I have hundreds and hundreds of articles stored on my computer. Most of them relate to writing, publishing and book promotion. In the last eight years alone, I’ve posted over 1,750 blogs. I constantly come up with new article, blog and book ideas. But occasionally, I find it worthwhile to go back and revisit some of my topics. That’s what I’m doing today.
Here’s a message that’s worth repeating.
Following are 7 mistakes that many new authors make—mistakes that can cost you large sums of money and dramatically diminish your opportunity for publishing success.
1: Inexperienced authors write a book as the first step. Why is this considered a mistake? If you aspire to have your book published and widely distributed, this may be the wrong approach. Whether you’re writing a how-to book, biography, self-help, romance novel, children’s story, mystery, memoir or dictionary, write a book proposal first.
In the process of writing a book proposal, you will:
• Learn if you have a viable book at all.
• Discover whether there is a market for this book.
• Determine your target audience.
• Ascertain the best way to promote your book.
• Understand more about establishing your platform.
Write a book proposal as a first step and you’re more apt to write the right book for the right audience. How better to snag a traditional royalty publisher than with a promising project?
2: Eager new authors often go with the first publishing opportunity they stumble across. You don’t make other business decisions this quickly. You research the possibilities and study your options. Many authors forget that publishing is a business. We get so attached to our projects and so eager to see our books in print that we act emotionally rather than logically.
Learn the difference between a traditional royalty publisher and a pay-to-publish service. You’ll find hundreds of traditional royalty publishers listed in Writer’s Market (available in the reference section of your library or for sale for about $30 in most bookstores. A new edition comes out each September). There are other directories available online and in book form.
Visit bookstores in search of books like yours. Find out who published these books and contact those publishers.
As an author, you have many options. Research them, understand them and scrutinize them in order to choose the one that is right for your project.
3: New authors believe that they don’t have a chance with a traditional royalty publisher. This is simply not true. If you have a viable project, you arm yourself with knowledge and you approach the publisher in a professional manner, you have a definite chance of landing a traditional royalty publisher.
Find publishers who produce books like yours. Study their Submission Guidelines. Follow these guidelines in approaching them with your project. If they request a query letter first, do NOT send your complete manuscript. If you don’t understand what goes into a query letter, study books and articles about writing a query letter. Get help from a professional. I can help you, for example. PLFry620@yahoo.com
There are hundreds of small to medium-sized publishers eager for good, marketable books. For example, everyone knows that poetry books are a hard sell. Yet, Writer’s Market lists over 40 traditional royalty publishers who publish books of poetry. There are at least 125 publishers of mysteries and about the same number who produce historical novels. There are over 200 traditional royalty publishers that publish biographies and more than 175 who produce children’s books. Encouraging, isn’t it?
I’ll continue with items 4-7 tomorrow.