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Hi y'all, it's swankivy, and today I'm talking about how to pursue publication.
In a previous video of mine, I talked a lot about a particular self-published author
and everything she and her family did terribly wrong to promote her material.
I got a lot of mail from my viewers about this video--
many of them asking for advice or asking questions about how they can try to get published
without ending up like that.
So this video is to give you a big picture understanding of some of the choices that you'll be facing as a writer.
Okay, first of all, self-publishing is not automatically the devil.
But there are quite a few reasons why I think mainstream fiction authors
who want to be successful and actually get their work read
should consider traditional publishing options first.
Self-publishing means paying a company to produce your book.
Unless you're only e-publishing the book or putting it up for print-on-demand,
you as the author have to pay for the book to be made.
Many self-published authors lose money on their books.
Traditionally published authors get paid without putting money in first.
Self-publishing has no standards.
There aren't any rules on how good or how professional or how accurate a book has to be to get self-published.
If the choice you make is available to absolutely anyone with a wallet,
you're going to be in some poor company.
If your work has not been vetted by anyone in the industry, it's not surprising that people will be wary of buying it.
Traditionally published books are edited and prepared by professionals in the industry.
Self-publishing means being your own sales and marketing department.
I don't know about you, but I am not interested in the business end of publishing--
and furthermore, I'm not good at it. And neither are most people.
It's very hard to get people interested in shelling out money for your product
without looking like a spammer on all your social media
and without the usual channels that traditionally published books have available,
and as my other video on a self-published author makes clear,
you run the risk of looking like a *** when you don't know better.
Self-publishing means not having your book carried by bookstores.
There are occasional exceptions to this and every single one of them is just that--an exception.
Your book won't be distributed to bookstores and most of them won't be able to order it even if they want to.
Which leaves you back at number 3.
Self-publishing is looked down upon by many people in the industry.
If you self-publish and later try to pursue traditional publication for the same work,
most agents and publishers won't want to work with you
unless you have sold an unusual number of copies and created a buzz.
(Think 5,000 copies in less than six months.)
Unless you know someone at a publisher or get in a back door,
this is not going to happen for you, so it's a great way to limit opportunities for your future.
Sometimes self-publishing IS appropriate.
Traditional publishing isn't for everyone or everything.
So let me rattle off a quick list of the situations where I think self-publishing is a good idea.
Do you want a small run of personal material to give to a few family members
and friends, like an original poetry collection or a family history? Self-publish.
Do you have an extremely time-sensitive nonfiction book
whose material needs to be produced immediately before the need for it passes? Self-publish.
Do you have something extremely controversial and non-traditional,
like your personal manifesto about a conspiracy theory
which would never, ever be picked up by the mainstream? Self-publish.
Do you have no misconceptions about widespread accessibility,
and are you satisfied with the idea of marketing yourself on a small scale?
Especially if you actually do have some marketing talent? Self-publish.
Do you love your content exactly the way it is and absolutely can't bear to take any criticism, editing, or advice to heart
and would rather have it your way than compromise at all?
Or would you be unwilling to delegate any marketing or artistic decisions
to anyone else and want to control every aspect of the process yourself? Self-publish.
Unfortunately a LOT of people have no idea that self-publishing isn't the thing you're automatically SUPPOSED to do first.
They think you just get copies of your book made, and then go around hawking them,
and expect to somehow get discovered. Well let me tell you, that isn't going to happen.
There aren't "publishing scouts" wandering around at the local book signings
expecting to discover the next big thing.
You might as well try to become a film star by moving to Los Angeles
and then walking around all day in your best outfit
hoping someone will notice you and put you in a movie.
So, say you decide traditional publishing is for you,
and you want to know how to get started approaching publishers.
What do you do first?
Unfortunately for you, the big publishers--and actually most of the larger independents too--
do not want to deal with you directly.
They don't allow submissions directly from authors.
Well, a very few of them do, but you'll go right into the slush pile
and the response time will be around a year or more.
I'M NOT EXAGGERATING.
So how do you get your foot in the door?
Well, your job, writers, is to begin your quest for publication by trying to get an agent.
Literary agents are the people who take an author's work and represent it to publishers.
They have connections with the editors at the big companies,
or at least they know how to approach them,
and they'll be your advocate trying to get these publishers and editors
to read your work consider it for publication.
Literary agents will also negotiate your book contract for you
so you don't get ripped off, and you'll almost always get a larger advance if you have an agent.
Plus they'll negotiate all those foreign rights, audio rights, movie rights,
all those things that authors usually have no idea about.
However, literary agents are . . . verrrry picky.
Basically, even though they end up working for you, they get to pick who they work for.
That's because they don't get paid until you do--
that's right, they take 15% of everything that you make if the book is published.
So they won't agree to take on your project for representation
unless they're pretty confident that they're gonna be able to sell it!
Otherwise, they'd be working for free until that happens.
So they can be very difficult to get.
If you decide you want to look for an agent for a fiction project,
first of all you have to make sure it's complete, polished, totally ready to be read.
It can't be in progress.
Then you do some research on which agents represent what you write.
There are lots of great resources for writers to help you find an agent who's a good match.
Try Query Tracker, Writers Market, Association of Authors' Representatives, or AgentQuery
to find someone who's looking to represent what you write.
There are also a lot of scams out there so you should always do research
to make sure you aren't submitting to any bogus agents--
look up the agents at Preditors & Editors, Writer Beware, or Absolute Write water Cooler.
(Generally if they charge a fee or don't disclose what books or clients they represent, you should run.)
So you find one who represents books like yours and find out how they want to be approached.
Many agents can be propositioned through e-mail.
Getting an agent starts with a query letter.
You send a letter introducing yourself, describing your book in a pitch statement
that should read a lot like the blurb on the back of published books,
and ask them if they're interested in reading it.
Rejection is really common at this point.
Sometimes the agent just isn't looking for a book like yours.
Sometimes the agent might think your idea won't sell,
or isn't personally interested, or thinks your letter is poorly written.
You will get rejection letters and you've just got to keep on truckin'.
Writing query letters is kind of its own art, and not everyone who's a good writer is good at query letters.
There are resources online that can give you query letter-writing advice,
and some even read and critique your query so that you can see what you're doing wrong
if you seem to be mostly collecting only rejection letters.
But sometimes they ARE interested.
The typical response from an interested agent involves their inviting you to send them part of your book.
Usually 3 chapters or the first 30 to 50 pages.
So you send your partial document to the agent in whatever manner they ask.
Usually they'll say you can send an e-mail attachment,
but some want their partial pasted into an e-mail body or hard-copy mailed to them.
Always follow their request, don't send them significantly more or less than they asked for, and always thank them.
And then just wait.
Don't contact them bugging them for a verdict, either,
unless their submission instructions tell you to nudge them after a certain period of silence.
Agents do sometimes screw up, but you have to be patient in the meantime.
Most partial manuscript submissions become rejections.
They will usually tell you why they are passing and remind you that this is a subjective business.
Sometimes they will have advice for you if there was a problem with your writing.
But sometimes, agents will react to reading your partial manuscript by asking for the full manuscript.
This is when you should get excited, because both your idea and your writing
have impressed the agent and they're seriously considering you now.
As long as your full story delivers, you may be close to getting an agent.
So you send your full book to the agent in whatever way you've been asked to do so.
Keep in mind that at this stage some agents have rules about exclusivity,
and if they ask to consider your manuscript exclusively, you may have to withhold submissions from other agents,
or sometimes just disclose that others have it. Follow their requests.
Of course, you're still very likely to get rejected.
I've never seen an agent pass on a full manuscript without
giving SOME pretty specific explanation for why this is the case.
Usually they will encourage you to keep trying with others,
and may give you advice for how you can make your writing better if the problem was on your end.
You are also sometimes asked to rewrite and resubmit;
maybe an agent likes your story and your writing but would like you to take a different angle,
or make it shorter or longer.
You get to pick at this time whether you plan to do this,
and it's appropriate to thank the agent for their time.
However, if an agent likes your book enough to want to accept you as a client,
they will almost always want to telephone you to offer representation.
If you get an e-mail like this, it usually means you're about to get accepted,
and you should respond with a window of time for the agent to ring you
and get your questions ready so that when they call you
you can ask whatever you want to help you make your decision about whether to sign with them.
Also, if you have any other agents still considering your manuscript at that time--
partial or full requests--
it's appropriate to contact them and notify them that you've been offered representation.
They can decide at this point whether they'd like to rush-read your submission
and match the offer, or whether they will consider your submission retracted
and wish you luck with your other agent.
It's common to give a week or two to any agents who seem really interested in you.
You may end up with more than one offer and then you just have to do research
and compare and contrast what you learn in your telephone calls
to decide who you think will make the best agent for you.
So, what happens after you sign with an agent is hopefully a book deal. [Laughs]
Well, first you sign a short contract.
Basically with you promising to give them 15% of whatever you make
and them promising to do everything that they can to get you a book deal.
That contract signs that particular book to the agency, by the way.
Not everything you ever write, and not you personally.
If you wanted to send further books to the same agency and see if they wanted to represent them as well,
that often happens. But if you wanted to seek different representation
for something else you wrote for some reason, that's totally allowed.
After you sign your contract, your agent will begin to do some research
on which publishers have acquired books that are similar to yours
in the last twelve months or so.
They'll create a pitch that's designed to get those editors interested
in requesting to read your book.
Usually unless the agent has a particular publisher in mind for you,
or has personal connections with a specific editor,
they'll send it out to a whole bunch of publishers at the same time.
Actually I think my first round of submissions,
my agent sent my pitch to eight publishers on the same day.
The agent is hoping the publisher writes back and asks for the full manuscript,
and at that point you just cross your fingers and hope that they offer you a book deal.
Just like with agents, you can get more than one offer from a publisher
and at that point they just have to fight over you.
Actually at this point it normally involves money--
and so the agent will be be negotiating with whoever's interested
trying to make sure that you get the highest advance that you can possibly get.
This stage of the game involves waiting. Lots of waiting.
But you just sit back and hope for the best, because once the project is in your agent's capable hands,
there's nothing left for you to do.
And they're doing everything they can to try to get the book a deal.
So at this point, the best thing for you to do is . . .
start your next project.
Good luck and let me know if any of you need querying tips
or have any other questions for me!