OK, time to make some money at this writing gig. You’ve been at it for years, and you’ve gotten pretty good, so you need to find a way to get this computer to spew out dollar bills; just got to figure out the right sequence of keys to tap.
I’ve been down this path with its various roadblocks and intersections for about 4 decades now, and the one thing I’ve discovered? There’s a lot of luck involved. I once landed an agent by calling to check on my query at lunchtime when the receptionist was out and got the agent herself. She checked the query while we were on the phone and sent me a contract on the spot. Pure luck. But there are ways to increase your chances.
There are two primary approaches to getting published, and I’m afraid they are pretty much mutually exclusive. The traditional publishing industry appears to take a dim view of their online rivals such as Amazon, and if you’ve gone down that road, it will be deemed a strike against if you try to go back to traditional agents and publishing houses.
Traditional
This is the tried and not-always-true approach of sending out flurries of query letters/e-mails to a long list of literary agents and a few publishing houses, putting yourself right in the middle of what is uncharitably called “the slush pile”. This has always been a long shot, and as the mass of unsolicited manuscripts has grown, so have the odds of getting attention. If you’re going to try this route, you’ll need a current reference work such as WRITER’S MARKET, and various You Tube videos can help you fashion an acceptable query letter.
My suggestion to people looking to go traditional is: network. You are one head floating in an ocean of authors, all waving their manuscripts over their heads and yelling for attention, and you need a way to stand out from that mass. The best way to do this is through personal contact where you become a person, not another bobbing head.
Join writer’s groups, particularly those who may have published authors as members. Not only can they often offer writing advice (though always remember, you are the ultimate authority on YOUR writing), but they might be willing to give you the name of their agent or publisher. When you can include a reference by way of introduction, you get a little above the level of the waves.
Attend symposiums and workshops. Yes, these can be expensive, including travel and stays in distant cities, but you should look at this as a working vacation. You can also (in most cases) write it off on your taxes as a business expense. This puts you in the audience if not face-to-face with some of the real actors in the industry, though depending on the conference, they may be small fish in a very big pond. Still, they are usually looking for authors, and the entire point is to get them to read your work.
Get in contact with published authors in your same genre. You can do this through their publishing house or their own web pages. This is something of a long shot, and if you’re approaching the likes of Stephen King or James Patterson, you’re really just sending out fan mail. But a lot of authors with only one or two books might be interested in engaging in an exchange; I mean, writing is what we do. Advice, encouragement, or that all-so-valuable reference might be forthcoming.
Self-Publishing
This has always had the stigma of the “vanity press”, people spending money because their books aren’t good enough for other people to publish. Wrong. Amazon now publishes more than 50% of all paperback/hardback books in the US and over 80% of the e-books, and this doesn’t even consider all the other online publishers like Nook. On first glance, it costs nothing to load your book onto Amazon/Kindle, but don’t be fooled: you’re taking on all the production costs that a standard publishing house would normally handle.
If you go this route, you must not be cheap. You are essentially a small business, and you need to handle your finances accordingly. First and foremost, your book needs to look professional. The cover, the title, and the back blurb are critical to get the book into a reader’s hands, and you can’t skimp on the production values here.
This leads to my first recommendation on self-publishing. Get help. Having a professional illustrator handle your cover is desirable, but it is better to get an experienced cover designer. Just because the cover looks good doesn’t mean somebody is going to pick it up, let alone buy it. Designers vary greatly in fees, anywhere from $100 to $500, but you shouldn’t spend more than that. The cover should tell the reader what the book is about. Don’t get cute. Clever devices that might work at Barnes and Noble are lost in thumbnails on Amazon.
Since titles are so unique to the book, I can’t help you there, except to suggest something intriguing or even eye-catching. However, make real effort on the back blurb, and don’t think “I’m a good writer so that’s not a problem.” A blurb isn’t fiction. It’s a concise introduction to your book, something that reaches out and grabs the reader, pulling them in to open the work. It has to be under 300 hundred words – otherwise, it will be too busy to invite the reader – and if possible, it shouldn’t be over 200. Like a skirt, short enough to be interesting, long enough to cover the subject; and like a skirt, when in doubt, shorter is better.
You should seriously consider getting a professional to format the manuscript prior to uploading onto Amazon/Kindle. While Kindle allows to format yourself, there are just too many things that can go wrong. Professional formatting will cost about $300, but given the savings on antacids and torn hair, it’s worth it. Many formatting companies will also offer uploading services (about $200), but I tend to do this myself. The upload is fairly straightforward, and even works with illustrations or drawings tend to upload without problems. Though I did have a horrible 3 day experience when one manuscript wouldn’t upload, and after my third exchange with Kindle technical staff, we discovered the book had my name as James A Hillebrecht, and the ISBN number was assigned to James A. Hillebrecht, the period being the reason for such distress. Computers can be SO stupid…
If you are completely new to self-publishing (or even if you are not), you might want to consider going with a book marketing service. They can be pricy (about $1200 including formatting and upload) – and there are some less than reputable people out there posing as marketers – but they can sail right through many of these problems, as well as giving you a big leg up on advertising and promoting your book.
Yep, aside from the writing, editing, art, and production departments, you also get to head up promotions. I’ll tackle this more in a separate post, since there are so many various aspects to this. I will say that opinions tend to differ on Amazon ads themselves with some people positive and a lot negative, but how you use the ads seems to be the key. If they didn’t work for anybody, they would have disappeared long ago. So, why subject yourself to so much agony to put a book up on Amazon? Because you can usually get from $2 to $3 royalties (40-60%) from each paperback, and 70% of the price for an e-book (also usually about $2). So, if you are able to post a winner, you and not the publishing house gets the lion’s share.
A couple things to remember when making the choice. The traditional publishers will take all the production problems out of your hands and do a professional job of presenting your book. But they will take the bulk of the profits, it can take from one to three years to get a book published even after it’s been accepted, and the great majority of books make only a small amount of money for the author. As for the Amazon algorithm that determines what books get displayed to whom, it is safe to say that if Lucifer didn’t write it, he certainly had a hand in its creation.
On the other hand, you are armed with skill, luck, and tenacity. That’s enough for some.
Leave a Reply