selfpublishingadvisor

Start Summer Right. Write Now toward Publishing

Finishing a book is not as daunting as it sounds. The key is to write something everyday. Then, use the Internet for accountability. Interesting right? Write everyday, and publish everyday—either on a bulletin board, a writing group, or on a personal “blog.”

There are a number of reasons to do this.

1) The public commitment will help motivate you. When you publicly declare that you will add content to your blog every day, or every week, you are more bound to complete your task.

2) If you choose the right forum, people may offer to help you. (Note, if you choose the wrong forum, and find people are being counter-productive, simply change venues).

3) By creating an Internet presence this early in the process, you can start to generate interest in your book when it comes out—either search engine interest, or human interest. Both are good when it comes time to promote and sell your book later on.

You may wish to search Google for some forums in which to participate. You’ll be writing and more and you may make some new friends and/or fans.

Then when you are ready to publish your book, consider all of those things we’ve discussed previously in finding the right self-publisher to meet your goals.

Have fun and keep writing.

Choosing a Publisher, Self-Publishing

7 THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT TRADITIONAL PUBLISHERS

Things every author consider when considering self-publishing vs. the old-fashioned model…

7 – Traditional publishers lose money on over 85% of the books they publish, so they only accept around 2% of those that are submitted.

6 – They typically accept manuscripts only from established authors who have demonstrated a proven track record.

5 – Authors lose content control of their work during the editing process.

4 – Authors must still invest an enormous amount of time, energy, and money promoting a traditionally-published book.

3- Authors typically receive 5-10% royalty on the wholesale price of the book, and from that have to give 15-25% to their agent. Do the math.

2 – The majority of books published by old-fashioned publishers go out of print within 3 years. Many books that are stocked on book shelves remain stocked for as little as five weeks before being returned, unsold, to the publisher.

1- Old-fashioned publishers acquire all rights to your book and keep them, even when the book goes out of print or the publisher goes out of business. Yikes.

Self-Publishing

Self-publishing Writing Advice from the Book Doctor

The Book Doctor runs through word choice for the self-publishing author

Q: A newspaper reporter in my writing club took me to task for using ‘whether or not’ in fiction dialogue. I see why the corsetry of reporting would not use this phrase, but isn’t fiction dialogue supposed to be somewhat the same as the way people actually talk?

A: First I must comment on the use of corsetry (the making of corsets or other binding garments). It made me smile; I’ve never seen the word used to refer to the limitations of journalism, but it certainly fits.

You’re completely correct that journalism has its confines, while dialogue in fiction has almost no such restrictions. All bets are off and all rules dropped when it comes to dialogue in fiction. While narrative has its guidelines, dialogue should sound natural.

People naturally speak in contractions and use expletives, slang, idioms, clichés and wordy phrases, all things that narrative should not use. Human beings repeat themselves and pick the wrong words, sometimes, too, which can add humor to dialogue. I saw much of that tactic used in the dialogue on the TV show The Sopranos. I recall one character kept saying, “I’m having prostrate trouble,” when the correct word is “prostate,” but many people incorrectly use the word “prostrate” in this sense.

Do people say “whether or not” when they speak? You bet they do, and it’s your choice as the author whether to use it in dialogue, but avoid it in narrative.

Book Marketing, Choosing a Publisher, Self-Publishing

How do I get my self-published book into bookstores?

Traditional book retail stores often look for four things when deciding to order a book or stock a book on their shelves:

1. Availability with a wholesaler like Ingram.
2. A 50-55% trade discount, which means more money for the retail store. The highest trade discount you can set through most effective publishers is 55%, industry standard.
3. A retail returns policy. A few on-demand publishers offer an optional retail returns program. The retail returns option is generally only effective when each of these other criteria are met.
4. Finally, customer demand. Bookstores also require consumer demand for your book. Creating demand, or “buzz,” is up to your promotional efforts – it’s never to early to start planning. In addition to researching your upfront publishing costs, be sure to look also into these two critical things: (1) your book pricing structure and (2) the marketing support available with your publisher.

Self-Publishing

Guest Post: Book Doctor Talks Narrative Voice

Writing advice for the self-publishing author

Q: Where can I find the guidelines about how formal or informal the narrative should be?

A: I cannot point to one specific source for formal versus informal writing, except that slang, contractions, dialect, and clichés are informal, whereas most narrative should be formal. That said, I used an informal narrative style in my own book, Write In Style, including contractions, because I wanted the book to reflect my personality and be upbeat, friendly, and not too textbook-like. It’s important to know the guidelines and break them only for a specific reason, such as when the narrative intentionally reflects the voice of a specific narrator.

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.

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