YOUR MANUSCRIPT READY: NOW WHAT?

Your manuscript is not completely finished until it's really done.

There seems to be an unparalleled sense of accomplishment with finally completing your manuscript – after all, writing a book is never a walk in the park. It takes a lot of creativity, hardwork and focus to finish the writing process. 

However, a completed manuscript is not just the be-all and end-all of it, as it will still have to take on different forms. Two of the most important phases you will need for your manuscript is editing and proofreading. Once you will have done so, you will find that your manuscript will look different from what it originally was. A properly edited and proofread manuscript can greatly make for a marketable book.

Your book is a reflection of who you are as a writer, so you want to make sure your manuscript is completely spotless from any grammatical and spelling errors or construction problems.

Some writers are very good with editing and proofreading their own work. It is also commonplace to entrust your manuscript to a third-party editor, who will do the enhancements for you. There are a number of literary companies that offer professional services to help your book achieve the best form in its finality. They not only look for elements that may affect your manuscript (grammar, story line, character issues, information, etc.) but they also provide tips and advice as well.

Publishing a book is never easy and writing is just part of the big picture. This is why you need to make sure that your book is polished to perfection. After all, your aim is to publish a book that will not only sell, but will make people want to remember.

Edit it, rewrite it and improve it. You want to make sure that your work is truly book-worthy. This way, you won’t have too much a problem getting your book published.

image source: library.wustl.edu

SELF-PUBLISHING: 8 REASONS FOR FAILURE

by Peter Bowerman

Common, easy-to-avoid mistakes. Self-publishers make them all the time, and as a result, make the publishing process far more difficult than it needs to be. No, steering clear of these blunders won’t guarantee riches beyond your wild imaginings, but it’ll clear some of the more typical stumbling blocks from your path.

Mistake #1: You wrote an unnecessary book.
Harsh? Perhaps. But be honest. If we’re talking nonfiction (fiction is different), if there are already 20 titles on your subject, does the world really need a 21st? If so, how is yours different? Put another way, write a book people will want to read. If there are no books on your subject, that might be a really good thing, or it could be a sign that the market doesn’t exist, is too expensive to reach or otherwise won’t support the title well enough to make it profitable.

Mistake # 2: You have a bad book cover.
It is categorically impossible to overstate the importance of a good cover. More than 190,000 books are published every year. Those who wholesale, distribute, stock, and review books are constantly looking for reasons to cull the herd. A cover is the easiest place to start. I’ve always been mystified by self-publishers who invest copious amounts of blood, sweat and tears in their books and then settle for a crummy looking cover.

A safe strategy: Until you know differently for a fact, assume that you, as an author, wouldn’t know good design if it walked up and bopped you one. Hire a graphic design pro or, ideally, a full-time cover designer, NOT your cousin who’s artistic and not your printer’s in-house graphic designer (usually working on cookie-cutter template-driven designs, so your book will not only look amateurish but like a whole bunch of others).

Got a bookstore in the neighborhood? Visit it – with your designer if possible – and study the books on the shelves where yours would be. When cover designs catch your eye, figure out why they appeal to you and think about how to capture what works. Yes, getting a professional cover will cost you more, but if you’re in this game for the long haul and to make some bucks, it’ll be a pittance.

 Mistake # 3: Your title is lame.
Or weak, nondescript, confusing, boring, or bizarre. Any of which can hobble a book’s chances. If you’ve written a how-to book, make your title a promise: show what’s in it for the reader (e.g., The Well-Fed Writer, The One-Minute Manager, Chicken Soup for the Soul, Fix-It-and-Forget-It Cookbook). Entice the reader. If you’re just not creative in terms of titles, hire someone who is, like a professional copywriter.

 Mistake # 4: You didn’t hire an editor and a proofreader.
I don’t care how sure you are that your book is clean as a whistle, a good editor and a good proofreader (sometimes one and the same person) will find lots of errors you missed and will offer tons of constructive suggestions that never occurred to you. I promise. You may be a wonderful writer and have great things to say, but if your book is full of typos or grammatical errors, no one will read long enough to know that.

 Mistake # 5: You think small (Part One).
Since I began my self-publishing adventure in 1999, I’ve read or heard countless accounts of self-publishing “success” in newsletters and at meetings and conferences. Often, the “coup” was getting an independent bookstore to carry a few copies of a book or convincing a library to stock the title or landing a review in some minor publication. Nothing wrong with any of that.

But I say that celebrating any validation from the larger world, no matter how modest, is thinking small. Like all you deserve is the scraps. Lose that mindset. You have every right to be there. But if your goal is commercial success, while you need to think big, you need to be smart about it and craft a campaign that effectively reaches your target audience.

 Mistake # 6: You promote the old-fashioned way.
The standard book marketing/promotion template calls for hitting up mainstream media to land reviews, articles, radio/TV appearance, etc. That may make sense as part of a marketing campaign for a mainstream book. But if yours is a niche book, then here’s the truth: the average media pro doesn’t care about you.

Even if you do have a mainstream book, but you’re an unknown author, chances are still excellent they don’t care about you. An unknown author of a niche book?

The better way is targeting via the Internet. In a nutshell, identify your target audiences, figure out where they hang out online, contact the gatekeepers of those sites and work hard to land reviews, blurbs, interviews, green lights to write articles, etc. And then repeat. Over and over again.

 Mistake # 7: You think small (Part Two).
You’re not going to make your book a commercial success by sending out a few dozen copies for reviews, publicity and promotion. You need to think big numbers: 350-400 and up. Send out that many with carefully crafted materials to an intelligently targeted list, follow up diligently and something’s gonna happen.

Yes, 350-400 sounds daunting (When am I going to have a life? you wail), but keep in mind three things: (1) you’ll be sending these books out over a period of three or four years; (2) you can easily get one-third to one-half of that number out in the first few months, and most important, (3) you can do what I did and hire an intern to handle the marketing grunt work.

 Mistake # 8: You forgot that you have just ONE job.
I know it’s called self-publishing, but that doesn’t mean everything falls to you. As a self-publisher you have one job: Build demand for your book. Yes, you need to oversee the book production process (hiring creative pros to handle editing, layout, cover design, indexing, and printing), but once that’s done, most if not all tasks not specifically related to marketing (i.e., to building demand) should be delegated to someone else. That can mean Web design, warehousing, fulfillment, accounting, and more. You’ll be saner, have more fun, and boost your bottom line.

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WHY P.O.D. PUBLISHING IS RIGHT FOR YOU

There is nothing more gratifying than for a writer to have your own book published. The sense of accomplishment becomes even greater knowing that other people will read your work as well.

The idea that traditional publishing is the only respectable way to get that highly coveted achievement as a writer is but a thing of the past. Many aspiring authors keep dreaming, while some give up trying.

Of course, there is always self-publishing. While many think of this to be a rather poor alternative, a last resort among those who couldn’t push any more luck with traditional publishers. However, it has slowly proven itself to be a smarter option for authors.

Of course, the flak against self-publishing may still prevail especially among the orthodox thinking, but more people are getting more discerning nowadays.  Little by little, self-publishing has gained the respect it deserves and many have seen the benefits it provides.

Thanks to Print-on-Demand (POD) technology, where publishing a book no longer poses too much a gamble for the publisher – YOU. Perhaps the still-skeptics should stop and learn just how beneficial POD publishing can be. Print on Demand has, in fact, changed the face of publishing today. This doesn’t come as a surprise why, when all else fails, a smart author chooses POD. There are two main reasons:

CONTROL. Print-on-Demand allows you full control of your book. After all, it is your work. You cannot have the same privilege as when you sell your manuscript to a traditional publisher. This extends to controlling the number of books you want to have printed. Especially for those who simply want to do so for their friends or family to enjoy, making POD a smarter choice.

Also, if your traditionally published book does not sell, they have all the right to stop publishing your book and drop you off just like a hot potato. On the other hand, Print-on-Demand allows your title to never go out of print. Only you have the control to stop selling it.

PROFIT. Standard self-publishing instills hefty financial investment in inventory and yet leave you to do all the work in terms of distribution and promotion. Such is not the case for Print-on-Demand. With a reasonable investment, you can now have your title published.

Moreover, you save yourself from all that stress as they take care of your book’s marketing and distribution too. POD publishers also pay you higher royalties for every copy sold compared to traditional publishers.

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TIPS ON WRITING A BOOK

Unsure how to go about writing your book? Here are some tips:

When writing a book, there is no rule of thumb on the number of pages or its chapter length, regardless of genre. However, there are some important things that you need to keep in mind when determining your book’s chapter length and page count.

PAGES

Consider the reader’s attention span. There are readers, many of them, who read ‘on the go’ – it could be on their way to work or while having lunch. They are those who enjoy chapters that they can finish within ten or fifteen minutes.

Setting your chapter length may depend on the amount of time it takes to finish reading the material. For example, if it is more than fifteen minutes, you might want to split your chapters into two. This should work well when writing a non-fiction book.

Keep in mind that writing a fiction and non-fiction book is entirely different. Fiction book writing requires the use of shorter chapters, some only a page, if only to immerse the reader into the story. On the other hand, writing a non-fiction book requires a more detailed content, specific to your chapter title or heading.

While it is good to set your chapter pages to twenty, perhaps the most important thing that you need to consider is to incorporate everything relating to a specific topic in a chapter, so as to sum it all up without the shilly-shally. For instance, if you are writing a book about makeup, include all there is you need to write about eye makeup. Tips on applying cheek blush should be in another chapter.

CHAPTERS

There is actually no given rule when setting the chapter length of your book. However, for your work to be considered a book instead of a booklet, your word count should be at least 10,000. In addition, you can create two volumes if your book has over 450 pages.

Submission of manuscript is usually done in a word-processing format, so a 300 word count can fit approximately one page of a 12-point font text, standard size, perfect-bound book. However, you cannot be completely certain of the final length of your book until your publisher will have formatted it for printing.

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AVOIDING MANUSCRIPT MISTAKES: PREPARING FOR PUBLICATION

A ‘spotless’ manuscript is necessary in order to avoid costly mistakes when self-publishing your book. This is why it is strongly advised that you edit your work, improve it and polish it to ensure that the publishing process goes as smoothly as possible. Here are several elements that you should not overlook when getting your book ready for publication.

COVER AND SPINE. Most books have a text printed in black and white. However, the cover can be printed in a different color, which can be daunting. Printers widely differ in terms of color cover specifications.

Pay attention to the size of your cover and its bleeds, or the amount of color running over the trim of your cover. For instance, if your cover is in blue, you will need an additional portion of the said color over the trim’s dimensions. In this manner, the color will go right to the edge of the cover even if your book is not cut to its exact size.

The colors used for your cover is another consideration as well. Most printers use the CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black) color process. Every color appearing is a percentage of the four colors.

The spine is another area where aspect that should be carefully looked upon. When done improperly, it could be painstaking to both the designer and the author. When creating a spine for your book, the rule of thumb is to have a minimum of 120 pages enough to incorporate the title as well as other pertinent information. Your spine should read easily when your book sits on a shelf.

MARGINS AND GUTTERS. A key to making your published look professional-looking and easy to read is to set your margins and gutters correctly. The gutter is the space between pages of a book or columns of type. Be generous when setting your gutter. Too small a gutter setting may crunch the center of the facing pages, making it difficult to read the text. Worse, you may end paying more for a full reprint if you don’t properly set your gutters. Prior to printing your book, make sure to check the gutters and get a proof copy.

PAGE SIZE. Decide in advance your page size, especially if your book has tables, charts or illustrations. Make sure that all your graphic or visual elements are easy to read. Some photos, when reduced in size, also become distorted. Pay attention to your book’s dimensions, taking the footers, headers, margins and gutters into consideration as well as the text area that should go with it.

PDF SETTINGS AND FONTS. Although almost all printers nowadays accept PDF files, it should match with your printer’s requirements for optimum results. This also applies to fonts. If your book comes with equations or special characters, check with your printer to see if there are no glitches. All fonts should be embedded and limited to two or three for best results.

Along with the author’s power to have full creative control of his/her book comes the responsibility of making sure that your work is as polished as can be. By keeping a close eye on every little detail of the publishing process, you save yourself time and money. More importantly, you are able to publish a book that truly reflects you.

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TOO YOUNG TO PUBLISH?

For someone who has a story to tell, does age really matter? Teenagers and even kids often find their tender age a serious drawback to getting published. After all, would someone so young be taken seriously when publishing a book?

Truth is, age is nothing but a number and it is never a hindrance to publishing your book. Your age neither defines the quality of your submission nor determine your chances of getting published. An advantage of publishing young is that there is less competition. If you have to wait until you reach legal age, chances are you will be competing with other adults whose stories may be far better than yours. Young as you are, however, there are things that you need to keep in mind.

Writing requires time and effort. Done with your first draft? Resist that sense of accomplishment just yet – that is only a part of the big whole. Stop at your tracks if you think of sending it off for publication. The first draft is hardly ever the best.

Get intervention. Have others review your work and ask them what they think. It could be your parents, a teacher or someone you can trust. They can help add some creative input to your story. Don’t get too overwhelmed if they praise your work. Take criticism and learn from it as well.

Patience, just as the ability to handle criticism, is important in being a professional writer and in publishing a book. By honing your craft more, you are more confident with getting your book in print. Read your draft over and over again. You will find that you need a lot of polishing to do. Reread it. Improve it. Rewrite it. Your work is not yet good enough until you learn to reread and rewrite many times over. By honing your craft more, you are more confident with getting your book published.

Regardless of age, publishing is never easy at all. Many good stories take years and years to get published; worse, do not find its way into print. The onset of self-publishing, however, has made publishing easier especially for young aspiring authors. Choose a self-publishing company that will truly take care of your publishing needs – from the entire book production, layout, printing down to the marketing of your book.

Lastly, since you are a minor, you will need to get your parent’s consent. They can help you pull all strings that you need to make the publishing process easy and enjoyable for you.

You are never too young to publish. Many young writers have gone on to become published authors. Brothers Miles and William Rabun published their book, My Grandma’s Backyard, when they were 10 and 8 years old, respectively. Dorothy Strait wrote How the World Began, making her the youngest published author. Christopher Paolini self-published his book, Eragon, which then became a bestseller.

Who knows, the next bestselling book could be yours.

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GETTING AN ISBN FOR YOUR BOOK

What is an ISBN?

The International Standard Book Number (ISBN) is a book identification system used for inventory control and sales tracking. Booksellers, schools and libraries also use the ISBN for processing orders as well. An ISBN is listed on the back cover of your book. It could also be on the inside front or on your book’s copyright page. In 2007, the ISBN has expanded from 10 to 13 digits consisting of five parts which identify the following:

-    the book industry
-    the country where your book was published
-    the publishing company
-    book title of edition of your book title
-    number validation

Why your book needs an ISBN

With so many published book titles available, your self-published book could have the same title as other book there is. This is where an ISBN comes in. If you plan to have multiple editions of the same book in future time, you will need an ISBN for it too.

Registering for an ISBN

There are 160 ISBN agencies all over the world. Each agency assigns an ISBN to new published books within a given region. For instance, books published in the United States or in US territory obtain its unique ISBN from the US ISBN Agency. If you are self-publishing a book, it is the POD publisher that obtains an ISBN for you.

A book is not a book without an ISBN. Without a proper ISBN, your book may not be ordered or sold.

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PUBLISHING YOUR CHILDREN’S BOOK: SHOULD YOU SELF-PUBLISH?

You never fail to delight kids with your stories. You know you want to share them with other children from here and there. So you write your stories on paper. What do you do next? Do you send your work to a traditional publisher or publish a book yourself?

Before you take the plunge, it is better to understand first how the world of publishing works. Traditional publishing, in a nutshell, is where a publisher publishes your book. They cover all publishing costs and pay you a royalty on every book sold. From the time you sign an agreement with them, they will assume full creative control of your book. They will also own the rights to your book.

Self-publishing, on the other hand, is where you publish a book yourself. You turn in your manuscript to a self-publishing company and cover all costs for printing the book. They then churn your work into a professional, high-quality children’s book. You also have full control of your book – from its editorial and artistic aspects, to ownership rights and book sales.

The publishing industry is highly competitive; publishers are constantly searching for the next bestselling book. More and more children’s book writers want to become published authors these days. However, not many of them get published. This is where self-publishing comes in.

The flak against self-publishing may still be there, but authors are now getting more discerning, with a deeper understanding of what separates self-publishing myths from facts.

Aside from getting full creative control of your book, you retain ownership rights to it as well. After all, it is you who wrote that book.

Self-publishing is a smarter option especially if you are writing a children’s book that has a highly targeted, out-of-the box subject. This is because traditional publishers usually look for children’s books that have greater market potential, nevermind if the story is predictable.

The list of successful self-published children’s book titles are growing as well.Richard Paul Evans’ The Christmas Box, which landed #1 on the New York Times list bestselling books, sold 8 million copies worldwide and was later produced into an award winning TV show. Xlibris author BJ Moesner was awarded in the 2008 New York Book Awards for his self-published children’s picture book, Monty, the Traveling Cat. Michael Hoeve also self-published Time Stops for No Mouse and was later picked up by Putnam.

You may not know it, but self-publishing your children’s book may give you a higher return on your book than when it is traditionally published. In terms of royalties, traditional publishing houses now pay only 10% at most of wholesale. (they used to pay royalties at 10% of retail). You may even have to split your royalty with an illustrator if your book contains visuals. On the other hand, self-publishing may give you a highly favorable return on your investment, depending on the distribution mix.

Publishing, like any endeavor, always has its risks and it comes with rewards too. And like any endeavor to succeed, you need to work hard and not be afraid to take chances – the tradeoffs may just be far below the gains.

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DEBUNKING SELF-PUBLISHING MYTHS

MYTH: Anyone can self-publish.
FACT: Self-publishing, just like traditional publishing, is not for everyone.

It is only for those who:
•    Have a strong conviction that their book is worthy of publishing.
•    Have not given up by rejections from agents and traditional publishers.
•    Have the brains and brawn to invest time, money and effort for printing and promoting their book.
•    Have the tenacity and determination to reach for their goal.
•    Have a deep understanding that although publishing is never an easy task, anything is possible if you put your heart into it.

Self-publishing is only for people who believe in making things happen.

Publishing a book is like starting a business. You determine what you want, work on it and create a marketing plan. More importantly, you take risks.

MYTH: Self-published books are inferior and hardly ever sell.
FACT: Sales figures are not the complete and exact measure of a book’s quality.

Many traditionally published authors laugh at their self-pubbed counterparts or those who plan on taking the self-publishing route, thinking that self-published books are poor. However, not all traditionally published books are good either. Many are a waste of ink and paper but have gotten away with it because they had greater selling potential.

Publishing is a business. Self-publishing is a business. Traditional publishing, no matter how superior many people think it seems, is still a business. And they have no business dealing with a book that doesn’t sell at all.

MYTH: Self-publishing  is vanity publishing.
FACT: Self-publishing is NOT vanity publishing.

Self-publishing allows you full creative control of your work; vanity publishers do the work on your behalf. Vanity publishing is designed in that you pay to publish a massive number of books and then leave you to market all of them on your own. Self-publishing prints books only on demand. This is otherwise known as print-on-demand (POD) – books are printed only when they’re ordered.  This way, you will not end up with a pile of books collecting dust in your garage. Self-publishing can help you market your book as well.

MYTH: Paying to publish a book is stupidity.
FACT: Putting your dream of publishing a book just by luck does not, and will not happen.

You don’t put all your hopes and dreams of getting your book published believing that luck will knock on your door. You don’t pass the time waiting for a chance when you can make it happen.

Self-publishing a book is like running a business. It can bring you sweet success if you put your whole heart to it. Ask any successful self-published author and they’d tell you it’s all about hard work and not being afraid to take risks. Everything you put into may just well be worth it.

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PROTECT YOUR BOOK WITH A COPYRIGHT

A copyright is a very essential tool for any author who wants to have their book’s content protected by law against plagiarism. Note that when a book is copyrighted, the law is only protecting the content of your book, not its title.

The good thing about getting a copyright registration to your book is that you can be assured that it is protected by law.  You can take legal action if someone steals a part of, or the entirety of your own content. There are a lot of ways to know if someone is plagiarizing your work. Here is one of them.

With a copyright, your book is protected for a given amount of time and is only applicable from where you obtained your registration. For instance, if your book is registered in the US Copyright Office, your book will only be protected within the US. Same applies if you get a copyright registration in Canada.