When a publisher shuts its doors

Over the past decade dozens of publishers have closed their doors. Not just small digital publishers, but also some large print publishers as well. One thing I am convinced of, is that no publisher is secure, no matter what its advertising material states, or how long and illustrious its career might have been.
Therefore my first piece of advice to authors is all about eggs and baskets.

Diversity is essential. Don’t drink the company Kool Aid. Yes, the company may truly believe everything it tells you, but the only 20/20 vision is in hindsight. Submit to several publishers, two or three perhaps, or self-publish some of your work, but don’t trust any one source to pay all your bills.

My second piece of advice is to go out gracefully.

If the worst happens and the company your book is published by closes, don’t make a huge scene (or even a small scene) out in public. Always behave in a professional manner even if the dying publisher does not.

Some publishers have behaved extremely badly, absconding with money that belongs to authors, lying and cheating, possibly even behaving in a manner that is overtly illegal. This doesn’t give the author a “get-out-of-jail-free” card to copy that behavior.
Be professional. Certainly claim your rights back and any withheld property such as royalties, but always behave politely and within the law.

Everyone knows everyone in the publishing business. Maintaining your good manners in the face of adversity and trauma is your best chance of being picked up by another publisher when many people will be knocking on their doors right then.

Helen Woodall
helen.woodall@gmail.com

Helen is available to line edit and/ or content edit fiction and non-fiction. Rates on application.

How to Write a Better Query Letter

In this day of self publishing, I’m not sure how many authors still send out query letters to agents and publishers. But if you do, The Writer’s Circle has some tips on how to make your query eye-catching.

Their suggestions include personalizing your letter. Never ever send the same letter to more than one publisher/agent. Each one should be targeted directly at the company you wish to work with.

Don’t oversell yourself. Paint yourself in your best light, yes, but don’t lie.

Just as with your book, start your letter with a hook. These people are busy and get hundreds of unsolicited approaches. You need to prove you are worth reading.

Don’t talk about your kids, your cats, your garden or your hard life. Talk about the book and why it suits their company.

Finally, READ the submission guidelines and follow them absolutely. If you think they are stupid or unnecessary, chances are that’s not the right company for you or your book.

The full article is here:
http://writerscircle.com/dear-writer-5-tips-to-better-query-letters/

Helen Woodall
helen.woodall@gmail.com

Helen is available to line edit and/ or content edit fiction and non-fiction. Rates on application.

Overcoming Rejected Manuscripts

For hundreds of years a handful of print publishers held the lives, fortunes and careers of authors in the palms of their hands. Back then printing was a slow, painstaking and expensive business and publishers wanted to be sure their money, time and effort was expended on a book that would sell many copies.

Times changed but the publishing industry didn’t. Printing became much much faster and cheaper but still a handful of gatekeepers held rigidly to choosing only the few books they were convinced would sell many copies. They also insisted on restricting authors to releasing only one or at the absolute most two books per year, even though the editing, printing and publication no longer took anything like six months to complete.

Even the arrival of digital publishing didn’t change their stance. They insisted digital books weren’t “real” books and it wasn’t until epublishing was a multimillion dollar business that they finally began accepting that it was here to stay.

In the meantime thousands of authors had been published with small digital-first publishing houses, and a significant number of them were making a much better living than mid-list print authors. Not only did digital publishers pay authors every three months instead of perhaps only once a year, but prolific authors were able to release four or even six books a year instead of one. As an author’s backlist grew, readers discovered digital books never went out of print, and began buying the entire backlist of new authors they discovered and loved.

The advent of self publishing has added another range of choices and many print authors have released their own out of print backlists as self published digital works.

But some authors still crave the recognition of a “big” New York publisher. So for those who continue to receive rejection slips, and don’t wish to choose the digital-first method of publishing, here is a list of famous, but rejected authors.

C.S. Lewis was turned down eight hundred times before selling a single piece of writing. Then there was the San Francisco “Examiner’s” response to Rudyard Kipling. “I’m sorry Mr. Kipling, but you just don’t know how to use the English language.”

For a list of other now famous rejected authors see: http://writerscircle.com/manuscript-completed-a-young-british-writer-dashed-off-his-first-novel-for-review-by-a-publishing-housethe-premise-of-his-b/

Helen Woodall
helen.woodall@gmail.com

Helen is available to line edit and/ or content edit fiction and non-fiction. Rates on application.

Vanity Publishing

Vanity publishing is not new. It’s been mentioned in the newspapers since 1941. It also does not imply the book is bad. Traditional publishers do not have a one hundred percent record for picking winners. It took them about ten years to work out romance, including erotic romance, is actually a top seller.

What vanity publishing means is that the primary audience for the book is the author. The author pays for everything—editing, cover art, ISBNs, formatting, printing, publishing, marketing. The vanity publisher then pays their staff or contractors who do the work.

The difference between self publishing, or independent publishing, and vanity publishing, is that with self publishing the author controls the decision making. She chooses her own editor, cover artist, formatter, marketing firm etc. She then pays them for their work and it’s the author who chooses when and where her book will be for sale.

Thus the costs may be very similar for vanity publishing and independent publishing, but with vanity publishing she is just a client, one of many, with minimal or zero control.

Vanity publishing can be the right choice for authors who don’t wish to use a more traditional publisher but don’t have the confidence or experience to self publish.

Unfortunately it may also attract authors who don’t want their book edited and won’t listen to professional advice about cover art, font sizes and formatting.

If you want your book read and loved as much as you love it, the book needs to be free of obvious grammatical, spelling and typographical errors, head hopping and plot holes.

The method the author chooses to use to ensure a polished product hits the shelves is her choice.

Helen Woodall
helen.woodall@gmail.com

Helen is available to line edit and/ or content edit fiction and non-fiction. Rates on application.

Dorchester shuts its doors

Yet another traditional print publisher bites the dust. Like so many others, it too "forgets" to pay its authors. Some authors have not been paid their royalties due for four years. A good reason for all authors to pay attention to industry gossip and steer clear of such companies no matter how "established" and "well-known" they may be.

http://www.rtbookreviews.com/rt-daily-blog/dorchester-publishing-goes-dark

Helen Woodall
helen.woodall@gmail.com