did a great job when they had their turn. Some may have believed they could place or win the competition. With one performance, the whole game changed without warning. Thoughts of "Oh, I've got this" probably changed to something more like, "Oh, #@!**".

I'm sure this happens pretty regularly in traditional publishing too. An agent or editor has many good, and maybe even a few great titles to consider. Yours may be near the top of the list and a contract almost ready to be offered, but then "Amazing" blows in like a hurricane and everyone's attention shifts and stays there for quite some time.

Should your work still be published, will it be published? Potentially, but which title do you think will get the first or most resources? Obviously, "Amazing" and there's really nothing you can do about that. Your job at that point is to be professional, graciously wish the best for "Amazing" and start looking for your next opportunity to shine. That's the unmistakeable sign of a winner.

Good Writing & God Bless,
Cheryl Pickett

More Help If You're Hoping to be Traditionally Published

The other day, I wrote about a contest where you the author get to act as agent for a short time. I think many lessons will be learned through that one, both about the process and the real people involved on both sides.

Today's resource keeps the focus at the beginning of the publishing process and helps you with book proposals. You'll not only learn what they are, how they should be done and get examples to work with, you also have the chance to get your critiqued for free. Though I'm not sure how long that last part will last as I'm guessing the person offering this will get quite swamped, but who knows. I'd suggest if you're interested and have something ready to go that you should not procrastinate.

Find all the details at Alan Rinzler's blog

Good Writing & God Bless,
Cheryl Pickett

Wanna be an Agent?

When it comes to agents, you've all seen comments like:
Agents take FOREVER to respond, all they have to do is read a few pages and make a decision, how hard can it be? Why did they turn my work down? It's AWESOME (and my neighbor thinks so too), that agent wouldn't know a sure thing if it bit him. I could certainly make better choices than those books, and the list goes on.

Merited? On occasion, but probably not as often as we as writers would like to believe.

Well, if you've ever said anything like this or thought it, here's your chance. You can be an agent. Seriously, you can see what it's like through what I think is an absolutely awesome idea for a contest.

Agent Nathan Bransford is holding a contest where anyone who'd like to can be a part of the query and acceptance process. You'll read actual query letters and pick those books you think are worth representing. When all is said and done, he'll let everyone know whose picks matched the real choices of titles that actually were published and crown you Superstar Agent.

Sound like fun? Sound like hard work, a little intimidating? I'm pretty sure that's the point. It's not as easy as it looks I'm sure. If you're game you can find the details here.

If you do or don't think it's a good idea, if you participate, would love to hear your thoughts or how it goes.

Good Writing & God Bless,
Cheryl Pickett

Three Reasons for Choosing Traditional Publishing

If you look at the state of publishing today, sometimes it's hard to see why anyone would want to go the traditional/commercial route. After all, it takes forever to get a manuscript accepted if at all, returns are higher than ever and big names have prime shelf space at stores.

Even though all that is true, there are still reasons to choose this option and many people who support it. Here are just three:

1. Budget: If you have little money to put toward the process, traditional will likely be your choice as the publisher takes on the financial risks. You might have to pay for some early editing, but other than that your book will be produced without your investment.

2. Handling Business: If you do not have either the skills or desire to handle all of the business aspects of the process, your choices include finding a partner who will or trying to get an agent and commercial publishing deal.

3. Marketing: While the author is more and more responsible for promoting his/her book, if you have no idea how to go about it, a good traditional publisher will at least do a few tasks, have some media contacts and guide you through the process.

Is traditional right for you? These three points are just a small part of what you need to consider. If you'd like to go through a more detailed process to figure out the best option for your book project, consider picking up a copy of Publishing Possibilities or scheduling a coaching session at www.publishinganswers.com


Good Writing & God Bless,
Cheryl Pickett

Agents and Queries and Proposals, Oh My!

Sometimes new authors are under the impression that traditional publishing is the easiest of the options. They believe in order to get published, you send a simple email to an agent or publisher that asks them to consider your book and that's that. After all, business is so much more informal nowadays right?

While that may be true in many industries, in publishing not so much. Agents and editors may be open to email vs snail mail, but there are still plenty of formal rules/procedures that really need to be adhered to in order for your book to have any shot at acceptance.

Some of those rules include sending a proper query letter and if you get past that stage, a book proposal of some sort. You need to work at least as hard, if not harder at these items because you only have a short space of a page or two to make your case especially in the early stages.

The good news is that because of social media, it's easier than ever to learn what you need to know. A great way is to follow agent blogs. For example Pub Rants by Agent Kristen offers tons of the "how-tos" authors need. Her blogroll also lists other agents' and published authors' blogs and I'm sure there's a wealth of information to be discovered on those as well.

And just in case you need a little extra inspiration, you can always pop over to Chip Macgregor's Blog where he occasionally posts some of the best of the worst of the stuff he sees on a regular basis. The March 8th entry has some at the end of the post. If nothing else, smile and be glad in the fact that you know better.

Good Writing & God Bless,
Cheryl Pickett