by Kim Michael
IT IS NOT AN UNCOMMON aspiration in wanting to write a book, particularly for people in a particular industry, who have a vast amount of experience and a valuable perspective, yet many don’t know where to begin or how to go about it. There have been many books (many good books) and articles on writing, so much so that I don’t feel it necessary to go into the actual mechanics of it, but there are a few basic points that are often left out and they are my impetus for writing this article.
WHAT IS YOUR MOTIVATION FOR WRITING?
So the first question is, “Why do you want to write a book?” Do you want to inform, or inspire, or become rich? If this is your first book the likelihood of the later (of becoming rich) is probably not going to happen—at least in the way you may think. The real value in a well-written industry book is in how it enhances your profile in the market space, whether raising your visibility as a business owner, or in the company that employs you, or some future employer. It becomes the engine that drives your increased “professional” value, which in turn drives more speaking or presenting opportunities, which in turn drives more visibility, which in turn drives more book sales and better income opportunities. Each becomes the engine/driver for the other. This is where the true value in publishing is found and how even a book, and a few book sales, can drive your career to greater success.
CREATING EXPOSURE–GETTING HEARD IN A BUSY WORLD
Although I am a big advocate of self-publishing, my recommendation is to test the waters before deciding to go that route. Make a list of agents and publishers (there are many listed on the Internet and in agent books) and see what interest you can muster. If you can sign with an agent or publisher, so much the better, they will offer you more options as far as advice, constructive criticism, and a platform that is already established, but know upfront, new writers take a backseat to their more established authors and to an established agent or publisher, you are an untested commodity, and they will likely not invest much in you until you have proven yourself.
SELF ADVOCACY
Even if you do sign with an agent or publisher, plan to work as if you are on your own. You need to be your own best advocate. Write your own press releases, reach out to venues where you can speak or present, do interviews, conferences, make use of any and every available tool to put your book in front of the public. Make a list of all the “free” exposure events you can find and hit them first, before buying ads or putting your money into advertising. Don’t wait for the agent or publisher to do it for you because they won’t. I have found that every agent and/or publisher will respect you and work with you more, when they see you are as serious about your book as you want them to be.
IS SELF-PUBLISHING “RIGHT” FOR ME?
Now if you do finally decide to “self- publish”, look at the options. There are plenty of “Indy” Independent Self Publishing platforms out there, publishers that will take your manuscript and create a book for you, but look at their circulation and what they are truly offering. You make more money per copy by self-publishing, often 30% to 50% (or more) opposed to around 10% to 15% with a name publisher, but the release with a well known publisher at 10% to 15%, is still greater because of volume, than selling only a few copies at 50%. That’s why many authors will still choose the known publisher over independent publishing, when it is an option.
NOTE: For some perspective, independent publishers say a successful book is one that sells 200 copies sold. A book with great sales is 500 copies and above. You will make some money, but not enough to live on. The greater value is in what publishing can do for you, your company, and your career.
Also it is important to note that some independents limit your ownership or “rights”, and you need to be aware of each one’s nuance in the industry. Read the fine print so you don’t get trapped. When your book is ready to market, find out how it is released to the public. If you want it to sell it solely on the Internet, it will be different than if you just want copies to sell at public speaking appearances, or to sell off your web page. Just make sure that the platform they offer does what you want it to do.
ALWAYS BE PROFESSIONAL
Even before you start writing, take time to understand how publishers like to see submissions. Every publisher is different, and even if you end up self-publishing, the day may come when your book is picked up by a name publisher and you will need to have a professional manuscript and all the additional material that goes with it.
There was a time when publishers would accept hand written manuscripts. Today, I know of no agent or publisher who will even look at a handwritten manuscript, or even a poorly formatted version. Most publishers and agents receive hundreds of submissions each year, and reading a manuscript that is not formatted properly ends up in the garbage long before it ever sees the light of day.
NOTE: I heard of a publisher who claimed that one book submission sent to him was so bad he had to rewrite it just to throw it away. He was joking of course, but it underscores the distain that most agents and publishers have for new authors who don’t make the investment in learning how to be “professional”.
If you query publishers or agents, make sure that your manuscript’s topic is in that publisher or agent’s wheelhouse. If they don’t have a market for your book, no matter how good it is, it is dead on arrival.
Go to libraries or bookstores and find books similar to yours and then see who the publisher is, or the agent is, don’t just go for the biggest publisher name, a small publisher or new agent with a reputable agency behind them can do wonders and they have more of a reason to see you succeed. All of this will help you spend your time wisely when querying prospective publishers or agents. Once you find a potential agent or publisher, do the research. Not all agents and publishers are legitimate.
FINDING YOUR VOICE
Find your niche’. If you write what everyone else is writing you will soon be just one of many. Having a unique topic, or a unique voice, and a clear and succinct way to express your ideas, is how you separate yourself from the rest of the crowd.
KEEP IT SIMPLE. When John F. Kennedy wrote “Profiles In Courage” he said in an interview that he wanted to write the book that even a fourteen year old could read and understand. Sometimes new writers try to impress their readers with industry jargon and complex wordings. You may very well impress your readers on the first page or two, but they will soon lose interest and stop reading. Never feel like you need to “dumb it down”. Writing about complex ideas in a simple and easily understood way is an art, and the sooner you embrace this idea, the sooner you will get your readers to go past the first page.
NOTE: “A MEDIOCRE writer takes simple ideas and makes them complex. A GREAT writer takes complex ideas and makes them simple.”
Ideas grow from ideas and your manuscript must build on itself in an understandable and logical progression. We all think in increments of only a few seconds and unfocused ideas can easily run off in tangents that will lose your readers. Look for continuity in your writing. Does your manuscript become a road map that builds your ideas in a logical progression, or does it end up in places you never intended to go?
OVERCOMING BEING OVERWHELMED!
Writing a book, or even an article, can be overwhelming for a new writer when looking at it in its entirety, and frankly, that is the reason why most would-be writers never begin. I have learned the best way to write is in segments, using an outline. Separating each idea or sub-topic into chapters and then treating each as if it is a “stand alone” article, somewhat like writing an essay on each with a bridge to the next idea or chapter. As you write this will likely change, and that is ok. It means that your writing is evolving into a life of its own.
It is not uncommon during the editing process to find that you have to move certain items around to keep the ideas flowing properly and for the progression to make sense. If you find a certain chapter can stand alone on a specific idea or topic, consider using it as an article that you can publish on social/business platforms such as LinkedIn or other other industry publications that accept submissions from new authors. The added exposure will boost interest in your writing, and moreover, give you valuable feed back on the relevance of your topic. But beware, if you publish a single chapter as an article, make sure you can also publish it later on as part of a book. Some magazines have “reprint” stipulations that can become problematic later on down the road.
REJECTION
It is a forgone conclusion that at one point or another you will face REJECTION. I mention this not to discourage you, rejection is simply a challenge that you need to be aware of so if and when it happens, you are not discouraged by it. Virtually every writer has received a rejection letter, in fact, many rejection letters. Don’t take it personally. Many of the greatest books ever written have been turned down by some publisher or agent, and learning from rejection is a great way to perfect your craft, though it must also be taken with a grain of salt. Learn to sort out valid rejections from those that are less inspired.
Although it is a novel, John Grisham was turned down by so many publishers that he decided to publish his first book himself–“A Time To Kill”. Once it was released it filtered through the industry until one day it was picked up by a name publisher and went on to become a best seller.
IS MY WRITING MARKETABLE?
WHO IS YOUR AUDIENCE?
The more complex your topic the fewer readers you will have. Know who your audience is, and if numbers are important to you, be cognizant of what the yield in potential sales might be.
The wider the interest in your topic, the more potential readers you will have. I have a cousin who is a professor of methodology at a university in upstate New York. He flies all over the world working with “think tanks” to develop methods of thought, and though he is not an expert on many of the topics they work on, he specializes in giving them a structure in which to organize and explore their ideas. He writes extremely complex books for a very limited audience and I once asked how about his book sales and he said all twenty people that bought it…loved it.
RELEVANCE: WHAT DO YOU KNOW THAT IS IMPORTANT TO SOMEONE ELSE?
Writing for an audience means you first must consider what is important to them. It is easy to get lost in “you” and what you want to say, rather than what your reader wants and needs to hear. You must constantly double back and ask yourself, what is the importance of this idea to my readers? Writing on ideas or topics that are important to your readers is called “relevance”. If what you write has no relevance to your readers, you won’t have readers.
RESONANCE
Connecting with your reader is both factual and emotional. Unlike “white papers” which are straight forward and informational in nature, a book or article needs a bit more of the author’s personality. The tone is more conversational and emotional, depending on the topic, and the idea of being conversational means talking “to” rather than talking “at” your reader. I have always said, “The best book or article is one in which the reader forgets he or she is reading.”
Still writing in a conversational manner does not mean a “true” conversation. Very few of us speak without what I call “speed bumps” meaning non words that tie ideas together like “ah” or “um” or “you know”. In normal conversation we do not notice them as much, but in written form they are stopping points where the reader pauses and the flow of the idea is interrupted. Anything that stops a reader from reading: a misused word, a clumsy sentence, or even incorrect punctuation; can have a degrading effect on the transfer of an idea. Interestingly, most people, once they become aware of this, often learn to remove these speed bumps even from their normal unwritten conversation.
BOOK LENGTH
It has long been considered that the proper length for a book is about 200 pages or about 50,000 words. My personal thought, and an idea that I think is far more marketable, is a shorter book–20 to 100 pages, something that can read while waiting to catch a plane, or on a flight, or in a single sitting. It eliminates the need to add “filler” yet gives the reader more information, in a more succinct and concise way. The biggest constraint on a professional reader is “time” and writing books that are designed to accommodate the time a professional individual has to read, will dramatically improve the chances of that person buying your book. Though many established publishers push back on this idea, as a self-published author you can push the boundaries and make your books far less expensive to produce, and far more likely to be read.
THE MONUMENTAL TASK OF EDITING
Editing is probably the most critical phase of good writing. Every word, every sentence is important, and the term “less is more” is highly applicable in the writing process. Most publishers and agents don’t even want to see a manuscript unless it has been reviewed and edited at least four times by the author, and even then you will miss a lot. You can’t just rely on just spell check, it will only catch misspelled words, but it will not find words that are spelled correctly but misused–a classic example is “you” and “your”.
Editing is expensive and if you don’t have the luxury of having a real editor, at least have someone read your work other than you, emphasizing that you are more interested in what is wrong with your writing than what is right. Even non-professionals will catch things that you miss, or if an idea is not clear.
Every writer, no matter how good they are, will miss typos or misused words. Once a manuscript is written our brains become so conditioned to seeing ideas rather than words that we are blind to the individual mistakes we make, even upon multiple readings. People seeing your work for the first time don’t have the same preconditioning and as a result will see mistakes that your brain has not allowed you to see.
A friend and publisher once told me, at the very least, walk away from it for a few weeks and then read it again, imagining yourself as the reader picking up the book for the first time. Sometimes it is a painful experience, but necessary, if you are to master your craft.
OTHER IMPORTANT POINTS TO CONSIDER
When writing a book, the book text is not the only thing you will need to write. Some new writers overlook these additional responsibilities until they are requested and then it is a mad dash to create them. Stay ahead of the curve by allowing yourself time to carefully craft each of them before they are needed. They are:
THE AUTHOR BIO–The Author Bio is a short one or two paragraph, third party blurb, on who you are and your credentials for writing the book.
THE SYNOPSIS–The infamous one or two page synopsis is what your book is about (ideally one page). Double spaced if possible but no less than 1.5 spacing if room becomes an issue. It is important to remember, particularly if you are querying publishers or agents, this is what they read before they read your book, so it must be written well and I find it one of the most difficult things to write.
NOTE: A worthy exercise that a publisher once shared with me is to reduce the entire book to a single page-then to a single paragraph-then to a single sentence-and finally–a single word.
Nothing will crystalize your writing more than this exercise and it is difficult to do and do well, but when done, the mission statement for your book will be somewhere between the single sentence and the single paragraph.
THE “QUERY LETTER” –If you are reaching out to agents and publishers, even if you end up self-publishing, learn how to write a good query letter. There is an art to writing a unique and motivating query letter and it is a valuable sales tool in promoting your book. Even if you self-publish much of it can be used on the inside panel of your book cover and possibly on the back. Just as it functions as a sales tool for publishers and agents, it can also serve as a sales tool to motivate readers to buy your book.
BOOK COVERS–Many first time authors rely on the publisher to produce a book cover for them, whether it be self-published or with a name company. However once you do this, the cover is out of your control. The cover of a book is a very personal thing and not to be taken lightly. Your cover is the first “visual” of your work to a potential reader and it can make or break your book’s success. Take time to think about how you want it to look; what graphics will likely pique a reader’s curiosity to pick it up and glance through it. Having done a number of book covers for authors, I know the critical role a good cover can play and how important it is in reflecting the author’s intent and professionalism. A well-known motivational author once said that he liked to come up with a title and a book cover even before writing his book, and he would actually have a copy made, and have it sitting on his desk as a visual motivation.
PRESS RELEASES:–There are a multitude of articles on the Internet on how to write a successful one-page press release. Again, it is important to know that a press release is a key sales tool in the marketing of your book; and introducing your work to publicity agents, whether they be for newspapers, radio or television events, or speaking engagements, will often be the difference between being highly visible on a public stage, and not being seen at all. A great press release opens the media door to what the public sees and hears, and the more professional you appear, the more they will buy into what you have to say.
THE RESIDUAL AFFECT —My first book took over ten years to write: eight years to read about and to learn the process, and another two years to actually write the book itself. A residual affect of all that work (and one I did not expect) was how it changed how I wrote even simple emails or letters. Suddenly my communications were more succinct and clear, even my reports became more crisp and professional. It even affected the way I organized thoughts in my mind. And more interestingly, I found I also learned significantly more about the topics I wrote about, when I subjected them to the intense forensic thought processes that is needed to actually write about a topic, rather than just read about it.
IT IS NEVER TOO LATE TO START
No matter what time constraints your life has on it, if you want to write…write! Don’t wait! The career building impact of writing and publishing is infinitely more valuable “during” your career than at the end of it. You can always make time for what is important, but know up front there will be a challenging learning curve and much of what you write will initially be bad. But as with most meaningful endeavors, you must be “bad” before you can become “good”. It seems, excellence comes with its own dose of humility. Yet when you finish that first book, when you cross that first finish line, you will have done what many only dream of doing, but few ever accomplish. When I finished my first book after ten years of constant work, writing and rewriting, of reading and learning what I needed to know to become an author; I looked at that last page, that last sentence, and that last word, and whispered to myself–“I did it.” There is no greater feeling in the world than saying those three words.
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