Tips for Writing/Publishing a Book

In My Humble Opinion
21

[QUOTE=InvisibleWombat]

Editor/Proofreader: You must be the greatest writer on the planet, because I’ve never encountered anyone else that can produce perfect prose. Even the best in the business make mistakes. When a book hasn’t been properly edited and proofed, it shows.
[/QUOTE]

I need an editor and proofreader. I have read Ianzin’s book, The Full Facts Book of Cold Reading, a number of times - I used it as a reference for my first science book for trade which is how I first got to know that Ianzin existed. The prose is pefect and the book is often praised for its wonderful style. Those of us who fit into your ‘anyone else’ category hate him for it.

Lynne

22

[QUOTE=Lunar Saltlick]
Bingo. This is the answer to the OP’s question and the response to the you-have-to-know-somebody controversy. Of course you have to know somebody! You have to know the editors, writers, magazine owners, workshop leaders and publishers with whom you’ve been writing, editing, hobnobbing and carousing for the last ten years. They have to like the work they’ve already seen from you, and they’ll be willing to have a serious look when you produce a book, or a part of a book.
[/quote]
I sold my novel to an editor who had never heard of me, and who I didn’t meet until after it was published.

David Alexander Smith sold his first novel to an editor who never met him and who didn’t even know his address. The cover page had been lost; she had to take out an ad to try to find the author.

Samuel R. Delany’s first novel was his first published work, and he had no relationship with the editor who bought it.

Terry Brooks Shannara series was also sold to an editor who had never heard of him before.

The list could go on to just about every author whose first published work was a novel, and every nonfiction author who started out with a book sale. At most, the editor knows your agent, not you – and your agent probably hasn’t met you, either.

Other sales prior to book sales are nice, but they won’t sell your novel. It doesn’t matter how well the editor knows you, if the book isn’t what she wants, then she’s not going to buy it. Period.

23

[QUOTE=RealityChuck]
…The list could go on to just about every author whose first published work was a novel, and every nonfiction author who started out with a book sale…
[/QUOTE]
The list could go on? The list most certainly does go on. It has to. But this isn’t really saying anything. You’re essentially just stating that people whose first published work was a book had never published anything else before.

Look, I know that it happens. I’m not denying it. There are people who sit down, write a novel without ever having published anything before, and they get it into print. The question is, who has the better odds of getting a book published: an unheard-of author who has never had anything at all published ever, and who doesn’t know anybody, or the author who has been in the writing game for a decade or more and has met tons of people, published articles, poetry, short stories, etc., and has maybe worked on some lit mags, or at a publishing house or whatever? I know that it’s no guarantee at all, but at the very least, the experience provides a good idea of which publishers to target.

And of course your stuff has to be good. I think we’re taking that for granted, right? I’m not saying that the guy with two dozen crappy poems in some tiny lit mag has got a better chance with his novel than the woman with an excellent novel who has never published anything. If the quality’s not there, it’s doomed, no matter what you do.

[QUOTE=RealityChuck]
Other sales prior to book sales are nice, but they won’t sell your novel. It doesn’t matter how well the editor knows you, if the book isn’t what she wants, then she’s not going to buy it. Period.
[/QUOTE]
Agreed absolutely. It seems to me that this goes without saying. But presumably, the writer learns a lot about target markets during those years of publishing stuff and when it comes time to shop the novel around, avoids the editors who will almost certainly have zero interest in the book. Apart from tech manuals, my pathetic publishng career consists of a few travel articles, a few investment articles and a short story. But if I ever write, say, a travel book, maybe Paul Theroux-style, the first guy I’m going to contact is the editor of the travel mag where I published a few articles. His mag went under a few years back, but he’s still in the travel writing game, and he’d be a valuable resource for me.

24

It goes even deeper than that. What you’ve written before needs to be relevant. When I sent in the proposal for my first kids’ book, they weren’t interested at all in the four tech book I’d written (much less the computer manuals and magazine articles). I hadn’t written kids’ books before, so I was starting at ground zero. I have an idea for a novel, and the publishers and agents I’ve talked to say that I’ll be starting from scratch again, because I’ve never published any fiction.

In fact, I started asking writer friends what agents they used and it appears that very few agents handle both fiction and nonfiction. It’s a whole different world, and it’s much harder to get fiction published without an agent.

25

FWIW, I’m trying to generate interest in my book–a collection of topical essays–by posting current drafts on a website and inviting people to critique it, so I’ll know where improvements need to be made. http://www.squeakywheelsblog.com

26

[QUOTE=InvisibleWombat]

In fact, I started asking writer friends what agents they used and it appears that very few agents handle both fiction and nonfiction. It’s a whole different world, and it’s much harder to get fiction published without an agent.
[/QUOTE]

Absolutely true.

For fiction, many publishers will not look at it unless you have had a novel published before, or it comes through an agent. Non-fiction is a completely different game - they want proposals not manuscripts.

I struggled to get my novel published for ten years. I got replies from publishers, not just the standard form letter. If your rejection letter has any advice in it, then take it as a compliement - it means they thought you were worth some time. Wish I’d known that earlier. I applied all the advice I was given then paid to attend a weekend workshop for people with manuscripts completed. That ensured a complete reading by an editor at a suitable publisher. I then took her advice really seriously. Third complete rewrite. I sent it back to her and they published it. That ten year struggle taught me a huge amount about writing and in retrospect I am really pleased it happened. I wouldn’t have said it at the time.

Now I have publishers asking to see my next novel. As for relevence of non-fiction in writing a novel - it depends on the type of non-fiction you write. Mine is narrative, not pure reference. The book due out in July is natural history for adults, but also has a narrative autobiographical aspect. The genres are blurring!

27

[QUOTE=InvisibleWombat]
ISBN: An ISBN is your ticket into every wholesale and retail outlet in the trade, from Amazon to your corner bookstore. If you have a professional-looking cover with an ISBN and barcode, and you give your self-publishing operation a name, your book looks just like books from the big guys.
[/quote]
If you want to use third party retail or online outlets, yes, you need an ISBN and bar code on your book. If you don’t want to use these outlets, you don’t need an ISBN or barcode, so there’s no need to pay for them. Third party retailers are not essential for a beginner. I’ve sold about 10,000 books without an ISBN or barcode anywhere in sight. That having been said, the next edition of my CR book will have a barcoded ISBN, but this doesn’t undermine my original point: a beginner does not have to have either an ISBN or a barcode. He or she can set up a website and sell online. I did.

I’m not the greatest anything, and I respectfully disagree. I think there are a lot of people with sufficient skill to produce prose that does not need either an editor or a proof-reader. Some need them, some don’t. A beginner does not need either, although help with the proof-reading can’t hurt and usually helps. Many editors are time-wasting, no-talent twits whose arbitrary interference illuminates their frustration at not being a sufficiently good writer to be able to produce anything worth reading.

28

[QUOTE=ianzin]
I think there are a lot of people with sufficient skill to produce prose that does not need either an editor or a proof-reader. Some need them, some don’t. A beginner does not need either, although help with the proof-reading can’t hurt and usually helps. Many editors are time-wasting, no-talent twits whose arbitrary interference illuminates their frustration at not being a sufficiently good writer to be able to produce anything worth reading.
[/QUOTE]
Beginners especially need copyeditors and proofreaders. When you attempt to proof your own work, you read what you think you wrote, not what you actually wrote. Even great writers miss a lot of their own errors, and sentences that make sense to you (because, after all, you wrote them) may not make sense to others. I’ve seen a lot of self-published work at my bookstore, and it’s always easy to spot the ones that didn’t pop a couple of hundred bucks to have a professional proof them. They look like amateur works, and few people who buy one come back for another book by the same author.

29

[QUOTE=Poor College Student]
I’ve got a good idea for a chess book…

Thanks in advance for any help!
[/QUOTE]

Get in contact with one of our esteemed Dopers, glee.
If I am not mistaken, he is currently one of the highest ranking chess players in the UK. He was an honored guest at our LasVegasDopefest last year, and will be returning to Las Vegas again this summer.
I am sure he can give you some excellent advice.

Thanks to my help, he also won $5.21 on a video poker machine.

30

Seeing the references to Yog’s Law and the likes of Bouncin’ Bobby leads me to believe that there have to be some folks who are familiar with Absolute Write. After you get your manuscript (or proposal) finished, go to the Absolute Write “Bewares and Background Check” forum (I would encourage you to start lurking over there even now–there’s lot of friendly people and some good advice), Preditors and Editors or Writer Beware (put out by the SFWA, but contains useful info for all authors) to check on the legitimacy of the folks you query.

The experts at AW generally advise against anyone who takes out a Google ad; indeed, a search for “literary agent” turns up a lot of good links (including AgentQuery, Writer Beware, Preditors and Editors and Miss Snark), but the ads are a nest of scammers and other shady practitioners. (Also of note: a Google search for “book publishing” turns up a lot of questionable outfits, so…)