Tips For Unpublished Authors
Helpful Hints And Tips For Unpublished Writers
Are you true to persistence, passion, productivity, purpose, and postage? Those are the writer’s 5 P’s I read somewhere, though postage is mostly replaced by E-mails nowadays. Nonetheless, if you have finished writing a manuscript and think of self-publishing because you don't know where to turn to publish it, then here are a few helpful hints for the unpublished writer.
If you are unfamiliar with the self publishing business, there are print-on-demand (POD) Internet book publishers, who are also called supplier of publishing services to writers I just recently found out, or you can become your own POD book publisher.
You probably know by now that unless you have written a manuscript with an almost guarantied sales future, a traditional publishing house will very rarely publish a book by an unknown author. And submitting your work to traditional book publishers (the usual query letter-book-proposal way) can be tiresome and frustrating, especially when you are a gifted writer and should be heard and you’re not getting a chance or the response you are hoping for. One of the explanations for that is because thousands of book manuscripts pour into the publishing houses daily. Unless you have published before or are a celebrity, there is only a slim chance for your book to be read. The market is simply flooded with books. Only very few (and then mostly small) commercial publishing houses sign talented unknown authors to publishing contracts. Besides, without a literary agent, who mostly favors working for his already published authors, it is hard to get your foot in the door of a publishing house. But if you like to try and go that route, you can obtain a huge list of literary agents by searching the Internet, even warnings and cautions for writers about agents. Here is one website for “Writers’ Free Reference List of Literary Agents and E-mail addresses”: www.writers-free-reference.com/agents.htm. There are lots of sites and lots of choices, pick one that suits your needs best. You might just be lucky. I sincerely hope that your manuscript finds a good home and I wish you a lot of luck and much success.
Best-selling authors tell us often that they received an astounding amount of negative responses from publishers before they finally got a break. Persistence and hard work paid off for Author Margaret Brownley after 1,200 rejection letters. Today she’s been published by Harlequin, Topaz, and others. So there is hope with a lot of patience, hard work, and an awful lot of luck.
However, there are new ways of publishing today (not exactly new) but they have become more and more popular and advanced in the last few years. Ground-breaking technologies have brought unsurpassed new opportunities and options for authors and online-publishers alike.
For one, there is self publishing, and I mean acting as your own publisher. It has made successful book publishing possible for quite a number of computer and Internet savvy authors. Self-publishing the POD way ( a new technology which allows smaller quantities of books to be printed, even a single book at a time) has become one of the fastest growing sectors of the publishing industry.
However, self-publishing involves all factors of book publishing. To begin with you need to find a book printer. Most POD books are printed through Lightning Source, a large or one of the largest printing companies in the US today, using digital printing technology just like a laser printer. Lightning Source is owned by Ingram, who is the largest book distribution company in America. Another major book distributor is Baker & Tailor.
You also need to hire an artist to design your book cover , and a formatter to format the interior of your book. You have to handle copy rights, ISBN numbers (International Standard Book Number). You find them on back covers of books as barcodes, which are somewhat costly. You can purchase your own ISBN block – at the ISBN agency Bowker. Their website is: http://www.bowker.com or http://www.isbn.org.
Protect your ideas. Copyright with the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. The telephone number is: (202) 707-3000.
The Copyright Office website is: http://www.copyright.gov
With Print-On-Demand there’s no inventory problem. Warehousing unsold books used to be a setback. The author/publisher of today doesn’t need to buy his books by the thousands anymore and store the inventory in his garage or basement. Distribution and shipping goes direct to the customer, even one book at the time.
Author and self-publisher Aaron Shepherd explains POD in his book AIMING AT AMAZON like this, “From the production angle, print on demand means producing books on smaller, computerized presses using laser technology – in other words, on glorified photocopy machines. Printing directly from computer files, these presses are able to efficiently produce even a single copy of a book at a time. This means a publisher no longer needs to invest in 1,000 or 2,000 or 5,000 copies of a book to bring the cost per copy down to a reasonable level.”
As a self-publisher you are responsible for your own distribution and sales options, your own book promotion, and book marketing; with other words, controlling all aspects of the publication yourself . But the cost and responsibilities of total control is high. You might be putting more time and work into publishing and promoting your book than into writing the next one.
Morris Rosenthal, author of PRINT-ON-DEMAND BOOK PUBLISHING, is a flourishing self-publisher. He writes in his book: “My main tool is the Internet, but I try to acknowledge that there are other ways to go about publishing and promoting books.” He says, “The strength of authors and publishers is the written word, and the Internet is the media most ideally adapted to the written word since the invention of the printing press.” He also says, “I know more authors who earn their living exclusively through self-publishing than through writing for the big trades. Only a small fraction of trade authors actually earn a living through royalties.”
Author Aaron Shepard, whose book AIMING AT AMAZON became a success story, tells you in his book to forget about bookstores. He says, “By aiming at Amazon and exploiting its capabilities to the fullest, you can outmaneuver large publishers that may have their main attention elsewhere and know less about its workings than you do.”
But if you lack Internet and publishing savvy (like I do) and you would like someone else to do the publishing work for you, Print On Demand Online Book Publishers might be for you.
Going with an On-line publisher might not be the best way for you to go, but it certainly will improve your chances of getting your book out. And it has given hope and some opportunities to many dedicated but struggling writers. O f course, you might have to deal with a certain POD stigma described by author Jeremy Robinson in his book POD PEOPLE. He writes, “Most POD books fade into obscurity, selling only a few copies and leaving the author disappointed and in many cases, broke. It is my hope that POD PEOPLE will help you boost sales, improve your chances of getting noticed and help you avoid the mistakes I’ve made along the way. Best of all, you’ll learn how to best avoid the POD stigma.” Jeremy Robinson’s book POD PEOPLE is worth reading.
If you decide to go the online-publisher’s POD route, you need to sign up with one of the Internet publishers who are readily available. Just a few words of caution, do your research, ask questions, then take your time, and compare publishing companies. Remember, t hey don't automatically provide illustrations, editing, proofreading, etc. only for an additional cost. As you see, there is much more to look out for than reasonably priced publishing fees. You must watch out for the fine print of the publishing contracts.
Attorney Mark Levine, and author of THE FINE PRINT OF SELF-PUBLISHING, says, before signing on the dotted line, you must check the company out thoroughly. Make sure you understand the small print on your contract and don’t find out too late that you have signed some of your rights away.
He writes in his book: “Look for contracts that have terms that do not lock the author into a contract for a long period of time. The most author-friendly POD publisher contracts will have these terms:
Exclusive, but only for one year.
Exclusive for X years, but the author can terminate at any time by giving X-days written notice.
Or non-exclusive for X years and author can cancel at any time.”
Finding a publisher, doesn’t necessarily mean that your book will sell, unless you are happy just to have a book in print. Otherwise, d on’t kid yourself . When I found out that my books would be available at online retailers around the world (like Amazon.de (for Germany), Amazon.fr (for France), Amazon.ka (for Canada), Africa, Australia, Japan etc., I was excited. But I didn’t realize that my books weren’t visible anywhere. No one, besides friends and family (who often expect a free copy of your book from you anyway) know that your books exist, and unless someone types the ISBN number or your name and title of your book in the search engine when looking for a book, your book is buried and has no chance to be sold. Unless you have a decent marketing budget and promotional plan available for each book, it’ll be slow going.
Unfortunately, becoming published doesn’t go hand in hand with becoming recognized and successful. E ven when you pay your own way! It’s a very long road to travel and a hard business to break into. Only the lucky ones who are skilled computer- and Internet authorities and publish their own POD books sell a decent amount of books and see a good profit. For others it’ll always be an uphill battle. Then again, y ou might turn out to be one of the lucky ones. You never know. (Another little hint is, according to publishers or experienced authors, write nonfiction instead of fiction. It’s much harder to sell fiction.)
Maybe the time is right for you to follow in the footsteps of someone like Morris Rosenthal or Aaron Shepard who are very successful in self publishing the Print-on-demand way and tell us in details about it in their books. I highly recommend both of their books, since I am not the expert to advise you or further cover that subject. I am still struggling myself. Computers were not available in my generation, I am not familiar with certain soft wear to create my own books. In my eyes you have to be somewhat of a computer wizard, to go for self publishing. But then, I am from the generation of dinosaurs.
