Things You Need to Know As You Begin Writing Your Book

So You’ve Written A Book.Now What?

Jim MagwoodAuthor of SANCTION, THE LESSER EVIL,

COP and NIGHTMARE

Shiloh ProductionsTwin Oaks, California

So You’ve Written A Book.Now What?

Copyright © 2014 by Jim Magwood.Published by Shiloh Productions at Smashwords

Cover by GEMTwin Oaks, California

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this author.

INTRODUCTION

This mini-book was written to help others on the journey of writing to learn and get ahead of some of the pitfalls that are on the horizon. As we pick up our pens and begin writing, we usually just think of the story we have in mind and figure that when the story is written we’ve been successful. That may partly be true. As I note later on, some day you will be able to say, “I did it,” and feel that surge of success - completion. But as the book title says, then what? And, how do I get there in the first place? What am I facing as I begin this process?

I wrote this from my experiences over almost fifteen years of writing my first five books and publishing and marketing them. It’s not “expert” material; it’s just what I’ve learned. When I started, I had no idea what it was all about. But, I thought I did. Then I came to the realization that this authoring business was a lot more than I realized. So I’ve learned things over the years and I simply want to share them with you.

This mini-book is written from my viewpoint as an author, a writer. However, the basic principles in it are adaptable to others doing creative work; poets, musicians, artists, filmmakers, even those building widgets. If you are doing something other than writing, then simply adjust the ideas and principles in here to your own work. Principles such as Write the very best book you possibly can or How are you going to get someone to actually look with interest at YOUR work are just as valid for someone painting a landscape or building a new mousetrap as someone writing a novel.

So, I hope this will be of value to you. As you read it, if you have any comments, suggestions or ideas, I’d love to hear from you. Write me at JimMagwood@aol.com and/or visit the website at JimMagwood.com. (http://www.JimMagwood.com)

Best wishes to all of you and

Keep On Writing.

CHAPTER ONE

So You’ve Written a Book.Now What?

I’ve written a book—a suspense novel. What do you mean, So What? Big Deal!? Well, it was a big deal to me. I’m famous now, right? I’m a real live author. Okay, my name isn’t Grisham, or Clancy, but I’m pretty close, aren’t I? Once you’ve written a book, the world sits up and cheers, right? You get famous? Rich? Well, something?

However, probably the main thing you get after you’ve written your life’s work is depressed and discouraged. Here you’ve spent all this time—years even—creating your “baby,” and the big question becomes, Now What? There’s all those pages sitting there. Just sitting there. They’re supposed to be on library shelves, coming out of bookstores in fancy wrappers, lying beside easy-chairs everywhere—and they’re just sitting there. Now what?

I’ve been an avid reader since early childhood and read everything from newspapers, Reader's Digest and National Geographic, to mysteries and autobiographies. One day a book just popped into my mind and, lo and behold, a novel (SANCTION) was born. But, as I’m sure you are all aware, that was just the beginning of a long process that ended up, years later, with a real novel being published. Years of writing, then throwing the papers across the room, then trying to find some more to write about, then just about burning the whole thing, then… Sound familiar?

I believe most of us have stories to tell: from our own lives and experiences; from things we've seen and heard; from dreams and ideas that just pop in on dark nights and lazy afternoons. Probably nothing starts a story quite as well as actually being awake when the storm hits and the lighting is flashing or on a quiet morning with a cup of coffee while taking the time to simply see life around us.

Writing takes the courage to put ourselves down on paper where others can criticize and poke fun. It also takes the desire to reach and inspire others with word pictures; pictures that will enable them to see beyond the moment, to go beyond their own space, and to dream. Sometimes, the only thing that keeps us going on the project is that this story, this work of art, is coming from our heart and it simply has to come out and be laid gently, lovingly, even tearfully, on paper where at least we can see it. But, we’ve kept at it and it’s now sitting there, and the question again is, Now what?

I’m not the expert on writing books. I managed to get the first four novels written (SANCTION, THE LESSER EVIL, COP and NIGHTMARE) and, with the help of some great people, have gotten them published. Maybe someone will actually buy them some day. Maybe not. But, what I want to do now is just put my thoughts down here on paper—my experiences over the past fifteen years of writing and publishing and marketing—for those of you who’ve perhaps started this journey yourself and who might be wondering just what’s facing you. How are you going to take this brainchild of yours and get it into the hands of people you know will love it and benefit

from it as much as you have? What are you going to experience along this journey and how will you get through the experience with your heart and mind and soul still intact?

So, perhaps the first questions become, How do I write this thing? Is what I’ve written even readable, any good? How can I make this something that readers will accept and enjoy? And, I believe the answer to that question is pretty simplistic:

Write the very best book you possibly can.

CHAPTER TWO

Write the very best book you possibly can.

Yeah, I know. Pretty simple. Don’t we all do just that? Write the very best…? But, do we?

Eventually you’re going to want to put this creation into the hands of an agent or editor, a publisher, a printer, and have it become a real book. But, what does it really look and sound like as it is right now? Have you actually read your own creation, from front to back, like a real book? Is it really the best you can do?

You’ve built a new birdhouse, but when you hang it in the tree and a bird lands on it, it flips over and scares the bird half to death. You’ve baked the perfect pie for the contest, but when the judge (or your family) tastes it, you see a certain look on their face of… Well, it didn’t look very…happy? Maybe you should have actually tested (tasted?) your creation before you applied for the patent or sent it to Good Housekeeping?

It’s the same with your book. When you finally write The End on the last page, you can rightfully sit back and take a break. Be proud. Caress it lovingly as it sits on the table. Just look at it for a day or a month, and think, I did it. I actually finished. However, despite the time and agony that’s gone into bringing the child to birth, the real struggle now begins.

When you suddenly discover that there’s a child going to appear in a few months, you know you’re going to go through some struggles and pain getting to the end. But, when that child is finally born, the pain is not over. It definitely is not. Now you’re going to discover that there are years and years of stuff that you’re going to have to go through to get this child from its beginnings to the time when you can nudge it out the door with some confidence that it will survive. It’s the same with your book.

After you’ve spent a little time recuperating from the birth of your baby, it’s time to pick up your pencil again (I know! I know!) and start:

Self-Editing

This is the time you will pick up your manuscript (as the publishers will now call it) and tear it apart and re-do it. (Screams of agony are heard wafting through the ether.) But, it’s either you do it or they will. And it’s going to be hard enough getting a new work into a publisher’s hands even if it’s perfect, so your job now is to make it the absolutely best manuscript you possibly can—so that it will be looked at.

Publishers literally have thousands of manuscripts cross their desks—maybe even dozens and hundreds daily. Why are they going to look at yours? Did you know there are upward of 300,000 titles published each year now? That’s almost 30,000 titles per month. Did you also know that

almost half of the population does not read any books at all? This despite the fact that in a general size bookstore there are anywhere from 5,000 to 10,000 books on display and books are now in grocery stores, car washes and gas stations, on the Internet and in major book “stores” such as WalMart.com. Consumers will spend multiple billions of dollars purchasing books each year, yet the chances of any one book being purchased, especially a new one from a new author, are less than 3 out of 10,000.

This is the kind of competition you’re going up against, so are you prepared?

A publisher has fifty manuscripts come across his desk today. He sees one that is scruffy, on plain white paper, smudged, and with two typos and mis-spellings in the first paragraph. The one right under that has a soft, colored cover with the title in huge letters and a sub-title that seems to say this is an exciting story. It’s well typed in a font that is easily read and is on a soft, beige paper. Which one do you think he’s going to even begin to look at? Sorry. Facts of life in the book publishing world.

As he begin reeding, he find a dry story with looooong, rambeling, paragrahs, words mis-speled, and gramer, and punctation, that keeps him wundering what it meens, rather thn alowing him too simply reed the story. How long would you continue to read a story consisting of sentences like the last one? Yet, this is often the first introduction they have to our new works.

So, the first thing you are going to do (NOT a suggestion) is to get comfortable with a couple of red pencils at hand with all the time in the world available and READ your own manuscript. Brutally. Viciously. And from the printed page, not the computer screen.

Reading from the computer is all right for drafting your work and for quick proofing, but it does not allow you to view your work as a manuscript—a book. It’s usually too cramped. You don’t see a whole page at once. It has to keep moving for you to continue. You have to keep pushing buttons or pushing around a mouse to keep things going. And it doesn’t hold and feel like a book. Once you’ve actually finished the writing and have done some basic proofing and editing (spell and grammar checking), you need to invest in a ream of half-decent paper and print out the entire manuscript, preferably in “book format.”

I learned that the hard way and had corrections to make that at first I just did not catch. To me, book format is converting the normal “portrait” style printed page to a horizontal, or “landscape” view, then making it into two columns per page, and printing it out so when you hold it to read, it looks and feels like a book.

One more point that is a must before we go any further with this. If you’ve written your work by pen or pencil or have used an actual typewriter, is there any way you can get the whole thing converted to a computer and a decent word processing program? You’re going to want to go through your manuscript a number of times making corrections and changes, and on a computer this is simply not a problem. A manually written or typed manuscript is going to be a major negative from the very beginning because you already know how much work it’s going to take to make the corrections and do all the re-writing.

Borrow a computer, use the one at the library, have a friend enter it into a computer for you. Anything—but please, get it into an electronic format that will keep you from being afraid to work on it. With a computer, you can make a copy to start with and make all your changes initially on the copy. Save the original for your peace of mind. Even if you have to pay someone to “compute” your manuscript for you, it will be worth its weight in gold when you have to start

turning your manuscript into a book. If you have it in a computer and on a decent word processing program like Word or WordPerfect, when you want or need to check the spelling and grammar you just push a button and sit back to let it do its thing. And any changes or corrections you need to make are done in a nano-second and your whole manuscript is “fixed” without grief.

Please—get it on a computer. You won’t regret it.

CHAPTER THREE

More Self-Editing

At the end of Part 2, we were discussing Self-Editing, so let’s recap for a moment, then continue.

You were going to first, without a doubt, get your work onto a computer so you can zip back and forth without fear, making all the changes and corrections necessary. You will run the work through the computer spell and grammar checker a few times to make sure all the very obvious errors are removed. Then you are going to print out the entire work in “book format” (landscape view with two columns per page) so it looks, feels and reads like a book. Look back at Part 2 if you need to catch up on the Why for this.

Now, you sit down with the nasty red pencils and start tearing your work to pieces. And, if you want to make this the very best manuscript you can, with the idea of getting it printed in some format for friends, relatives and readers to enjoy, this has to be a brutal, vicious process.

This pile of paper you’re holding is your child, your baby, your work of love and heart and dreams. But you simply have to remember, in everything you do from now on, the phrase, “the very best you can make it.” You can’t be kind; you can’t be forgiving; you can’t be lax or sloppy. Because your publisher and your reading public will not be. They are going to see mis-spellings, poorly edited text, sentences that don’t work, book covers that are sloppy or have poor colors, and everything else that is a detraction—and they’re going to toss the work of your life into the No! pile and find something else.

You can keep that from happening. It’s called “the very best you can make it.”

Read Your Manuscript

The first step: Read all the way through your manuscript as if it was already a book using your red pencils to just make marks reminding you where to come back to. Don’t take the time to make all the corrections at this time, just mark them. Try to read through your book to get the “flow” of the work.

Does it read well? Do the sentences make sense? Is it dry, dull and boring? Does a paragraph or chapter start out exciting but end strained and dull? Do you see words and sentences that just don’t make sense? Do you change a character’s name from the first appearance to another? (I did this from Chapter 12 to Chapter 18 and back again in Chapter 46 and never realized it until the book was just about ready to go to print. Don’t ask!)

This first time through is just for you to get the feel of how the story flows and where there are obvious, major errors. You want to read straight through, without a lot of stops, just marking things with a big “X” or “?” or a simple word or phrase that will help you remember what the

problem is. “Bad;” “re-do;” “dull;” “too long;” “confusing.” Short words and phrases like this will be reminders for you but will allow you to keep on reading without losing the flow of the work.

What’s the “flow?” Ask yourself, Does the story go where I want it? Does it wander and twist too much? Do the conversations make sense? Do your main characters stand out like they should or do they never really take the places in the story you wanted for them? Are you comfortable reading the story or is it a strain sometimes to follow what’s going on? (I started out trying to write with several international individuals in the story and had them speaking in a very correct, international manner, words and sentences that turned out to simply be hard to read, so I changed a lot of that back to much easier words and sentences.) When you get to the end of the story, do you look back and say, Yes! or do you feel that it just didn’t get there?

When you’ve finished a chapter, put the book down for a moment and think about how it felt. (It will be hard to re-read your 300-page book several times, but you MUST.) Was it dull or was it exciting? Did your point come through or did it feel kind of flat? Write your thoughts in a few words at the chapter end to remind you of how you felt about what you’ve read. If you have any question about how the story flows, read it out loud.

When we speak, we don’t usually say, “Hello, Mr. Smith. Is it not a beautiful day? For what reason are you pointing that shotgun at my midsection?” We would probably say, “Hi, Smitty. Nice day, huh? What’s with the gun?” When we read our text out loud, those kinds of differences will stand out. We hear much different than we read, so if there’s any question, read it out loud.

Now if you want your sentences to read like I noted, that’s fine, but do make sure they’re that way for a reason, not just because that’s the way they came out. Remember that someone is going to be trying to read your book, and if it’s too hard to follow, it will be dropped. (Pick up one of your old psychology textbooks and compare it to a James Patterson novel. Or, compare an old British who-done-it to a modern, fast-moving courtroom mystery. The old who-done-its are wonderful, but most people today are reading Grisham, not Agatha.)

I’ve read many novels where almost every time a character is mentioned, he is “John Jones,” over and over. “And when John Jones came into the room, John Jones caused a stir.” If you’ve already introduced the character, try to shorten every further mention of him. “John Jones” can become “John,” “Jones,” “he,” “him,” and so on. Again remember, we don’t usually speak that way, so why do we write that way?

Punctuation and Grammar

So, how many commas are enough? When do they become distracting? How do you make a break in someone’s conversation—with then a follow-on comment? Or how about someone’s conversation becoming interrupted… and then someone else jumping in? When do you capitalize titles, such as President Reagan, versus talking about the president? When do we use a versus an with attached words such as house or hour? Do you know there are actually rules of good English usage that should be followed—and do you know where you can find them?

There are major sources of these rules available to us as downloads through the Internet or as books we can get from our libraries or purchase from bookstores (or on-line.) Probably the classic used in most of the publishing industry is the Chicago Manual of Style (the latest edition), available at www.chicagomanualofstyle.org. You can get this in both book format and as a CD from places like Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to an on-line edition direct from the publisher. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (again, the latest edition), available in stores and at www.merriamwebster.com, should be on all of our desks as we write, or on our computers from an add-on CD. An old classic is Fowler’s Modern English Usage, available through bookstores and libraries, for those who want to really dig into the reasons why to use certain words or not (draft versus draught; the incorrect and over-use of very to describe the degree of things.) Also be sure you have a decent thesaurus at hand so you look up different words to use instead of using the same adjectives, etc., over and over.

There are many other “manuals of style” available and most of them have value. The point is, though, that there are proper ways of writing that have helped authors put out works that are thoroughly readable and that help keep our readers from becoming confused—and there are manuscripts that have had great potential but which have died before birth because of language and styles that have simply turned off both publishers and readers. (This, for instance, was a very long sentence that likely should have been broken for easier reading.) You’ve worked for years writing your dream novel and you don’t want it to be rejected simply because of words, phrases, punctuation and grammar that someone responsible for producing your book didn’t like.

This is NOT to say you cannot write the way you like. If you want to write with no capital letters like e e cummings, or if you want to write page-long sentences held together by intricate punctuation, that is certainly your right. If it’s your own style, then it is yours. However, will you be prepared when people challenge your work and/or it doesn’t sell because they don’t like the style and you don’t yet have the reading public that is waiting for your next creation no matter the style? If you are writing with at least some idea in mind of getting your work published and into the hands of some readers somewhere, then there are things that are going to help in that endeavor and things that are going to hurt. Having a style that is readable, and punctuation and grammar that helps rather than hinders, is going to go a long way to helping your work get published.

Remember what is generally a maxim in the publishing industry: Publishers are in business to make money and if they see a manuscript they think will be hard to sell to the public, it won’t get past their desk. Yes, there are some agents and publishers out there who will actually help you get your dream birthed, even though it may not meet their own preferences. Even on a first book. (If you find one, let me know.) But they are few and far between. Be sure your manuscript makes a GREAT first impression by being the very best you can make it.

Back to the point. No matter what you write or what your style, you owe it to yourself to make it “the very best you can make it.” Two ways to make that happen: 1) do spell and grammar checking several times, and 2) read your manuscript like a book with an unmerciful red pencil. And again. And again. Find those errors and distractions at your own desk before you even consider letting an agent or publisher get a shot at it. Make the changes. Re-write. Do it again. After you’ve gone through the manuscript marking the obvious errors, get to the computer (remember, you did get it into a computer, right?) and record all the fixes and changes there.

By the way, do you have the auto-save feature on your computer locked on (mine saves every thirty seconds), and do you manually save your work regularly? Do you regularly (like daily) save your work to a removable storage device that you can keep separate from your computer? You can buy plug-in, USB external hard-drives now, with 320 gigs of storage, for less than $100. What will happen if you are merrily going on, writing, correcting, proofing and fixing, and the computer decides to turn blue in the face and turn your work into irrecoverable garbage? Believe me, you will be looking for the hemlock. Your life will be ruined. SAVE YOUR WORK!!! (I just pushed my ‘save’ button.)

Now that you’ve made the first round of major changes and fixes, take a break. Put down the red pencils and turn off the computer and go away for a while. A day. A week. Clear your mind and think of something else. (Baskin-Robbins is calling!) You want to get your mind away from the changes you’ve just made and get back to thinking about your manuscript as a new work again. Let your mind and heart get away from the thought that you’ve just destroyed your work of years and begin thinking, “You know, I’ve got a wonderful manuscript just sitting there waiting for me to read it.” And it is. It’s still your baby, your creation—it’s just better now.

After you’ve given yourself some time away, it’s time for the next stage. Sit down with your manuscript in a comfortable place, with some different colored pencils, and do it again. Bright green pencils, or blue or purple; something that will contrast with your first go-through in red, and do it all again. (I know: I hear the screams from here. But believe me. I did it at least four times and found major changes each time. It will get better and better. And the pain will end.) In fact (and I know the cost of paper, etc.), print out your corrected, edited manuscript again so you have a fresh copy and do your re-read from that. It will be easier and you’ll have a better chance of making it “the very best you can make it.”

CHAPTER FOUR

And More Self-Editing

We are in the process of self-editing your work—your manuscript—the love of your life. This is the part of your job where you get rid of as many errors as you can, make the text as interesting and exciting as possible, and put your manuscript in a form that will entice a reader (and especially an agent/publisher) rather than scare them away. In the book publishing business, agents and/or publishers have many criteria they use to judge your work. Many times these are used very quickly, and if your work doesn’t match up, it’s gone. Thanks, but no thanks. The rejection letter. Before even being read. So, before you consider sending your work out to your list of agents or publishers, take a look at the list below and be critical as to whether your work meets (preferably exceeds) these thoughts and suggestions.

Some people have said that any manuscript will have to be sent to 25, 50, even 100 or many more (pick a number) agents or publishers before it will stand a chance of being reviewed and getting you some kind of an acceptance letter back. Whatever the number, you can make your odds so much better by making your work “the very best it can be.” (Remember that phrase?) Even the best manuscripts have to go through many hands and past many eyes before they’re going to get into the publishing process. So, what’s your goal? “The very best you can make it.”

Here’s a list you can start with, and, NO, it’s not everything. It does cover the highlights, though—the major areas that can very quickly make or break your book.

1. Is there something in the immediate, opening sentences and paragraphs that reaches out and grabs the reader? It may not set up the full direction of the book, but there needs to be something that shocks or surprises or intrigues the reader—that makes them say, “What is this? Where is this going? Wow.” A long first paragraph or page or chapter describing the color of the clothing and the dreary rain, or dialogue that doesn’t really tell you where it’s going, is going to quickly put the reader (agent, publisher) to sleep or make them struggle to keep going. If they’re saying, “Where is this going?” in a bored voice rather than an excited one, you’ve lost them before they can even get started. And always remember, agents and publishers are the first, and most critical, of your readers.

2. Is the spelling and grammar correct? Are the sentence structures appealing? Is the entire manuscript well laid out? Again, in the very first words and sentences, a publisher is going to be making their decision as to the worth of the manuscript. That first “barb” that catches their attention will immediately be discarded when the first flaws appear in the spelling and wording. The hook that grabs them must then be followed by style and spelling and grammar that keeps them on your pages, not looking for the next manuscript to review. Yes, your editor can and will help you find these errors and make corrections. But, if you don’t even get past the publisher, the “big dude”…

3. Who are your characters and how are they developed? Do your main characters quickly take their place in the story? Are they interesting? (My editor wrote me and said about the chapter where I introduced my two main characters, “I see where you’re going with this, but it’s boring.” Ouch, but true. Major re-write.) Does the dialogue flow to where you want it to go and is it natural? (Read it out loud to see if it sounds like a real conversation.) Do the characters sound like real people (even if it’s science fiction)? Do they work together well, like real people would? Again, the best way to determine this is to read your story out loud. You will hear your story instead of just seeing it.

4. Does the dialogue between characters make the story flow, or does it become stilted or unnatural? Does the story bog down because the dialogue, or the general text, becomes hard to read or unexciting? No, not every part of your book can be exciting and a cliffhanger. However, if you have long pages of dialogue, descriptions or technical minutia, your reader may not get past them and into the fun or excitement you’ve created. (A certain very well known author got so involved in technical data after about book number two that I’ve stopped reading him.)

5. Do your secondary characters support the main characters and the flow of the story, or do they just take up space? You don’t need a new character every other page if a limited number of characters get the things done you need. If they undercut or overshadow the main characters, it must be for a specific purpose, and it must resolve itself, or your readers will question what it’s all about and get confused.

6. Are the relations or situations between the characters appropriate? Do they work their way through the story and bring out agendas and conflicts or relations that keep the story moving, or do they just get confusing? (Too many characters! I can’t keep them straight!) Yes, you can have confusion and hidden agendas for some time, but eventually they must get resolved or the reader loses interest.

7. For both characters and action, do you tell about them/it, or do you make it happen? (I had a character thinking about his agony, but then re-wrote it to have him scream, throw his glass crashing into the fireplace, and end with sweat-soaked clothes and trembling hands.) Will your readers perhaps gasp when your hero does something? (I had a “worker” walk out onto a building roof, admire the beautiful view, then casually fire some rockets into the city below. My editor said, “Wow. That blew me away.”) Action scenes can be exciting; talking or thinking about the action can be just words. Either can be appropriate, depending on where you are in the story. But, action is action. My editor said that good writing shows or reveals things, it doesn’t just tell about them.

8. Does the story describe events to the point that your reader has an attachment to them? Do they “feel” it? Do they end with a mental image of your scenes? Does the story “flow” and hold the reader’s attention? Too much dialogue, or scenes that take the reader to different times and places, or activities that don’t seem logical—these can all make for hard reading or take the reader’s thoughts off the main direction of the story. What about your use of clichés, technical jargon, facts and figures that show off your knowledge but disrupt the story; name-dropping for ego’s sake? If you do use facts, technical information, street names and directions, ethnic language or philosophical discussions, are they real and correct, or believable? Yes, you can make up your own “facts” and “locales”, even your own language, but do they sound believable or is your reader going to be trying to look things up and be saying, “Where did he get this garbage? What did she make this up from?”

9. Again, before you finalize your writing or your thoughts, read your story completely, OUT LOUD. Read each paragraph, each chapter, OUT LOUD. If it doesn’t sound right to you, how is your reader going to feel it? And, if you still can’t get an answer to how you feel about the reading—the flow—have someone else read it. (Yeah, I know. But, ultimately you’re going to have other people read your work, or you hope so. Much better now than then.) Remember: “The very best we can make it.”

10. Your ending can be anything you want. You might have the story completely set out and it’s the way you want it to end. But, how many times have you read something where you said, “Okay. Same old ending.” Or, the last couple of chapters, or the last “surprise” pages, just kind of die out. Consider an ending that doesn’t work out just right for the heroes. The hero kisses his sweetie goodbye and steps outside—onto a land mine. End of story with that sentence. Shocking. Leave your reader crying, and screaming, “Nooooo!!!” (One of my daughters has probably said, “You can’t end like that. You have to explain the ending. It’s not…”) Your reader may not agree with, or like, your ending, but they need to at least be left saying, “Man what a crazy, scary, weird (choose a word) ending. I want more of this.” They may throw the book across the room in anger, but do they then go get it, put it on the shelf and go looking for your next one?

Find a book or an author that has really left you panting for more and copy their work. (Did I say copy? I didn’t mean plagiarize. I really meant get your story, your ending, your style, to work the same as theirs.) If Steve Martini’s style is best-seller material; if The Assassin or The Last Days keep our hearts pumping and our minds calling for more, shouldn’t our own works “copy” those styles. If my neighbor barbecues the best ribs we’ve ever tasted, and mine come out burned and tasteless, would I still lay mine beside theirs in the taste contest, or would I try to find out their recipe? Read and study what the best sellers look like, how they sound and how they’re laid out. After all, they are the best sellers.

Remember, there are some 300,000 titles published each year now. What’s going to make your work rise to the top of that list? “The very best you can make it.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Let’s Recap

Let’s do a quick recap of the first four parts of this little effort.

1. Write the very best book you possibly can.

Don’t forget that the agent or publisher you’re trying to attract is going to be your very worst critic, and he’s not going to get past page one if it isn’t good. I thought I could write pretty well until my editor started pointing out things that would put my book in the trashcan instead of on the shelves. (Ouch!)

2. Self-Editing.

Study your own work as if you are that person picking it up in the bookstore, or that publisher seeing it for the first time on his desk. Yes, you will likely have an editor to assist you—later—but what about getting it into the editor’s hands? Have you made it the best manuscript you can—before you start sending it out?

3. Get it on a computer.

The only way you’re going to feel free to edit and change without fear. All the work necessary to change text from a typewritten or hand-written manuscript is going to subconsciously keep you from doing that. And be sure you save, save, save.

4. The very best manuscript you can make it.

In every way. Text; spelling; characters; style; the flow. Enough said.

5. Read your own manuscript—OUT LOUD.

Errors in punctuation, poor relationships between characters, boring text and conversations, too wordy, doesn’t “flow”—these will all pop out when you read it to yourself—OUT LOUD. And/or, have someone else read it long before you submit it.

6. Be sure your punctuation and grammar are correct.

Also your style. Does it match throughout the book? The flow. Does it keep a person on their seat or put them to bed? Is anything distracting? Do scenes and situations resolve themselves? Do you “show” the action, or tell “about” it?

7. The big red pencil (and the green one, and…)

Edit, edit, edit, edit—again and again.

8. Be critical (“The very best you can make it.”)

Read this “very” critical.

9. Read it again—OUT LOUD.

Get to a quiet place, get comfortable, and read it like your worst critic (that publisher) or most excited reader (because they’re the ones going to recommend this one and buy your next one—you hope.)

And here’s item number ten for the list above.

10. Write a chapter index of your story.

Even if it isn’t a book that will ultimately have an index, write a name description—a title—for each chapter with a very short summary of what’s in the chapter. Then read down the index, reading the summaries and asking yourself, “Does this flow? Does the story logically go from point A to point Z? Does there seem to be any confusion in what comes before or after what?” Then, seriously consider moving chapters around. Should Chapter 16 really come before Chapter 17, or should it come after Chapter 22? Have you introduced a character or a scene too early, or before the stage has been set? Have you introduced a character and then waited too long to follow up on the action surrounding that character? Don’t be afraid to make changes. After all, it’s on your computer (right?), and you can’t hurt it, right? The very best manuscript you can make it!!!

Let’s say you now have a manuscript in hand that every bookstore in the country is already waiting for. You’ve worn out a dozen red pencils editing; you’ve had three or five or… friends (still?) read it and have graciously (?) received their kind criticism; you’ve read it OUT LOUD half a dozen times, moved chapters around, completely scrubbed a character and re-written several scenes—and you are now saying, “This is it. I’ve done it. It’s beautiful.”

Now what?

How about a cover, the “backmatter,” typesetting and layout? Hah, hah, fooled you. You just thought you were finished. Sorry to burst you’re bubble, but you’ve only just begun. (Yes, there is a song that says just that.)

There are people out there who say very bluntly that writing a book is simply not fun. That it’s a lot of work, authors often wish they had never started the process, and it takes forever. So, why? Why do it? Maybe it’s the “satisfaction” of putting your thoughts and dreams down on paper for everyone to see with you. Ah, maybe it’s the money? Or the fulfillment you will get?

In fact, though, writing a book is a LOT of work, most authors lose money on their effort, and most books don’t get into the stores for people to even begin to find. You’re going to have people you don’t even know telling you how bad your work is or how much you need to change it. Yes, it's possible to write for pleasure and satisfaction, but are you going to be ready to accept the tension, disappointment and cost that will likely come with it? And the lack of acceptance when you finally present it to the reading public?

Yes? Then here’s a thought that I hope you will absorb into your very soul: Don’t let ANYONE take away the challenge, the excitement, the dream and the hope you have as you sit and contemplate your story. DO IT!!! Count the cost, gather your courage, pay the price and DO IT. Bring your dream, your “baby,” to life. Write it!

CHAPTER SIX

What is “backmatter?”

Simple. It’s the text on the back cover of your book with the little description that tells the bookstore browsers what the book is about. How important is it? Even more than the book itself, and equal with the cover art, it’s one of the most important things you have to do in getting your book to market.

You’ve written a wonderful book, and if people will read it they’ll never put it down and they’ll tell every friend they have. But, what’s going to get them to pick it up and drop it at the checkout counter? The cover and the backmatter—the little summary that forces them to keep the book in their hands once they pick it up from a shelf. You are going to have about 50–100 words on the back of the book to hook them; words that are going to keep them from putting it back on the shelf. You’re going to have to spend just as much concentrated effort writing those words as you did in writing the book itself. More, even, because this summary will be what sells the book.

If you go with a full-scale publishing house and have a real-time editor, your editor will likely write the backmatter themselves, or at least assist you in writing it. But once it’s written, by you or your editor, don’t just accept it. Review it, edit it, critique it and re-write it just like you did your manuscript. Read it out loud. Remember—“The very best we can make it.” Don’t simply accept what your editor writes for you. Critique it; read it out loud; read it as if you are the ultimate book buyer and ask whether it causes you to want to keep the book or put it back down. Accept what your editor writes with grace, but make sure it says what YOU want it to say.

Put your manuscript down and pick up the text you’ve written as the backmatter and read it. What is there that would cause you to keep the book you are reading about? Romance, mystery, nursery rhyme, biography—it doesn’t matter. Is what you are reading about the book going to cause you to keep and read the book? Why? Does it tell you just enough about the story that you want to read it all? Remember that there are forty-six more books on the shelf within your arms reach right NOW. Why would you keep this one? If it’s a mystery, does it sound mysterious? Does it lead you into the story, set a stage for things you want to find out about, cause you to say, “Hmmmm?” Does it sound like every other romance novel on the shelf? What is in your backmatter that stands out?

Do you enjoy a good mystery? Here’s one that has suspense and intrigue rushing though it from front to back and which will keep you awake all night.

Terrorism and death. A plot to take over the world. People caught in the battle of good and evil. Will the world survive the battle?

You’ve got to read this book. Pick it up today.

OR

An exciting new novel about a world in chaos with terrorism exploding everywhere. A deadly plot for total domination of the world ensues as the people of the world idly watch. Can the world leaders resist this powerful force as the power struggle comes to an ultimate climax?

As the war of good versus evil rages, SANCTION intensely narrates the lives of the most powerful men on both sides of the battle. Computer hacking, missile attacks, cold-blooded murder and pure evil haunt the world as The Plan progresses. Civilians and government

officials lock arms in defense of the world as it is seemingly being unhinged. The fate of the world rests in their hands…or does it?

SANCTION is a suspenseful story about today’s world that you won't want to miss.

Okay, I admit. It’s the backmatter from my own book. But, which one caught your interest more? Which one gave you just enough about the story that you might decide to take it home? Which one was exciting and which one maybe ho-hum? Which one has you still holding onto the book while you’re standing in the aisle, maybe even turning a few pages for a sneak preview?

Don’t let anyone tell you it really doesn’t matter—it’s good enough. You’re only going to have one chance to get your book into someone’s hands and up to the cash register. Will the words on the back of your book get the job done?

The cover

Here’s the other thing that is going to get your book to the cash register—and it’s the most important thing. More so even than the backmatter.

Go down to your local bookstore and wander the aisles for five minutes. What did you see that caught your eye—that intrigued you—that caused you to pick it up? WHY?

You saw hundreds of books. Most of them you only saw the spine because they were standing up like little soldiers in a row and to even read the title you had to turn your head sideways. Did you have to question what the title was and the author’s name? Could you read the title through the colors and the design once you finally found it? Did the colors stand apart from each other so you could tell them apart or did they all blend together? Was the text type so flowery or “old English” that you couldn’t read it? Why did you pick a single one out of them all to put your hand out toward? Seriously. WHY?

Now, what about those very few books that actually had the front cover facing the aisle? Obviously, you got a better look at them, didn’t you? Do you think your book is going to get face-to-the-aisle treatment? Oh, think again. Certainly not until your name is a household icon. Or, maybe if your cover art is so good that a bookstore manager says, “People need to see this one. This one might sell.” Will your art be that good? It has to be.

I ordered some material from a name-brand self-publisher that gave information on how they would publish my book for me. For a cover, they had a stock of standard front pages with some

pretty pictures and a cutout in the middle that you would put your book title in. Yes, some of the covers were very nice, but would they stand out in those aisles you just walked? The colors were already there—take them or leave them. The space to put your title in was fixed—no ability to change sizes. And, importantly, would any of the standard covers actually tell something about your story, or enhance your title? Did the cover look just like all the others on the shelf, or did it stand out by itself? (If you can, take a look at the cover on my own book, SANCTION, at the website, JimMagwood.com. It started out with just a theme and the title. Then my artist added the city and world background. Really looked good! Then she added the little pointy things—she called them glyphs—around the edges and suddenly mystery and suspense graced the cover. I fell in love. My book is a suspenseful mystery and suddenly the cover made it appear that way from outside the book.)

Your cover needs to tell people what the book is about just by looking and cause them to reach out and pick it up.

Could you line your book up beside twenty others from those shelves and immediately decide to pick up yours? Just by looking at the cover and reading the title? Again, go back and walk those aisles. Look at the books there and see which ones catch your eye. Then ask yourself, WHY? What makes them stand out? Take a notebook with you and write down the exact impressions you get from the books so you can take it home and apply it to yours. Does yours match up with the very best of the ones you saw?

These two items—the cover and the backmatter—are what will get your book picked off the shelf, looked at, and finally taken home. Until you’ve built a name that people are looking for, this is your best, and only, chance to get your book into the hands of the readers. You simply cannot afford to skimp or cut corners on these items. Don’t get so enamored of the flowery words your potential publisher showers on you until you find out how these two items will be developed. These will make or break your efforts beyond anything else. You can take your material from a stockpile of basics the publisher has on hand and pay less, or you can pay more to have the very best you can get so it will reach off the shelf and grab that browser before they can walk past. If you want your work of art to have a chance in the marketplace, you simply can’t afford to skimp on these two vital parts of your work.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Why Would Your Book Get Noticed?

Last session we were talking about the backmatter and the cover for your book. In order to really get the idea of how important these two items are, you were going to go down to your local bookstore and wander the aisles for a bit. So—what did you see? (By the way, did you happen to buy about ten copies of that world famous novel, SANCTION? Yeah, I know. It’s my book. But, you can’t blame me for trying, can you?)

I know what you saw. Thousands upon thousands of books of every genre, size, color, etc. But, did you see them, or just the spine as it poked out at you? If your book was going to be there, where would it be? Would it ever be seen by casual lookers? Did you see hundreds of books where you couldn’t read the spine because it was so dark or cloudy, or the type was so funky it couldn’t be read? Maybe type that was so close to the cover color that it didn’t stand apart? Remember trying to hold your head at that 45 degree angle (90 degrees would have been better) while you were trying to walk and read at the same time? I bet it was much easier to read all those spines that way, right?

WHY WOULD YOUR BOOK GET NOTICED IN ALL THAT?

Go back and read chapter six in this series to see what I stressed on the subject of the cover and the backmatter. The first thing that is going to get noticed about your book will be the cover, whether it’s spine out or face out in the store, and if the cover really isn’t noticeable and attractive, or worse, if it’s de-tractive, it will not be seen. The cover, even just the spine, is what’s going to get someone to pick it up and at least read the backmatter, and that’s the next step on getting someone to open the book and scan some chapters and perhaps…

I was doing a book signing some time ago and had placed a few copies of my book in some strategic (I hoped) places through the store as well as at the signing table. One spot was on the top shelf of a stand-alone spinning rack, about 5-1/2 feet off the floor. I was able to see it from where I was signing and watched three different people start by the rack, then turn their eyes up to the top shelf, stop and reach for MY book. They opened it and read a little bit. The point being, there was something on the front cover that caught their eye and got them to at least look. Granted, the book had the front cover out and not just the spine, but it caught them. One more little step toward getting a sale.

If you’re a new author, it’s not likely many people are going to be coming into a bookstore asking for YOUR book. They’re going to have to SEE it somewhere before they will ever have it in their hands. So, whatever you can do to make the cover as wonderful as possible, do it. Read the past lesson again on some ideas about this, and then go out and look at covers in stores from well-known authors. I’m holding Jack & Jill from James Patterson in my hand right now, and there’s no way you can miss that cover or the spine. The title is large. His name is large. Very clean. I’ve also got The Last Days by Joel Rosenberg, Split Second by David Baldacci, and

Double Tap by Steve Martini. Each of them is very clean with good colors, solid, easily readable type, and the titles and names very evident. If you were looking for Steve Martini, there’s his name as bold as can be. Or Split Second—same. Bold and standing out. You can’t miss them. What were the books in the rack right beside these? Who knows? These overshadowed the others and didn’t give them a second chance.

Now it’s not likely your name is Baldacci or Patterson, so you won’t likely get noticed if your book is right beside theirs. But, the point is to get noticed, right? What was that I heard about “my cover’s good enough?” Want to think that through again?

And, if the cover gets the book picked up, will the backmatter get them to read a little, maybe even open the book for a look inside? Again, I watched the people who picked up my book that weekend do that—look at the cover, read the back-matter, open it for a quick look inside, and YEAH, come by for an autograph. What a thrill! But if the cover hadn’t caught them, would they have ever even seen it?

Please, go back to that bookstore and do some research on covers and backmatter. Your book will only benefit from it.

Now let me jump ahead just a little bit and talk about your choice of publishers, editors and artists. It fits at this point, and we’ll cover some more on the subject later.

You are ultimately going to be choosing a publisher and they are going to have some variety of services they provide. Some will have a full editing staff, real graphic artists, knowledgeable typesetters, etc., and some will have some of these services available, maybe on an ala carte basis, and others say, “You bring it in. We’ll print whatever it is.” Of course, you will pay a very different price at each of these publishers based on which services you purchase. However, the point is YOU will need to be sure you are getting what you want to make YOUR book successful. I lucked out and got a terrific editor and a graphic artist that did a wonderful job designing the cover. I couldn’t have asked for more. The great part is that with both of them, I was able to talk back and forth with them, give my thoughts and ideas, look at their suggestions and get some re-dos, and was kept fully in the loop through everything. They stressed it was MY book, and they were just there to help me make it better, or the best.

You need to have this same thing done on your work in order to make it “the very best you can make it.” If you are really good at doing your writing, you might not need an editor, or perhaps just some minor editing. The same for your cover. If you are a graphic artist, you might be able to design your own cover. But, are you? Remember that “You bring it in, we’ll print it” statement? Remember those standard covers I mentioned in the last lesson where you basically fit your title and maybe a picture into their ready-made covers? Maybe those will work for you. If you have a very select niche market you are shooting for, or you’re only going to give your book to family and friends, or you’re only going to sell them at your church where everyone knows you, these truly do-it-yourself publishing efforts can work. But, if you are trying to get into the commercial stores and get sold…? Go back and look through that bookstore again and look at your competition.

The very best we can make it.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Layout and Typesetting

The next stage you will go through is the setting up and putting together of your book. Layout basically means the style of pages, spacing of the lines, indenting, paper and color choices, the headings for the chapters, the choice of any graphics that make the type stand out, etc.

Typesetting means just that—the changing of the type and style you sent the publisher—perhaps Times New Roman or Arial, 10-point size, regular line spacing, etc.—into a type-style that will be best for your book and that is common in the publishing industry. (Has anyone heard of ACaslan-Regular or Trajan-Bold fonts? I sure hadn’t.)

If you’ve chosen a publisher that has professionals in these areas, they will do most of the work for you and will make it the best possible. If your book is going to be in a large, hardcover style or a trade paperback, sizes and styles will need to be different to fit best. But you will still need to make choices. I’ve read hundreds of books, and many of them were just plain hard to read. Type too small or too light, lines too close together, margins too close to the spine so I had to bend the back of the book, and so on. When my book initially came from the layout/typesetting group, I found it that way—too small and too tight for my comfort. I was able to work with my group to get the type and line spacing made a little larger. They were willing to work with me, and the book came out better for it.

Again, the point? Make sure the book is what YOU want, even if you have to argue or fight for it. Now, obviously you can be foolish about what you want. Increasing the size of my fonts and line spacing added about ten pages to the book and made it cost a little more. Doubling the font size would have made it a 600-page book instead of 300 pages. Not realistic. Hopefully, your group is professional and will assist you in making all the best choices. But, it still comes down to YOU. Is your book the best YOU can make it? If you choose to self-publish your book (explanation later), YOU are going to have to make all these choices, maybe without any help from anyone. If you turn in a manuscript full of typos and punctuation errors, in Arial 24-point font, with regular, left-justified text and ragged right margins, with no page numbering, that is what is going to get printed. Is that what you want?

Again, if it’s going to just go to family and friends (My Life and Loves During My World Travels), whatever makes YOU feel good is what it should be. But, if you’re hoping for the next New York Times Bestseller and great sales reports from the bookstores, are you setting that book up to become that bestseller or…?

In the next lesson, we’ll finish up the basics of the actual writing and setting up of your life’s work and start to look at the types of publishers, editors, artists, and so forth. If you know of friends that might be thinking of writing something, tell them about this book and send it on to them. I know I’m just me and certainly no expert, but as I personally found out, ANY help was

great help for a novice. Feel free to jump into the website and see some of the things I’m talking about: JimMagwood.com.

CHAPTER NINE

Another Recap

Who is responsible for making your book the very best it can be? YOU are. You may have a great and loving publisher (Yes, there are some) and the world’s best editor and graphic artist, but, YOU, my friend… It’s YOUR book. YOUR baby. YOUR work of a lifetime. It’s up to YOU to make it good. Nobody else.

So, with that in mind, let’s go back and look over these past chapters regarding writing and editing to just touch the high points again and to really impress that thought in mind—in this case, it really is All About YOU.

You’ve actually written your work on a computer or gotten it transcribed to one (remember?) so you will have no qualms about proofing, correcting and changing. Be sure your system has a spell-checker and that you use it—many times. Although the spell and grammar checker can be a pain when it keeps telling you, “No, no!”, it will be a life saver when it points out errors that will be eye sores to a publisher. And, remember again, you only have one chance to get your manuscript past the eye of the first person to read it—the agent or publisher. Keep in mind, though, the spell checker is not perfect. It won’t catch the difference between they’re, their and there, or from and form, in text unless it is also running with a grammar checker. And even then…

Proof your work both on the computer and by reading it hard copy. Your eye will become distracted on the computer but will pick up things when you read it on paper, in some sense of actual book format. Set it up in your computer as landscape style, two columns on a page so it actually looks like a book, and print it out. Then read it (several times) with that evil red pencil. Be brutal and vicious. Destroy it with the pencil now so no one else does it later. Read it straight through, NOT stopping to make corrections. Just mark the errors so you can identify them later. Don’t lose the train of your reading. Go back later and make the corrections.

If anything seems to really bog you down or cause confusion, read it OUT LOUD. Your ear will often hear better than your eye will see. And, it makes you go through it slower so you become more attentive.

Use your dictionary and thesaurus. Use the dictionary for correct spelling and word meaning. Use the thesaurus to suggest possible word replacements. Don’t get caught using the same word or phrase over and over. Look up the correct spelling of foreign words, trademark names (RAYOVAC), names of people (Gale, Gail or Gayle), buildings, bridges and so on. Use books like the Chicago Manual of Style to be sure you are using correct punctuation, word usage and so forth. Words such as ‘president’ are only capitalized when they are attached to a name, not when used alone—generally. (He spoke to the president versus he spoke to President Reagan.)

If you are using a prologue in your book, make it relevant and descriptive on it’s own. Don’t use it to pre-tell the story. Most readers don’t like to be told the very story that they are about to read.

Avoid long descriptions of characters or scenes. A full paragraph of the make and model of her clothing (who but you really knows anything about Ferragamo shoes and Ultra-Glo, Spit-Shine Ivory lip gloss?), or a description of a character as being so flawless and handsome that you know you would never meet someone like that, or telling all about a character’s fears and faults—these are going to drive readers to sleep, rather than get them involved. Don’t tell about characters; tell the story and let it describe where it needs to. Give less description and more action. Don’t tell who the characters are; show who they are.

Be very careful if you are using flashbacks or telling the end of the story and then having your characters live up to that. This style of writing can become so convoluted and confusing that you will lose your readers. It can also get them saying early on, “I know where this is going. Why am I reading it?”

As you read your manuscript, ask yourself does the story ‘flow?’ Does the story go where I want it? Does it wander and twist too much? Do the conversations make sense? Do your main characters stand out like they should or do they never really take the places in the story you wanted for them? Are you comfortable reading the story or is it sometimes a strain to follow what’s going on?

I won’t re-write it here, but look again at Chapter Four of this work and read the ten to-dos’s for getting your book into the best shape you can get it. Also, I wrote earlier about “copying” the best authors around. I said that if my neighbor barbecues a better steak than I do, why should I not “copy” what he does. If David Baldacci writes best sellers, why shouldn’t I try to get my novel to sound as good as his. No, of course I didn’t mean plagiarize his work. I meant that I should look at the styles of the best selling authors and try to write with as much pizzazz or intrigue or “flow” as they do.

Then, finally, we were going to go on a field trip to the local bookstore and take a look at the competition to see what makes a book stand out in the store and get noticed. Colors, artwork, text styles and setup, book size, word and line spacing. The cover and the backmatter. The question was, Why would your book stand out if lined up beside all these others up and down the aisles?

So much to do, right? But, the very best we can make it. Remember?

CHAPTER TEN

Publishing

Okay, maybe we’re ready to start considering a publisher. We’ll do a quick preview of this subject in this part and then come back to it next time because it’s a big subject. But, in order to start, you start, right?

How do you start finding a publisher? That begins with first determining what kind of book you have and what you want to do with it. If you’ve written a book for your family and friends, then you want a publisher who will help you clean up your work and put it in the best possible shape without costing you a fortune. You might want some amount of editing help, someone who can help you put together a cover and do some art work, and a printing system that will produce a nice looking book. Maybe not destined to be a literary masterpiece, but at least a nice looking book. (This could, for instance, be a simple printing company downtown.)

If, however, you’ve written what you hope will be a New York Times Bestseller and you’re hoping for millions to sell worldwide, then you want some real quality professionals on your team. And, you may have to pay for that, big time. The cost of producing a book with real professionals can easily be $25,000, and even that isn’t necessarily going to get you a lot. So, let’s start with the two main ways we will go about finding a publisher.

The first way is to go looking on your own. We’ll get into some detail on this next time, but initially this means you are going to do a lot of research for the types of publishers who will handle your type of work (children’s nursery rhymes, mysteries, romances, etc.) and then you will start on a major letter writing and mailing campaign. And you will steel yourself against those wonderful rejection notices that will come in—because they will. You will arm yourself with piles of nice looking paper, large envelopes and lots of stamps. You will draft (and re-draft many times) a letter that will knock that publisher right off his chair the moment he sees it. And you will start sending it to publishers from coast to coast. Maybe hundreds of them. And you will wait—and mail more—and wait. And you will need to have a large supply of manuscript summaries so you can send one with each submission. But remember one thing: Most publishers don’t even accept unsolicited manuscripts. Nice thought huh?

Ah, but there’s another way—an easier way. You will hire an agent to do all that for you. Agents know everybody, right? They’ll just walk in to their old buddy in the publishing firm and you’ll have a book overnight, right? Well, yeah, maybe. But how are you going to find that agent in the first place? Read the paragraph just above this one and insert the name “agent” wherever you see the name “publisher.” That’s how you will go about it. And you will probably end up paying a good amount of money to find an agent, just like a publisher. True, your agent will do most of this searching for a publisher for you, and they may be good at it and get your manuscript placed quickly. But, you will have to spend almost as much time finding an agent as you will to find a publisher.

Here’s something that will help you in sending off your work in search of an agent or a publisher. Michael Hyatt of Thomas Nelson Publishers has set out a guideline for writing a book proposal that you can check out at

http://www.thomasnelson.com/consumer/Downloads/WritingABookProposal.pdf

It’s very extensive and detailed and can give you a wealth of information in preparation for sending your manuscript (or proposal) to agents and publishers.

Here’s a very big caveat, though, before you ever start sending out letters and manuscripts. Most agents and publishers no longer want, or will even accept, “unsolicited manuscripts.” If they don’t know you already, your material that arrives in their office will likely just be trashed with no response letter at all. What you almost always have to do today is send a “query letter” describing your project so they can tell if it’s even something they have an interest in at all. I won’t describe what this letter is like here, except it should be one-page only, with a brief description that encapsulates your story and a brief biography of yourself, written in a style that will absolutely thrill them in a heart-beat and cause them to immediately pick up the phone and call you for more. (See Michael Hyatt’s guideline noted above.) Agent Query, a company that enables you to search lists of hundreds of agents, has an article on writing query letters. Look it up at http://www.agentquery.com (and search for agents).

CHAPTER ELEVEN

More On Publishing

Next, what types of publishing firms are there? Mainly, three, but the kind you look for will depend on what you want to do with your novel, how much work you want to do to make all this happen and how much money you want (or are able) to spend to bring your manuscript to market. Let’s list the types.

First, there is the “self-publishing” publisher. This is one that will offer you some amount of services, usually for which you will pay an increasing amount for each next step they help you with, and who is basically going to take what you present to them and put it into book format. Pay as you go for each step and they will print what you give them. Do you really want good editing help? Some of these publishers don’t have editors; some just do a cursory job; others will charge you a much higher fee for providing quality editing. And the same for all the other parts of the publishing process. You will probably do all your own marketing, from driving around with a trunk-load of books to peddle to arranging magazine ads or billboards, whatever you can afford. Self-publishers are great for those books you are writing for the family and friends or if you really want to put your soul into doing it yourself with just a little help in making it look like a real book. And some self-published books have gone on to be great books.

The other main type is the full-scale publisher. Names like Bantam, Random House and so on come to mind. The first thought here is that you are likely going to have a very tough time getting into one of these as a new author. They are well established and do great jobs and produce the majority of books in the marketplace, but they have gone beyond the stage of a publishing firm trying to become established to those who can pick and choose what they want and be very selective. They will usually have true professional services in the editing and graphics fields and may have major marketing systems in place. However, you will usually need an agent to get in these doors and if you’re a new author, unless you’ve written a really great book that your agent can convince the publisher to take a chance on, you won’t have much of a chance of getting in. With the declining economic situation these days, many of these old, established publishing houses are cutting back in a major way.

The third type of publisher is what is called the “participation” or “partner” publisher. This is one that is often looking for new authors, who will solicit and read new manuscripts looking for a good one, and who will then charge you only a small part of the expected total cost of doing the publishing work (maybe 20-25%). These publishers will often have full, professional staffs of editors and graphics people, will have completely professional printing facilities, and will often have relations with people and groups who will do some amount of marketing for you. They may be able to help get your work into the major bookstores and Internet stores (Amazon.com, for instance) and they may have marketing departments that will help you find niche markets for your product. If an expected cost to get your book fully produced and into the marketplace is $25,000, for instance, you might be asked to “participate” with an up-front fee of

$4-5,000. They will cover the rest. They are taking the risk that they have found a potentially good and profitable author and they will make their profit from your on-going future sales, not from having you pay for all the services.

So, are you still into the book writing and publishing frame of mind? If so, let’s look some more at the different types of publishers and the services they provide (or don’t.) We’ll continue the process with an eye on finding the publisher that will do the best job for your specific work.

We’ve spent quite some time on the subject of writing the very best manuscript you possibly can, editing it and proofing it over and over until there are just NO errors (right?), and getting the best cover art and graphics and typesetting and layout possible so you will be able to stand out against all the competition in the bookstores. Granted, much of the cover work, graphics and so on will be provided by your publisher, but YOU need to have all this in mind before you get to them. So, let’s begin the publisher search by asking again the questions: What kind of work have you written? and What do you want to do with it?

We probably all want to go right to the top and sign up with one of the names such as Harper & Row, Berkeley, Putnam or Simon & Schuster. Unfortunately, I don’t find my own name on their lists of published authors—probably because I’ve just published my first four novels and they haven’t hit the bestseller lists yet.

Now, I’m not saying you can’t get there—just that the chances are pretty slim for a new author. And that’s going to come down to how good a book you write (some people do hit the top with their first), whether you have a writing/publishing budget strong enough to buy a real tiger of an agent (spell that money), whether you can purchase a great marketing campaign (spell that more money), and how much luck you have (you know—the right place, the right time, etc.).

So, what kind of work have you written and what do you want to do with it?

Perhaps you’ve written about your life experiences and they are truly exciting. Don Piper wrote about his 90 Minutes in Heaven, for instance. But be honest with yourself—how many people are going to want to read about you? Do you have a famous name already? Is your story—your title—so exciting that it will ring all the bells in a bookstore? How many new diet books and exercise books and how-to-beat-everyone-in-the-business-world books are already out there? Why do you think yours will stand out against them? I’m not saying it won’t; just challenging you to ask the tough questions before you start investing your life savings and every waking moment trying to make your book a success.

Maybe you’ve written a children’s nursery rhyme book and you have a very special pet bunny that’s the hero through all the stories. Is your name Suess? Or Disney? Is everyone you’ve mentioned your stories to ringing your phone off the wall begging that you get them a copy? I know your kids just fell all over themselves every night when it was time to read them a story, but…

Now, the international mystery I’ve written, SANCTION. That’s another story. What superlatives can I use? What do you mean you haven’t heard of it yet? Is my phone ringing off the…? Well, okay. Yes, it’s selling, but it hasn’t reached the New York Times yet. No, it hasn’t been purchased for a movie yet. Okay, so it’s kind of just starting? But… How many mystery novels are out there? How many of any kind of novels are there on the shelves? I said early on that there are some 300,000-plus new books being published every year. And, no, I haven’t had every

major name publisher sending telegrams to bid on my next one, or even some rights to the first one. But, next week…

I think the main caveat here is to be realistic. If you’re going to try for the big publishers, then you will likely need an agent to represent you, one who knows the business. One who will beat the doors down. I’ve seen ads by agents willing to take some new clients and I’ve wondered just how hungry they are? Do they have ten author clients or one hundred? And what is the magic number? I have no idea. You’re probably going to have to do a lot of research and chasing to find a good agent, just as you would to find a publisher. The difference? You will then have that agent on your side, fighting and preaching for you. You’re not alone anymore.

What are the benefits of going with one of the major publishers, if you get that lucky? Full staffs of editors, artists and layout specialists. Marketing systems already in place. Lists of present customers and readers already in their camp to send announcements to when your work comes out. Their names alone usually mean “good books to read.” If you want to find one of these mainstream publishers, just do a computer search for “publishers.”

Okay, so perhaps you’re just trying to get started, you don’t really know if your book is any good, you don’t have any real idea of what you’re doing, and you have what you think is a nice little book but you don’t know who might read it. Now what? How about trying the “self-publishing” route?

Have you seen the name Xlibris? iUniverse, VantagePress or 48HourBooks? (Be very careful and research any publisher thoroughly. Some you DO NOT want to use.) Is there a printing company in your own town that will print a book for you? Does your brother own a printing press? Self-publishing is just that. YOU are going to do most of the work, and usually, WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get.) Some ads I’ve seen actually say, “We’ll print what you send.” No editors; no graphic artists; selections of standard covers and type styles that your book must fit into. For a flat price of X-hundreds of dollars they will take your computer file and turn it into book text, put a picture on your cover, and print you off twenty-five or three hundred books. Then, you get to put them in your car trunk and start peddling. The cost, you ask? Anywhere from around $200 to $1500 to $10,000-plus. And, by the way, unless you pay for the service, YOU will have to get the copyright registration and the ISBN, etc. And be careful: Unless you purchase services such as editing, etc., what you send them is what will get printed—errors, small, unreadable type, no indents, pictures that are too dark to see and so on.

(One author did a test. He sent a manuscript to a self-publisher that was full of errors and was actually the first 100 or so pages copied several times. The book got printed with even more errors and just the way he had sent it. Real story!)

Now, is there anything wrong with these self-publishers? NO, as long as you do your homework and get what you need. If you are simply trying to put together a book for the family and a few friends, or if you are willing to do major amounts of legwork trying to get into bookstores and libraries. If you have the ability to do very heavy editing and proofing on your own. If you don’t have a lot of funding and really want to get your baby into print, these can be the places to start. You can generally purchase the level of service you need and can afford. There are many small publishers that have made really good names for themselves and who do great jobs helping new authors. Some name authors have started here and have gone on to greatness, sometimes even dragging that small publisher with them. Again, the caveat: Just sit down and do a really careful analysis of what you want to do, then go looking for someone that will fill just what you want.

You can usually find many ads by self-publishers in some writing websites or in the ad section of newspapers and magazines. Or just go into your computer and search for “publishers, self.”

Two special and very good self-publishers I’ve found I’ll name here. One is CreateSpace, which is a branch of Amazon. There is NO charge for publishing with them except for buying copies of your proofs to review before actually pushing the “GO” button. They provide many templates for you to format your book, etc., and you do all the work. Or, you can purchase their help. A great feature is when you do publish, your book automatically goes into Amazon as a paper book to sell through them. (They also give you the ability to turn your book into a Kindle book.) Another feature is CreateSpace gives you a page in their Bookstore to display and sell your book. They only charge when your book sells, and it’s definitely reasonable. They print and ship almost overnight.

The other is WestBow Press which is a division of Thomas Nelson. Prices are very reasonable. Best part is that Nelson looks at most of the work going through WestBow and if they think it’s right will grab it and, voila, you are in the hands of a traditional publisher.

A major factor in the book world today is e-books. They are the up-and-coming thing and the market is really swinging that direction. Some people are only writing e-books now and might go into a paper book if the e-book is successful. There are many places to have e-books made, but one of the best is Smashwords (www.smashwords.com). Basically, you send them your proofed manuscript in a Word.doc format following their style manual and they turn it into all the e-book formats (.mobi, .epub, etc.) and “ship” them out to all the e-book retailers. There is no cost for all this and they take a small cut of the proceeds if and when they or a retailer sells a copy to a reader. Great people and program.

One more type of publisher and then we’ll get back to the races. This one is called the “partnership” or “participating” publisher. I mentioned them in the last part of this book, and basically what they do is go looking for potentially good new authors, have the author “participate” in the costs of the publishing process to about the 20-25% rate, and then the publisher picks up the rest of the costs. Their hope is that they do find a new author that does well and they make the profits they want by helping the author get a really good book out there and hoping for long-term, repeat sales. These will usually be full-scale publishers with professional editors, artists and staffs, with full printing facilities and some amount of real marketing help. If a book costs somewhere about $20-25,000 to publish (with full editing and graphics, etc.), then the author’s “participation” would likely be about $4-5,000. You need to make sure there are no ‘hidden’ costs, so you know right up front what this endeavor is going to cost you and exactly what services you will receive.

The only problem you might encounter if you want to go with one of these “partnership” publishers is that they are usually very selective on which authors they choose to work with. If they are going to put up an initial cost of possibly $20,000 or more, they want to be as sure as they can that the author will be successful and become an income producer, so they will usually only choose a very small percentage of those who apply (maybe 4-5%). But most of them will at least give your manuscript a fair read.

My personal thoughts for a new author with a work they are trying to get into the mainstream markets and make major sales with is to perhaps try one of the “participating” publishers first. You will generally get the most service and professionalism for breaking into the market (if they select you). After this type of publisher, unless you have the money to really try for the big name

firms, search very carefully to see what “self-publishing” firm might fit your needs. (Check out the ones I noted above.) In all cases, be very aware of what you are trying to do, what help you will likely need, what services the firm you are looking at says they will provide and what the costs will be. (And Google them all to see the good, the bad and the ugly about them before you jump in.) If, however, you really think you have written a great novel, friends tell you it should be a great seller and so on, then you should likely try to go the agent route and try to get into one of the main-name publishing houses.

Another way to find a publisher in any of these categories is to go into “The Association of American Publishers” website at http://www.publishers.org, go down the Index on the left to the Membership tab, click on the side to get the dropdown box, then click on the Member Companies link and just search the names.

And here are two ways to check out your potential publisher. One is to Google them and find out both who they are and possibly what is said about them. If they have a website of their own, Google will likely come up with it and you can research them as to services, prices, etc. Also, look at other articles Google shows about them for possible comments, references, recommendations (or warnings) and so on.

The other way is to go into the website, Editors & Predators, at http://pred-ed.com/. They list literally hundreds of publishers and others, give a basic description of them, recommendations and possible warnings, and usually have the name linked so you can click and go direct to their website to check them out.

Do yourself a BIG favor and check out the companies you are thinking of using. Remember the old saying, BUYER BEWARE. Very true statement in the book business.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Marketing and Selling

What have we discussed so far? Let me count the ways. Yeah, yeah, I know. But I need to impress you with my knowledge, right? Okay, so get on with it, I know.

We’ve looked repeatedly at the concept of writing the very best book you possibly can. That means you write and re-write, you edit and re-edit, you run it through the spell-checker again and again, you print out a copy in book format and read it like a book, and you read it out loud. Look back over the previous parts of this book to see those items again.

We’ve talked about the subject of agents and publishers—how they are your worst enemies, yet your best friends if you find the right ones. We’ve looked at the opening lines and first pages, because that’s what a publisher is going to see and either pursue or dump. We’ve discussed your book cover and artwork, the professional editing, the typesetting and layout of your book, and all those other things that will make your book stand out to people looking for something to read. And you’ve all made that trip or six to your local bookstore to check out the competition that you will have to stand against, right? Again, the very best book you possibly can.

Now, let’s talk a bit about our favorite subject: Selling Your Book. Sales. Royalties. Making money. Getting rich. Writing follow-up books. Getting richer… Okay, so I got a little carried away. But the topic here is extremely important. Marketing: How Do We Do It? And the quick answer to that question is that if YOU don’t do it, nobody else likely will. Shocking, but true.

Now a little caveat is that if you somehow manage to get your manuscript into the hands of one of the really major publishers, and they think your work is almost guaranteed to be a best seller, some of them have developed true marketing programs that will expose your book to bookstores, libraries and readers all over and your work will likely sell well. However, for the 99% of us who aren’t going to get into a major publisher, marketing is talked about but usually comes in just a couple of forms.

First, most of the self-publishers will not have a marketing program of any degree. They may get your book into Amazon.com and a couple of the other Internet stores. They may have a list of media people and will shoot a quick news release to them, maybe a dozen around your local area, maybe a few hundred nationally. Some will even say they have a list of “readers” to send an Internet “blast” to, but this is usually just a blasting list that you could buy your self for about $40. Most of them will put together a nice enough book for you, but not many will have what I call true marketing.

Some publishers will have a catalogue system where they will get your book into a distributor’s catalogue that someone will try to get into the hands of bookstores, etc. Remember, though, your book will be “showcased” along with about a thousand other books in this catalogue, so what chance are you going to have of getting your book picked out to be purchased?

Another marketing idea some of them may promote is to place your book in a display spot in their company website, or some other one, so that your book will “display” whenever someone clicks into the site. However, you should know, of course, that your book will revolve along with the other thousand or so books in the site so it will only appear about once in a lifetime and certainly not every time someone enters the site.

Now I’m not trying to be negative. I really am not. But, if you are new to the book publishing situation, as I was, many of these things you will be expecting and hoping for but will never see, so I’m just trying to help you understand what marketing is all about in the publishing world.

I spent more than forty years managing businesses, and a major part of my work was trying to get the buying public to know of and recognize our products and be encouraged to buy them. Radio, TV, billboards, newspapers, magazine ads, telephone solicitation, window and lawn signs, and on and on. Some companies have professional ad writers who are paid small fortunes to promote products. The places I managed had some of those and also had those of us on the local scene doing everything we could to get the product name out. Ads on grocery store register tapes. Kiosks or tents in front of malls or in parking lots. You’ve seen them all. And the question is: Will you be doing these things? Do you have that much money available (if so, send me some)? Or, did you think your publisher was going to do all this and more?

Here is what has become my description of marketing for a book, my book:

Getting a picture (the cover) of my book with a quick, but great description of what it’s all about into the face of every bookstore and library buyer and every possible reader in the country so when they get to the point of deciding to buy a book to read they will have seen mine and read a small synopsis of it and might be led to look for it or at least recognize it when they see it in a catalogue or a book rack or in a website.

That’s marketing, and don’t let anyone tell you different.

Now, how far will you get to making all that happen; that’s another story. But, that should be your goal and you should be looking for every way possible to do that. If you have a good size marketing budget (spell that money), you can go a long way to doing all of it. If you’re a little short on funds (as I was/am), you are going to have to be very selective and look for things you can do without having to spend (a lot of) money. So, let’s talk about a few of those ways.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Your Website.

Yes, your own personal website where you and your book are the sole topics of review. This can be something you pay a little or a lot to have produced for you, or it can be something you develop on your own for less money. But, you probably need your own website if you’re going to promote your book at all widely on your own.

I won’t get into the places that will professionally build your site for you. You’ve probably seen the ads and can look them up yourself. If you have the necessary funds available, then you can use these folks to build a really great site for you. However, there are many places where you can purchase an Internet presence and build a website, some of them costing quite a bit and some as little as FREE (great word, eh?). Microsoft has a small business website program that is very reasonable and you can use to be a book business site. You can get a site and a lot of building tools through outfits such as GoDaddy for very reasonable costs. And there are places such as OurChurch.com (http://www.ourchurch.com) that will give you a FREE site and the tools to build it with. They may not all be reputable, but I’m with OurChurch.com personally and can vouch for them as being honest and good. Some, such as OurChurch.com, also have the ability to help you sign up with a personal domain name site in your own name at a very reasonable price (less than $100 per year) and still host it through their own server system.

Here are a few tips for building your website.

1. Make it clean and easily readable, fun without a lot of goofy gimmicks, professional to match your book content (you probably don’t want a heavy mystery novel on a page with dancing bunnies in the background), quick loading and easy to move through. You want it colorful without disturbing the actual content and text. And, for heaven sake, get those popups, flying banners, blinking graphics and graphics that take half an hour to load out of there—anything that keeps your reading public from concentrating one hundred percent on you and your book. If you’re going to have links to other things on your pages, try to group them in specific locations or on specific pages so they don’t cause someone who is reading about YOU to click to another page, or another site, that has nothing to do with you or your book—because they may not come back to your page. And be very careful about using music or live voice on your site. There are still many people out there who don’t have the latest gonzaga-byte fast computers, or who don’t want the latest rapper pounding in their ear while trying to read through your site.

2. If you can, try to get a site with a domain name that is your own name or the name of your book (my site, for instance, is http://www.JimMagwood.com. If I didn’t choose a domain name like that, my site name would have to be through the hosting site with a name something like, www.ourchurch.com/member/j/jimmagwood.com.). Make a name that will reflect what your site is about. Is it about YOU? Then perhaps it should be your name, like mine above. Is it about your book? Then try to use your book title. Either one is good, but if your book has a distinctive

name, that would be best. If you plan on writing several books, they could be grouped together in a site under your own name. Don’t get cute or funny or weird unless those things match your site content.

3. Think very carefully when you are putting together your biography page. Read several bios from other authors. (You can enter your favorite authors into any search engine and see how they wrote about themselves in their own website.) Does it sound business-like while still sounding personal? Read it out loud; does it sound good? Does it paint you in a good picture such that someone would say, “Yes, I’d like to take a look at what they wrote?” Does it give, or allude to, your credentials so that readers get an idea as to whether you have the ability to write a good novel?

4. Contact and ordering information. Remember the salesman who could tell you everything about his widget and have you panting to get one, but never learned to ask for the sale? Make sure you have the how-tos of contacting you and ordering your book all over the site so they can’t miss it. Not obnoxiously, but where they can’t miss it. And use Internet hyperlinks, if possible. So much easier enticing someone to come to you if all they have to do is “click” instead of type, or, heaven forbid, look it up somewhere. Give them links to places where they can get the book: Barnes&Noble.com, JoesBookstore.com, your own site with a PayPal purchase button (FREE by the way; look them up.) Encourage people to write you—and then answer them. I’ve written many people who have a “Contact the Author” button, and then never heard back.

5. Do you have reviews from readers? Or, PTL, some professional reviewers? Then get them on a page where people can find them. No better reason for me to buy a book than to have read of others who have liked it and recommend it. I don’t know yet how my book got to England, Israel and Germany, but some people e-mailed from there and praised the book. (Go ahead: Go into my site and look up the Raves and Reviews. Please. (http://www.JimMagwood.com.)

6. Put in some sample chapters or paragraphs. But, make sure they are great ones. Not huge amounts of content, and not necessarily the first couple of chapters. But something that will show a little of your writing style or describe the type of action in your book or will lead into a little of your story line and cause readers to want more.

More next time on marketing, but for now go look up a bunch of author’s sites and see what they do. If you have the talent necessary to write the next best novel, then you certainly have the ability and creativity to make a website that will showcase you and your work in the best possible light. I’m serious about looking up sites. Look for James Patterson, Steve Martini, David Baldacci, and any of hundreds more. And look for ones writing in your genre. You probably don’t want a site that looks like a mystery writer to showcase romance novels or children’s nursery rhymes.

We’ll look more into marketing in the next chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

More About Marketing

Marketing. Sales. What beautiful words, because they mean your book will be selling, right? And the answer to that question is Yes—IF the marketing is done right. However, look back at the previous part of this book to see some of the problems we face in marketing in the general publishing industry. The subject is very complex, and not many publishers have any kind of true (see my definition in the previous part) marketing program. As I said before, it will most likely come down to YOU. How much effort are YOU personally going to put into marketing your book?

Last time we talked about your personal website that will feature you and your book, and here’s another little tidbit I didn’t mention about your site. While it’s okay to use many sites, yours or others, to put out the word about your book, on your personal book site, don’t mix anything else on it. This is a site that’s about YOU and YOUR BOOK, and you don’t want to have visitors looking at family pictures, your dog, the products you sell at your business downtown, etc. You want them concentrating on you and your book. You can set something up on YouTube or one of the other social sites as long as it features only your book, but don’t combine anything else on this site. (Get more sites if you want them and link them, but don’t combine them.) If you have several books, then it’s okay to put them all in one site. James Patterson and Steve Martini only have a single site each showcasing all their works, but that’s basically all they have on their sites.

Once you have your site and you’ve looked at it and looked and looked and have finally decided it really does look professional, how do you get anyone to find it and look at it? You can pay a lot of different companies a lot of money for them to guarantee some kind of perfect placement in Google and others, but as I’ve said before, do you have a lot of money? If you do, you would likely be much better off hiring someone to actually market your book for you and put your money where it will do the most good. The facts of Internet marketing, though, are that there are literally millions of people and companies out there trying to use the same venue as you are to market their product. That includes at least thousands of other authors trying to sell their books. How are you going to get noticed in and around all of the other ads?

There are people out there who can do a reasonable job of getting ads out where you will be seen. But, look at their pitches very carefully because there are a lot of shysters, also. I bought into a “mass e-mail” program because I wanted to get my book out in front of millions of people for exposure. It only cost me about $40. But, I knew in advance that it was an “almost spam” thing that wouldn’t likely get really noticed by most of the people that got e-mailed. However, I figured if my ad got out in the mail to three or four million people, maybe one percent (30,000?) of the people might get interested. Even 1/10%? Could sell a lot of books, right? There are lots of companies out there that you can buy into for small amounts of money, but just be very aware of what they are really going to do.

Before we go further, it would be a really good thing to define a major question: Who do you think is going to buy your book? Because virtually all marketing efforts will depend on who your potential market is and how you might be able to reach that market. Here you need to get pretty specific. If you’ve written a children’s nursery rhyme book, you are not likely going to get much response by advertising in a hunting magazine or a mechanics website, even if they are really cheap. You probably need to find ways to get it into churches, day-care centers, young mothers groups and so on. If, on the other hand, you’ve written an analysis of the best techniques for building porches, sheds and lawn furniture, you should be trying to get noticed in Popular Mechanics magazine, the local carpenters club or other places made for DIY-ers (Do It Yourself-ers). Maybe the toughest project around is finding where to reach people who are interested in plain old mystery books. Dime a dozen; libraries and bookstores are full of them. How are you going to get exposure for yours? It has to be a major question as you try to market your book: Who is your target audience?

I mentioned libraries. Good place to try, right? If you only got each library in the country to buy one copy of your book, that would be about 15,000 copies. So, how do you get into libraries? There are several ways to do this, and they come in stages.

The first is to see if your publisher will submit your book to the library association reviewing system for you. Booklist is a national library function that reviews books and then puts them in a catalog with the review analysis and gets the catalog to most libraries who then choose the books they want to put on their shelves and orders them. Look up their site and read the requirements. It’s all laid out. Make sure your publisher does this for you.

Second, you can go into the American Library Association and find a book you can buy that lists every library in the country with names of librarians, addresses, e-mails of those who have them, websites, etc. Last I looked, it cost about $200 for a copy, but if you got that, it would enable you to set up a mailing program, or an e-mail program, to let them know about your work.

Another thought is to gather addresses or e-mails of the libraries yourself. There are sites in the Internet where you can get this information. It’s not easy to get e-mails, though; it takes a LOT of digging. But I did the work and gathered a list of maybe a thousand library e-mails and sent them a simple introduction campaign just before and after my book was published. If you have the money to either mail or fax to all of them, it’s easier to get these physical addresses and phones, but it still takes a lot of work.

I did the same with bookstores. You can go into the American Booksellers Association website and buy your way into getting lists of all their member bookstores. Or, you can just search the member lists and pull the information yourself. Virtually all the listings have their address listed. For e-mails, you have to go into each of their websites, if they have one, and search around for the addresses. Again, a lot of work. But, if your publisher isn’t going to get you this exposure, how else will you do it? I made a list of about two thousand bookstores in the U.S. and Canada and did a little e-mailing campaign to them.

It can be done. The results: I don’t have the slightest. Did they buy a few books because of my campaign, or would they have seen the book in some catalog anyway? I don’t know. But, again, if you are trying to get exposure for your book, what else are you going to do? Especially if you don’t have the money to buy into some kind of big, professional campaign or start out on a driving tour of hundreds of cities, stopping at every bookstore you find.

Again, there are companies/agencies out there that do book reviews and publish those reviews in magazines, newsletter and catalogs that then get out into the hands of those who buy books. Kirkus Reviews is one. Reviewers who write for newspapers. Author and book sites in the Internet. Make sure your publisher is getting your advance copies out to these places well before your book is ready for the bookstore shelves.

On another tack, don’t forget the e-mail addresses of all your friends, contacts, business associates and so on. Do you have contact lists for lodges and organizations? You don’t want to abuse any of these lists, but once or twice, not many people would feel used or abused by your announcement. For instance, you might get lodges or a business to buy copies of your book to give to their members as prizes at their next annual meeting. If you sell the books yourself, you could cut the price to what the wholesalers usually pay (about 40% off retail) and likely make more profit than if you let the wholesalers do it. (Remember, though, the cautions about not getting paid, getting “returns” with credit demanded, etc.)

What about getting lists of newspapers, radio and TV stations and so on that might give you a little news announcement? You can get the websites of virtually every newspaper in the country through the Internet (try www.newspapers.com), but you then have to dig into the site to find e-mail addresses of people who might use your information. Most of your local radio stations would love to have you donate a half-dozen of your books for them to use as promotional giveaways, and will likely be open to doing an on-air interview with you for doing that. A big Boston station, for instance, that has signal strength to reach out over all of Massachusetts, could give you some tremendous exposure.

There are basically two concepts to marketing your own product. One is to find ways to send out messages such as I’ve noted above. Whether e-mail or fax or letters, you are getting an advertisement out into the world, either direct to someone in a certain place (a reporter, for instance) or a blind ad that gets into the face of someone “out there” who might get interested in following up with your book. The other is called shoe-leather—YOURS. This is where you get on the phone and call people, or you get in your car and start dropping in on stores, etc. So, let’s talk about shoe-leather a bit.

This means YOU getting out on the streets, into stores, talking with buyers, going to conventions and book fairs, buying booths at local bazaars and street concerts, handing out bookmarks or flyers at every restaurant (to the waiter or cashier?) or coffee shop you frequent (leave one in the salt and pepper rack on the table), walking the aisles at rodeos and county fairs, and on and on. Anywhere you can pass out a book or flyer or bookmark (without getting chased out by upset management). Are you always prepared with some books in the trunk of your car? How about those simple book displays at the car wash you drive through, or the mom-n-pop grocery. You might have some problems with non-payment and so forth, but you might also get a relationship with a place that could put your book in front of a lot of people.

Would your church let you put a display in the lobby? How about small, local grocery stores? If you put up a consignment display with them (where they don’t pay you until they sell the books), many of them will give you a little space (because they make a buck on the deal, also.) Think also about the local, non-big-name bookstores, especially if you suggest consignment. Many of them will give you a little counter space, or let you build a little display. (Bear in mind, I’m not specifically recommending consignment. There are some real risks to this of not getting paid, not getting your unsold books back, and so on. But, it can work if you do it right and follow up with

the stores and outlets carefully.) Keep in mind, also, giving bookstores, libraries, grocery stores and so on a stack of your bookmarkers. They can put them on a counter somewhere and people pick them up to use. Picture of your book; your name; short description; where to reach you and buy.

Bear in mind that none of this is going to bring about fast results. As a new author, you are an unknown and it’s going to take a long time to make your way into sight in the marketplace where people will begin to know you. If you get lucky and hit a great showplace, things can happen overnight. For most of us, though, it’s going to take a long time, measured even in years. But, what else did you have to do anyway, right? And remember, it’s your creation, your baby, your work of art, your BOOK. It’s what you wanted to do, right?

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Read It Like An Agent/Publisher

Let’s go back to the beginning for a while. You are in the process of writing a book, the world’s next best novel, your BABY. There are really two immediate thoughts to keep in mind. One is that most of us begin by writing our very first book (duh!!!), maybe never another, and we really don’t know much about the industry. We just have this great idea flowing out of us and want to get it into print. We can call this a “personal” book (my term, there may be others), and it’s basically a one-time, maybe one-of-a-kind endeavor.

The second possibility is that you are writing a “commercial” novel, or one that you are specifically writing to get sold. This might be your first novel but your plans are to write more of the same and get them into the marketplace. Maybe you’ve already written your first and now are considering writing more with the purpose, again, of specifically writing and selling books.

In either case, there is a major question that you should be aware of as you write. We’ve already discussed a lot of the principles involved in writing, but this one is more direct as it pertains to the idea of getting your work accepted by the first people to usually see it and who have the most power in making your book happen or in stopping it.

What are publishers, editors, and agents looking for in the materials they are reviewing? What do they like? What do they specifically dislike? What keeps them turning pages and beginning to get the feeling that “this might be good? I could get behind this.”

Here are many thoughts I’ve gleaned from talking with some of the above noted folks, reading their blogs and articles, and so on.

One of the first things most of them say, in one way or another, is that they need to “fall in love with” the manuscript, the story. That means that they have to get personally into the story. It has to capture them, more than professionally (as an editor, for instance), but in a personal sense. From the first sentence (remember what I said early on about capturing them from the first words?), they need to feel good about the story. The writing itself may be as good or bad as many other books, but the imagination or feel or flow simply reaches out and grabs them. Maybe there’s a sense of excitement or intrigue they feel. Maybe there’s a driving force that is pushing to the end and keeps them reading.

And if the agent or publisher you contact says, “no thanks, it’s not my style” (or words to that effect), then remember they are only one—move on to the next one.

Consider books you’re read yourself. What made you like them? What kept you turning the pages? Maybe it was a science fiction kind of book, and you don’t like science fiction; but this one had a mystique or intrigue that kept you reading it. Maybe it was the theme; maybe the feeling that you never knew what was coming next and had to find out; maybe it was the beautiful flow of the words. The New International Bible and the New American Standard are

acclaimed as excellent Bibles written in quite modern language; fewer of the “thees” and “thous” and much easier for a lot of people to read. However, many people simply love the beautiful poetic language of the old King James Version, and just cannot get away from it. What is “capturing” about your book?

As you think about the theme and direction and flow of your writing, ask yourself what people will like about it, especially those who will be the first to rule on it’s success or failure. Freely compare your style, choice of words, and so on with several of the best sellers. Does your book give you the same drive and feeling as the others do? (Remember what I said earlier about “copying” them?) One editor said, “Does it come alive to me?”

Another thought: Does your story seem to have a theme that’s real or alive? Can the reader see the world or the struggle or intrigue through your words. Many of the editors and publishers said that the writing from two authors was just about the same, just about as good, but one had a force, or choice of words, or painted a picture that the other didn’t, and their mind was captured by that one.

Is your story set in a time period, or does it tell a type of story, that the particular editor is interested in? That’s why you might send your material out to a hundred different editors or agents and only get replies from six. Don’t worry about that; not all readers are interested in the same thing. But, from the six, what kind of comments did you get? Were they interested; did they give any hints in their comments as to what they thought of the work; did they ask any questions as to what you were trying to do or what you meant? Even if it was a rejection letter, try to analyze anything they said that might give insight into how they or others might be feeling about your work.

Is all this beginning to sound cold and analytical? If you really do have the desire to get your book out there into the reading hands, you do have to be analytical. If you can’t get past first base (the agents and editors), Why? What can you learn from their responses that will help you write better and get them interested? Editors, agents and publishers simply cannot read everything, so they stick within their own specialized genre and they have to almost immediately get an attraction for your work. If they say No to what you’ve sent them, in that earth-shaking REJECTION letter, do they give any hints as to their feelings? Do they send you any possible names that might be interested in your type of work? Do they make any suggestions as to how to change your work to make it more interesting?

Once you’ve made your first effort to get your manuscript reviewed by a group of people, maybe it’s time to sit back with any comments they’ve made and completely re-read your book, or especially your query letter. Look back at your chapter outline and see if you can see where you might re-place some chapters. See if any words, phrases, ideas, conversations and so on seem to be dull or out of place. Look at those first few sentences and paragraphs and pages to see if they are attention capturing or “sleepy time.” Perhaps it’s time to have a friend read the book (again?) and give an honest (you hope) appraisal of what they see. Maybe you can see a completely new format for what you’ve done; maybe a new “voice”; maybe a change for a character that makes them more real or lively.

However, this is not to say that you need to re-write it. Maybe you just haven’t gotten it into the hands of the one person who will immediately fall in love with it. Maybe you need to send it out to the next hundred agents on your list and see what happens. Maybe, though, you need to put yourself in the shoes of the agents and seriously ask the questions they are all asking: What is

there in this manuscript (query letter) that really jumps out and demands that it be read, or what makes me want to put it aside and go on to something else?

Another thing to definitely keep in mind: An e-mail to an agent is easy, anyone can do it, it takes almost no effort, and most agents get hundreds of unsolicited ones. Most agents trash most of them because they just don’t have any personal appeal. If at all possible, get out the paper, envelopes and stamps, and manuscript copies, and send the agents something physical. Some of them guarantee that if you at least do that you will at least get a reply. Read their websites for instructions on exactly what to send them and how.

One more suggestion: There are people out there you can actually hire to review your work and help you “fix” it. Look up “Editors – Books” in the Internet and you’ll find some that will review your work before it gets to the publishing stage. (Watch the cost, though, and get some references for sure.) Check with your friends who you feel are avid readers. Maybe one of them would help you by giving your work a good, solid read and a hard, critical review. (Yes, they can still be your friends afterward.) If you’ve done the best you can and still can’t see the forest for the trees, still can’t get a feel for why it’s not being accepted, get some fresh, unbiased eyes to look it over. Again, this generally means a friend who will be honest with you. (Is that an oxymoron? Will they remain a friend? Can you pay them to tell you nice things?) Maybe you can get attached with a writer’s group in your area and have another author or six read your work. No, they won’t laugh at you.

Then listen to what they say. After you dry your eyes, put the hankie down and get tough with yourself. What exactly did your reviewers say about your work? How might their comments be applied into your pages? DON’T do this quickly. Sit back and carefully read their reviews; quietly re-read your work to see the tough points; red pencil your ideas into the pages; make notes copiously. Then, put it aside for a couple of days and let everything gel before you get back and look at it again.

Finally, consider making a copy of your original manuscript (remember, you have it in the computer so changes can be made in a nano-second without fear?) and begin a complete re-write. I know—more screams of anguish. But, do you want to get into print?

I’m still in the process of learning this whole book writing and publishing business and am not the expert on anything to do with the process. I am learning, though, and so will (must) you. There are probably reams more information I could put down on paper about this subject. But it will all come to you as you work through this process. Learn from it, and keep on. As we all begin the process of writing and publishing our “baby”, there are just so many things we have no idea of that are now going to jump up and bite us—and we never know they are coming until they are there. However, DO NOT LET THAT STOP YOU.

Inside many of us is a story that is crying to be written. There are many people who will give you many reasons why you should NOT consider this venture. However, there ARE many people out there who are waiting for your story—looking forward to it. Whether you make money on it, or thrill your family and friends with your story, or just feel the satisfaction within yourself when you finally say, “I did it,” you need to write that story. There will be naysayers—turn your back on them. There will be scoffers—smile and keep typing. There will be rejection letters—read them, file them, and send out more proposals.

There is a saying I’ve had for many years that applies to the effort you will be expending to make your dream come true:

Some goals are so worthy

that even to fail is glorious.

I wish you every blessing as you move through this effort of writing and publishing your dream. I would love to hear from you to share joys, questions, and even tears.

Hang in there, and WRITE IT.

Jim

Care to comment? Write to me at JimMagwood@aol.com.And visit the website at http://www.JimMagwood.com

to check out the novels, SANCTION, THE LESSER EVIL, COP and NIGHTMARE.

ALSO BY JIM MAGWOOD

FictionSANCTION

THE LESSER EVILCOP

NIGHTMARE

Non-FictionSo You’ve Written A Book. Now What?

For information about the author,plus previews of coming attractions, visit:

http://www.JimMagwood.com

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jim Magwood was born too many years ago in Vancouver, Canada. He was dragged south across the border by his parents when he was too young to protest and has lived in California the rest of his life.

His work in the military and business took him throughout the world and gave him a penetrating view of that world in chaos and out of control, and he remembers well the poverty and unrest (as well as the beauty) of so many places.

He retired early and moved with his wife, Gayle, to their quiet mountain cabin in Twin Oaks, California. The loudest noises now are some howling coyotes, the wandering cattle and a million raucous birds. The rabbits and quail have come to recognize that Shiloh (the ranch) is a sanctuary for them, so they hang around every day looking for handouts.

Jim is the author of international thrillers, and is writing novels of suspense, political intrigue, and the people on both sides of the conflicts. Watch for his next novel, JACOB, coming soon.

You can visit Jim at his website,http://www.JimMagwood.com

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