Reblogged on WordPress.com
Source: This is how you get your book onto a bookstore shelf
Have you had success at getting your books into stores in the U.S.? My guess is that we can best count on independent booksellers–or is Barnes and Noble completely out of the question? In any case, I’m inspired to get going on POD versions of my books to find out. Let me hear about your experiences!
A couple of posts ago I linked to an article that took me to this post from Dean Wesley Smith, in which he informed us that the current industry standard in traditional publishing is “life-of-copyright,” which basically means that we will never regain the rights to our work, regardless of the publisher’s intentions for our books, and that the most we can expect in the way of advances is $5000 or so.
I’ve posted questions about these claims to a couple of active blogs on the business of writing, including to an agent’s blog, and will be posting to others. In my searches, I came across this post about how indie authors should expect agents to protect their rights, which is directly relevant to these issues.
This appeared on the web site of the Alliance of Independent Authors. I’m following their blog and will share interesting information.
I’m venturing into self-publishing ….
From brittneysahin, who reposted it from Nicola Prentis. When you click through Brittney’s site to the full piece (Prentis), BE SURE to follow her link to the Dean Wesley Smith argument for self-publishing over traditional publishing. I’m really rethinking all this. I think we get caught up in the fantasy of that six-figure advance, when the reality is going to be much different. And just having retrieved the rights to my earlier novels from Bantam, I’m appalled at the “Life-of-Copyright” language that Smith says is now standard in contracts. If so, that’s a deal breaker, and it should be for us all.
SELF-PUBLISHED BOOK LAUNCH DAY at Smashwords! And the day I bite the bullet and upload to Amazon! So far it looks a lot more complex than uploading to Smashwords. If any of you have been through this process and have any advice for me, please let me hear from you! In the next day or two, I’ll report back on my own experiences. 
In the meantime, you can now order the books at Smashwords.com in addition to ordering them through any of your favorite ebook retailers, including Barnes and Noble and iBooks. 
Let me know if you run into problems. I may not be able to help, but I will try! Also later today I will post some direct links on my web site, www.virginiasanderson.com.
I came across this just now and thought I would share it with anyone who is interested. As soon as my books are officially released, I’m going to follow this practical tip. BTW, I welcome (and wish for) reviews of King of the Roses and Blood Lies! They’ll be up at Amazon soon.
Hello, all,
This is first of our two-part interview with Will Lavender, author of Obedience and Dominance. It’s always great to hear from people working their way through the publishing world!
Please send comments and questions. If we have some, perhaps we can arrange for a Q&A down the road!
1. Give us a sense of your writing trajectory. For example, what kinds of writing have you done and how have these experiences informed (or not) your fiction writing?
I write what the publisher calls “literary thrillers.” My novels are all set in or around college campuses, and I use my experience as a former writing instructor often in my work. I use not only my interactions with students but also simple things like the geography of the campuses where I’ve taught. For my first novel, Obedience, it was really important for me to have the campus mapped out in my mind, so I used bits and pieces of all the colleges I attended and appropriated certain quirks of each of them to my fictional campus.
Otherwise I think we’re always using bits and pieces of ourselves. It’s impossible to write well without some sense of the biographical. I find myself using phrases and words I overhear in the world; I’ll catch a turn of phrase on NPR and it will invariably end up in my writing. Writers are sort of receptacles for language and culture. The best writers use that information wisely and artfully.
2. Where do you get your ideas for your novels? Do you have a particular creative process for coming up with ideas?
The best ideas I come up with are what-ifs. I find that playing out a scenario in my mind helps kickstart my imagination. When I’m really writing well, I’m coming up with stuff—language, prose, ideas—that’s borderline weird. It’s only in the editing process that you reign in those things. But in the drafting itself, I think writers who really allow themselves to explore and hunt out unfamiliar territories have the most success. It definitely makes the drudgery of writing a novel easier.
3. What, in your experience were the most challenging parts of the publication process (e.g., finding agents and editors, working with editors, working with publishers, etc.) and how did you address these challenges? What were the most rewarding?
The most challenging part about publishing is staying published. I found getting an agent and my first book deal relatively calm. After that things got hectic, because when that first book comes out you’re saddled with the one thing that keeps writers afloat: sales numbers. My second novel didn’t do as well, but I was lucky to have a two-book contract in the bag before that book was released. Fulfilling that contract has taken me the better part of three years, because the publisher is concerned about the numbers of my second book. It’s a nerve-jangling thing, and it’s one of the reasons that I think it’s always better to work from a finished product rather than a novel-in-progress. My first novel was finished except for the editing. My other novels have been unfinished and have been bought at various stages of their completion. This means that the writer has to fulfill the contract by finishing the novel—that feels to me like working backwards. I would rather be rewarded for a completed thing than have to push to complete that thing under a set of parameters that are at times not my own.
4. Writers in all genres today have to do a lot of self-promotion. Have you been involved in promotion for your books, and if so, what has that experience been like? For example, what has been most difficult, what has been most effective, how did you develop your marketing skills?
All writers are going to have to do some marketing. I’ve done a little, but I’m not very good at it. Some people—a friend I went to college with named Tiffany Reisz writes erotic romance, and she’s hellaciously skilled at interacting with her fans; it’s something that intrigues me but I don’t have the wit or creativity to do it well—are great at it. Others, like me, not so much.
One thing I try to do is answer all my e-mail, even if it’s negative. I always respond when people write to me, and I’ve been lucky to receive quite a bit of correspondence from readers.
Otherwise I do what everyone else does. I Facebook a little, tweet a tad, go to conferences and so on. I think people will be interested in a good book. Bad books don’t get much publicity even if the writer is a kind of PR savant. It helps if you have an online footprint, but it always comes back to the writing.
5. Are there books or other sources of advice or information that you would recommend for aspiring fiction writers?
Stephen King’s On Writing. For me, that’s the list.
In case you haven’t seen it: Kindle author.
Filed under Money issues for writers, Self-publishing
I’ve been away for a few days, and if you’ve been watching the weather reports, you know what I spent much of the day before yesterday dealing with–yes, it’s a four-letter word beginning with “S.”
I’ve also been dealing with an eight-letter word beginning with “S”: “Synopsis.” I’ve never met a writer yet who liked dealing with synopses. I’ve always believed I couldn’t write them–just didn’t get it. I’d tell what I thought was the story I’d told, only to have readers respond, “I’m totally confused.”
I faced the need to confront the demon synopsis because I’m trying to get my out-of-print suspense novels up as e-books, and I need covers. I had some ideas of my own, but my excellent and candid volunteer critics (or should I say “impressed” critics in the sense that sailors off merchant ships were once impressed into the British navy) generally agreed that I should solicit ideas from actual designers. At my university, we have students who do superb work. But could I ask students to read two fairly hefty novels between class assignments? Uh, no, not if I want to get the books up any time soon. Hence, synopses.
My first efforts were on a par with my earlier efforts. A masochistic colleague whose opinion I value actually volunteered to read the books and write the things for me. I spared him: read two hefty books between grading assignments in four (yes, four!) writing classes?!!! So he read the synopses I produced. I reproduce here the bare bones of this experience, because it was a eureka experience. For the first time, I was like, “Oh!” It’s what can happen when you have a truly good reader who is willing to tell you the truth and you are ready to listen–a crucial component, but I was desperate. They always want a synopsis. Who wants two pages to be the death of a three-hundred-page gem?
Here is the heart of what my colleague Tom O’Neal wrote for me:
I’ve revised to add some new more information about Gail Strickland’s book, Night of Pan. Check out her site. I hope she will visit soon for a blog interview about bringing her book to publication.
I promised to report on the fates of my colleagues at the conference I attended a few years ago.
I obviously don’t know all their stories. Emails began to circulate, friendly requests for updates. Not everyone responded. I did not.
Now that I’m contemplating creating (from scratch) a “platform” for the non-fiction book I’m working on (tentatively titled Survive College Writing: What No One Will Tell You about Your First-Year Writing Class), I realize that not becoming part of that somewhat nostalgic network was a missed opportunity. At the time, it seemed clear to me that my job had hustled any real involvement in my personal projects right off the stage. So I withdrew, sat silent, packed away the emotional energy I wanted to invest in writing in hopes it would ferment in its dark corner. I think it has. I get up ready to write every day.
So with regard to the fate of my colleagues at the conference, all I have to go on is that flurry of emails. About ten people took part.
Of those few, up to the last email I received, only one had found a commercial publisher for the book she pitched at the conference. Gail Strickland found a small press (Curiosity Quills Press) that publishes the kind of book she has written and offers her the kind of support she hoped for. Her book, a YA historical fantasy titled Night of Pan can be pre-ordered through her Web site. I’m hoping Gail will give a blog interview about her experiences taking her book through from idea to promotion; if so, I’ll post the date.
The most impressive of the several self-publishing stories is that of one of the attendees who perfected his pitch (not about zombies) and scored a review from Publishers Weekly Select. John J. Kelley’s The Fallen Snow is worth a look–and I especially admire the attention his hard work at promotion has garnered. He’s gotten wonderful reviews! With his permission, I’ve posted his very informative account of the PW Select process here.
Another attendee ended up self-publishing a cookbook based on her expertise at gardening and raising bees. At last account she was still at work on her fiction.
John found the conference helpful in expanding his options for his work. I am still thinking about what I learned, including what I knew before and how the conference changed what I thought I knew. Even so much later (nearly three years), I still have much to process. I think that will take another post.
Paddy and his mom!
Just Can't Help Writing 