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Thinking, planning, writing your book
As you complete the manuscript
Thinking, planning, writing your book Imagine being a published author. Picture people coming up to you at a meeting with a copy of your book and requesting an autograph. Visualize passing a bookstore and seeing your book in the window. Consider being interviewed for an article. Imagine the fame that comes with being published. A book provides you with more credibility than anything else you can do: more credibility than an audiotape, a videotape, a seminar, a screenplay or a song. People place a higher value on a book than on a tape-even though the same amount of work may have gone into the production. The fact is authors are highly valued in our society. People think if you wrote a book, you know something. And you probably do. When you think about it, you are writing your book from the very best research plus personal experience. You research every book and article, distill them down to the essentials, direct your writing toward a specific audience and illustrate it with your personal experiences. You are earning an advanced degree in the subject. Your book validates your expertise and lends more credibility to what you say. There are many justifications for writing a nonfiction book. Some are fame, fortune, to help other people and because you have a personal mission. Can you imagine doing what you love and loving what you do? "Thank you for investing your time and money to allow me to share this new book-writing concept with you. I will make sure your time and money are well invested." -Dan Poynter
The journey: from idea to published book
Here is the chart of your book-writing journey. As you move through it, you will want to get Document 620, Your Book Writing & Publishing Calendar. One of the biggest pitfalls in writing and publishing is the lack of sufficient planning, especially the first time around. You don't want to tie up funds by purchasing materials too soon and you don't want to miss some important publicity because you missed a filing date.
If you are writing your book alone, you will appreciate the guidance in Writing Nonfiction. If you are writing with a collaborator, such as a co-author or ghostwriter, you need Is There a Book Inside You? Choosing your title and subtitle Select a working title now so that you can improve on it as you work on your book. Start with a short, catchy and descriptive title, and add a lengthy, explanatory subtitle. Writing your book. Make your manuscript look like a page out of a book. Set your margins so that the text block will be about 4.2" wide and about 7" tall. Your laser printer will place the text block in the center of the sheet of paper. This layout is more attractive and easier to work with than the traditional double-spaced manuscript page. For specific margin settings in MS-Word, see Writing Nonfiction. Keyboarding or dictating Whether you are keyboarding, dictating onto tape or using speech recognition software, the procedure for writing your book is the same. Divide your notes and research materials into chapter piles. Then pick up one of the piles, spread it out on your desk in some semblance of order and began to "write" from these notes. Your first draft is your rough draft; just get the research materials on to the hard disk. Binder secret. As you print out early drafts of your book, place the pages in a 3-ring binder and carry that binder with you everywhere you go. Busy people often have trouble finding the time to return to their desk and "the book." With the binder system, the book is always with you. As you go through the day and find a minute here and there, open the binder and write in your changes, notes and comments. Periodically, enter your changes into the computer and print out new pages. With the binder under your arm, the book will be continually in your thoughts. Your work will improve and your manuscript will improve. The binder is an anti-procrastination crutch and it works. See Successful Non Fiction Specific category writing Fiction v. Nonfiction. There is a difference between entertainment and information, known as fiction and nonfiction. Every nonfiction book is unique. The buyer interested in the subject of raising llamas is not necessarily a good prospect for a book on skydiving or waste-water treatment. Fiction, on the other hand, is related to other fiction in its category. A reader who buys one mystery is a prime candidate for another mystery. Fiction must compete for peoples' time. People must choose not only between reading this book of fiction and reading other books but between reading this book and engaging in other forms of entertainment such as going to a movie or walking on the beach. Nonfiction does not compete for time. Nonfiction is information that people buy because it will save them time or money. It is much easier to convince people to buy nonfiction than fiction. We often say "start with nonfiction and do not publish fiction until you can afford it." At Para Publishing, we specialize in coaching nonfiction book publishers to sell more books. Some of our programs, ideas, leads and resources will work for creative literature but that is not our specialty. Children's books. Twenty percent of the US is made up of children; 4,000,000 babies are born every year. There is a large market for children's books and they are relatively easy to sell be they fiction or nonfiction. Children's books tend to have a longer sales life than adult books. They start off slow and build over time. According to Publishers Weekly, children's books fall into the following categories: 27% picture books, 17% books for babies and toddlers, 20% for younger readers, 19% for middle readers, and 17% for young-adult readers. Decide which category your work falls into. Producing children's books just recently became a lot less expensive. A new type of printing allows you to avoid expensive color separations and to print in quantities of 100 or 500 to test the market before you print more. See The Self-Publishing Manual and Document 610Cook Books. People are cooking less but obsessing about it more. They are eating out more (spending 29.4% of their food dollar) but are buying more cookbooks. They are doing more reading about cooking than cooking. People are cooking for others so infrequently that when they do, they will do anything to make sure the meal comes out perfectly. More than 1,000 new cookbooks are published each year and they sell well. So cookbooks are becoming more and more specialized: For diabetics, no salt, for menopause, etc. The Civil War Cookbook intertwines history and cuisine for insight into the lives of the soldiers in the battlefield. See Document 613 . Travel books. Getting paid for travel can be great fun. In fact, digging out a story in a distant land can be stimulating, allowing you to get more out of your trip. Few people are full-time travel writers. Most supplement their income and their lust for journeying to far-away places. See Document 616 . Religious books are relatively easy to sell. There is a large market and much demand. See Document 618 . Screenplays. With the expansion of television to 500 channels, there is a larger and ever-increasing need for content. Viewers want fiction (entertainment) and nonfiction (how-to, documentaries, etc.). Someone has to come up with the ideas and someone has to write the scripts. See Document 638 Newsletters. Articles and news items you publish in your magazine or newsletter can be saved for your book. So the periodical can help you to get maximum value out of your research. Newsletters can bring you fame, fortune, help a lot of people and fulfill your mission but they have to be part of your overall company plan. Make sure your newsletter provides a lot of helpful, interesting news; do not make it just a puff piece for your books and other company activities. See Document 611. As you complete your manuscript If you wonder whether your manuscript has potential, here are two suggestions: A. The secret to good material: peer review. What you get back is terribly valuable: They add two more items to your list, they cross out that part you thought was cute but was really embarrassingly stupid, they sometimes even correct punctuation, grammar and style. When your book comes out, you don't have to wait for your readers' reaction because you know the book is right. After all, it has been reviewed and accepted by the best. And, there is another valuable reason for peer review: You have more than two-dozen opinion molders telling everyone about your book-and how they helped you with it. B. Manuscript evaluation. Book Publishing is a great business because book publishers are so helpful, friendly and supportive. The reason publishers are so nice is that no two books are alike. It is a rarity that two books on the same subject are published in the same year. Consequently, publishers do not feel threatened by other publishers. In fact, publishers often promote other books and each other. This is why when an author contacts a publisher and he or she determines the manuscript is not for them, they are eager to recommend another publisher. They know of lots of other publishing companies and most relish in being able to help an author and the other publisher get together. Anyone can be a publisher. A publisher might be a large company in a tall glass building located in New York or it could be you because the definition of a "publisher" is the person who puts up the money-the one who takes the risk. He or she has the book printed and then distributes it hoping to make back more money than has been invested. Your right to publish is guaranteed to you by the First Amendment to the Constitution. You do not have to get a license or register with any agency. As a practical matter, most book publishers do register by getting International Standard Book Numbers and sending books to the Library of Congress and the Copyright Office. Most publishers want to be easily located. So, whether the publisher is a big New York firm or a first-time author, the publisher is always the investor. Your publishing choicesThere are five ways to turn your manuscript into a book. You may sell your manuscript to a large (usually New York) publisher; sell it to a medium-sized (usually specialized) publisher; get an agent to find and negotiate with a publisher; pay a vanity press (bad choice), or publish yourself. Conventional large publisher Consider the life you want for your book. The big publishers have three selling seasons per year. They will put your book into the market for one season-then it's history! They will publish the book and throw it into the stores for a four-month selling season only. Some authors argue there may be greater prestige being published by a New York firm. But no one cares who published your book. Have you ever heard anyone say: "I love Harper-Collins books. I buy everything they publish." Potential buyers want to know if this book will solve their problem and whether the author is a credible person. They never ask who is the publisher. Ask any author whom New York has published and you will get nothing but complaints. The six large publishers are consolidating, downsizing, going out of business while the 75,000 small publishers are proliferating at the rate of 8,000 new publishing companies every year. Myth: Publishers promote books. Publishers put up the money, have the book produced and use sales reps to get it into bookstores but they do not promote the book. The author must do the promotion. The problem is that most first-time authors think the publisher will do the promotion. Once they figure out that nothing is being done, it is too late, the book is no longer new (it has a quickly ticking copyright date in it) and is being remaindered. Get a promotion budget in your contract, let your publisher know you want to help make the book go and submit a promotion plan with figures to help them wisely spend the money budgeted. Medium-sized (specialized) publisher Approaching and selling a smaller publisher is usually easier too. Most do not require lengthy book proposals to convince them a book is viable. They know their subject, their own line of books and what their customer wants. How to find (the right) publisher To find these specialized publishers, check your own bookshelf. Then go to your nearby larger public library and consult Books In Print, a multi-volumed reference listing all the books that are currently available for sale. Look for smaller publishers who do good work. Then look up their addresses in the last volume. Or search through the listings at Amazon.com or other online bookstore on the Web. When you contact a specialized publisher, you will often get through to the top person. They will know what you are talking about and they are always very helpful. They will be able to tell you instantly whether the proposed book will fit into their line. Never just mail a manuscript off to a publishing company; always send it to someone specific. See the listings of appropriate acquisition editors in Literary MarketPlace. Check the Acknowledgments in similar books; authors often reference their editor. Call the editor (or the publisher in a smaller house), reference the similar title they published and ask if he or she would like to see your manuscript. Then you will have someone to send your work to. Many larger publishers prefer to have manuscripts filtered through agents. Agents A survey of 80 top literary agents revealed they reject 98 percent of what they receive. The rejection rate for fiction is higher than for nonfiction. It is getting tougher to be an agent. The big publishers continue to consolidate. There are only a few large and just a handful of medium-sized publishers that will give an advance large enough to make a 15 percent agent commission meaningful. In fact, there are just six large Trade publishers left. Divisions within the same large publishing house will not bid against each other. How to find (the right) agent See the various agent directories such as the Guide to Literary Agents by Donya Dickerson, Literary MarketPlace and ask around. Get a list of agents from the Association of Authors' Representatives by logging on to http://www.AAR-Online.org or call 212-353-3709. Locate and call authors of works similar to yours. Ask who their agent is. Many agents attend writer's conferences in Santa Barbara, Maui and other venues. For information on the Maui Writer's Conference, see http://www.MauiWriters.com. Maui has more than 50 agents attending and sets up meetings for you.
Vanity and subsidy publishers Vanity presses almost always accept a manuscript for publication and usually do so with a glowing review letter. They don't make any promises regarding sales and usually the book sells fewer than 100 copies. The vanity publisher doesn't have to sell any books because the author has already paid him for his work. Therefore, subsidy publishers are interested in manufacturing the book only. They are not concerned with editing, promotion, sales or distribution. The review copies a subsidy publisher sends to columnists usually go straight into the circular file. Reviewers are wary of vanity presses because they know that little attention was paid to the editing of the book. Further, they realize there will be little promotional effort and that the book will not be available to readers in the stores. Therefore, the name of the vanity publisher on the spine of the book is a kiss of death. There is a lot of money being made from unsuspecting authors. The vanity press is not a good choice. Do not pay a publisher to publish your book. Self-publishing Some authors have elected to publish themselves after being turned down by regular publishers. However, many more have decided to go their own way from the beginning. Some have started as self-publishers and sold out and some have built their own large publishing businesses. See Books That Were Originally Self-Published, Document 155 for examples. Self-publishing is good business. Writing a book is a creative act; selling it is a business. Some people can do both while others are more creative than businesslike. You have to ask if you want to be a publisher. Do you have an office, the time to conduct the business and a place to store the books? There are many more tax deductions available to the author-publisher than there are to the author. There are more write-offs for entertainment, travel and electronic toys. But, what about bookstores? Small and medium-sized publishers use distributors to get their books into bookstores. Since distributors have sales reps, these publishers have the same access to the stores as the large publishers. See Wholesalers, Distributors and Bookstores. Self-publishers make more money on their effort, get to press sooner and keep control of their work. If you invest the money in your manuscript, you can make a lot more than what you would get from a publisher in a royalty-nearly 40% of the list price. Why accept 6 percent to 10 percent in royalties when you can keep much more? Why share the profits? Most publishers work on an 18-month production cycle. Can you wait that long to get into print? Will you miss your market? The one and a half years don't even begin until after the publisher accepts the manuscript. Why waste valuable time shipping your manuscript around to see if there is a publisher out there who likes it? Publication could be three years away. Once you turn your manuscript over to a publisher, you lose control. They sometimes decide to save money by leaving out some illustrations and they often change the title and lose the theme of the book. Is there a Book Inside You? has a self-paced quiz to help you decide between a large publisher, a medium-sized niche publisher, a agent, a vanity press and self-publishing. For more information on the mechanics of publishing, see The Self-Publishing Manual, How to Write, Print & Sell Your Own Book.
Risk Comparison
But what does it cost to publish?
Recording your book on tape, disk and download. You are an expert in your area. You must dispense your information in many ways: Books, magazine articles, audiotape, video tape, seminars, speeches, and private consulting. All of the messages are the same but the delivery method for each is different. Spoken-word recording is an efficient delivery medium. Use your book as a script and record it word for word. See Document 635, Audiobooks. Revisions. Your book has a reputation, a niche in the market and a market share. Why kill it off? Keep your book alive. Sometimes a revised edition may be priced higher because it has a reputation that precedes it. And you may sell it to the same people who bought the earlier edition. They read you once and they are prime candidates for the latest information. People can be divided into three groups: Authors make things happen. Your future is up to you. Do not just hope for a bright future. Make a decision. Plan now and soon you will be doing what you want to do. Your book will be the cornerstone for the future you are building. See Free InfoKit.
Thinking, Planning & Writing Your Book - Resources
Specific Category Writing - Resources
As You Complete Your Manuscript - Resources
PowerPacks
Get all of our books, disks, reports and documents in print and electronic form. You will receive everything you need to write, print and promote your book-faster, easier and cheaper. This is a complete, step-b-step, turn-key program. Most files are in both MS-Word and Adobe Acrobat PDF; take you choice. The Acrobat Reader software is also included on the disc. There are three valuable kits to invest in:
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