(Estimated reading time, 2 glasses of wine)
So pour a glass of wine and read on.
It’s all about the
money
Keep in mind that publishing is a business designed to make
money. Agents and publishers don’t just publish books to make people feel good,
they want to know if your book will sell and make money. It’s that
simple. Always keep that in the back of your mind when going through this
process.
How the publishing
industry works – the basic version
·
A publishing house will work with you to get your
book finished and to print.
·
They work closely with a distribution company to
work on the ‘sales’ angle for your book and then the distributor ‘sells’ the
book to bookshops and retail outlets.
·
A bookshop will buy a certain number of copies
and if after a set number of months, if there are any copies left, they can send
the books back to the publisher and get a refund. Some distributors will charge
a ‘return postage fee’ which may affect how many books the bookshop will initially
order.
·
The publisher will arrange promotion and
publicity.
·
With assistance from the publisher / agent the
author will develop an author platform to run complimentary to promotion
and publicity.
·
You get paid a royalty (percentage) of each book
sale. Usually 10% paid twice yearly.
Know your book.
It’s important to know where your book fits into the scheme
of things. Is it fiction or non fiction? What genre does it fit into? What other books
are out there like yours? Visit book shops
to see what’s out there. Do a Google search for similar genres and categories. It’s
about learning how to describe your book in a quick and easy fashion. Like an elevator
pitch where you only have 30 seconds to describe your book to a stranger.
Publisher or agent?
Firstly you have to decide if you either want to start with a
Literary Agent who champions your book on your behalf or go straight to a
publisher. However if you go to the publishers first and they reject you, you
can’t go and pitch to an agent, because if the publishers reject your work, then
an agent won’t able to ‘sell’ it to the publishers if they’ve already rejected
it. It’s complicated. Top up your wine.
Literary Agents:
Having an agent is
like having your very own manager. They champion you and your books to
publishers and have your best interests in mind. They make their money by
taking a percentage of your royalties, yet they can usually help negotiate a
better percentage with a publisher than what you could have done yourself,
so it all balances out. All the top authors
have a literary agent, however, unfortunately they are very reluctant to take on
unpublished authors or unsolicited manuscripts. There are also only a handful
of Literary Agents in Australia which makes it almost impossible to get one if
you’re not known or even moderately known.
Traditional Publishers:
Examples include Random House, Allen and Unwin, Penquin etc.
They pay and arrange for everything, including manuscript
review and advice, editing, spellchecking, cover design, typesetting, distribution,
promotion and publicity. You get around 10% in royalties per physical book and
you don’t have to pay out anything. You also get other royalties such as
ebooks, overseas rights and subsidiary rights ie audio books, film rights etc. The
publisher works with a distributor to get your book into bookshops and the
online bookshops. However the publisher will offer you a contract on their terms
and if you don’t have very good negotiating skills and you don’t know what you’re
doing you could get diddled. Check out the Australia Society of Authors information about author contracts
Self publish / print on demand.
With this model, you have to arrange everything (editing,
cover design, printing etc) however you get to keep most of the cash! You could
either pay thousands to get your books printed and fill up your garage or do POD
(Print on Demand) via Amazon etc. Unfortunately
you won’t be able to get your books into the bricks and mortar retailers. If
your book is just text only, you may want to look at doing an ebook and
uploading straight to Amazon and other ebook sites. There are some incredible
success stories of authors publishing straight to Amazon and then being offered
a publishing contract with a traditional publisher. AG Riddle is a perfect example. However with this model, you have to do all
the publicity and promotion yourself which is time consuming and may cause you
to consume lots of wine.
However there are some great books out there on promotion
such as Emma Noble’s book, The DIY PR guide.
Vanity Publishing
They look and feel like a traditional publisher, yet they
expect you to pay some of the costs upfront. They may not have the relationship
with a distributor so it’s harder to get your book into bookshops if at all. I know
of a few people that have been burnt or have been left disappointed by going down
this path. Look out for words like ‘Hybrid
Publisher ‘, ‘assisted self publishing’ and the like. It can be a minefield
and some vanity publishers may be genuine and give your manuscript the attention
and criticism that any self respecting traditional publisher would give, but
most don’t. They just want your money and will often accept any manuscript no natter how good or bad. Don’t confuse hybrid publishers with
hybrid authors. Hybrid authors use a combination of traditional and self
publishing. Research the topic well. It may involve more wine. Read more about it.
Getting started
If you want to go down the Traditional Publishing route
(highly recommended) It’s best to Google all the publishers in Australia. Read
their submission guidelines and stick to them! They’re very picky.
The guidelines usually involve (but not always) 4 things:
1.
An
introductory letter. This is very
brief, less than one page and you have to sell your book, and yourself, in only a
couple of paragraphs.
2.
The Book
Pitch. This is the most important aspect of the whole process. You may have a sensational manuscript, but if
the pitch is boring as cold porridge, then it’s not going to do you any
favours. Google about how to write a
book pitch or just email me josh@outsidecreative.com.au
and I’ll email you the ones I’ve done for non fiction. You don’t need to
reinvent the wheel, just use what’s already out there as a guideline.
3.
An Author
Bio. Again Google the best way to write an author bio. These are the
hardest to write as it has to be in 3rd person (Josh is a prolific writer having published 5 books and drinks too much
wine etc) and you have talk yourself
up. Once you’ve written several versions, run them past your partner or a
friend and get their thoughts. Here’s a place to start.
4.
Sample
chapters: Again depending on the submission guidelines, usually you’re
requested to send the first 3 chapters so they can get an idea of whether the
book is remotely interesting, if it'll be would profitable, and it gives them an idea of your
writing style. If they’re interested they’ll request the rest of the manuscript
to read and consider. It’s important that this is your best work! Check it for
spelling and grammar and make sure there are no typos.
Once you have to your ‘submission pack’ ready to go then
start hitting up the publishers and go to their submissions page. Often the big
ones like Harper Collins, Random house etc, don’t take unsolicited manuscripts
(meaning you can’t send to them direct) as they only accept submissions from
agents (or their submissions window maybe closed and may not reopen until 2028
by which time you could be dead). Yes I know; if agents don’t take unsolicited
manuscripts and neither do the big publishers, how the hell are you going to get
your foot in the door? Where there’s a will, there’s always a way.
Allen and Unwin has the Friday pitch: https://www.allenandunwin.com/about-allen-and-unwin/submission-guidelines/the-friday-pitch
Hachette has it’s submission window open: https://www.hachette.com.au/Information/ManuscriptSubmission.page
And many smaller publishers are quite happy to take
unsolicited manuscripts, like Big Sky Publishing, Echo Publishing,
Pantera Press, Text Publishing and many more. Google Publishers in Australia
and work out which ones publish your genre of book.
Also like their Facebook pages / Twitter pages etc and start
to engage with them by liking and commenting on their posts and tweets. However
don’t be an annoying twat.
I found my publisher by responding to a post they had made
on Facebook where I asked who the person was to send a submission to. I got a
name and an address, Bingo.
Pitching:
You pitch the same way as you do to an agent as you do a
publisher. However triple check the
submission guidelines.
Don’t pitch to more than 2 or 3 publishers at a time as it’s
considered ‘rude’ if you make a submissions editor get excited about your work
only then to tell them that another publisher has already offered you a
contract.
And with Agents only do one at a time. Wait for the
rejection / acceptance and then hit up another one. Most agents take between 4 and 12 weeks
to consider your submission. Yes that makes it a very lengthy and bloody boring
process and you could most probably get married and have 2 kids by the time one
finally accepts you. For a full list of
Literary Agents in Australia check out https://austlitagentsassoc.com/
Develop your author
platform.
Ok, pour another glass of wine.
I’ll only briefly touch on this one as it could make another
blog post altogether. It’s not enough to rely on your publisher to promote you unless
you’re JK Rowling, Stephen King or Jimmy Barnes, so you have to develop your
author platform and work it like a boss.
Basically an author platform is about how you interact with
your readers.
·
How personable are you? (Are you friendly? Are
you easy to work with? Do you like people?)
·
Social media (what platforms are you working?
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram? How many people to do you reach and how well do
your interact with them? Do you interact with other authors and people with
similar interests to your book?)
·
Public Appearances. (Do you do book signings,
talk at festivals, do radio , TV and press interviews?)
·
Blogs / websites: (Do you have a website or blog
where people can easily interact with you? Are you blogging and even commenting
on other people’s blogs? This blog post is an example of working the author
platform)
·
Other websites / news outlets and blogs. Do you
contribute stories or articles to other outlets and blogs?)
Any publisher or agent will be Googling your name like some crazed stalker to see if you already have a ‘presence’ and if your author platform is something they can work with. There is so more I could talk about but I’m sure your glass is getting nearly empty.
Now the positive
ending.
Persistence is the key to getting published. Keep trying,
trying and trying. If one avenue doesn’t seem be working, then try another
one. Be humble accept feedback and criticism. Take it on board and use it to improve
your work and your methods. Go to
writers festivals and ask other authors how they got published. Stalk them on
Facebook as well and be that curious but not too annoying fan that just wants
to know everything. Authors secretly love being asked these questions as it
makes them feel like they contributing something back.
Also checkout the links below:
Writers resources for each state: http://www.austwriters.com/AWRfiles/groups.htm
Australian Writers Centre: http://www.writerscentre.com.au/
Australian Society of Authors: http://www.asauthors.org/
That’s enough for now and your glass might need topping up, so if you have any other questions or want to tell me what a load of crap this is, or if you’re an agent and want to represent me, then feel free to email josh@outsidecreative.com.au
I want to see your name on a book spine and I’m sure you do
too.
About Josh Langley, author, illustrator and daydreamer.
After failing high school twice and spending a ridiculous
amount of time being unemployed, Josh went onto create a successful career as
an award winning radio creative writer spanning 20 years. However it was his
insatiable thirst to find the meaning to life and death and the insights he
received that led to the publishing of 3 illustrated books about happiness and two
nonfiction Bill Brysonesque travelogues of his adventures to find evidence of
the afterlife.
Josh has nearly finished his 6th book, How to Find Your Creative Mojo, which he
hopes will help everyday people express their creative passion without any fear.
Josh lives on 7 and a half acres in the South West of
Western Australia with his partner and a bunch of neurotic chickens.
No comments:
Post a Comment