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    Confessions of a Published Author: 47 Truths About What Can Go Right and Wrong When Selling Your Book to a Traditional Publisher: Writer Talk
    Confessions of a Published Author: 47 Truths About What Can Go Right and Wrong When Selling Your Book to a Traditional Publisher: Writer Talk
    Confessions of a Published Author: 47 Truths About What Can Go Right and Wrong When Selling Your Book to a Traditional Publisher: Writer Talk
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    Confessions of a Published Author: 47 Truths About What Can Go Right and Wrong When Selling Your Book to a Traditional Publisher: Writer Talk

    By Martina Sprague

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    About this ebook

    You are an unpublished writer with a long and impressive background in your field of expertise, and you’ve got an idea for a great book. You write a proposal, and send it off to a publisher who has stated a need for this type of book. It seems like a perfect match. Three weeks later you receive a rejection letter: “Thanks for your interest in us. Unfortunately, your idea doesn’t meet our current needs.” You are puzzled.

    Or, you look through the advertisements in Writer’s Digest magazine, and find several publishing houses “now seeking new and established authors.” Having waited for an opportunity for years, you print the manuscript that has been gathering "dust" in your computer folder and rush it to the post office. Don’t! If it sounds too easy, it is.

    Or, you just landed your first book contract with a legitimate publisher. Instant fame, right? Wrong!

    Confessions of a Published Author: 47 Truths About What Can Go Right and Wrong When Selling Your Book to a Traditional Publisher, talks straight about the publishing experience, with focus on asking, “What if?”

    What if you don’t want to write your manuscript in the recommended format? What if you have no credentials or can’t state your qualifications for writing this book? What if you don't like the critique you're getting? What if you can wallpaper your office with rejection slips? What if you want more than the standard 10 percent royalties?

    A number of common issues are explored, such as what to include and what to leave out of your query letter; what matters and what doesn't, and what you must be careful with when signing the publishing agreement.
     

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMartina Sprague
    Release dateDec 30, 2014
    ISBN9781507018231
    Confessions of a Published Author: 47 Truths About What Can Go Right and Wrong When Selling Your Book to a Traditional Publisher: Writer Talk
    Author

    Martina Sprague

    Martina Sprague grew up in the Stockholm area of Sweden. She has a Master of Arts degree in Military History from Norwich University in Vermont and has studied a variety of combat arts since 1987. As an independent scholar, she writes primarily on subjects pertaining to military and general history, politics, and instructional books on the martial arts. For more information, please visit her website: www.modernfighter.com.

    Read more from Martina Sprague

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      Book preview

      Confessions of a Published Author - Martina Sprague

      Writer Talk

      ––––––––

      Confessions of a Published Author

      47 Truths About What Can Go Right and Wrong When Selling Your Book to a Traditional Publisher

      ––––––––

      Everything from Query Letters and Rejection Slips to Contracts and Royalties and More

      ––––––––

      by Martina Sprague

      Copyright 2014 Martina Sprague

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or otherwise, without the prior written consent of the author.

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      ––––––––

      Introduction

      Getting Started

      1. 10 Tips For The Aspiring Author

      2. There Is Nothing New Under The Sun . . . Or Is There?

      3. Does Your Early Writing Really Suck?

      4. Will Your Book Be A Bestseller?

      5. When Enough Is Enough

      Before Submitting Your Work

      6. Must You Really Follow The Submission Guidelines?

      7. It's About Who You Know, Right?

      8. Should You Get An Agent?

      9. What If You Don't Like The Advice You're Given?

      10. What Is A Platform?

      11. Can You Submit Unagented Or Unsolicited Manuscripts?

      12. Must You Enclose A SASE?

      Queries And Rejections

      13. The Query Letter

      14. Query Letter For Article

      15. What If You Have No Credentials?

      16. What Should You Not Include In Your Query?

      17. Should You Submit Your Work To Several Publishers Simultaneously?

      18. Why Is Your Work Rejected?

      19. What Might A Rejection Letter Say?

      20. What Might An Acceptance Letter Say?

      21. How Long Should You Wait?

      22. Don't Fall Victim To A Scam

      23. What If You Can't Find A Publisher?

      The Proposal

      24. What Does Your Book Offer The Reader?

      25. How Significant Are The Title And Subtitle?

      26. How To Write A Book Proposal

      27. Why Write An Annotated Table Of Contents?

      Signing The Contract

      28. Should You Get A Lawyer?

      29. A Talk About Rights

      30. Why Should You Retain Copyright In Your Name?

      31. Do Not Accept The Cosmic Clause

      32. Option On Future Books

      33. Electronic Rights

      34. When Is Your Book Out-Of-Print?

      35. What Can You Expect After Mailing The Final Manuscript?

      Money And Such

      36. Are You Making Any Money?

      37. How Much Will You Get Paid, Really?

      38. Is Your Publisher Cheating You Out Of Royalties?

      39. Do You Have To Repay The Advance, If The Book Is Not Published?

      40. If You Include Photos, Will Your Royalties Increase?

      41. What Photo Resolution Should You Use?

      The Marketing Process

      42. Your Book Will Be Heavily Marketed, Right?

      43. How Important Are Blurbs And Endorsements?

      44. How Should You Deal With Negative Reviews?

      What Else Can Go Wrong?

      45. Some Unforeseeable Problems

      46. Whose Error Is It, Anyway?

      47. Should You Quit Your Day Job And Write Fulltime?

      Summary Of Important Points

      INTRODUCTION

      ––––––––

      You are an unpublished writer with a long and impressive background in your field of expertise, and you’ve got an idea for a great nonfiction book. You research the market, write a proposal, and send it off to a publisher who has stated a need for this type of book. It seems like a perfect match. Three weeks later you receive a rejection letter: Thanks for your interest in us. Unfortunately, your idea doesn’t meet our current needs. You are puzzled.

      Or, you look through the advertisements in Writer’s Digest magazine, and find several publishing houses now seeking new and established authors. Having waited for an opportunity for years, you print the manuscript that has been gathering dust in your computer folder and rush it to the post office. Don’t! If it sounds too easy, it is.

      Or, you just landed your first book contract with a legitimate publisher. Instant fame, right? Wrong!

      Prior to becoming a published author, I often wondered about those things that nobody talked about. Why did they turn down a book that seemed to be a perfect match? When frustration took over and I was willing to go to almost any length to become a published author, how could I avoid being taken advantage of by less than legitimate publishing houses? If I did manage to land a book contract with a legitimate publisher, how much money was I going to make?

      As the author of a dozen nonfiction books published by legitimate royalty-paying publishers, I have learned about the publishing industry the hard way and have much inside information to offer others coming up through the ranks. Confessions of a Published Author: 47 Truths About What Can Go Right and Wrong When Selling Your Book to a Traditional Publisher, talks straight about the publishing experience, with focus on asking, What if? What if you don’t want to write your manuscript in the recommended format? What if you have no credentials or can’t state your qualifications for writing this book? What if you don't like the critique you're getting? What if you can wallpaper your office with rejection slips? What if you want more than the standard 10 percent royalties? A number of common issues are explored, such as what to include and what to leave out of your query letter; what matters and what doesn't, and what you must be careful with when signing the publishing agreement.

      Writing a book is an inaccurate science at best, affected by personal biases and multiple perspectives that can strengthen or weaken the overall structure. The finished work will necessarily be critiqued. Hopefully it will be praised. It will also be criticized, no matter how much care you have taken to ensure clarity of language and accuracy of sources. Like any project, it is subject to the bottom line. No matter how well-written and intriguing a book is, it must prove cost-effective, or no publisher will pursue it. Too long? Slash a section here. Too general? Trim the periphery. In the end, it might not resemble your original vision. It's a risk you accept in return for the prospect of getting published.

      If you're willing to give it a try, beware! The market is highly competitive, and selling your book to a traditional publisher requires persistence and toughness. Treacherous minefields lurk in the waters surrounding the publishing industry. Look for and steer clear of any publisher who asks you for money. Your contribution to the project is your knowledge and the time it takes you to research and write the book. Your entire monetary expense should amount to no more than the postage required for submitting your proposal. Subsidy publishers and vanity presses who publish books at the author's expense, although legitimate in a business sense, will quickly drain your wallet (a good marketing program can cost tens of thousands of dollars) and compromise your reputation as a serious scholar of whichever subject you have chosen to hang your hat of expertise on.

      Look for and steer clear of any publisher who offers you a blanket contract that asks for the right to all aspects of your professional life, or all rights today in existence and hereafter invented throughout the universe. Don't sign the cosmic clause; don't sign away your future when you don't need to. Who knows, I might see you in the movies some day!

      And don't sign away copyright ownership in your project. A publisher should ask only what they need to publish and market your book successfully. Typically, the author retains the copyright but licenses to the publisher exclusive rights to publish and sell the book throughout the world. Upon termination of the contract, when the book goes out-of-print or the publisher folds, all rights granted to the publisher should automatically revert to the author.

      So, armed with this bit of knowledge, how do you approach a publisher? You start by organizing your thoughts. You examine the sources, explain how your project differs from similar books on the market, and display an air of confidence in your knowledge and ability to research, write, and complete a publishable manuscript. Suffice it to say that if writing isn’t your passion, you’re in for a very long haul.

      GETTING STARTED

      ––––––––

      1.

      10 Tips For The Aspiring Author

      The first truth about selling your book to a traditional publisher is that it's fully possible for an unknown author to get published, even though it may seem impossible, no matter how long it takes or how many rejection letters you get. With this in mind, here are ten quick tips that will bring your mind into focus. We will explore these in greater detail throughout this book.

      1. Getting published by a legitimate publisher is a competitive process and will likely take a long time. It's not unusual to receive 40-50 rejections, or even several hundred, before succeeding, so don't get discouraged early in the game. I sometimes meet aspiring authors who admit to having submitted their manuscript to two or three publishers and, upon receiving rejections, have put their book away under the impression that it is unpublishable. This isn't how it works. Even the best writers get tons of rejections. If you give up after a few tries, chances are you will never succeed. Tenacity and belief in the value of your book will help.

      2. Fierce competition and small profit margins make it extremely difficult for a new author to break into the publishing industry, and finding an agent willing to take on the untested/unproven author is just about as difficult as approaching a publisher directly. Most new writers experience years of rejection before seeing any success. There are also many less than legitimate publishers or vanity houses looking to exploit

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