Seven Things Authors Must Know to be Successful

Jerry D. Simmons — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 22:10:59 +0000

Publishing is a very competitive business and the choices for getting a manuscript into print are numerous. Everyone who writes has to make a decision on what’s best for them and their manuscript or book, but the decision should be based on their personal goals and not what someone else is trying to sell you. There are plenty of so-called “experts” who only have themselves in mind, so choose wisely and keep in mind these seven crucial points.

First: Publishing and marketing of books is a business. It’s about making money and the last thing you want as an author is to have the “experts” taking money out of your pocket selling you products and services that can’t hold water in the marketplace for bookselling.

Second: If you decide that New York is where you want to be as an author and you find an agent, the business is interested in good stories, not great writing. Having the talent to string words together in a way that defies description is wonderful, but that alone doesn’t sell. Publishers are looking for good stories: the only thing they can sell.

Third: There care clearly two parts to being an author. The first is improving your storytelling skills to the point where you are ready to publish. Secondly, you have to be willing to actively market and promote your book. Publishers require it, your audience demands it, and there is no other way around it. If you want to do nothing but write, keep your day job because that is not the road to success in publishing.

Fourth: Place yourself in a position to succeed. Become a student of the marketplace so you can speak intelligently about the business. Bookstores are your laboratory, visit regularly and observe. The more you visit the quicker you will start to see changes in the market. Read your competition, not the bestsellers but the authors you never heard of who occupy a place on bookstore shelves in the category in which you write.

Fifth: You have choices on how to publish your work; don’t be foolish, but follow your heart. Your choice depends on your personal goals, so follow your dream.. Anything is possible. It takes information, knowledge of the market, and learning how to evaluate what makes sense and what doesn’t. The more information you obtain, the better decisions you will make.

Sixth: It is very easy to get published, but extremely difficult to market and sell books. Make good decisions based on solid information, and you will not fall victim to the “experts” looking to make a buck on your vulnerability. Spend a little for professional advice before you invest time and money in a venture that won’t get you where you want to go.

Seventh: There are no guarantees in publishing, never, not one. Anyone who tells you there are has only one thing in mind, to sell you something you probably don’t need. Stay as far away from these “experts” as possible, they are looking to take advantage of an unsuspecting writer and capitalize on your dreams which they don’t care about.

It’s not about just getting published, it’s about getting published correctly, in a way that makes sense in the marketplace, and fits your personal goals as an author. We’re not launching rockets, just publishing books. However, follow the successful path, seek expert advice before you make decisions, and you’ll save both time and money in the process. Remember, as an author the possibilities are endless and the opportunities boundless. You can become anything you want with the right information.

Jerry D. Simmons is the author of WHAT WRITERS NEED TO KNOW ABOUT PUBLISHING. He is the creator of TIPS for WRITING from the PUBLISHING INSIDER a free eNewsletter that can be found at WritersReaders.com. He is also the founder of the leading social networking website for writers, authors and readers NothingBinding.com. For comments or questions you can reach Jerry via email jerry@writersreaders.com.

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Three General Rules of Publishing

Jerry D. Simmons — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 21:40:50 +0000

The business of publishing is old world, mature, and has changed only incrementally over the past fifty years. One thing that can be said about publishing is that the biggest companies lead and the rest tend to follow. This is why little has changed in the way these publishers conduct business. The biggest are the most stodgy and the result is an industry that continues to shrink, while technology and the new marketing of the 21st century speed ahead.

Book are published, marketed, sold and distributed the same way they have been since the birth of the business. Certainly prices have changed dramatically, shipments are better coordinated, cover designs have evolved, merchandising has improved, but the basic business rules have not. Today there are still three general rules that apply to the business of publishing.

Rule number one: Every book is guaranteed to the bookseller, meaning, if they don’t sell at the bookstore, the publisher guarantees they’ll take them back. Returned books are as common place as paper and ink. Books have always been returnable. There are few if any retailers still in existence that will purchase newly published non-returnable books. The fallacy of this is that today, 2008, there are still some publishers that force their authors to pay several hundred dollars for the right to have their book considered returnable. Returnable books should be standard for any book contract. This is a clear example of how some publishers are not fluent in the ways of the business, and as a result they take advantage and prey on the pocketbooks of unsuspecting, and uninformed authors.

Rule number two: The business is about revenue, selling books. However there are two ways to look at revenue. For the Independent publishers and authors, revenue is when a book is sold and the money changes hands, that is a sale and represents the cleanest form of revenue. For the biggest publishers and all the others that want to compete in the marketplace, revenue is both gross and net. Gross is the number of copies multiplied by the cover price. This does not account for the returns that will eventually arrive at the publisher’s warehouse. The net price is what is left after all those books have been returned and counted. The big companies play with these numbers in a variety of ways and if you plan to compete in this market, you must be aware of this fact.

Rule number three: Bookseller real estate is for lease. When you walk into a bookstore and notice all those wonderful displays with multiple copies of the bestsellers, then you stroll down the aisles and look at the covers laying face up on the tables, keep in mind — this is not accidental. These retailers aren’t doing any favors. All of that space has been leased by the publisher of those titles for a specified period of time. In fact, virtually all of the floor space is for lease, if you can afford the price. Typically the front of the store is the most expensive real estate and the price goes down slightly as you move to the back of the store. Bottom line, retail space in major retailers, including bookstores and mass merchants, is for lease.

If you want to compete in the traditional marketplace, you must keep these three rules in mind: It’s how the business operates.

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Seven Things Authors Must Know to be Successful

Three General Rules of Publishing