How To Play the Game
For those who want some publishing etiquette to get their book into the big time, it’s time to start preparing. Getting a book published by a certain company is an extremely competitive market, with very little room for new books. Finding the right publisher, and setting the terms straight, will ensure that the wait to get your name into print is worth it.
The one thing to remember if you are waiting to get a book published is that you are going to need time - and a lot of it. Even Harry Potter (yes, the infamous Harry), went through a few years of rejections and the need to find the right publisher. So, if you are going for the publishing route with a particular company, remember that patience is your key.
When you start to approach publishing options, you will need a Bible. This is the Writers Market for the current year. Sometimes, the last year will also be available and will have enough information that is updated. This will give you a list of all of the publishing companies, their address and their requirements. By using this book, you can automatically submit your manuscript into the hands of those who are looking for a story like yours. This will eliminate some of the players on the field and give you a direct line.
Your next step is to submit like crazy. You don’t want to put all of your eggs in one basket in the hopes that they will say yes. Get your query letter together and send it to at least 10 publishers. This way, you will be able to find the best deals when they come along. Once again, expect to wait for the letters to come in, and in the mean time, keep submitting. Eventually, something will fall together. And, if not, keep your rejection letters as memorabilia in a shoe box. They can be motivational, even if you know you have a best seller on your hand.
Eventually, you will find a publisher. The trick is to remember who is on the other side. Typically, they can only put out a certain amount of money a year, meaning a couple of books, and they need to have something they know is the right fit. If you keep their looking glasses on, the rejection letters don’t seem so personal, and you can come to terms with it just taking a matter of time before you find someone who knows that your name is put into print.
Just like baseball, you have to swing and run a lot before you hit a home run. If you keep playing the game, eventually, you will find a publisher who is ready to say ‘yes’ to your book.
Unpublished Writers Get Their Chance
The Sobol Award is a new literary prize but only writers who are both unpublished and who do not have an agent can try to get it. The winner will recieve $100,000 and for second and third place, they will recieve $25,000 and $10,000 while 7 others will recieve $1,000 each.
Participants must enter through the Sobol website, where up to 50,000 manuscripts will be accepted, online only and when applying an $85 fee is required.
Top Five Publishers Make $4.8 Billion
The five largest US publishers (aka the “Big Five” — Random House, HarperCollins, Penguin Group, Simon & Schuster and Time Warner Trade Books) raked in $4.8 billion in revenue in 2004.
Random House, of course, was the country’s largest publisher last year, with U.S. sales of about $1.33 billion, roughly flat with 2003. HarperCollins and Penguin usually run neck and neck for the country’s second largest publisher. In 2004, HC, with a big assist from Zondervan and The Purpose-Driven Life, edged ahead of Penguin. HC had North American sales of approximately $965 million last year, with North America accounting for about 73% of HC’s worldwide sales. Penguin, which received a boost of $40 million from its Penguin Press, Gotham and Razorbill imprints in 2004, had estimated sales in the U.S. of $900 million last year.
To compare: 63,000 small publishers (’everyone else,’ I’m guessing) generated revenue of $14 billion.
[Source: Publishers Weekly, via KeepMedia]
Grammar for the Rest of You
I’ll have to admit I’m a bit of a grammar geek. I usually refer to myself as a word nerd. I’m a professional editor as well as being a writer, so words, and the correct usage of words, are my business.
Because I’m more than a little obsessed with all things wordy, I can’t resist reading books about grammar and usage. I came across a fun one yesterday that even those who aren’t word nerds will enjoy: Grammar Snobs are Great Big Meanies by June Casagrande (Penguin, 224 pages, $14).
Casagrande, author of the “A Word, Please” column that appears in several community sections of the Los Angeles Times, offers a guide to usage that’s mostly based on doing what feels (or at least sounds) right. She’s not big on rules, and she is big on cheesy mnemonic devices to help you remember the rules you do need to know.
She hopes that people can learn to strike a balance between being clueless about grammar and being a “grammar snob,” someone who delights in his or her knowledge of grammar and will use that knowledge to humiliate others who do not know as much.
If you haven’t had the pain of running into a grammar snob, Casagrande elaborates:
Unlike normal people who get giddy about things like love, sex, money, free beer, and classic REO Speedwagon, these guys have the hots for things like punctuation marks and syntax rules and the excavation of lost words that were lost for a reason.
Like a lot of ‘happy’ drunks, these people can turn on you in an instant, transforming from Jekyll-like, playful nerds into bloodthristy grammar Hydes.
Some grammar snobs, Casagrande points out, give truth to the adage that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. They think they know the rules, so they think they have license to correct what they see as gaffes in other people’s writing and speaking.
But the truth is, these people often don’t know the rules any better than the average person. Or they know rules that are no longer considered rules, like the “rules” against splitting infinitives, ending sentences with prepositions or starting them with conjunctions, all of which this book trashes, once and for all (we hope).
Casagrande also tackles more ticklish subjects like use of the subjunctive (was vs. were), saying “literally” when you mean “figuratively,” how to punctuate and why, and why rock stars can’t spell and what to do about it.
This entertaining and funny book is also educational if you don’t already know the basics of grammar and usage or are always getting rules confused. If you’re a grammar geek already, you might not learn much from this little book, but you should take it as a warning never to become one of the grammar snobs Casagrande takes to task, even if you think you really do know it all.
Getting Published, part 2
It’s been a few weeks since I sent out my first queries to literary agents. So far, no bites — just a few rejections.
Luckily, I’m immune to rejections. (I’ve been a freelance writer for a few years, so I’m used to them.) Also, I’m thankful they’ve all been good non-form-letter rejections — each responded to specific things I’d said in my query, which is encouraging.
If I don’t have any luck with anyone from this group, I have another batch of queries ready to go out in May…
In the meanwhile, here are a few more sites offering advice on how to get an agent:
- Literary agents: a four-part series from Writing.org
- Words of Wisdom to Snatch a Literary Agent from FreelanceWriting.com
- Literary Agents - Answers and Advice from TaraKHarper.com
Getting Published Takes Time
When I say getting published takes time I don’t mean the process of creating the books or even writing the book. I am talking about just getting someone to accept the novel. After you have spent months and even years writing a book you can spend even more time shopping it around to different publishers.
That in itself takes a lot of time because it can be sometimes over a year before you are accepted or rejected and then it’s on to the next one. You have to remember it’s not like a demo tape you listen to and toss in the trash. These are words that has to be read, a story that has to be finished for them to get the big picture.
If they get hundreds and thousands of these then it will take time, a lot of time before yours is even read.
Getting Help With Illustration
A large majority of books needs to be illustrated, be it just the front cover, children’s books or cook books. Even if your doing self-publishing, if you can’t draw a stick figure then you need to find someone who can illustrate your novel. Here are a few places that you can begin at.
- Illustration Web
- RABZ Illustration (Fantasy Illustration)
- Dragon Pencil
- Author House
Getting Published, part 1
This morning, I sent out my first batch of agent queries.
They were all e-queries, thankfully, so there was no printing, paper-folding, or envelope-licking involved — just cutting, pasting, and sending. This was refreshing, as the process of finding potential agents and crafting a personalized query for each had been pretty arduous.
First, I’d checked sites like Publishers Marketplace and Agent Query to find agents interested in representing the types of books I wanted to write (nonfiction books on parenting). Parenting is a popular topic, so there were hundreds of agents to choose from.
Once I’d whittled my list down to about 40, I began writing my query, which consisted of a hook, a description of the book, a mini-bio, and a conclusion with contact info. It was formatted like a typical one-page business letter.
Researching agents and perfecting my query took weeks. My friends and family (all of whom I’d forced to read the query multiple times) were getting impatient, asking why I hadn’t sent the letters out yet.
Finally, today, I looked it over and could find nothing to change. So I sent out the first batch of 10 (figuring that a rate of 10 per month would suffice).
Now, all I can do is cross my fingers and wait. In the meanwhile, I have a manuscript to edit and a book proposal to write…
Dan Brown & Da Vinci Code Has Won
The lawsuit is over and Judge Peter Smith ruled in Dan Brown’s favor saying:
“It would be quite wrong if fictional writers were to have their writings pored over in the way DVC (`Da Vinci Code’) has been pored over in this case by authors of pretend historical books to make an allegation of infringement of copyright.”
Authors Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh sued Random House, the publisher of Da Vinci Code and who also looks to be the biggest winner in all this. You see Random House is the publisher for DVC and The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, both of which has been selling strong since the lawsuit.
Allan Adler, Vice President of Association of American Publishers also says,
“Cases like this hopefully will clarify what copyright is all about. Copyright doesn’t protect ideas and copyright doesn’t protect facts. That’s why we have genres, fiction and nonfiction, and a number of people can write novels based on the same idea and still have freedom of expression.”
Authors Baigent and Leigh who initiated this lawsuit two years ago have spent almost $3.5 million for their legal fees and Random House’s, plus they now need to pay another $600,000 before May 5 and one or both might have to sell their homes to accomplish that.
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