selfpublishingadvisor

Self-publishing Advice Guest Post

Thank you Ms. Christmas, Book Doctor

Q: The following question arrived by e-mail and is intentionally left unedited:

whats your opinion about someone analyze all things around him , usually searching for trunth , scientific facts , research any case confront , has high imagination , alawys contemplate , endure social & world problems as his was the responsible for solving it , has photographic memory , live his own live as serial episode , all his wishes & principles hope to be done , moreover usually try to prove his view for hisself & others , has the ability to write coversation between two persons for more than one hundred pages , daydreaming all the time, imagine seeing this by making stories in his mind

my question all people around me touch that suggest me that I may me a good writer , or story writer

but I need your opinion as you an experts , are the above behaviours can qualify me or intutive behaviours for a writer or artist ?

A: The analytical behaviors outlined in your note indicate an excellent start on the path to visual or literary arts, but it takes much more than intuition or inclinations to become a writer.

A person with good balance but no practice cannot hop on a bike and win a marathon. First that person must practice many hours, days, months, and years, to learn the skills and nuances of mounting the bike, pedaling, steering, cornering, braking, and dismounting. The person must also build stamina, muscle, and skills, before being able to perform at peak level.

The same principle holds true for the arts. People who want to become writers must hone their skills in grammar, punctuation, syntax, and spelling. They must learn about writing clear, compelling copy and believable dialogue; building characters; creating and sustaining a plot; maintaining tension and conflict; and much more.

I’m concerned about the low level of clarity, grammar, spelling, punctuation, and even typing in the note I received, so I have serious concerns that the person who wrote that note has not yet developed the basic skills necessary to become a good writer. If you want to become a writer to take advantage of your great analytical skills, the next step is to acquire and hone the skills you will need as a writer. Seek classes in grammar, punctuation, typing, and creative writing. Learn to develop an eagle eye for errors. Join writing groups, read books on writing, write, and get feedback on your writing. Practice, practice, practice, and you will see progress toward your goal.

Bobbie Christmas, book doctor, author of Write In Style (Union Square Publishing), and owner of Zebra Communications, will answer your questions, too. Send them to Bobbie@zebraeditor.com. Read more “Ask the Book Doctor” questions and answers at http://www.zebraeditor.com.

Book Marketing, Book Promotion, Choosing a Publisher, Networking, Self-Publishing

Determining What Book Readers Want

Your book content – fiction, non-fiction, children’s, religious – naturally presumes a value to readers intending to be entertained or learn something from your work. How do they decide they want to read your book?

They don’t. You do. Sound like an incredible power? It is. It’s name: Marketing

When Thomas Edison turned 16 do you suppose he wanted a Tesla Roadster? Probably not. In order to want something you need to know it exists. One definition of marketing is convincing a a mass of people to want what you have. That puts you, the author of your book, in the cat bird’s seat. Who knows your book better than you, after-all.

How readers know about books has changed a great deal over the past decade, and my guess is that trend will continue. With Amazon, Twitter, Podcasts, Bookfinder, etc. we no longer rely on a single-minded source for telling us about books. A good CEO (the self-published author) knows how to leverage the expertise of others and delegate work. Consider the long-term. Research self-publishers with ongoing marketing support and services. Being published is rarely even enough.

Book Marketing, Self-Publishing

Guest Post – The Book Doctor

Q: I’m thinking about writing a controversial book about [subject deleted for privacy]. There have probably been a number of books already written on this subject, and there is a ton of information about the subject on the Internet.

I have two concerns. One, could plagiarism be involved if I take information from the Internet? My next concern has to do with the market. I wrote to some of the Web sites for permission to use their material, and a person wrote back and claimed that books of this nature do not sell well, even if you are an experienced writer. Any thoughts?

A: Research statistics and information are available to us all. You plagiarize only when you use the exact sentences and paragraphs someone else has written, but if you take information and rewrite it in your own words, you are not plagiarizing.

As to the issue of marketability, obviously the subject goes against popular thinking, which means one of several things can happen. It could hit a controversial note, catch a publisher’s eye, get published, get a great deal of publicity, and sell many copies. A few controversial books have done so. At the opposite end of the spectrum, it could be too controversial and not unique, and no traditional publisher will want to touch it. How can you guess which it will be?

Here’s the thing to remember: Only one percent of all manuscripts written ever get traditionally published, but people keep writing books, and publishers keep buying them, so people who are passionate about their subjects and diligent about polishing their writing and editing skills are still being successful, even in a tough market. Self-publishing means you take all the risks, but you could reap the benefits if your book becomes a hit.

The reason traditional publishers want a book proposal for nonfiction books is simple: Proposals make the author research the market and estimate the size of the market as well as the size and toughness of the competition. My suggestion is this: Instead of writing the whole book, write a proposal. Get a book on how to write a book proposal and perform all the research a proposal requires. Study the size of the market. Find other books on that subject and find out how they fared. Don’t listen to one person’s vague comment. Go to the publishers of similar books and ask for sales figures.

See what, if anything, you can do to make your book unique, better than others on the market, and more appealing to a broader audience. If you can’t come up with a unique selling point, you may decide not to write the book, or you may decide to self-publish a small quantity and test the market yourself, if you have an outlet for your book—that is, if you can find a way to reach into the niche market to which it is geared.

Bobbie Christmas, book editor, author of Write In Style (Union Square Publishing), and owner of Zebra Communications, will answer your questions, too. Send them to Bobbie@zebraeditor.com. Read more “Ask the Book Doctor” questions and answers at http://www.zebraeditor.com.

Choosing a Publisher, Self-Publishing

Self-publishing Manuscript Submission Tip

When I was in college, several of my less disciplined associates found a sly tactic in composing essays and papers in the Courier font face. Courier allowed them to reach the assignment’s minimum page count with significantly less actual characters or words than with a font like Times New Roman.

The reason being that Courier is a monospaced font, which gives the visual impression similar to what we were used to seeing in copy created on a typewriter, which was the result of mechanical limitations. Monospaced copy simply means that each character requires the same amount of horizontal space on a page. A period the same space as a W.

This paragraph is in Courier, a monospaced font.
Notice how all the characters take up the same
amount of space and line up in columns.

The unfortunate and universal result of the typewriter and monospaced fonts is the nasty habit of placing two spaces between sentences. Not only a visual eyesore, the practice is wrong according to our experts at the APA, MLA, and Chicago Manual of Style.

With the modern word processor and standard publishing typefaces, your manuscript should have only one space between a punctuation mark and its subsequent character. This one-space rule applies to colons, semi-colons, question marks, quotation marks, exclamation points and all other punctuation.

While potentially a pain, the time spent revising to this standard is worth your effort. Be sure to also check for hard returns before submitting to your self-publishing option for review.

Have fun and keep writing.

Choosing a Publisher, Self-Publishing

The Book Doctor on Proposals

The book doctor shares submission info for the self-publishing and traditional author.

Q: This “book proposal” stuff is a fine kettle of fish. Too much advice, and much of it contradictory. Double-spaced, single-spaced, some of each, etc. When YOU write a proposal, do you use strict Standard Manuscript Format, including a Courier-style font, or do you write more like you’re writing a long letter and using a more Roman-type font? Do you single space ANY PART of the proposal? Do you underline, or do you italicize? And what about bold? And what about these double hyphens? (–) You see what I’m asking. A manuscript is written the way it is because it’s written for a typesetter. A proposal, however, is written for an agent to use to sell a manuscript. Can the proposal be written more like a letter, or is sticking close to the Standard Manuscript Format the best advice?

A: I, too, have seen conflicting guidelines about book proposals, including a recent one, in which a publisher allowed me to submit the whole proposal in the body of an e-mail, and to heck with all the formatting, because e-mail takes most of it out, anyway.

For the publisher who bought my most successful book, Write In Style, though, I followed the style set forth by Michael Larsen in his book simply titled How to Write a Book Proposal. His suggestion, and I followed it to a T, was that the entire book proposal as well as the sample chapters be in Standard Manuscript Format: double-spaced, 12-point Courier type, no boldface type, and underlines to indicate italics. Double hyphens are used to indicate a dash, and no space goes before or after dashes.

Yes, manuscripts are written in Standard Manuscript Format because it used to be the style typesetters required. Agents and publishers got used to seeing manuscripts that way, and most still want them that way, even though computers have changed things.

One ghostwriter I know zips together a quickie proposal in single-spaced Times New Roman and still gets many a job, but he has an extensive successful track record, and several of his books have won national awards. Until you feel as confident, you can never go wrong by following the rules, but you can sometimes go wrong by breaking them. I worked with one publisher who said he never even reads the first line of a manuscript that is not in standard manuscript format, because any writer who can’t or won’t follow rules is either uneducated or too much of a prima donna to make a good client.

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