Tag Archives: Advice

Publishers Are Just Outsource Providers To Authors

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Since there is so much confusion around publishing these days, I wanted to spell some things out for authors.

Beyond anything else, authors need to keep forefront in their minds that writing and publishing is a business. It is not some noble intellectual exercise, it is business. Now it might be a personal passion, noble intellectual exercise or just mental masturbation to you, but to the others you deal with it is a business. Understand this and so many things make sense.

In the light of writing and publishing as a business, all sorts of things make perfect sense. The reason mainstream publishers pay such poor royalties on eBooks is that it helps them make money and writers let them get away with it. The reason vanity presses rip off writers is to make money, using an ultimately self-destructive business strategy, but one that works in the short term, again because writers let them get away with it. And so it goes. To borrow from ‘The Godfather’, it’s not personal, it’s business.

So let’s define some terms.

A large, mainstream publisher is a company that takes on publishing your book, pays you for it and does not require that the author pay anything up front for the privilege. It is almost always part of a large, multi-national corporation and its motivation is to make money for its owners and shareholders.

An indie publisher may be a single author publishing his or her own titles or a small, independent (i.e.not part of some much larger conglomerate) publisher who, again, does not require payments from the author to publish a book. Indie publishers are out to make money too, but you are usually dealing directly with the owner(s) and many of these have a real passion for books and writing, rather than just being business people.

A service provider publisher, a ripoff artist or a vanity publisher, depending on your attitude, is a company that publishes your book under their name but who requires that the author carry the costs of producing the book. Because they give the illusion of being a real publisher people confuse these with such. These are really just playing on the needs of many authors for some sort of validation and the illusion that they have been published by a ‘real’ publisher. One needs to be very careful with such companies and especially careful over any rights that want control over. The reality is that you are paying for it, so all rights should remain with you.

An outsource provider offers a selection of the services needed to publish a book, from cover design and editing to marketing. They do not publish the book, but simply provide some of the services you may need.

A self-publisher is an AUTHOR who publishes his or her own books. They may or may not outsource much of the work to others, but they are the ‘publisher of record’ and control all rights to the title.

A printer prints and binds your books. They are an outsource provider, as is an editor, cover designer, marketer, etc.

A distributor distributes your book to other distributors, library sellers and retailers. In the ebook realm, Smashwords is both a distributor and a retailer. Lightning Source is a printer and distributor.

A retailer sells your book. Examples are Amazon, B&N and Smashwords, or your own website.

Now in the present circumstances there is, IMHO, little reason for an author to use a vanity press as I have defined it above. You are much better off to publish yourself, and thus be the publisher of record and know that you have FULL control over your own titles at all times. It allows you to build a brand over time. Most importantly it ensures that you have full control over your intellectual property. This is critical as the technology of book publishing and reading is changing rapidly and so you cannot predict just what rights you will need in future. Remember, the Kindle was only announced late 2007 and look at how it has changed the world of books.

Outsource as much of the publishing process as you need to. Remember that, as a business, you need to control costs to start making a profit on your books as quickly as possible (if at all).

I publish my own books as books, ebooks and apps. I also help other writers do the same, but I make sure that they are the publisher of record and I just provide the advice and services that they don’t want to do themselves. In the case of my titles I am the publisher. In the case of the other writers I help I am a service provider. I think this is very important and I could not morally do otherwise.

In the old days there were many benefits that an author got from their publisher in exchange for surrendering all the rights to their books. In some cases there still are today. But the equation has changed. Distribution is now not quite as locked up by the big publishers as it was, and certainly not in the ebook area. They provide less marketing support etc than they used to. In these times of rapid development in publishing it is, I think, critical for authors to recognise that everyone, from publishers to agents to editors are service providers to YOU. It is up to YOU to examine the proposition they offer and see if it is value for money.

The reality is that ebooks will become the main form of publishing for mass-market material in a very short time; it has already come on much faster than anyone expected it to. Print books will survive of course, but over time everyone will get used to buying at least some of their books online. The online world breaks down the old barriers to entry for self-publishers and, to a large extent, levels the playing field.

For authors whose titles are more likely to be read in print, the mainstream publishers still have a lot to offer in terms of distribution to bookstores. But remember that people are moving to ereaders far more rapidly than anyone thought possible several years ago.

Succeeding in writing, whatever that means to you personally, requires that you remove the starry eyed glasses and view the world as it really is.

Setting Targets

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Writing a book is a very substantial task. If you are going to get it done you will need discipline and defined targets.

There are two key quantifiable targets when it comes to book writing: word count and time.

Word count is perhaps the easiest to work out. If you have a target size for your book in mind (perhaps easier for non-fiction than fiction), pick an existing book of roughly the size and layout that you have in mind. Count the number of pages (don’t include the blank pages for layout purposes). Take a typical page and count how many words are on the page. Multiply this by the number of pages and you have a very rough word count. A relatively small paperback novel will have around 55,000 words (James Herbert’s The Rats, his first novel, is this size). A more substantial novel may be 90,000 words and huge ones even larger. Non-fiction books typically have a lower word count for the same number of pages because most will include illustrations and photographs. Some books will easily fill over half the space with photographs. Books for young children will have even fewer words.

This word count can be a very useful tool as you write. All word processor programs will display a word count. Microsoft Word can be set to display this in the status area below the active text window. It can serve as a progress indicator and help you meet your writing targets. In the case of non-fiction writing it can help you greatly in balancing parts of the book, as you may, for example, desire roughly equivalent sizes for various parts, sections or chapters of the book. If you select a block of text, Word will display the word count of just that section.

Time is a much trickier prospect but is essential to manage unless you want to be one of those authors with an unfinished manuscript sitting in a drawer or on your hard drive. In his book ‘On Writing’, Stephen King says that he aims to finish a first draft of a book in three months. He believes that over any longer time it is hard to keep the momentum going and take a character-driven approach to writing his fiction. This seems completely reasonable to me for fiction and his approach of not doing editing as he goes but just getting the first draft down as it comes. Three months is 90 days, so if you are aiming for a roughly 90,000-word novel you will need to get down 1,000 words a day, every day. Now as in everything else in life, it is critical to know yourself, to be realistic about your time availability and commitments. It may be that for you 500 words a day and a six-month target is more appropriate. Only you can tell. I find that putting in the hard work is much easier when an end is in sight and the duration is not too long. Three months is probably good psychology, as it represents one season and it seems that much of the way people really work is seasonal. Remember that the way you like to work will affect your output. When writing non-fiction I tend to like to edit and revise as I go, so it may take me longer to get to the target word count but the text is cleaner (I hope).

Writing is no easy task and just how hard it is becomes obvious when you work out a word count and target time scale. Of course for articles rather than books the task is much easier, though still daunting for the beginning writer. Every writer falls into a pattern of work that function for them. You want one that plays to your strengths and works around your weaknesses. I’m still coming to grips with how I write fiction. My non-fiction process is nicely developed:

  1. Basic concept development
  2. Initial research
  3. Outline development of major headings
  4. Detailed research
  5. Filling out the sections, sometimes revisiting steps 3 and 4

Whether this remains my approach with fiction remains to be seen, with outline development of major plot points replacing item three. My intention is to try both this and character driven flow and see which one works for me.

One thing to remember with writing is that it is a mix of skill and creativity. Skill can be learned and benefits from practice. Creativity also benefits from exercise, so as many have said write a lot and it gets easier. It is very hard to write a book if you have trouble writing a letter.

Learning to Write and the Evils of Spellcheckers

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Writing well is a combination of art and craft. Art because it is highly creative and expressive, craft because there are underlying processes and principles that you need to work with to be effective. These are true for both fiction and non-fiction, and even the technical writing that I have spent so long doing.

Just as in all other forms of creative endeavor, there are underlying rules and guidelines. With writing these address spelling, grammar, logic, structure and development. To be an effective writer you need to know these. Over the coming months I will be posting reviews of a series of books that range from essential to extremely useful.

No one is perfect and everyone makes mistakes. This is as true in writing as it is in everything else. I know I do. I make spelling mistakes, mess up grammar and write convoluted sentences that made sense to me when I wrote them. This is why the concept of a draft is so important. A draft is not a finished piece; it is a work in progress. Now there are two approaches to writing your first draft of anything from a book to a magazine article. The first involves writing the whole thing without revision as you go. You get it down as is, mistakes and all. The second involves making revisions and corrections as you go. I believe which approach suits you will depend on your personality, but also on the way you write. I take the second approach of constant revision as I go. I write at the computer and so it is all there, in front of me as I write. I find it hard to resist re-reading what I have already written and have to fix mistakes as I see them. If you write by dictating into a tape or digital voice recorder, as many do and I am about to start trying, you may not have this option. Also many writers find the editing process too disruptive to the flow of consciousness as they write. Both approaches are valid: find what suits you.

Another area of difference of approach between people is the degree of planning they do before they start writing. Again, there is no right or wrong, just whatever works for you. Some people like to just sit and start writing, probably after a lot of thinking first. Others like to plan and structure things out first, and then start writing with a clear goal and structure already in place. Both can work well. I write both ways. Perhaps that means I am schizophrenic, but I think rather it reflects the different types of writing I do. For example, this piece is being written with no pre-planning, just my stream of consciousness as I write. On the other hand, my current book projects were heavily planned before I started writing and I am constantly reviewing and comparing what is going in with the preplanned structures and approach. For me I believe which approach I like depends on the length of the piece. Short pieces, up to perhaps 2,000 words, I tend to just write. Longer pieces I tend to think out first, structure and plan, and then write.

Good writing requires reflection and self-examination. Writing is a juggling act. On the one hand you need some ego to want to put your thoughts out there. On the other hand too much ego gets in the way of good writing. This is also true of teaching, and I tend to consider writing and teaching as just two different aspects of the same thing (except for fiction). You address this by always being a watcher of yourself, examining your motives, your thinking and how you are expressing yourself. Another thing that is common to both writing and teaching is the need to be entertaining and engaging. If your writing is so convoluted and complex that no one gets it, then you have failed. This is especially a failure of much academic and so-called literature. It is so self-referential and up itself that no sensible person would read it. It is possible to make all writing interesting, entertaining and engaging. You just need to work at it.

Let’s return to the issue of mistakes. Many mistakes in your writing you can catch yourself. Go back and re-read what you have written carefully. Does it flow? Does it make sense? Is the language suitable for the intended audience? Check spelling and don’t just rely on the spell checker, as it will not pick the mistake of using loose and lose, for example, as they are both correct spellings, for example. If at all possible get an experienced reader to look over your writing. Ask them to not only spot spelling and grammar mistakes, but to also comment on flow and clarity. When I edited print magazines I always had a sub-editor who would look over my edits. I miss that since moving out on my own and will certainly hire one again as soon as the cash flow allows. But even getting your spouse or a friend to read through something will help. They may not pickup all the subtle grammar issues but they are perhaps more likely to reflect your intended audience and will certainly spot the obvious mistakes. My wife keeps nagging me to do this more, but in the flow of writing on the web I often forget to do this, and then my readers point out the issues. Well, if I were perfect I wouldn’t be on the earth plane.

For many of us formal writing study is in our distant school past. Thankfully it is not hard to compensate for this with a bit of reading. I have set myself the task of developing my fiction writing skills. So I have disciplined myself to read one book of good fiction and then to follow this with a book about writing before I can read the next piece of fiction. I intersperse this with non-fiction reading, both magazines and books (mainly on photography and related areas). My favorite magazines are New Scientist, an excellent UK science weekly, and then a wide scattering of magazines in the architecture, art, religion, spirituality, photography and business areas. I love variety. One interesting think I have discovered is that what I am reading about writing good fiction is also helping me to write better non-fiction. After all, writing is writing.

For a writer, reading is a great source of education. So even as I read for entertainment or information, I also try to analyze the writing. Is it appropriate? How has the writer decided on this approach? What can I learn from their approach? I take notes, I think and reflect.

As I work on my writing I am finding that I am enjoying it more and more.