By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Irene_Watson]Irene Watson
Self-publishing involves many steps, and leaving one out, or doing them in the wrong order, can be detrimental to a book's success. Authors can easily become overwhelmed by all there is to do or put the proverbial cart before the horse, such as printing a book before it is properly edited, or building a website before you know who your audience will be. Here is a step-by-step guide for what needs to be done during the creation and marketing of a book, and what you should not overlook in the process of bringing your book to the public.
Concept: First, come up with the idea for your book. Ideas can come from anywhere. Keep a journal or notebook and scribble them down until you have one that you think will make a good story or be of interest to a large number of readers.
Consider Audience: Ask yourself who is going to read your book and how easy it will be to reach your audience. You have to write the book before you can sell it but brainstorming ideas for how you can sell it and planning as you write will put you ahead of the game.
Write the First Draft: This step is probably the hardest one in the entire book production process. Everyone thinks he can write a book, but the hours spent putting words on paper separates the true authors from the dreamers. The key is to schedule your time so you can do it. Many people wait until they have a vacation or numerous free days before sitting down to write. However, more than an hour or two of writing can be exhausting and lonely. You are better off to set aside time every day, no matter how little, and give yourself a goal, even if it's something small like fifteen minutes per day or five hundred words. Doing a little everyday will keep your book fresh in your mind and easy to return to, whereas writing it during your vacation and then waiting until you have a three day weekend two months later to work on it will be largely self-defeating. The key is persistence and regular daily practice.
Rewrite the Rough Draft: Once you finish the rough draft, I suggest you take a break from working on the book for at least a few weeks. Then go back and reread your work. Focus on the content. Look for holes in the storyline or the argument, places where it needs more development, scenes that go nowhere and should be developed further or completely removed, check the organization of key concepts, and ask for feedback on sections from potential readers or other writers.
Rewrite the Rough Draft: To save repeating myself, I suggest you rewrite no less than three times so your book goes through at least four drafts. By the last rewrite, you should be able to read through it fairly quickly, making only minor changes or double-checking minor things you missed before. Remember, I said four drafts minimum-nothing is wrong with doing ten or twelve, or....
Proofread: Look for spelling and grammar issues, as well as making sure that chapter titles match up with the Table of Content, names of characters are spelled consistently, and you check anything else you might have changed halfway through and need to make sure is now consistent.
Editing: You've already edited your manuscript when you continually revised it, but now it's time to turn it over to a professional editor. A lot of authors have given self-publishing a bad name because they have skipped this step and not realized that their grasp of the English language and the written word is not what they thought they were. Do not just hire your neighbor or the schoolteacher down the street. Find someone qualified who has experience with editing books and is knowledgeable about the publishing industry. (While you wait for your editor's revisions, you can skip ahead to Step 9 and start with preparing to launch the book).
Proofreading: Your editor will go through your book and make changes and then send it back to you to do rewrites or at least approve of the editorial changes. You may do another rewrite at this point or simply go through and make small changes. Then send the manuscript back to the editor to do a final proofread. You might even hire someone separate at this point, equally qualified, to proofread since both you and the editor are now so familiar with the book that it's possible you could miss small details.
Seek Out a Reliable Layout Person and a Printer: Often a printer will also have someone on staff who does layout, or you can find a layout person independent of the printer. You should contact this person a few weeks before the manuscript is finished so you can get into his or her schedule. Layout does not usually take long, but if you have a manuscript with photographs or illustrations, it can be time-consuming so plan ahead.
Cover Design: Your layout person might also do your cover design, or you might hire someone else. Be sure to ask the person to see samples of his or her work, and come up with several ideas of what you would like your cover to look like so the artist has something to work with. The more concrete idea you have for a cover, the easier it will be. Remember that your cover has to reflect your book's concept and communicate to a potential reader what the book is about. People do judge a book by its cover.
Print Quotes: Once the book is laid out, you'll have a page count and know what basic size (height, length, width) the book is so you can start to get price quotes from printers as well as decide on the kind of paper and whether you want a hard or paperback book.
Website: Once the book goes to the printer, you generally have about four weeks while you wait for it to be printed. Now is a good time to have your website built and to start advertising your book. Again, find a professional, preferably someone who has done author websites before. Besides making the website pretty, make it pull in readers so it is engaging-remember, your goal is to sell books. Ask your website designer about Search Engine Optimization and how you will get the Internet to direct traffic to your website. I suggest you take a class or read some books about websites and the Internet so you learn all you can.
Proofread Your Proofs: Your printer will send you a proof copy of the book to look over. A lot can go wrong at the printers, so make sure when you get the proof that you look it over carefully. Check that the cover fits the book (it will usually be separate from the bound pages). Count all the pages and make sure none are missing, out of place, or upside down. Make sure the paper and the print quality are what you want. Look for any possible mistake before approving it and allowing that truckload of books to arrive.
Accounting and Taxes: Talk to your accountant and find out what you have to keep track of, such as mileage and printing costs, for your taxes, and find an accounting program or develop a system to keep track of your book sales, your expenses, and your sales tax. Here is where it would also be a good idea to take a course or read a little about accounting-specifically, there are some accounting books for authors that are helpful.
Placement: Contact local bookstores, gift shops, book distributors, whoever you think would be a good outlet for your book. Be prepared for rejection by having answers to all objections and a good way of describing your book and why people will want it. You need to sell your book to stores so they can sell it to readers, but don't forget to sell it out right yourself at book festivals, craft shows, and other events.
Reviews: Send out review copies of the book to reviewers. Once you receive the reviews, advertise them to people and send them out to the next group of reviewers to encourage review of the book.
Market: Send out press releases about your book's publication. Schedule and advertise your book signings. Find events you can participate in where you can sell your book. Find book clubs or groups where you can talk about your book. Spread the word in any way possible. Don't forget social networking as a word-of-mouth and promotion tool.
Balance: Once the marketing begins, many authors can find themselves overwhelmed and unable to find time to write the next book, but there's no point in writing a second book if the first book doesn't sell. Focus on your marketing, but if writing is what you love to do, make sure you honor that fifteen minutes or hour a day writing schedule. Eventually, you'll become a master at balancing out your marketing and writing (and your day job or other commitments). It will take stamina and determination but you can do it.
Irene Watson is the Managing Editor of Reader Views, where avid readers can find [http://www.readerviews.com/]reviews of recently published books as well as read interviews with authors. Her team also provides [http://readerviews.com/services_about.html]author publicity and a variety of other services specific to writing and publishing books.
Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?A-Self-Publishing-Step-By-Step-Checklist&id=6729350] A Self-Publishing Step-By-Step Checklist
Monday, January 30, 2012
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Give the Gift That Only You Can Give
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Jim_Kepler]Jim Kepler
Wondering how to stand out from the crowd during this gift-giving season?
Whether you've just started writing or are a seasoned pro, you can create a truly unique gift of memories. Write your family history.
It doesn't have to be a full-blown genealogy. Instead, make it a remembrance of significant events in your life and the lives of your relatives.
Start with milestones. Jot down important memories of holidays, births, graduations, marriages, careers, and get-togethers. Then fill in the blanks around each happening so that you put your reader into the story. Think about who was there and what they said, who was wearing what, what the setting was like and why it stands out in your memory. Include your own point of view to personalize the feelings you had at the moment.
It's interesting to remind your reader about your and their reactions to notable events. But it's just as interesting to recall a child's perceptive comment, kitchen aromas, conversations, and unexpected pleasures.
A lifeless recitation of historic facts won't engage your reader. A colorful portrayal of experiences and how your family responded to such facts will. Make your story flow from one occasion to the next, always explaining and describing the scene and characters involved.
Family histories are excellent starting points for beginning writers. They're fun and relatively (pun intended) easy to write. Your readers will understand situations and put themselves into the stories. When you receive feedback-and you will-thank the reader and ask how he or she thinks you could improve your writing. Of course there will be different memories about events you shared. But what you really want to hear are comments about the writing itself. Veteran writers can use this opportunity to explore new techniques: First or third person? Dialogue or narrative? Fictionalized or reportorial?
A word of caution: Avoid dredging up events best forgotten, diatribes about religious or political points of view, or anything else that might set people's teeth on edge. Keep in mind that this is, after all, a gift. Make your family and friends happy to receive your remembrances and eager to read more of your work.
Wondering what to do with your family history once it's done? Don't regard it as finished and forget about it. Professional writers never throw away their writing. Instead they save it as a starting point or a component of a lengthier piece on the same or a related topic.
A word of caution: Avoid dredging up events best forgotten, diatribes about religious or political points of view, or anything else that might set people's teeth on edge. Keep in mind that this is, after all, a gift. Make your family and friends happy to receive your remembrances and eager to read more of your work.
Wondering what to do with your family history once it's done? Don't regard it as finished and forget about it. Professional writers never throw away their writing. Instead they save it as a starting point or a component of a lengthier piece on the same or a related topic.
This article may be reprinted with credit: Jim Kepler owns Adams Press, a family-owned producer of books for small presses and self-publishing authors since 1942. He is the author of six published books and the presenter of "You Ought to Write a Book" and other writing workshops. Visit http://www.adamspress.com
Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?Give-the-Gift-That-Only-You-Can-Give&id=6727357] Give the Gift That Only You Can Give
Wondering how to stand out from the crowd during this gift-giving season?
Whether you've just started writing or are a seasoned pro, you can create a truly unique gift of memories. Write your family history.
It doesn't have to be a full-blown genealogy. Instead, make it a remembrance of significant events in your life and the lives of your relatives.
Start with milestones. Jot down important memories of holidays, births, graduations, marriages, careers, and get-togethers. Then fill in the blanks around each happening so that you put your reader into the story. Think about who was there and what they said, who was wearing what, what the setting was like and why it stands out in your memory. Include your own point of view to personalize the feelings you had at the moment.
It's interesting to remind your reader about your and their reactions to notable events. But it's just as interesting to recall a child's perceptive comment, kitchen aromas, conversations, and unexpected pleasures.
A lifeless recitation of historic facts won't engage your reader. A colorful portrayal of experiences and how your family responded to such facts will. Make your story flow from one occasion to the next, always explaining and describing the scene and characters involved.
Family histories are excellent starting points for beginning writers. They're fun and relatively (pun intended) easy to write. Your readers will understand situations and put themselves into the stories. When you receive feedback-and you will-thank the reader and ask how he or she thinks you could improve your writing. Of course there will be different memories about events you shared. But what you really want to hear are comments about the writing itself. Veteran writers can use this opportunity to explore new techniques: First or third person? Dialogue or narrative? Fictionalized or reportorial?
A word of caution: Avoid dredging up events best forgotten, diatribes about religious or political points of view, or anything else that might set people's teeth on edge. Keep in mind that this is, after all, a gift. Make your family and friends happy to receive your remembrances and eager to read more of your work.
Wondering what to do with your family history once it's done? Don't regard it as finished and forget about it. Professional writers never throw away their writing. Instead they save it as a starting point or a component of a lengthier piece on the same or a related topic.
A word of caution: Avoid dredging up events best forgotten, diatribes about religious or political points of view, or anything else that might set people's teeth on edge. Keep in mind that this is, after all, a gift. Make your family and friends happy to receive your remembrances and eager to read more of your work.
Wondering what to do with your family history once it's done? Don't regard it as finished and forget about it. Professional writers never throw away their writing. Instead they save it as a starting point or a component of a lengthier piece on the same or a related topic.
This article may be reprinted with credit: Jim Kepler owns Adams Press, a family-owned producer of books for small presses and self-publishing authors since 1942. He is the author of six published books and the presenter of "You Ought to Write a Book" and other writing workshops. Visit http://www.adamspress.com
Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?Give-the-Gift-That-Only-You-Can-Give&id=6727357] Give the Gift That Only You Can Give
Thursday, January 26, 2012
5 New Writer Pitfalls
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Darcie_Carsner_Torres]Darcie Carsner Torres
The Huffington Post recently published an article entitled, "5 Most Dangerous Career Pitfalls for New Writers." While the article is good, it also falls a bit short of the target. Their list:
1. Being misled by emotions
2. Previously published dilemma
3. "Everyone wins" writing contests
4. Misunderstanding publishing deals/signing a bad contract
5. Lame literary agents
From a writer/editor perspective, this doesn't even come close to the reality of being a new writer. New writers (and even some with experience) view publishing with rose-colored glasses. Publishing your novel becomes the end-all in the game and few think beyond it.
Here are the REAL top five career pitfalls for new (or any) writers, whether self-published or traditional.
Impatience
If you've decided to reach for the gold ring of publishing - a traditional publishing house - then you had better be prepared to hurry up and wait. First, many agents and publishing houses do not accept simultaneous submissions. What does that mean? In essence, you get to submit to only one agent/editor at a time and wait for them to reject your manuscript. Most will tell you that they will get back to you within four weeks to four months. That's a lot of waiting just to be told "no." Then, if you go the agent route and are actually accepted for representation, you will have to wait for the agent to successfully shop your manuscript. Then there is the back and forth edits and revisions, which, of course, the publishing house wants back in very short order - it's the only thing about traditional publishing that happens fast. Finally, you will experience the ever-so-popular waiting period that occurs between acceptance and actual publishing. The standard time here is nine months to a year.
All of this hurry up and wait has lead many authors to the self-publishing industry. In other words, many authors are driven to self-publishing by impatience. Impatience creates haste, and haste will kill your writing career faster than anything else. You will still need to take the time to have your manuscript reviewed by peers (not loving relatives), obtain an editor, get a professional cover designed and perform pre- and post-publication marketing. There's a lot of work involved either way you choose to go, so be prepared to do some hard work and wait regardless of your publishing venue.
Playing the game
Publishing is a game: It's called "Pin the Tail on the Donkey." The reason I say this is that every single author out there who is serious about sales has to know what their readers are going to demand at least a year into the future. Many times, this is an educated guess. If historical romance is on the decline and you choose to write a historical romance novel, be prepared for two things:
� Fewer interested publishers
� Less than stellar sales figures
I'm not saying don't write it; I'm just saying that you have to be realistic about the outcome of writing that type of novel.
Publishing houses spend a lot of money trying to target readers' interests for the upcoming year. This is how they build their publishing and acquisitions calendar. For instance, if vampire novels are hot, a publishing house is going to spend more acquiring vampire manuscripts than say memoirs - unless, of course, the memoir is written by an actual vampire. So, if you've written a novel in a low-selling genre, expect to be disappointed, as there are going to fewer slots and more competition for those slots.
Self-publishing works the same way. You have to hone and target your writing to fit the needs and desires of your audience. If you are like me, you probably have a list of novels-in-waiting. Most authors make the mistake of choosing to write in the order that is nearest and dearest to their heart, completely ignoring what is currently hot in the market or what might be up and coming.
Not knowing the standards
This pitfall closely aligns with the Huffington Post article with respect to signing a bad contract and getting a bad agent. First, let's be clear: Reputable agents do not charge reading or editing fees. They get their commission off your portion of the sales and that is it. If an agent wants a reading fee or offers to sell you editing services, walk away. No, actually you should run. Fast.
Another pitfall here is not knowing what to expect with respect to advances and royalties from a traditional publisher. First, your advance is not going to be anywhere close to what you expect. While advances depend a lot on the size of the publishing house or imprint, you can expect somewhere in the ballpark of $5,000-$10,000 for your first novel. Obviously there are exceptions, but don't get your hopes up that you will be one of them.
Royalties are another issue. Your publishing contract is going to be filled with a lot of little numbers followed by a percent sign. This means how much you earn depends on your total sales. This will, of course, be offset by your advance. You won't see another dime from your publisher until your portion of the sales have exceeded the advance. What's more, depending on the rights you sell, you are going to have a different percentage take depending on the medium. For print books, expect somewhere in the range of 7-15% of the retail price or 10-50% of net. Most contracts will offer the author 50% of net on most subrights. Foreign rights can get you as much as 75% and movie rights should be closer to 90%. Be aware, however, that the lower the publisher's percent of the take on subrights, the less inclined they will be to actually shop those rights.
One of the areas of change is occurring in electronic sales markets. With electronic sales going through the roof and print sales going through the floor, this has become a significant area of contention between publisher and author. Several major authors in the last year have jumped ship or insisted on retaining a higher percentage of digital publishing rights because of the huge boom in the industry. Keep this in mind when negotiating for electronic sales royalties.
Believing what you hear
I've been writing since I was old enough to hold a pen. My parents, friends, family and teachers all believed I was a real writing prodigy. Boy, did they ever mislead me. I still had a whole lot to learn.
Do not listen to your friends and family. Or at least don't believe everything they say. They love you. They do not want to hurt your feelings. Most of all, they are not publishers or editors. Professionals have a very different way of looking at things: they do not overlook the flaws in your writing. Ever. Too many flaws will mean no one will buy your manuscript. If they do accept it, they'll tell you to fix it and how they want to see it fixed. In fact, you might end up with a significantly different story than the one you submitted.
Buying into the opinion that you're the next Ernest Hemingway will completely sabotage your career. Every writer, every manuscript needs improvement. I don't care who you are or how fantastically you write. Your goal is to get your manuscript to the highest level it can achieve before you ever submit it to an agent or publisher. That means you need two things:
� Serious peer review
� An editor
You need to test your manuscript (in pieces, preferably) to writers' groups, writing friends and people in the know. Get it in good shape and then send it to an editor. You need someone who doesn't know you to be objective and offer constructive criticism. Anyone who knows you will be reluctant to be completely honest. Trying to sell a manuscript that is best used as fertilizer will kill your career. Editors and agents will not want to hear from you again. They won't bother to read your queries.
Failure to market
This is the most misunderstood pitfall of all time, even for experienced authors. Marketing is a necessary step no matter how you decide to publish. The most common misconception is that by going the traditional route, your publisher will do it all for you. Not.
One of the most successful authors of the modern time is James Patterson. He's taken writing and publishing to a whole new level. He gets marketing. Every time you see his face on television, he's marketing his books and those marketing efforts are paying off big time. Before Patterson, I cannot recall any writer in history actually doing a commercial for their book. But perhaps he is the only writer who can actually afford a television spot.
The point is, you have to market your skills, your book and yourself if you want to see sales. Learn marketing techniques and learn to love them. What use is having a book in print if no one buys it?
Darcie Carsner Torres is a professional writer and editor with over 20 years of experience. She provides editing and critiquing services through CanAm Author Services, [http://www.canamauthorservices.com]http://www.canamauthorservices.com, and editing and ghostwriting services through Pen & Pestle, [http://www.penandpestle.com]http://www.penandpestle.com. Her mission is to help budding authors improve their writing and get published.
Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?5-New-Writer-Pitfalls&id=6730048] 5 New Writer Pitfalls
The Huffington Post recently published an article entitled, "5 Most Dangerous Career Pitfalls for New Writers." While the article is good, it also falls a bit short of the target. Their list:
1. Being misled by emotions
2. Previously published dilemma
3. "Everyone wins" writing contests
4. Misunderstanding publishing deals/signing a bad contract
5. Lame literary agents
From a writer/editor perspective, this doesn't even come close to the reality of being a new writer. New writers (and even some with experience) view publishing with rose-colored glasses. Publishing your novel becomes the end-all in the game and few think beyond it.
Here are the REAL top five career pitfalls for new (or any) writers, whether self-published or traditional.
Impatience
If you've decided to reach for the gold ring of publishing - a traditional publishing house - then you had better be prepared to hurry up and wait. First, many agents and publishing houses do not accept simultaneous submissions. What does that mean? In essence, you get to submit to only one agent/editor at a time and wait for them to reject your manuscript. Most will tell you that they will get back to you within four weeks to four months. That's a lot of waiting just to be told "no." Then, if you go the agent route and are actually accepted for representation, you will have to wait for the agent to successfully shop your manuscript. Then there is the back and forth edits and revisions, which, of course, the publishing house wants back in very short order - it's the only thing about traditional publishing that happens fast. Finally, you will experience the ever-so-popular waiting period that occurs between acceptance and actual publishing. The standard time here is nine months to a year.
All of this hurry up and wait has lead many authors to the self-publishing industry. In other words, many authors are driven to self-publishing by impatience. Impatience creates haste, and haste will kill your writing career faster than anything else. You will still need to take the time to have your manuscript reviewed by peers (not loving relatives), obtain an editor, get a professional cover designed and perform pre- and post-publication marketing. There's a lot of work involved either way you choose to go, so be prepared to do some hard work and wait regardless of your publishing venue.
Playing the game
Publishing is a game: It's called "Pin the Tail on the Donkey." The reason I say this is that every single author out there who is serious about sales has to know what their readers are going to demand at least a year into the future. Many times, this is an educated guess. If historical romance is on the decline and you choose to write a historical romance novel, be prepared for two things:
� Fewer interested publishers
� Less than stellar sales figures
I'm not saying don't write it; I'm just saying that you have to be realistic about the outcome of writing that type of novel.
Publishing houses spend a lot of money trying to target readers' interests for the upcoming year. This is how they build their publishing and acquisitions calendar. For instance, if vampire novels are hot, a publishing house is going to spend more acquiring vampire manuscripts than say memoirs - unless, of course, the memoir is written by an actual vampire. So, if you've written a novel in a low-selling genre, expect to be disappointed, as there are going to fewer slots and more competition for those slots.
Self-publishing works the same way. You have to hone and target your writing to fit the needs and desires of your audience. If you are like me, you probably have a list of novels-in-waiting. Most authors make the mistake of choosing to write in the order that is nearest and dearest to their heart, completely ignoring what is currently hot in the market or what might be up and coming.
Not knowing the standards
This pitfall closely aligns with the Huffington Post article with respect to signing a bad contract and getting a bad agent. First, let's be clear: Reputable agents do not charge reading or editing fees. They get their commission off your portion of the sales and that is it. If an agent wants a reading fee or offers to sell you editing services, walk away. No, actually you should run. Fast.
Another pitfall here is not knowing what to expect with respect to advances and royalties from a traditional publisher. First, your advance is not going to be anywhere close to what you expect. While advances depend a lot on the size of the publishing house or imprint, you can expect somewhere in the ballpark of $5,000-$10,000 for your first novel. Obviously there are exceptions, but don't get your hopes up that you will be one of them.
Royalties are another issue. Your publishing contract is going to be filled with a lot of little numbers followed by a percent sign. This means how much you earn depends on your total sales. This will, of course, be offset by your advance. You won't see another dime from your publisher until your portion of the sales have exceeded the advance. What's more, depending on the rights you sell, you are going to have a different percentage take depending on the medium. For print books, expect somewhere in the range of 7-15% of the retail price or 10-50% of net. Most contracts will offer the author 50% of net on most subrights. Foreign rights can get you as much as 75% and movie rights should be closer to 90%. Be aware, however, that the lower the publisher's percent of the take on subrights, the less inclined they will be to actually shop those rights.
One of the areas of change is occurring in electronic sales markets. With electronic sales going through the roof and print sales going through the floor, this has become a significant area of contention between publisher and author. Several major authors in the last year have jumped ship or insisted on retaining a higher percentage of digital publishing rights because of the huge boom in the industry. Keep this in mind when negotiating for electronic sales royalties.
Believing what you hear
I've been writing since I was old enough to hold a pen. My parents, friends, family and teachers all believed I was a real writing prodigy. Boy, did they ever mislead me. I still had a whole lot to learn.
Do not listen to your friends and family. Or at least don't believe everything they say. They love you. They do not want to hurt your feelings. Most of all, they are not publishers or editors. Professionals have a very different way of looking at things: they do not overlook the flaws in your writing. Ever. Too many flaws will mean no one will buy your manuscript. If they do accept it, they'll tell you to fix it and how they want to see it fixed. In fact, you might end up with a significantly different story than the one you submitted.
Buying into the opinion that you're the next Ernest Hemingway will completely sabotage your career. Every writer, every manuscript needs improvement. I don't care who you are or how fantastically you write. Your goal is to get your manuscript to the highest level it can achieve before you ever submit it to an agent or publisher. That means you need two things:
� Serious peer review
� An editor
You need to test your manuscript (in pieces, preferably) to writers' groups, writing friends and people in the know. Get it in good shape and then send it to an editor. You need someone who doesn't know you to be objective and offer constructive criticism. Anyone who knows you will be reluctant to be completely honest. Trying to sell a manuscript that is best used as fertilizer will kill your career. Editors and agents will not want to hear from you again. They won't bother to read your queries.
Failure to market
This is the most misunderstood pitfall of all time, even for experienced authors. Marketing is a necessary step no matter how you decide to publish. The most common misconception is that by going the traditional route, your publisher will do it all for you. Not.
One of the most successful authors of the modern time is James Patterson. He's taken writing and publishing to a whole new level. He gets marketing. Every time you see his face on television, he's marketing his books and those marketing efforts are paying off big time. Before Patterson, I cannot recall any writer in history actually doing a commercial for their book. But perhaps he is the only writer who can actually afford a television spot.
The point is, you have to market your skills, your book and yourself if you want to see sales. Learn marketing techniques and learn to love them. What use is having a book in print if no one buys it?
Darcie Carsner Torres is a professional writer and editor with over 20 years of experience. She provides editing and critiquing services through CanAm Author Services, [http://www.canamauthorservices.com]http://www.canamauthorservices.com, and editing and ghostwriting services through Pen & Pestle, [http://www.penandpestle.com]http://www.penandpestle.com. Her mission is to help budding authors improve their writing and get published.
Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?5-New-Writer-Pitfalls&id=6730048] 5 New Writer Pitfalls
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Manuscript Submission - Is Hard Copy Or E-Mail Preferred?
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Jo_M_Draper]Jo M Draper
You've spent months, maybe even years writing, re-writing, editing and proofreading your manuscript and finally it's ready to be submitted to publishers; unfortunately it is at this stage that many great manuscripts end up unpublished simply because they have been submitted in the incorrect format, and unfortunately there is no one hard and fast rule about whether a hard copy or an emailed manuscript is the best way to go.
Anyone who has ever approached publishers in an attempt to get their manuscript published will know that each publisher has their own set of rules and expectations about what a submission should look like. Publishing houses may receive hundreds of manuscripts a week and therefore they have to be fairly strict in their shortlisting process, and one way to do this is to have very firm submission guidelines, which, if not met, will mean your manuscript will either be returned or recycled, often unread.
So, if you're looking to submit a manuscript the first thing you need to do is to find a suitable publisher to approach. The Writers and Artists' Yearbook provides a full list of publishers, the genres which they accept and their contact details. Once you have made a shortlist you should then research each publisher's submission guidelines. Things to note are; whether they are actually accepting unsolicited manuscripts, whether they accept submissions that are emailed, hard copy or both, and exactly what they require that submission to look like.
Most publishers will ask for a synopsis, which should only be around one A4 page in length, and a sample of your manuscript. The word sample is very important here as most publishers will not take kindly to a full manuscript landing on their desk. Some publishing houses will request the first three chapters, others may ask for three sample chapters, in which case it is advisable to select one from the beginning, one from the middle and one from the end. Other organisations may request a certain number of pages; it is essential that you read the guidelines and follow them to the letter!
If submissions are requested via email it is important that these are presented in the required format; often there is a definite subject heading that must be used to ensure that your email ends up in the right inbox and not in their junk mail; if this is the case make sure you adhere to the rules, eye catching subject headings or capital letters may irritate rather than fascinate. Some publishers may also ask for the synopsis and the sample chapters to be combined into one attachment; remember that a publisher's time is precious and if they have to open a number of files before they get to see your writing style, they may just not bother.
The rule therefore is that when it comes to manuscript submissions and whether a hard copy or emailed submission is preferred, there are many rules, and as a writer you need to be aware of the ones that apply to you, and stick to them; it could mean the difference between a bestseller and years of wasted writing.
If you need help preparing your manuscript for submission to publishers then contact one of our experts at [http://www.jmdeditorial.co.uk/copy-editing.html]JMD Editorial and Writing Services today.
Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?Manuscript-Submission---Is-Hard-Copy-Or-E-Mail-Preferred?&id=6738262] Manuscript Submission - Is Hard Copy Or E-Mail Preferred?
You've spent months, maybe even years writing, re-writing, editing and proofreading your manuscript and finally it's ready to be submitted to publishers; unfortunately it is at this stage that many great manuscripts end up unpublished simply because they have been submitted in the incorrect format, and unfortunately there is no one hard and fast rule about whether a hard copy or an emailed manuscript is the best way to go.
Anyone who has ever approached publishers in an attempt to get their manuscript published will know that each publisher has their own set of rules and expectations about what a submission should look like. Publishing houses may receive hundreds of manuscripts a week and therefore they have to be fairly strict in their shortlisting process, and one way to do this is to have very firm submission guidelines, which, if not met, will mean your manuscript will either be returned or recycled, often unread.
So, if you're looking to submit a manuscript the first thing you need to do is to find a suitable publisher to approach. The Writers and Artists' Yearbook provides a full list of publishers, the genres which they accept and their contact details. Once you have made a shortlist you should then research each publisher's submission guidelines. Things to note are; whether they are actually accepting unsolicited manuscripts, whether they accept submissions that are emailed, hard copy or both, and exactly what they require that submission to look like.
Most publishers will ask for a synopsis, which should only be around one A4 page in length, and a sample of your manuscript. The word sample is very important here as most publishers will not take kindly to a full manuscript landing on their desk. Some publishing houses will request the first three chapters, others may ask for three sample chapters, in which case it is advisable to select one from the beginning, one from the middle and one from the end. Other organisations may request a certain number of pages; it is essential that you read the guidelines and follow them to the letter!
If submissions are requested via email it is important that these are presented in the required format; often there is a definite subject heading that must be used to ensure that your email ends up in the right inbox and not in their junk mail; if this is the case make sure you adhere to the rules, eye catching subject headings or capital letters may irritate rather than fascinate. Some publishers may also ask for the synopsis and the sample chapters to be combined into one attachment; remember that a publisher's time is precious and if they have to open a number of files before they get to see your writing style, they may just not bother.
The rule therefore is that when it comes to manuscript submissions and whether a hard copy or emailed submission is preferred, there are many rules, and as a writer you need to be aware of the ones that apply to you, and stick to them; it could mean the difference between a bestseller and years of wasted writing.
If you need help preparing your manuscript for submission to publishers then contact one of our experts at [http://www.jmdeditorial.co.uk/copy-editing.html]JMD Editorial and Writing Services today.
Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?Manuscript-Submission---Is-Hard-Copy-Or-E-Mail-Preferred?&id=6738262] Manuscript Submission - Is Hard Copy Or E-Mail Preferred?
Sunday, January 22, 2012
How to Prepare a Manuscript For Submission to Publishers
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Jo_M_Draper]Jo M Draper
Once you've finished writing your manuscript you'd be forgiven for thinking that the hard work ends there; in actual fact if you want to stand even half a chance of securing publishing success then you need to work very hard to prepare your manuscript for submission to publishers.
The first task is of course to at least proofread or if not copyedit your entire manuscript. It is advisable to get a professional or at least an unbiased third party to complete any proofreading or editorial tasks as most writers will have read and re-read their work so many times that by the time they come to the proofing stages they tend to see what they want to see, rather than what is actually written. This is an almost inevitable stage that is reached by most authors and this is why even the bestselling authors will use a professional to do the proofing.
A good proofread will highlight any spelling and grammar mistakes, as well as accidental errors in relation to spacing, punctuation and changes in font size, colour, type etc. These are all mistakes that can and do happen and which, when engrossed in writing, are easy to miss. A copy edit will take your manuscript preparation one step further, picking up on any inconsistencies in characterisation or plot for example, or identifying changes in style or language. A copy edit will mean that when you do finally submit your manuscript you can be assured that it is consistent, comprehensive and hopefully well written.
In terms of the layout of your manuscript, publishers are very particular about style and most will ask that a manuscript is left justified, double spaced, and has sizeable margins to allow for annotations to be made during the review process. Margins should be between 1 inch and 1.5 inches as a general rule. It is very important to use the correct font; most publishers will be used to working with Courier, although others such as Arial are still considered acceptable. Do not, under any circumstances use a font such as Comic Sans, even for children's books, this does not look professional and may mean your manuscript ends up on the recycling pile. All pages should be numbered and a word count provided either at the end of the manuscript or on the opening cover page.
With your manuscript formatted appropriately you will stand a greater chance of the submissions team actually reviewing work, which in turn means a greater chance of you securing publishing success. When it comes to submitting a manuscript you mustn't let your presentation or a failure to proofread or copy edit, let you down. The old saying, you only get one chance to make a first impression, really does apply in the world of publishing.
Do you need help preparing your manuscript for submission? Then why not let JMD Editorial and Writing Services provide you with a professional [http://www.jmdeditorial.co.uk]proofread or copy edit?
Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?How-to-Prepare-a-Manuscript-For-Submission-to-Publishers&id=6738762] How to Prepare a Manuscript For Submission to Publishers
Once you've finished writing your manuscript you'd be forgiven for thinking that the hard work ends there; in actual fact if you want to stand even half a chance of securing publishing success then you need to work very hard to prepare your manuscript for submission to publishers.
The first task is of course to at least proofread or if not copyedit your entire manuscript. It is advisable to get a professional or at least an unbiased third party to complete any proofreading or editorial tasks as most writers will have read and re-read their work so many times that by the time they come to the proofing stages they tend to see what they want to see, rather than what is actually written. This is an almost inevitable stage that is reached by most authors and this is why even the bestselling authors will use a professional to do the proofing.
A good proofread will highlight any spelling and grammar mistakes, as well as accidental errors in relation to spacing, punctuation and changes in font size, colour, type etc. These are all mistakes that can and do happen and which, when engrossed in writing, are easy to miss. A copy edit will take your manuscript preparation one step further, picking up on any inconsistencies in characterisation or plot for example, or identifying changes in style or language. A copy edit will mean that when you do finally submit your manuscript you can be assured that it is consistent, comprehensive and hopefully well written.
In terms of the layout of your manuscript, publishers are very particular about style and most will ask that a manuscript is left justified, double spaced, and has sizeable margins to allow for annotations to be made during the review process. Margins should be between 1 inch and 1.5 inches as a general rule. It is very important to use the correct font; most publishers will be used to working with Courier, although others such as Arial are still considered acceptable. Do not, under any circumstances use a font such as Comic Sans, even for children's books, this does not look professional and may mean your manuscript ends up on the recycling pile. All pages should be numbered and a word count provided either at the end of the manuscript or on the opening cover page.
With your manuscript formatted appropriately you will stand a greater chance of the submissions team actually reviewing work, which in turn means a greater chance of you securing publishing success. When it comes to submitting a manuscript you mustn't let your presentation or a failure to proofread or copy edit, let you down. The old saying, you only get one chance to make a first impression, really does apply in the world of publishing.
Do you need help preparing your manuscript for submission? Then why not let JMD Editorial and Writing Services provide you with a professional [http://www.jmdeditorial.co.uk]proofread or copy edit?
Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?How-to-Prepare-a-Manuscript-For-Submission-to-Publishers&id=6738762] How to Prepare a Manuscript For Submission to Publishers
Friday, January 20, 2012
Self-Publishing Solutions
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Diane_Ziomek]Diane Ziomek
Do you like to write? Are you part way through a manuscript, only to find the process of traditional publishing long and tedious?
With the age of the internet and digital technology, self-publishing is not as far-fetched as it used to be. There are several low-cost or no-cost options available. Below is a list of 5 such solutions:
1. Lulu - offers a variety of platforms for authors such as eBooks, paperback, hard cover, calendars, cookbooks etc. The prices range from $0.00 and up, depending on the extent of services the author requires. They offer publishing, marketing and distribution packages as well as giving the author 100% flexibility.
2. ezRead - offers digital publishing only with 70% royalties paid on each sale. Helpful staff is available to answer any questions or concerns, plus make changes to initial uploads if necessary.
3. CreateSpace - offers free and easy to use tools for creating and distributing books, music and videos. Publishing packages, distribution channels and marketing solutions are available at various costs depending on creator requirements. This company also offers POD (print on demand) services, which eliminates the need to purchase large volumes of books.
4. Smashwords - is another digital only self-publishing service. Their free publishing and distribution platform (no up-front costs) of digital creations provides new and veteran authors the flexibility to publish and let the world know they exist. Authors earn royalties on sold copies of their books, while Smashwords retains a small percentage to cover their costs, such as staff wages and site maintenance.
5. Wordclay - is a publishing platform for paperback books. There are no up-front costs involved with publishing; they retain a small percentage of each copy sold. Authors do not pay anything until their book is listed and sold. As Wordclay is also a POD publisher, there is no need to order hundreds of books. If all you need is 10 books then all you have to order is 10 books; there are no minimum orders.
Final note: With the options of self-publishing available (and these are only a few), it is easier than ever for authors to get published. In addition to the flexibility of self-publishing however, quality must not be sacrificed. Book buyers and readers will still expect error-free literature. Editing services are available at the above sites for a cost if required. For anyone not 100% positive their spelling, grammar and punctuation is correct please enlist the help of professional editors or proofreaders. It can mean all the difference in a good or bad review. Which would you prefer?
Diane Ziomek is author of The Homemaker Helper Series; a series of books which concentrate on homemaking as a career. You will find tips, recipes and patterns at http://thehomemakerhelperseriesblog.blogspot.com/ on the many aspects of homemaking. Feel free to download the 7 Quick Household tips on the left side of the blog. Have a great day!
Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?Self-Publishing-Solutions&id=6737097] Self-Publishing Solutions
Do you like to write? Are you part way through a manuscript, only to find the process of traditional publishing long and tedious?
With the age of the internet and digital technology, self-publishing is not as far-fetched as it used to be. There are several low-cost or no-cost options available. Below is a list of 5 such solutions:
1. Lulu - offers a variety of platforms for authors such as eBooks, paperback, hard cover, calendars, cookbooks etc. The prices range from $0.00 and up, depending on the extent of services the author requires. They offer publishing, marketing and distribution packages as well as giving the author 100% flexibility.
2. ezRead - offers digital publishing only with 70% royalties paid on each sale. Helpful staff is available to answer any questions or concerns, plus make changes to initial uploads if necessary.
3. CreateSpace - offers free and easy to use tools for creating and distributing books, music and videos. Publishing packages, distribution channels and marketing solutions are available at various costs depending on creator requirements. This company also offers POD (print on demand) services, which eliminates the need to purchase large volumes of books.
4. Smashwords - is another digital only self-publishing service. Their free publishing and distribution platform (no up-front costs) of digital creations provides new and veteran authors the flexibility to publish and let the world know they exist. Authors earn royalties on sold copies of their books, while Smashwords retains a small percentage to cover their costs, such as staff wages and site maintenance.
5. Wordclay - is a publishing platform for paperback books. There are no up-front costs involved with publishing; they retain a small percentage of each copy sold. Authors do not pay anything until their book is listed and sold. As Wordclay is also a POD publisher, there is no need to order hundreds of books. If all you need is 10 books then all you have to order is 10 books; there are no minimum orders.
Final note: With the options of self-publishing available (and these are only a few), it is easier than ever for authors to get published. In addition to the flexibility of self-publishing however, quality must not be sacrificed. Book buyers and readers will still expect error-free literature. Editing services are available at the above sites for a cost if required. For anyone not 100% positive their spelling, grammar and punctuation is correct please enlist the help of professional editors or proofreaders. It can mean all the difference in a good or bad review. Which would you prefer?
Diane Ziomek is author of The Homemaker Helper Series; a series of books which concentrate on homemaking as a career. You will find tips, recipes and patterns at http://thehomemakerhelperseriesblog.blogspot.com/ on the many aspects of homemaking. Feel free to download the 7 Quick Household tips on the left side of the blog. Have a great day!
Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?Self-Publishing-Solutions&id=6737097] Self-Publishing Solutions
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Why I Decided to Self Publish
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Darlene_G_Jones]Darlene G Jones
Retire and travel? Sure. A safari sounded good-and it was. Retire and play with my granddaughter? Turns out to be the best job I've ever had. Retire and read? Of course! But what I really want to do is write. And I have. What prompted this frenzy of activity?
Ages ago, I lived in Mali. Every moment of every day, I wished... Hey! There's an idea. I could write a book about the Mali those wonderful citizens deserved, a story about waving a magic wand to make it so. Of course, I'd have to throw in a little (or a lot) of hot sex and romance too. Maybe a fight or three, a little sci-fi time-travel stuff, or a fairy godmother, or... The possibilities are endless.
And so it begins. I hunch over my computer keyboard writing. I join the Writers' Guild, attend meetings, and work with a critiquing group. At last-a completed novel.
Now what? Professional feedback seems like a good idea, so I pay a chuck of change to a published author for a manuscript evaluation. Lots of good advice leads to a rewrite, followed by workshops and seminars and more rewrites.
Many presenters refer to "publishing credits" and urge publication of short stories. I dutifully give that a try and have a few pieces published, but my heart isn't in it. I set up a blog of short bits that friends and family seem to enjoy reading, but really it's a novel I want to have published.
Then I attend the Surrey International Writers' Conference. Great session telling me to put tension on every page. Maybe if I stretch several elastics and let them snap on readers' fingers? Another great session telling me to eliminate "ly" words. "Find and Replace" works well for this one. Oh, and dialogue tags. Use "said" and "asked" and nothing else. Another rewrite.
Now to query agents. Surrey session #1 - Query letter should be no more than fifty words in this format. Surrey session #2 - Query letter should be three paragraphs including x, y, and z. Surrey session #3 - Everything you researched on the Internet about query letters is wrong; do it this way. I go home, try to make sense of the advice, send out queries, receive rejections, and build up a thick skin.
Determined, I go to Surrey again the following year. Sessions with New York agents are enlightening. "You have fifteen seconds to grab our attention with your query," they tell us repeatedly. Fifteen seconds!?
Pitching sounds like a better deal. Ten whole minutes face to face with an agent. I pitch to three different New York agents and come out with their cards clutched in my hand, rush home and submit the requested material. This frenzy of activity is rewarded with more rejections.
I hunch over the computer writing and rewriting. By this time I've completed three novels and have a start on a fourth. I send out queries for books two and three. The pile of rejection letters grows. I shred them all and decide on another conference. My books deserve a reading audience.
At the Willamette Writers' Conference we hear much rumbling about self-publishing. We're told that the Big Six are now publishing only 55% of books available to readers. Advances are minuscule or non-existent. Marketing? Forget it. It's do it yourself. And, says one speaker, "I pitched my author's novel to 35 publishers before we got a sale. That was followed by a year of rewrites." I groan. "His book is out next week. It's been a two year process." Two years!? "Publish yourself," she says. "It'll take you a couple of months."
We agonize during the drive home. Self-publish? Oh, but the stigma. Our pitches were successful, so should we wait to hear from those agents and then decide? What to do? What to do?
Response from agent number one-rejection. But, hey she's actually given some feedback. Two whole paragraphs. This could be good. Nope! Her comments indicate a rewrite is needed. My heart might be found somewhere under my desk chair, or maybe in the sub-basement of my building. I open the next email which is from my writing buddy. She's received a rejection from the same agent. Two different genres and two very different writing styles. Both professionally copy-edited. Here's where the cake is iced. The rejections are identical except for our names.
Stigma be damned. Self-publishing here we come.
Darlene Jones - Author
EMBATTLED http://www.emandyves.com
Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?Why-I-Decided-to-Self-Publish&id=6744620] Why I Decided to Self Publish
Retire and travel? Sure. A safari sounded good-and it was. Retire and play with my granddaughter? Turns out to be the best job I've ever had. Retire and read? Of course! But what I really want to do is write. And I have. What prompted this frenzy of activity?
Ages ago, I lived in Mali. Every moment of every day, I wished... Hey! There's an idea. I could write a book about the Mali those wonderful citizens deserved, a story about waving a magic wand to make it so. Of course, I'd have to throw in a little (or a lot) of hot sex and romance too. Maybe a fight or three, a little sci-fi time-travel stuff, or a fairy godmother, or... The possibilities are endless.
And so it begins. I hunch over my computer keyboard writing. I join the Writers' Guild, attend meetings, and work with a critiquing group. At last-a completed novel.
Now what? Professional feedback seems like a good idea, so I pay a chuck of change to a published author for a manuscript evaluation. Lots of good advice leads to a rewrite, followed by workshops and seminars and more rewrites.
Many presenters refer to "publishing credits" and urge publication of short stories. I dutifully give that a try and have a few pieces published, but my heart isn't in it. I set up a blog of short bits that friends and family seem to enjoy reading, but really it's a novel I want to have published.
Then I attend the Surrey International Writers' Conference. Great session telling me to put tension on every page. Maybe if I stretch several elastics and let them snap on readers' fingers? Another great session telling me to eliminate "ly" words. "Find and Replace" works well for this one. Oh, and dialogue tags. Use "said" and "asked" and nothing else. Another rewrite.
Now to query agents. Surrey session #1 - Query letter should be no more than fifty words in this format. Surrey session #2 - Query letter should be three paragraphs including x, y, and z. Surrey session #3 - Everything you researched on the Internet about query letters is wrong; do it this way. I go home, try to make sense of the advice, send out queries, receive rejections, and build up a thick skin.
Determined, I go to Surrey again the following year. Sessions with New York agents are enlightening. "You have fifteen seconds to grab our attention with your query," they tell us repeatedly. Fifteen seconds!?
Pitching sounds like a better deal. Ten whole minutes face to face with an agent. I pitch to three different New York agents and come out with their cards clutched in my hand, rush home and submit the requested material. This frenzy of activity is rewarded with more rejections.
I hunch over the computer writing and rewriting. By this time I've completed three novels and have a start on a fourth. I send out queries for books two and three. The pile of rejection letters grows. I shred them all and decide on another conference. My books deserve a reading audience.
At the Willamette Writers' Conference we hear much rumbling about self-publishing. We're told that the Big Six are now publishing only 55% of books available to readers. Advances are minuscule or non-existent. Marketing? Forget it. It's do it yourself. And, says one speaker, "I pitched my author's novel to 35 publishers before we got a sale. That was followed by a year of rewrites." I groan. "His book is out next week. It's been a two year process." Two years!? "Publish yourself," she says. "It'll take you a couple of months."
We agonize during the drive home. Self-publish? Oh, but the stigma. Our pitches were successful, so should we wait to hear from those agents and then decide? What to do? What to do?
Response from agent number one-rejection. But, hey she's actually given some feedback. Two whole paragraphs. This could be good. Nope! Her comments indicate a rewrite is needed. My heart might be found somewhere under my desk chair, or maybe in the sub-basement of my building. I open the next email which is from my writing buddy. She's received a rejection from the same agent. Two different genres and two very different writing styles. Both professionally copy-edited. Here's where the cake is iced. The rejections are identical except for our names.
Stigma be damned. Self-publishing here we come.
Darlene Jones - Author
EMBATTLED http://www.emandyves.com
Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?Why-I-Decided-to-Self-Publish&id=6744620] Why I Decided to Self Publish
Monday, January 16, 2012
How to Get Published
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Tamara_L_Aspeling]Tamara L Aspeling
When it comes to answering the question of how to get published, there's really no single answer. Rather, there are several steps or components to going from aspiring author to published author, and if you want to go the traditional publishing route, you'll have to address all of them.
Let's look at what the factors involved in answering the question of how to get published are:
1. Have a Good Idea
Whether you're looking to get published for fiction or non fiction, or even a memoir, it all starts with the idea. Publishers are always on the lookout for the next big book, or the next hot writer, but it all starts with the idea.
2. Write Well
Even the greatest book idea will never be published if your writing isn't up to scratch. Traditional publishers may hire proof readers or editors to clean up your writing, but they don't work miracles! Practice writing, often. Learn about grammar and the theory behind the art of putting words on paper. Improve your vocabulary. Read as much as you can. The better your writing, the more likely you are to find out how to get published the easy way!
3. Understand Submission Criteria
If you're writing a non fiction book, you may very well be able to pitch it to a traditional publisher based on the idea alone (I did with my first non fiction book.) However if you're writing fiction, and if you're a first time author, you will first have to finish your book, before you can submit it to a publisher or agent. There are also formatting requirements, submission preferences (printed or electronic?) and other issues you will need to address when submitting a proposal or manuscript.
4. Pitching to the Right People
Often, the question isn't so much HOW to get published, but rather, WHERE to get published. Make sure that when you're querying agents or publishers, you're querying one that represents or publishes the type of book you're writing. Even the best new novel out there is not going to get published if you're submitting it to publishers or agents who specialise in self help, and vice versa! Do your homework, and find out who may be interested in your book before you start sending out queries.
5. Build Buzz
Publishers these days are competing with self publishers, and vanity presses, and against e-books. They're looking for a sure thing. That means they want a book from a writer who either already has a following, or who knows how to market their work. The more buzz you can build around you, and your book, the more likely you are to find a publisher who wants to publish you, or an agent who wants to represent you.
If you're a new writer, and you are looking for answers to the age old question of how to get published, the most important thing you should be worried about is your book. Write it well, revise it extensively, and then polish it until it shines.
If you're a first time author, who is looking for help in finding an agent or publisher, then you might just find the help you need at The Next Big Book. It's a site that's designed to help connect writers with agents and publishers, and to take the hassle out of marketing your book.
Find out more at [http://www.thenextbigbook.com]http://www.thenextbigbook.com, by signing up for the newsletter!
Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?How-to-Get-Published&id=6743945] How to Get Published
When it comes to answering the question of how to get published, there's really no single answer. Rather, there are several steps or components to going from aspiring author to published author, and if you want to go the traditional publishing route, you'll have to address all of them.
Let's look at what the factors involved in answering the question of how to get published are:
1. Have a Good Idea
Whether you're looking to get published for fiction or non fiction, or even a memoir, it all starts with the idea. Publishers are always on the lookout for the next big book, or the next hot writer, but it all starts with the idea.
2. Write Well
Even the greatest book idea will never be published if your writing isn't up to scratch. Traditional publishers may hire proof readers or editors to clean up your writing, but they don't work miracles! Practice writing, often. Learn about grammar and the theory behind the art of putting words on paper. Improve your vocabulary. Read as much as you can. The better your writing, the more likely you are to find out how to get published the easy way!
3. Understand Submission Criteria
If you're writing a non fiction book, you may very well be able to pitch it to a traditional publisher based on the idea alone (I did with my first non fiction book.) However if you're writing fiction, and if you're a first time author, you will first have to finish your book, before you can submit it to a publisher or agent. There are also formatting requirements, submission preferences (printed or electronic?) and other issues you will need to address when submitting a proposal or manuscript.
4. Pitching to the Right People
Often, the question isn't so much HOW to get published, but rather, WHERE to get published. Make sure that when you're querying agents or publishers, you're querying one that represents or publishes the type of book you're writing. Even the best new novel out there is not going to get published if you're submitting it to publishers or agents who specialise in self help, and vice versa! Do your homework, and find out who may be interested in your book before you start sending out queries.
5. Build Buzz
Publishers these days are competing with self publishers, and vanity presses, and against e-books. They're looking for a sure thing. That means they want a book from a writer who either already has a following, or who knows how to market their work. The more buzz you can build around you, and your book, the more likely you are to find a publisher who wants to publish you, or an agent who wants to represent you.
If you're a new writer, and you are looking for answers to the age old question of how to get published, the most important thing you should be worried about is your book. Write it well, revise it extensively, and then polish it until it shines.
If you're a first time author, who is looking for help in finding an agent or publisher, then you might just find the help you need at The Next Big Book. It's a site that's designed to help connect writers with agents and publishers, and to take the hassle out of marketing your book.
Find out more at [http://www.thenextbigbook.com]http://www.thenextbigbook.com, by signing up for the newsletter!
Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?How-to-Get-Published&id=6743945] How to Get Published
Saturday, January 14, 2012
How Not to Find a Literary Agent
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Kathryn_Lively]Kathryn Lively
As a writer, I can completely relate to your enthusiasm. You have finally finished your novel, and you can't wait to see it published and in your hands with a cover, your author photo on the back...the works. The publishing landscape has changed greatly in the last year, however, with digital books on the rise and sales via online outlets exploding. Many writers have taken to self-publishing their works in order to maintain control over their books, but this doesn't necessarily represent the full future of the industry. Not all author wish to go this route and continue to see representation to pitch their books to large presses. If your dream is to publish through a house like Random House or Simon and Schuster, you need an agent.
So, how do you get one? Some authors may tell you it's easier said than done. The key to finding good representation, naturally, is to have a book that an agent is passionate to sell. A literary agent earns his/her keep by placing books with sales potential with publishers willing to contract them. When you offer an agent a great book, you're halfway there. That said, it is important to adhere to an agent's submission guidelines in order to get your foot in the door. If you want to see your pool of candidates dwindle to nothing, there are ways to aggravate them and waste their and your time.
Take into consideration these tips on how not to find an agent:
1) Send a book in a genre the agent doesn't represent. Not all agents work with all genres. If you have written a science fiction novel and send it to an agent who only represents non-fiction or romance, you will likely receive a rejection. If you aren't sure which genres the agent wants, do your research! Check the agency's website, or research favorite authors in your genre - often authors thanks their agents in their book acknowledgements.
2) Send a book to an agent who isn't currently reading. Not all agents read submissions year round. Some specify through their social media and websites that they close to submissions at certain times. Don't think, however, that if you send during a black-out period that the book will keep until the agent is open again, or that the agent will make an exception for you. If you cannot follow directions, an agent is not likely to want to work with you. Research when the agents you seek are reading.
3) Contact an agent through an unappealing method. Unless the agent specifies that he/she will consider queries via Twitter and Facebook - which is extremely rare- don't do it. Do not call agents on the telephone to pitch a query, either. Find the agent's website or information and determine if they want e-mail or snail mail contact.
4) Query the correct way, but follow-up daily for an answer. Some agents may receive hundreds of queries or submissions a month. That's a lot of work to slog through, and if you start pestering an agent for news of your query you not only irritate the agent but risk getting a reputation you don't want. Submit, and be patient.
If you feel your book is agent-ready, best wishes in your journey toward publication.
Kathryn Lively is a freelance writer specializing in articles on [http://www.turnthepagepublishing.com/self-publishing]self-publishing services and [http://www.turnthepagepublishing.com/self-publishing]freelance editing services.
Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?How-Not-to-Find-a-Literary-Agent&id=6745022] How Not to Find a Literary Agent
As a writer, I can completely relate to your enthusiasm. You have finally finished your novel, and you can't wait to see it published and in your hands with a cover, your author photo on the back...the works. The publishing landscape has changed greatly in the last year, however, with digital books on the rise and sales via online outlets exploding. Many writers have taken to self-publishing their works in order to maintain control over their books, but this doesn't necessarily represent the full future of the industry. Not all author wish to go this route and continue to see representation to pitch their books to large presses. If your dream is to publish through a house like Random House or Simon and Schuster, you need an agent.
So, how do you get one? Some authors may tell you it's easier said than done. The key to finding good representation, naturally, is to have a book that an agent is passionate to sell. A literary agent earns his/her keep by placing books with sales potential with publishers willing to contract them. When you offer an agent a great book, you're halfway there. That said, it is important to adhere to an agent's submission guidelines in order to get your foot in the door. If you want to see your pool of candidates dwindle to nothing, there are ways to aggravate them and waste their and your time.
Take into consideration these tips on how not to find an agent:
1) Send a book in a genre the agent doesn't represent. Not all agents work with all genres. If you have written a science fiction novel and send it to an agent who only represents non-fiction or romance, you will likely receive a rejection. If you aren't sure which genres the agent wants, do your research! Check the agency's website, or research favorite authors in your genre - often authors thanks their agents in their book acknowledgements.
2) Send a book to an agent who isn't currently reading. Not all agents read submissions year round. Some specify through their social media and websites that they close to submissions at certain times. Don't think, however, that if you send during a black-out period that the book will keep until the agent is open again, or that the agent will make an exception for you. If you cannot follow directions, an agent is not likely to want to work with you. Research when the agents you seek are reading.
3) Contact an agent through an unappealing method. Unless the agent specifies that he/she will consider queries via Twitter and Facebook - which is extremely rare- don't do it. Do not call agents on the telephone to pitch a query, either. Find the agent's website or information and determine if they want e-mail or snail mail contact.
4) Query the correct way, but follow-up daily for an answer. Some agents may receive hundreds of queries or submissions a month. That's a lot of work to slog through, and if you start pestering an agent for news of your query you not only irritate the agent but risk getting a reputation you don't want. Submit, and be patient.
If you feel your book is agent-ready, best wishes in your journey toward publication.
Kathryn Lively is a freelance writer specializing in articles on [http://www.turnthepagepublishing.com/self-publishing]self-publishing services and [http://www.turnthepagepublishing.com/self-publishing]freelance editing services.
Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?How-Not-to-Find-a-Literary-Agent&id=6745022] How Not to Find a Literary Agent
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Designing E-Books for the Virtual Bookshelf
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Darcie_Carsner_Torres]Darcie Carsner Torres
Book design is about so much more than the cover these days. Lately, the publishing industry has literally been inundated with news about the rise of the e-book this season and the predicted death of the bookstore and the printing industry. Retailers of print books continue to be hit hard while digital sales have gone through the roof.
So, let's get past the cover for a moment and assume you've got a cover and jacket material that is award winning, spectacular and jumps right off the shelf and into the cart.
The first thing you need to do is totally eliminate each and every preconception you ever had of what constitutes a "book." Digital publishing is the Anti-Christ for traditional print authors. It's a different game and there are different rules. Let's go through them one at a time.
1. Pages Don't Exist
The first rule of digital is that pages don't exist. If you actually have an e-reader, you can probably wrap your head around this to some extent. But this truly goes against what it is to be a writer as we measure our genius in page numbers, and it's hard to get over. Every e-reader is different. If you try to create pages, you will bang your head against a table over and over again. You just cannot make it come out right unless you completely eliminate the concept of pages from your brain. When separating chapters, add one - maybe two - extra lines and type out your chapter title.
2. Formatting is Evil
Again, this is a rule that goes against our mindset as writers. We toil and sweat to create a thing of beauty, only to be told that we are not allowed to make our books look the way we want. There's really an excellent reason for this - the reader. E-book readers are geared to allow the owner to customize the way the material looks. It's your audience who gets to choose things like font, font size and the like. Not you. Take out all of those tabs, all of the extra lines (except one or two separating chapters), and even the fancy font. Choose simple fonts, a "normal" paragraph style, left aligned, and single space everything without extra space after the paragraphs. If you want to make your life easier, get rid of any columns, tables, text boxes or footnotes. If you are creating a non-fiction book where these are absolutely necessary, you will have to go into your publisher's style guide and get down and dirty with your manuscript. Or wait until later in 2012 when I get a chance to write a follow-up article that addresses these issues.
3. Front and Back Matter Don't Matter
When you design your front and back matter for your print version, it's easy to get all fancy and legal and add blank pages to fit the signature requirement. Not so with digital. The best thing for you to do is keep it simple. You don't get to play with Word Art here. Center your copy for the front matter and include:
My Book Title
by Alex Author
Smashwords (or Kindle) Edition, Copyright 2025 Alex Author
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Your website link here.
Your profile page here.
This will, of course change a bit according to which publisher you use. This example obviously comes from Smashwords, which we will get to next. Suffice it to say that putting little logos and long, detailed copyright notices and columns of credits will only make you go back to banging your head against a table. Again, we will tackle complex e-book formatting later next year.
Your end matter should include a mark that indicates your reader has reached the end of the book (e.g., "###" or "The End"), plus a short, crafty little bio with a link to your webpage or other author profile.
4. The Big Two
Currently, the big two in digital publishing are Kindle Digital Publishing and Smashwords. You have to go through Kindle to get your e-books on Amazon. Well, so far anyway. Smashwords will get you into virtually every other digital retailer through its.epub format - the god of digital file formats for e-readers. These two publishers should cover the majority of your bases in publishing.
5. Meta-what?
Finally, we get to the pice de resistance - metadata and search optimization. If you ignore these two very critical items, no one will ever find you unless they already know your name. When people search Amazon for a book they put in keywords like "mystery" or "cowboys" or "elves" into the search box. You need to have metadata for your book description - genre, subgenre, sub-subgenre - as far down as you can get. If you're a savvy marketer, you will know to analyze the bestseller lists and do some math on how to get on them.
Also, don't forget to get some reviews of your books and have people post them on the retailer sites and everywhere else you can find. Unless you're a completely friendless orphan, you have friends and family who've read your book that will be delighted to give you a glowing review. But don't stop there. You and your people should also spend some time searching your name on the sites daily as your e-book is released. Page hits count in rankings. Link to your Amazon or Barnes and Noble listing on your website. Organize a bestseller campaign to launch your book and encourage everyone to buy your book during one predetermined hour on launch day.
These tips are only the beginning of what you can and should do in digital publishing. As 2012 rolls around, I will be writing several more articles targeting the dos, don'ts and how-tos of digital publishing and marketing.
Darcie Carsner Torres is a professional writer and editor with over 20 years of experience. She provides editing and critiquing services through CanAm Author Services, [http://www.canamauthorservices.com]http://www.canamauthorservices.com, and editing and ghostwriting services through Pen & Pestle, [http://www.penandpestle.com]http://www.penandpestle.com. Her mission is to help budding authors improve their writing and get published.
Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?Designing-E-Books-for-the-Virtual-Bookshelf&id=6749626] Designing E-Books for the Virtual Bookshelf
Book design is about so much more than the cover these days. Lately, the publishing industry has literally been inundated with news about the rise of the e-book this season and the predicted death of the bookstore and the printing industry. Retailers of print books continue to be hit hard while digital sales have gone through the roof.
So, let's get past the cover for a moment and assume you've got a cover and jacket material that is award winning, spectacular and jumps right off the shelf and into the cart.
The first thing you need to do is totally eliminate each and every preconception you ever had of what constitutes a "book." Digital publishing is the Anti-Christ for traditional print authors. It's a different game and there are different rules. Let's go through them one at a time.
1. Pages Don't Exist
The first rule of digital is that pages don't exist. If you actually have an e-reader, you can probably wrap your head around this to some extent. But this truly goes against what it is to be a writer as we measure our genius in page numbers, and it's hard to get over. Every e-reader is different. If you try to create pages, you will bang your head against a table over and over again. You just cannot make it come out right unless you completely eliminate the concept of pages from your brain. When separating chapters, add one - maybe two - extra lines and type out your chapter title.
2. Formatting is Evil
Again, this is a rule that goes against our mindset as writers. We toil and sweat to create a thing of beauty, only to be told that we are not allowed to make our books look the way we want. There's really an excellent reason for this - the reader. E-book readers are geared to allow the owner to customize the way the material looks. It's your audience who gets to choose things like font, font size and the like. Not you. Take out all of those tabs, all of the extra lines (except one or two separating chapters), and even the fancy font. Choose simple fonts, a "normal" paragraph style, left aligned, and single space everything without extra space after the paragraphs. If you want to make your life easier, get rid of any columns, tables, text boxes or footnotes. If you are creating a non-fiction book where these are absolutely necessary, you will have to go into your publisher's style guide and get down and dirty with your manuscript. Or wait until later in 2012 when I get a chance to write a follow-up article that addresses these issues.
3. Front and Back Matter Don't Matter
When you design your front and back matter for your print version, it's easy to get all fancy and legal and add blank pages to fit the signature requirement. Not so with digital. The best thing for you to do is keep it simple. You don't get to play with Word Art here. Center your copy for the front matter and include:
My Book Title
by Alex Author
Smashwords (or Kindle) Edition, Copyright 2025 Alex Author
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Your website link here.
Your profile page here.
This will, of course change a bit according to which publisher you use. This example obviously comes from Smashwords, which we will get to next. Suffice it to say that putting little logos and long, detailed copyright notices and columns of credits will only make you go back to banging your head against a table. Again, we will tackle complex e-book formatting later next year.
Your end matter should include a mark that indicates your reader has reached the end of the book (e.g., "###" or "The End"), plus a short, crafty little bio with a link to your webpage or other author profile.
4. The Big Two
Currently, the big two in digital publishing are Kindle Digital Publishing and Smashwords. You have to go through Kindle to get your e-books on Amazon. Well, so far anyway. Smashwords will get you into virtually every other digital retailer through its.epub format - the god of digital file formats for e-readers. These two publishers should cover the majority of your bases in publishing.
5. Meta-what?
Finally, we get to the pice de resistance - metadata and search optimization. If you ignore these two very critical items, no one will ever find you unless they already know your name. When people search Amazon for a book they put in keywords like "mystery" or "cowboys" or "elves" into the search box. You need to have metadata for your book description - genre, subgenre, sub-subgenre - as far down as you can get. If you're a savvy marketer, you will know to analyze the bestseller lists and do some math on how to get on them.
Also, don't forget to get some reviews of your books and have people post them on the retailer sites and everywhere else you can find. Unless you're a completely friendless orphan, you have friends and family who've read your book that will be delighted to give you a glowing review. But don't stop there. You and your people should also spend some time searching your name on the sites daily as your e-book is released. Page hits count in rankings. Link to your Amazon or Barnes and Noble listing on your website. Organize a bestseller campaign to launch your book and encourage everyone to buy your book during one predetermined hour on launch day.
These tips are only the beginning of what you can and should do in digital publishing. As 2012 rolls around, I will be writing several more articles targeting the dos, don'ts and how-tos of digital publishing and marketing.
Darcie Carsner Torres is a professional writer and editor with over 20 years of experience. She provides editing and critiquing services through CanAm Author Services, [http://www.canamauthorservices.com]http://www.canamauthorservices.com, and editing and ghostwriting services through Pen & Pestle, [http://www.penandpestle.com]http://www.penandpestle.com. Her mission is to help budding authors improve their writing and get published.
Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?Designing-E-Books-for-the-Virtual-Bookshelf&id=6749626] Designing E-Books for the Virtual Bookshelf
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
How the Kindle Library Creates Bounce-Off
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Jim_Green]Jim Green
When Kindle launched its library in November 2011 it sent tremors of fear ricocheting throughout the public lending library system worldwide - even though it is only operative in the United States.
The rest of the world will follow soon.
Under Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) Select, authors who agree to make their e-books exclusive to Amazon's Kindle Store for 90 days are eligible to have their work added to the lending library program.
They also have the opportunity to earn from the $6 million fund set aside for self-publishers.
With the Kindle Owners' Lending Library, customers with a $79 per year Amazon Prime membership and a Kindle device can borrow e-books for free. Users can only borrow one e-book per month, and one at a time. At launch there were about 5000 selections available but that amount has increased considerably over the past few weeks.
Self-published authors can submit anything from a single book to an entire catalogue.
For the month of December 2011 Amazon will contribute $500,000 to the royalty fund and the amount participating authors earn depends on their share of the total number of KDP books borrowed in the lending library.
Amazon state on their website, "For example, if total borrows of all participating KDP Select books are 100,000 in December and an author's book was borrowed 1,500 times, they will earn $7,500 in additional royalties from KDP Select in December".
Books in the lending library will also still be available for sale so authors can continue to earn regular royalty payments on top of KDP Select earnings.
Amazon also provides new promotional tools with KDP Select. Every 90 days, for example, authors have the opportunity to promote their books for free in order to get their name out there among the ever growing band of cyberspace bookworms.
It was to this very tool that I applied myself a few days ago and from which I personally experienced the Kindle bounce-off effect.
WHAT I DID...
After enrolling in KDP Select I decided on a gung-ho approach and committed my entire stock of 25 personally generated Kindle books to free download for 24 hours - including the 6 that were selling steadily. This smacks of complete lunacy and perhaps it might have been but I did it to...
1. Promote my brand to a much wider audience.
2. Stimulate interest in those titles that were still under-performing.
3. Bite the bullet and monitor during the giveaway day what happened to those that sold consistently.
WHAT RESULTED DURING THE NEXT 48 HOURS...
1. I had close on 1000 free downloads almost instantly.
2. I had 157 sales from titles that had not sold before.
3. I suffered 26 refunds on consistently selling titles that had been purchased the day before the free download episode.
4. I enjoyed 49 new sales on my consistently selling titles.
5. I discovered that I can sell more by creating mini-books out of stand-alone chapters in full length works of fiction.
6. I have started to write again - particularly as outlined in (5)
7. I now have the nucleus of my Kindle marketing plan for 2012.
What I lost on the swings was more than compensated for on the roundabouts.
NET RESULT
Huge increase on returns and royalty payments - and increasing daily...
MORAL
If you have a clutch of titles in your computer earning you nothing - get cracking and upload them to Kindle Direct Publishing.
JIM GREEN is a bestselling traditionally published author with 40+ titles in the realms of fiction and non-fiction. http://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B0034PAPH6
Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?How-the-Kindle-Library-Creates-Bounce-Off&id=6754767] How the Kindle Library Creates Bounce-Off
When Kindle launched its library in November 2011 it sent tremors of fear ricocheting throughout the public lending library system worldwide - even though it is only operative in the United States.
The rest of the world will follow soon.
Under Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) Select, authors who agree to make their e-books exclusive to Amazon's Kindle Store for 90 days are eligible to have their work added to the lending library program.
They also have the opportunity to earn from the $6 million fund set aside for self-publishers.
With the Kindle Owners' Lending Library, customers with a $79 per year Amazon Prime membership and a Kindle device can borrow e-books for free. Users can only borrow one e-book per month, and one at a time. At launch there were about 5000 selections available but that amount has increased considerably over the past few weeks.
Self-published authors can submit anything from a single book to an entire catalogue.
For the month of December 2011 Amazon will contribute $500,000 to the royalty fund and the amount participating authors earn depends on their share of the total number of KDP books borrowed in the lending library.
Amazon state on their website, "For example, if total borrows of all participating KDP Select books are 100,000 in December and an author's book was borrowed 1,500 times, they will earn $7,500 in additional royalties from KDP Select in December".
Books in the lending library will also still be available for sale so authors can continue to earn regular royalty payments on top of KDP Select earnings.
Amazon also provides new promotional tools with KDP Select. Every 90 days, for example, authors have the opportunity to promote their books for free in order to get their name out there among the ever growing band of cyberspace bookworms.
It was to this very tool that I applied myself a few days ago and from which I personally experienced the Kindle bounce-off effect.
WHAT I DID...
After enrolling in KDP Select I decided on a gung-ho approach and committed my entire stock of 25 personally generated Kindle books to free download for 24 hours - including the 6 that were selling steadily. This smacks of complete lunacy and perhaps it might have been but I did it to...
1. Promote my brand to a much wider audience.
2. Stimulate interest in those titles that were still under-performing.
3. Bite the bullet and monitor during the giveaway day what happened to those that sold consistently.
WHAT RESULTED DURING THE NEXT 48 HOURS...
1. I had close on 1000 free downloads almost instantly.
2. I had 157 sales from titles that had not sold before.
3. I suffered 26 refunds on consistently selling titles that had been purchased the day before the free download episode.
4. I enjoyed 49 new sales on my consistently selling titles.
5. I discovered that I can sell more by creating mini-books out of stand-alone chapters in full length works of fiction.
6. I have started to write again - particularly as outlined in (5)
7. I now have the nucleus of my Kindle marketing plan for 2012.
What I lost on the swings was more than compensated for on the roundabouts.
NET RESULT
Huge increase on returns and royalty payments - and increasing daily...
MORAL
If you have a clutch of titles in your computer earning you nothing - get cracking and upload them to Kindle Direct Publishing.
JIM GREEN is a bestselling traditionally published author with 40+ titles in the realms of fiction and non-fiction. http://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B0034PAPH6
Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?How-the-Kindle-Library-Creates-Bounce-Off&id=6754767] How the Kindle Library Creates Bounce-Off
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Why I Chose Kindle to Publish My Latest Book
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Jim_Green]Jim Green
I took up creative writing after I retired from the workaday world some fifteen years ago; starting with niche non-fiction then moving on to fiction and making a steady living all the while from my prolific and disparate output; including several best sellers that are still around today and still selling steadily.
A few months after my 80th birthday I completed my latest novella "Mischief in Mayfair" and set about looking for a publisher but instead found myself facing a brick wall; on three counts:
1. Traditional publishers are in turmoil right now and only favour proposals if they purport to emanate from so-called celebrities.
2. Novellas are an abomination in the sight of both publishers and booksellers.
3. I am no longer flavour of the month in the conventional book trade and indeed some of my previous publishing houses are amazed to discover I haven't fallen off my perch yet.
So what to do with my new novella?
I have never employed the services of a literary agent on any of my writing projects and I did not intend to start now.
So, as an avid online enthusiast my attention was drawn to Kindle Publishing Direct and I studied the concept in minute detail.
Here is where I would go and in the process avoid the interminable wait for a response to proposals, haggling over the contract when you finally get a 'yes', hanging around for ages before proofs arrive, and even longer before your book is published.
To Kindle I would go, not just with my new novella, but also my out-of-print fiction titles which ten years ago sold well as paperbacks (I have contracts that protect my electronic rights on all of these).
So how is it going so far?
Extremely well I am pleased to relate.
"Mischief in Mayfair" is not only up and running but is already featuring high in the Kindle listings for its core keyword phrase.
My old paperbacks are enjoying a new lease of life as electronic books, reaching out to new audience of passionate cyberspace bookworms, and selling well just a few weeks after uploading.
THE MORAL OF THIS TRUE STORY
If your precious book is as yet unpublished or if you have a raft of traditionally published books that once sold as paperbacks, get cracking and start uploading to KDP.
When you have a bundle of sales under your belt, go one step further and enrol your title(s) in the Kindle Library and you will earn even more.
Kindle rocks...
JIM GREEN is a bestselling traditionally published author with 40+ titles in the realms of fiction and non-fiction. http://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B0034PAPH6
Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?Why-I-Chose-Kindle-to-Publish-My-Latest-Book&id=6754809] Why I Chose Kindle to Publish My Latest Book
I took up creative writing after I retired from the workaday world some fifteen years ago; starting with niche non-fiction then moving on to fiction and making a steady living all the while from my prolific and disparate output; including several best sellers that are still around today and still selling steadily.
A few months after my 80th birthday I completed my latest novella "Mischief in Mayfair" and set about looking for a publisher but instead found myself facing a brick wall; on three counts:
1. Traditional publishers are in turmoil right now and only favour proposals if they purport to emanate from so-called celebrities.
2. Novellas are an abomination in the sight of both publishers and booksellers.
3. I am no longer flavour of the month in the conventional book trade and indeed some of my previous publishing houses are amazed to discover I haven't fallen off my perch yet.
So what to do with my new novella?
I have never employed the services of a literary agent on any of my writing projects and I did not intend to start now.
So, as an avid online enthusiast my attention was drawn to Kindle Publishing Direct and I studied the concept in minute detail.
Here is where I would go and in the process avoid the interminable wait for a response to proposals, haggling over the contract when you finally get a 'yes', hanging around for ages before proofs arrive, and even longer before your book is published.
To Kindle I would go, not just with my new novella, but also my out-of-print fiction titles which ten years ago sold well as paperbacks (I have contracts that protect my electronic rights on all of these).
So how is it going so far?
Extremely well I am pleased to relate.
"Mischief in Mayfair" is not only up and running but is already featuring high in the Kindle listings for its core keyword phrase.
My old paperbacks are enjoying a new lease of life as electronic books, reaching out to new audience of passionate cyberspace bookworms, and selling well just a few weeks after uploading.
THE MORAL OF THIS TRUE STORY
If your precious book is as yet unpublished or if you have a raft of traditionally published books that once sold as paperbacks, get cracking and start uploading to KDP.
When you have a bundle of sales under your belt, go one step further and enrol your title(s) in the Kindle Library and you will earn even more.
Kindle rocks...
JIM GREEN is a bestselling traditionally published author with 40+ titles in the realms of fiction and non-fiction. http://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B0034PAPH6
Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?Why-I-Chose-Kindle-to-Publish-My-Latest-Book&id=6754809] Why I Chose Kindle to Publish My Latest Book
Friday, January 6, 2012
Manuscript Format Can Be the Difference Between Approval and Rejection
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Jo_M_Draper]Jo M Draper
Publishers receive piles of manuscripts on their desk every single day and with such a range of material to peruse and select from, they can afford to be very fussy when it comes to separating out the wheat from the chaff. With this in mind, one thing that writers really need to be aware of is the format in which your manuscript is created and submitted.
When creating your manuscript, whether in Word, Publisher, or a manuscript specific piece of software, there are some basic rules that you should follow, which will help you avoid that rejection bin.
Firstly, always type your document using a clear font type and size. A standard font used in publishing is Courier, size 12; however, Arial is also considered acceptable. Your pages should be double spaced with a large margin. This allows for the submissions team to annotate your manuscript clearly, making notes which will eventually inform their decisions and any editing required. All pages should be numbered and there should be a front page that details the title of the manuscript, the author's name or pen name and the total word count. If you want to look like a professional then do not make any reference to copyright laws etcetera, as this is a given and doesn't need to be spelled out.
Secondly, the format submission is vitally important. Always follow the publisher's instructions without deviation. Ordinarily, you will be asked to submit a brief synopsis and some sample chapters at the initial submission stages. If then you are lucky enough to be asked to submit a full manuscript, do so in line with the exact request. Some publishers may ask for a printed hard copy. If this is the case then only print on one side of the paper and do not bind your manuscript. Some publishers may ask for your MS to be emailed to them, and it has been known for some to ask for a hard copy, an emailed copy and an electronic version on a memory stick or similar. Whatever they ask for, make sure you deliver, not forgetting to include a stamped addressed envelope, with adequate postage to allow all of the material to be returned at no cost to the publisher.
Failing to follow simple instructions will not only hinder the review and editorial process but it may just annoy the publishers enough to mean they refuse to take on your work. No writer in their right mind would want to make that mistake!
Do you need help with editing or proofreading your manuscript? Then contact one of our [http://jmdeditorial.co.uk/copy-editing.html]professional editors at JMD Editorial and Writing Services.
Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?Manuscript-Format-Can-Be-the-Difference-Between-Approval-and-Rejection&id=6751621] Manuscript Format Can Be the Difference Between Approval and Rejection
Publishers receive piles of manuscripts on their desk every single day and with such a range of material to peruse and select from, they can afford to be very fussy when it comes to separating out the wheat from the chaff. With this in mind, one thing that writers really need to be aware of is the format in which your manuscript is created and submitted.
When creating your manuscript, whether in Word, Publisher, or a manuscript specific piece of software, there are some basic rules that you should follow, which will help you avoid that rejection bin.
Firstly, always type your document using a clear font type and size. A standard font used in publishing is Courier, size 12; however, Arial is also considered acceptable. Your pages should be double spaced with a large margin. This allows for the submissions team to annotate your manuscript clearly, making notes which will eventually inform their decisions and any editing required. All pages should be numbered and there should be a front page that details the title of the manuscript, the author's name or pen name and the total word count. If you want to look like a professional then do not make any reference to copyright laws etcetera, as this is a given and doesn't need to be spelled out.
Secondly, the format submission is vitally important. Always follow the publisher's instructions without deviation. Ordinarily, you will be asked to submit a brief synopsis and some sample chapters at the initial submission stages. If then you are lucky enough to be asked to submit a full manuscript, do so in line with the exact request. Some publishers may ask for a printed hard copy. If this is the case then only print on one side of the paper and do not bind your manuscript. Some publishers may ask for your MS to be emailed to them, and it has been known for some to ask for a hard copy, an emailed copy and an electronic version on a memory stick or similar. Whatever they ask for, make sure you deliver, not forgetting to include a stamped addressed envelope, with adequate postage to allow all of the material to be returned at no cost to the publisher.
Failing to follow simple instructions will not only hinder the review and editorial process but it may just annoy the publishers enough to mean they refuse to take on your work. No writer in their right mind would want to make that mistake!
Do you need help with editing or proofreading your manuscript? Then contact one of our [http://jmdeditorial.co.uk/copy-editing.html]professional editors at JMD Editorial and Writing Services.
Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?Manuscript-Format-Can-Be-the-Difference-Between-Approval-and-Rejection&id=6751621] Manuscript Format Can Be the Difference Between Approval and Rejection
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
The Advantages of Self-Publishing
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Irene_Watson]Irene Watson
A few decades ago, self-publishing was considered a big "No No." The cost to self-publish was high and vanity presses often took advantage of authors. However, several well-known authors from Walt Whitman and Mark Twain to James Redfield have self-published books that have become classics and bestsellers, and with the advances in technology, self-publishing is highly affordable. As long as the author makes producing a quality book a top priority, self-publishing can be not only a feasible choice, but it may even be the better choice over traditional publishing. Following are some advantages for why you might consider self-publishing.
Control of Production: Self-publishing your book gives you complete control of the production. Rather than sell your rights to a publisher who will then edit your book the way it sees fit and decide itself when to publish your book-often two years down the road-and decide whether to continue to sell your book or take it off the shelves, the self-publisher has complete control over timing and production. Your publisher may want your book to be a coffee table, expensive hard back book while you want an inexpensive paperback so you can sell more copies. If you self-publish, then you can produce it the way you want. You also can guarantee that your book never goes out of print by reprinting it as often as you like or the market demands. By contrast, publishers often cease printing books that are not bestsellers, and then authors have to wait years for their contracts to expire to buy back the rights of their own books. Having complete control over the entire publishing process and the lifespan of your book is perhaps the greatest benefit of self-publishing.
Print Runs: I've heard authors argue that traditional publishers will produce larger print runs than self-publishers. This is true. Even the smallest traditional publishers will often do a print run in the low thousands, while a self-published author who has to pay for the entire production himself might find it difficult to print more than 500 or 1,000 copies. Of course, you want your book to reach as many people as possible, but if your publisher prints 3,000 books and only 1,000 sell, what is the advantage over you printing 1,000 and keeping all the profit for yourself? A large print run is the weakest argument for staying with traditional publishing, since if the book sells well, the money from the profit from the first small print run can be used to pay for the second and third and larger ones.
Marketing: Traditional publishers are doing less and expecting authors to do more marketing for their books. Unless a book is considered a potential bestseller, and few are, little money will be spent on marketing. An author willing to go out and promote himself can be as successful at marketing a book as a publisher and might even get a publisher's attention down the road. While traditional publishers do have more resources and outlets for promoting books, guerilla marketing by an author can equal those efforts if the author educates himself on marketing and is willing to spend the time and energy. Authors can also find assistance from publicity companies, many of which are very affordable today.
Profit: Any author who thinks he or she is going to get rich off of publishing a book is in the wrong business, but that said, savvy self-published authors can succeeded in making a livable income or at least a hefty supplement to their income by self-publishing their books and promoting them properly. As far as profit goes, if an author has to help the publisher to market the book and is receiving 10 percent royalties, it makes more sense for the author to publish his own book and receive far greater profit. Consider these numbers:
Profit from Traditional Publisher:
No printing costs for author
Print run of 3,000 books at retail of $19.95
Royalty to author at 10 percent if all books sell: $5,985.00
Profit for Self-Published Author
Printing costs of $8.00 per book.
1,000 copies print run (printing costs decrease if print runs are higher) = $8,000.00
Sales at $19.95 per copy of 1,000 books = $19,950.00
Profit: $11,950.00
In short, self-publishing can equal double the profit if the author is able to sell just a third as many copies as the traditional publisher. Even if you sold half of your copies in bookstores and gift shops at 40 percent consignment, your profit would still be greater than 10 percent royalties on 3,000 books.
But how do you sell all those copies? Self-publishing success requires effort, and while the profit above looks good, it probably won't be that high when you take into account additional production costs such as editing, building a website, etc., but you can still come out significantly ahead.
TIPS to Self-Publishing Success
Despite all your efforts, you will still find some people who will be dismissive of your book if it is self-published. The best way to overcome these objections and sell more copies is to produce a quality book. Here are some final tips and "musts" to make your book competitive.
Have Your Book Professionally Edited: A good editor will do more than fix typos and punctuation and grammar. She will enhance your words to their best potential while retaining your voice and meaning. She will make sure you sound professional, don't repeat yourself, and you appeal to the wider reading public.
Remember What Your Readers Want: Readers want to know "What's in it for me?" They don't care about your personal story unless it has something in it that will help them. You can enjoy writing, but if you write for you, and not for others, you aren't going to sell books.
Ensure Quality Production: Don't print pages off your printer and have them bound. Avoid comb bindings. Go to a professional printer that has experience printing books and knows all the ins and outs of what kind of paper to use and all the other details. Be sure also to hire a professional to do the layout of your book and to design your cover. Even if you are determined to do it yourself by using a publisher like CreateSpace, find someone else who has done it before and can guide you along so your book looks completely professional and as good as anything produced by Random House or HarperCollins.
Learn from Marketing Experts: Books don't sell themselves, and books on bookstore shelves don't sell if people don't know they are there. You don't have to hire a full-time publicity agent, but join a publishing organization, attend publishing conferences, read publications in the industry, find out what works for others, get book reviews, and hire reputable marketing services that will help you spread the word. Your book won't sell unless you are out there selling it, and marketing experts can teach you how to sell it so it interests people.
If you're still not sure whether to self-publish or traditionally publish, I suggest you spend a year or two trying to find a traditional publisher. If that works out, great, but if it doesn't, give self-publishing a try. Save up your money while you look for the traditional publisher so you are ready to proceed with your back-up plan. Even if you do find a traditional publisher, after you become more familiar with the publishing industry, you can always choose to self-publish your second book. No right or wrong way exists to publish a book; you just need to decide on what way is better for you and your book.
Irene Watson is the Managing Editor of Reader Views, where avid readers can find [http://www.readerviews.com/]reviews of recently published books as well as read interviews with authors. Her team also provides [http://readerviews.com/services_about.html]author publicity and a variety of other services specific to writing and publishing books.
Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?The-Advantages-of-Self-Publishing&id=6757603] The Advantages of Self-Publishing
A few decades ago, self-publishing was considered a big "No No." The cost to self-publish was high and vanity presses often took advantage of authors. However, several well-known authors from Walt Whitman and Mark Twain to James Redfield have self-published books that have become classics and bestsellers, and with the advances in technology, self-publishing is highly affordable. As long as the author makes producing a quality book a top priority, self-publishing can be not only a feasible choice, but it may even be the better choice over traditional publishing. Following are some advantages for why you might consider self-publishing.
Control of Production: Self-publishing your book gives you complete control of the production. Rather than sell your rights to a publisher who will then edit your book the way it sees fit and decide itself when to publish your book-often two years down the road-and decide whether to continue to sell your book or take it off the shelves, the self-publisher has complete control over timing and production. Your publisher may want your book to be a coffee table, expensive hard back book while you want an inexpensive paperback so you can sell more copies. If you self-publish, then you can produce it the way you want. You also can guarantee that your book never goes out of print by reprinting it as often as you like or the market demands. By contrast, publishers often cease printing books that are not bestsellers, and then authors have to wait years for their contracts to expire to buy back the rights of their own books. Having complete control over the entire publishing process and the lifespan of your book is perhaps the greatest benefit of self-publishing.
Print Runs: I've heard authors argue that traditional publishers will produce larger print runs than self-publishers. This is true. Even the smallest traditional publishers will often do a print run in the low thousands, while a self-published author who has to pay for the entire production himself might find it difficult to print more than 500 or 1,000 copies. Of course, you want your book to reach as many people as possible, but if your publisher prints 3,000 books and only 1,000 sell, what is the advantage over you printing 1,000 and keeping all the profit for yourself? A large print run is the weakest argument for staying with traditional publishing, since if the book sells well, the money from the profit from the first small print run can be used to pay for the second and third and larger ones.
Marketing: Traditional publishers are doing less and expecting authors to do more marketing for their books. Unless a book is considered a potential bestseller, and few are, little money will be spent on marketing. An author willing to go out and promote himself can be as successful at marketing a book as a publisher and might even get a publisher's attention down the road. While traditional publishers do have more resources and outlets for promoting books, guerilla marketing by an author can equal those efforts if the author educates himself on marketing and is willing to spend the time and energy. Authors can also find assistance from publicity companies, many of which are very affordable today.
Profit: Any author who thinks he or she is going to get rich off of publishing a book is in the wrong business, but that said, savvy self-published authors can succeeded in making a livable income or at least a hefty supplement to their income by self-publishing their books and promoting them properly. As far as profit goes, if an author has to help the publisher to market the book and is receiving 10 percent royalties, it makes more sense for the author to publish his own book and receive far greater profit. Consider these numbers:
Profit from Traditional Publisher:
No printing costs for author
Print run of 3,000 books at retail of $19.95
Royalty to author at 10 percent if all books sell: $5,985.00
Profit for Self-Published Author
Printing costs of $8.00 per book.
1,000 copies print run (printing costs decrease if print runs are higher) = $8,000.00
Sales at $19.95 per copy of 1,000 books = $19,950.00
Profit: $11,950.00
In short, self-publishing can equal double the profit if the author is able to sell just a third as many copies as the traditional publisher. Even if you sold half of your copies in bookstores and gift shops at 40 percent consignment, your profit would still be greater than 10 percent royalties on 3,000 books.
But how do you sell all those copies? Self-publishing success requires effort, and while the profit above looks good, it probably won't be that high when you take into account additional production costs such as editing, building a website, etc., but you can still come out significantly ahead.
TIPS to Self-Publishing Success
Despite all your efforts, you will still find some people who will be dismissive of your book if it is self-published. The best way to overcome these objections and sell more copies is to produce a quality book. Here are some final tips and "musts" to make your book competitive.
Have Your Book Professionally Edited: A good editor will do more than fix typos and punctuation and grammar. She will enhance your words to their best potential while retaining your voice and meaning. She will make sure you sound professional, don't repeat yourself, and you appeal to the wider reading public.
Remember What Your Readers Want: Readers want to know "What's in it for me?" They don't care about your personal story unless it has something in it that will help them. You can enjoy writing, but if you write for you, and not for others, you aren't going to sell books.
Ensure Quality Production: Don't print pages off your printer and have them bound. Avoid comb bindings. Go to a professional printer that has experience printing books and knows all the ins and outs of what kind of paper to use and all the other details. Be sure also to hire a professional to do the layout of your book and to design your cover. Even if you are determined to do it yourself by using a publisher like CreateSpace, find someone else who has done it before and can guide you along so your book looks completely professional and as good as anything produced by Random House or HarperCollins.
Learn from Marketing Experts: Books don't sell themselves, and books on bookstore shelves don't sell if people don't know they are there. You don't have to hire a full-time publicity agent, but join a publishing organization, attend publishing conferences, read publications in the industry, find out what works for others, get book reviews, and hire reputable marketing services that will help you spread the word. Your book won't sell unless you are out there selling it, and marketing experts can teach you how to sell it so it interests people.
If you're still not sure whether to self-publish or traditionally publish, I suggest you spend a year or two trying to find a traditional publisher. If that works out, great, but if it doesn't, give self-publishing a try. Save up your money while you look for the traditional publisher so you are ready to proceed with your back-up plan. Even if you do find a traditional publisher, after you become more familiar with the publishing industry, you can always choose to self-publish your second book. No right or wrong way exists to publish a book; you just need to decide on what way is better for you and your book.
Irene Watson is the Managing Editor of Reader Views, where avid readers can find [http://www.readerviews.com/]reviews of recently published books as well as read interviews with authors. Her team also provides [http://readerviews.com/services_about.html]author publicity and a variety of other services specific to writing and publishing books.
Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?The-Advantages-of-Self-Publishing&id=6757603] The Advantages of Self-Publishing
Monday, January 2, 2012
Publicity Tips: Concoct Tasty Sound Bites to Become Quotable and Quoted
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Marcia_Yudkin]Marcia Yudkin
When you're being interviewed, whether that's on camera, on the phone or in person, sound bites make the difference between getting quoted in the news story and being left out. Unless you're unusually witty, you should think up your tasty verbal morsels ahead of time and toss them into your interview at the appropriate moment.
A terrific sound bite grabs the ear and the mind. It sticks in people's memory because it contains compressed meaning along with a smidgeon of surprise. A great sound bite is fun for the media and the general public to repeat. It spices up the news story or feature with delightful, unexpected flavor.
Here are seven techniques for constructing memorable sound bites.
1. Triples. Remember "Veni, vidi, vici" ("I came, I saw, I conquered") from high school Latin? Or "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" from the Declaration of Independence? Many people do. That's because the human mind likes threes. Make a list of keywords for your subject matter and look for catchy triplet combinations. For instance, if you're a business startup guru, you could tell a reporter that you "help ordinary people get rich without working on Wall Street, inheriting wealth or marrying a millionaire."
2. Tweaked clich�s. Everyone loves an unexpected version of a familiar saying. Look up your keywords at clich� reference sites and then start twisting what you find. For example, if you're an advocate of biofuels for automobiles, you could opine that "the new clean air regulations for cars are as clear as sludge."
3. Clever mnemonic. Some schoolkids remember the structure of our solar system with a little ditty in which the first letter of each word corresponds to a planet: "My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Noodles." Make up an interesting pattern like this for a well-known set of initials, such as "We tell our clients that in our firm, 'CPA' stands for 'Court Prosperity Avidly.'"
4. Unexpected metaphors. Compare your quest, cause or issue to something familiar, using words that relate the abstraction to a specific, wry situation in real life. On NPR's Marketplace show recently, I heard Howard Gleckman of the Tax Policy Center say, "It's as if Republicans and Democrats are planning a trip but they disagree over whether you should start the trip from Buenos Aires or from Greenland." That's much more luscious than simply "...start the trip from Point A or Point B" because the geographical disparity of Buenos Aires and Greenland takes a moment to register, then explodes pleasurably in the mind.
5. Contrast, conflict or paradox. Advertising tag lines often combine opposites or near-opposites in ironic, attention-getting ways, as in "Our food is fresh. Our customers are spoiled" (online grocer FreshDirect) or "Melts in your mouth, not in your hands" (M&M candy). You can do the same by brainstorming words and ideas for your theme, then looking for contraries like local/national, full/empty, funny/serious, up/down, etc., and building something catchy out of it.
6. Details. Review your case studies, client advice, bio and blog for details that can take on iconic significance. For you, the key detail might be your percentage of repeat customers, your documented accuracy rate, your carbon-neutral score - or something other than a number, like "The only thing left after the tornado destroyed our office was a teddy bear we used to keep in the waiting room to comfort our young patients."
7. Rhymes. We normally associate corny verses with greeting cards or jump-rope chants. But Muhammed Ali is one public figure who used rhyming to get quoted, explaining his boxing strategy as "I outwit them and then I out-hit them." You may need to grin as you deliver a rhymed sound bite, and the reporter or talk-show host may groan, yet chances are it'll get passed along.
As Mark Twain (one of the most quoted authors ever) wrote, "The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug." The effort to tweak a rough idea into a tight, bright arrangement of words is worthwhile, turning a so-so sound bite into a sensational one. Then enjoy your minutes in the limelight!
Marcia Yudkin is Head Stork of Named At Last ( http://www.namedatlast.com ) as well as the author of Publicity Tactics, 6 Steps to Free Publicity and the new Kindle eBook, The Sound Bite Workbook, which provides a step-by-step approach to creating sound bites. Read about it or purchase it at [http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005NCLN8I]http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005NCLN8I.
Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?Publicity-Tips:-Concoct-Tasty-Sound-Bites-to-Become-Quotable-and-Quoted&id=6760390] Publicity Tips: Concoct Tasty Sound Bites to Become Quotable and Quoted
When you're being interviewed, whether that's on camera, on the phone or in person, sound bites make the difference between getting quoted in the news story and being left out. Unless you're unusually witty, you should think up your tasty verbal morsels ahead of time and toss them into your interview at the appropriate moment.
A terrific sound bite grabs the ear and the mind. It sticks in people's memory because it contains compressed meaning along with a smidgeon of surprise. A great sound bite is fun for the media and the general public to repeat. It spices up the news story or feature with delightful, unexpected flavor.
Here are seven techniques for constructing memorable sound bites.
1. Triples. Remember "Veni, vidi, vici" ("I came, I saw, I conquered") from high school Latin? Or "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" from the Declaration of Independence? Many people do. That's because the human mind likes threes. Make a list of keywords for your subject matter and look for catchy triplet combinations. For instance, if you're a business startup guru, you could tell a reporter that you "help ordinary people get rich without working on Wall Street, inheriting wealth or marrying a millionaire."
2. Tweaked clich�s. Everyone loves an unexpected version of a familiar saying. Look up your keywords at clich� reference sites and then start twisting what you find. For example, if you're an advocate of biofuels for automobiles, you could opine that "the new clean air regulations for cars are as clear as sludge."
3. Clever mnemonic. Some schoolkids remember the structure of our solar system with a little ditty in which the first letter of each word corresponds to a planet: "My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Noodles." Make up an interesting pattern like this for a well-known set of initials, such as "We tell our clients that in our firm, 'CPA' stands for 'Court Prosperity Avidly.'"
4. Unexpected metaphors. Compare your quest, cause or issue to something familiar, using words that relate the abstraction to a specific, wry situation in real life. On NPR's Marketplace show recently, I heard Howard Gleckman of the Tax Policy Center say, "It's as if Republicans and Democrats are planning a trip but they disagree over whether you should start the trip from Buenos Aires or from Greenland." That's much more luscious than simply "...start the trip from Point A or Point B" because the geographical disparity of Buenos Aires and Greenland takes a moment to register, then explodes pleasurably in the mind.
5. Contrast, conflict or paradox. Advertising tag lines often combine opposites or near-opposites in ironic, attention-getting ways, as in "Our food is fresh. Our customers are spoiled" (online grocer FreshDirect) or "Melts in your mouth, not in your hands" (M&M candy). You can do the same by brainstorming words and ideas for your theme, then looking for contraries like local/national, full/empty, funny/serious, up/down, etc., and building something catchy out of it.
6. Details. Review your case studies, client advice, bio and blog for details that can take on iconic significance. For you, the key detail might be your percentage of repeat customers, your documented accuracy rate, your carbon-neutral score - or something other than a number, like "The only thing left after the tornado destroyed our office was a teddy bear we used to keep in the waiting room to comfort our young patients."
7. Rhymes. We normally associate corny verses with greeting cards or jump-rope chants. But Muhammed Ali is one public figure who used rhyming to get quoted, explaining his boxing strategy as "I outwit them and then I out-hit them." You may need to grin as you deliver a rhymed sound bite, and the reporter or talk-show host may groan, yet chances are it'll get passed along.
As Mark Twain (one of the most quoted authors ever) wrote, "The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug." The effort to tweak a rough idea into a tight, bright arrangement of words is worthwhile, turning a so-so sound bite into a sensational one. Then enjoy your minutes in the limelight!
Marcia Yudkin is Head Stork of Named At Last ( http://www.namedatlast.com ) as well as the author of Publicity Tactics, 6 Steps to Free Publicity and the new Kindle eBook, The Sound Bite Workbook, which provides a step-by-step approach to creating sound bites. Read about it or purchase it at [http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005NCLN8I]http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005NCLN8I.
Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?Publicity-Tips:-Concoct-Tasty-Sound-Bites-to-Become-Quotable-and-Quoted&id=6760390] Publicity Tips: Concoct Tasty Sound Bites to Become Quotable and Quoted
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