bookpublishing

Allan Mott at Bookgasm.com wrote a clever and amusing list titled 50 Reasons Why No One Wants to Publish Your First Book. Most are so outrageous that there’s no question why a particular book idea wouldn’t be considered by any publisher. I especially love when around #29 (”Everyone who attempts to load a copy of the manuscript onto their Kindle is found dead three hours later) they begin to delve into the realm of extremely ridiculous. But others, like #27 (”You know the talented creative writing professor who told you your work showed so much creativity and promise? Turns out what he really meant was that he wanted you to blow him.”) may not be far from the truth, at least for someone out there. Check out the rest of them via the link above.

Mott’s poignant and somewhat harsh advice comes on the heels of a trend sweeping Twitter nation: Queryfail. Begun by Tweeting literary agents under the leadership of @Colleen_Lindsay, a FinePrint Literary Management agent, Queryfail resulted from agents’ frustration with authors who have a lot of difficulty adhering to submission guidelines. This is (in my opinion at least) a humorous yet informative way to instruct potential authors how NOT to query. Real author submissions are posted on Twitter (but authors remain anonymous) followed by the #queryfail hash tag. Queryfail Tweets were becoming so popular, they became part of an entire event–queryfail day occurs every Thursday. Here is an example of failure queries:

• “My book is differentiated from Twilight because the vampires have wings, and are half-breed angels”
• “My book is about a friendship based upon mutual vomiting practices in high school”
• “Easily the boldest novel so far written in this fresh century of ours”
• “My credentials for writing this book include: A divine mandate to speak the word of God”
• “43 years of toiling within my own mind have come to an end with this manuscript!”

The list above was collected in this UK Guardian article, which also admires Queryfail as a “hilarious, and educational, read. I particularly like the tautological ‘This is my first attempt at writing a fictional novel,’ and the wonderful typo of ’she mustard her power,’ but I’m bemused as to why ‘This book is The Notebook meets The Lord of the Rings‘ was passed over.”

Despite best intentions, it wasn’t long before a wave of backlash rolled in. Agents spoke out against it and authors began boycotting agents who participate in Queryfail. Reported on GalleyCat : Curtis Brown agent Nathan Bransford decided not to participate, declaring “positivity week” on his blog instead. His post generated more than 200 comments. Here’s an excerpt: “in these tough times people definitely could use some more positivity, so consider this a humble request to go out and spread it … everyone who is thinking of querying me that you do not have to fear becoming blog/Twitter fodder. Ever. Never ever. Not when you’re querying, and not when you’re a client.”

Colleen Lindsay, a FinePrint Literary Management agent, responded: “The idea wasn’t to mock but to educate. We were pointing out mistakes that people make over and over again in their queries, as well as those queries that were clearly sent out without any regard to spelling, grammar or typos. We used no personal identifiers of any sort, and didn’t mention names or titles of books.”

It seems that there is just as much support for Queryfail as there is uproar. Agent Elaine Spencer explains that Queryfail is simply a “tough love” approach to author submissions, not unlike the reaction bad performances get from bad-boy judges/hosts Simon Cowell (American Idol) and Chef Gordon Ramsay (Hell’s Kitchen). I agree completely. Since when was making fun of people’s bad performances unpopular these days — you have seen American Idol, right? In my opinion many of the harsh reactions are deserved; these submissions don’t follow guidelines or are mass-mailings without attempting to hide it. If the author can’t make a real effort, why should an agent take it seriously? For those submissions that do follow guidelines, the agents who participate clearly state that they always respond with constructive criticism–that is, as soon as they wade through an inbox of 500+ submissions. If this is the way agents blow off steam in the meantime, who is it really hurting?

I noticed a great discussion that began on the Creative Byline Facebook page including Joyce Carol Oates’s words on creating and listening to characters in writing:

“…[my students] say, ‘We don’t know these people.’ And I say, ‘Well, you have to listen.’”

Joyce Carol Oates says that only after hours of writing will writers discover what their characters really have to say, and that they “won’t know what it is in the beginning.” This plants fear in the hearts of many young or new writers, but they are not alone: Oates describes the first six weeks (!) of writing a new novel as “like hell” for her. Because she has a very broad definition of what constitutes a “character,” her comments are useful for writers of both fiction and non-fiction. Characters’ personalities must become known to a writer, and that only happens if he or she is “listening,” and even then it happens only slowly.

When have you given up? When have you paid the same attention to a new character that you would a new acquaintance? What similarities have you found between getting to know a person and getting to know a character? What differences have you noticed in the depth or complexity of your characters when you approach them this way?

I’m certainly having struggles with the personalities of my characters. Some are so vivid and easy to write that they take on their own story and run with it whether I like where it’s going or not. Others are so stagnant and so unattached to any kind of vivacity that I constantly struggles with them. I do agree with one post-commenter, Holly Larocque Bodger, that, when written well, “your character dictates where they want to go and what they want to do (sometimes to your own frustration!).” But I don’t necessarily agree with what another commenter, Allison Fant, that “Its always easier to relate to the characters and to know how they will react in certain situations because you have experienced it in real life”–running with the argument that characters who are based on someone you know are more real and more impactful. One of the strongest characters in my story is not based on any real person and probably has more in common with other literary characters; yet that doesn’t detract from his effectiveness.

What do you think about characters in writing? What makes a good and effective character? How does a writer make a character “more real”? Do you run into these struggles in your own writing?

p.s. If you’re not familiar with Creative Byline, see my previous post about their writer services.

So you’re one of the lucky ones who gets a book deal. You write it, survive the grueling editing process, and finally your book is shipped off to bookstores. A few months later you’re wondering what kind of effect your book actually had. Is it a bestseller? Is it selling at all? Did it sell 10,000 copies right off the bat only to have 3000 returned because your facts are all wrong? I feel that a lot of authors get a sense of paranoia after their book hits the stands because they have no way of knowing how it’s doing.

Here’s one way to check: Go to Amazon.com and check your book rank. Don’t get discouraged if it seems very far from the top. Just because your book is ranked 24,139 or 130,980 doesn’t mean it’s a bad book. It may be in the top ten for its genre, and that’s nothing to sneeze at. So be sure to check the genres under which it is listed and see where it falls. Keep track of how it moves from week to week. Eventually it will hit a steady track downward and it becomes backlist, but there may be a lot of fluctuation early on.

You can also ask your editor to check its BookScan numbers; most publishing professionals have access to this information, although no one will appreciate you hounding them for it all the time. BookScan measures the number of sales per week. Editors can also often check their warehouse figures to see how many are in stock.

With information about how your book is doing, you’ll want to know how you can improve. Now you know what genre you’re in, you can more effectually target its audience. If you have a baseball book, talk to local sportswriters and sportscasters, get their connections, and go from there. Talk to everyone about your book and keep a copy with you whenever you can.

Think about marketing and publicity opportunities. Let’s say you have a cookbook and you have a connection with the Food Network. Tell your editor and/or publicity representative about it. The publisher will work harder for connections like these because it can create future opportunities with the Food Network for future book deals (even if it’s not for you). The more value you can get from your connections, the harder your publisher will work to help you out–even if your book isn’t a top priority book for them.

To make a long story short, the more you’re willing to promote yourself, the easier it becomes for your publisher and they will meet you halfway. Furthermore, many sources are more interested in hearing straight from the author about their book rather than the publicity reps who are trying to pitch 8 books at a time.

I haven’t come across any interesting publishing news in the past few days so I turned to a very reliable source for publishing tidbits, Joe Wikert’s Publishing 2020 Blog, the most popular blog about book publishing without contest.

Joe addresses authors who question what a publisher does to promote and market books when they’re released. “The answer is likely to be something no author wants to hear.” Joe is right, and it’s a question editors don’t love to hear either. As Joe points out:

These days, marketing is frequently limited to placement in the publisher’s catalog and on their website as well as a product page on each online retailer’s site. Many titles benefit from e-mail blasts and other focused initiatives but few are promoted in major magazines and newspapers, for example.

Some publishers are able to do more like send a dozen or two dozen advanced copies to media who might enjoy or be interested in the title or coordinate with the author to set up book signings. In rare cases, especially when the author is well-known, the publisher can help get them on radio or TV shows.

It all depends on the author.

Author platform is king. If you’re an author with an enormous mailing list, an extremely popular website/blog or someone who speaks in front of tens of thousands of people every year publishers will climb over each other to sign you to a project.

This is also very true. That’s something you’ll want to bring up with the publisher because it is mutually beneficial. I know a book we recently published sold well above our expectations due to the amount of traffic the author’s website gets everyday. Those website viewers also happened to be book-buyers, big time. Keep these things in mind if you’re writing or publishing your book. Always know that you are your best cheerleader, and you can’t always depend on the publisher having the resources to give you the best PR.

Well it should have come as no surprise that our company was going to cut back on the types of books we publish. But I suppose I didn’t see it coming when one of my favorite genres would get cut: football books. You might wonder why… Football is an incredibly popular sport with hundreds of high-profile, intriguing stars to study. And I would argue that despite the brains vs. brawn argument one might make that it takes very little mental power to enjoy testosterone-crazed linebackers ram into each other play after play after play, football is actually a fairly complicated sport to fully understand (and don’t even get me started on fantasy football); why wouldn’t these fans enjoy books about their favorite sport? If they get the sport, they could easily handle a book about it, I say. I don’t actually think it’s the struggle of selling football books that is the problem. Football books are written by well-known sportswriters, coaches, players, hall-of-famers, commentators, and others in those related fields that require a hefty paycheck… and that’s the curse (or one of them…) of book publishing: the advance.

Most authors receive an advance of money when they sign a book deal and another advance of money when they finish a book; often authors receive yet another advance when they resolve the copyeditor’s queries. All that money is taken out of the author’s royalty payments, which means they won’t receive any more money until the advance is paid back in profits. Yet, it’s still money the publisher dishes out before any profit is made from the book. That is assuming that the book makes a profit at all. Sports authors tend to get deals including the highest advances and it’s getting harder and harder for publishers to accommodate those payments.

Part of the reason I applied for the position I have now officially begun is because I’d get to edit sports books. I’ve been lucky enough to edit three football books, one baseball book, and one memoir of a famous sportscaster. I’ve worked with some incredible (if high-maintenance) authors and learned a great deal from these projects. I don’t regret taking the new position–don’t get me wrong–because I’ve also been able to delve into other topics I had little experience with, like hiking, birding, and local interest. And not all the sports books have been canceled–it seems that baseball books are doing well enough to keep up with. Thank God because I’m lucky enough to be editing a book by the man who is practically the Red Sox’s mascot, Jerry Remy. But who knows what will happen in the future.

I’m wrapping up a beautiful and fantastically written biography about Vince Lombardi and waving off the last of my football books. I feel like I figured out my passion a few minutes too late and can only hope to get another opportunity to pursue it again in the future.