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The Book Doctor chimes in…

Q: I’ve written a short story [synopsis deleted]. I had three people–one fellow writer and two avid readers who are not writers–read this story and provide feedback. They all love the story, except each one told me that she doesn’t like the ending. Each offered suggestions for alternative endings that range from fairy tale to Barney the Dinosaur endings. (I love you; you love me; oh, how happy we will be.)

I ended it the way I did because it made more sense to me. [The protagonist] grew up a little and learned that sometimes it’s okay to assert himself, even if it brings conflict. Our hero was content with the way the story ended.

I know I’m writing for a market, and I want my stories to entertain and satisfy readers. But I don’t feel right ending a story in a way that I personally think is a cheesy cliché. Should I write something I wouldn’t read myself, just because others like it? Can I even trust the response of such a small sample of readers, even though their independent feedback concerning the ending is resounding and consistent? I know this is a terribly subjective question, but I’d like to know what you would do.

A: You may be asking the wrong person. To be able to make a living writing, I have made it my motto that “I’ll write anything for money.” As a result I have written and/or edited many things that did not reflect my personal opinions.

Examine your motives. If indeed you are writing to sell your work, you do have to consider the market, and if you consider the market–your focus group sounds like a small but good specimen–you will change the ending to suit the market. If you write for yourself without hope of selling your work, you can write anything you want, including gibberish, and it won’t matter. In that case, you can make the ending as unpleasing to the public as you wish, because in reality the public will probably never see it.

You are the god who created your story. You can control the outcome, depending upon your goals. As you know, the endings of many movies have been changed when focus groups did not like the first ending. As a result, some movies have become blockbusters that may have otherwise bombed, if the ending had not changed.

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”

I’ve helped savvy authors transition their books away from traditional publishing houses, newly publishing authors make informed decisions to pursue other options, and even had personal experience publishing under my own traditional contract. Here are the top 7 or so reasons to re-consider holding out for that traditional contract and self-publish today…

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

6 – Traditional publishers typically accept manuscripts only from established authors who have already demonstrated a proven platform.

5 – Authors lose all control of their content during the editing process with a Traditional Publisher.

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

3- Traditional Publishing: 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 Traditional 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- Traditional 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!

– Karl Schroeder

Paraphrased from the pen of an insightful publishing executive:

Sometimes choosing exactly the right words can be difficult, especially with so many available in the English language. So many contexts. Specific syntax. Audiences. What a remarkable discovery was the thesaurus. I dare say discovery not invention, because hey, wasn’t it inevitable? As writers, we’d be lost without it. Even among the most encyclopedic, how can we deny the thesaurus as an invaluable tool?

When Peter Mark Roget first published the thesaurus in 1852, die-hard dictionary-purists most likely refused to recognize its value. How many years or generations must have passed before the thesaurus and dictionary were to coexist in compliment of each other as they do now? No one thinks twice about picking up the one most appropriate at any given time.

It would be futile to engage a conversation regarding which is better – the dictionary or the thesaurus. They serve different functions. Need several definitions of a word to choose from? Pick up the dictionary. Need to choose the best definition? The thesaurus will deliver.

Let’s consider self-publishing as the thesaurus. The traditional publishing houses in New York are the dictionaries. One isn’t better than the other – they are just different. Serve different ends in the broader order of writing. But all writers, even dictionary-purists, would do well to consider using both. Brings to mind our recent news about Steven Covey’s decision to self-publish.

Food for thought as you keep up the most important task – writing.

–          Karl Schroeder

August marks the one year birthday of our blog!  Over the last year we have offered lots of tips and advice about self-publishing, before and after the publishing process.  We welcome feedback and suggestions if there are topics you’d like us to cover, so please let us know.

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