Most New Authors get a raw deal from the
Traditional Publishing Industry
by
Terry Callister
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2011 Terry Callister
Also by Terry Callister
Discover other titles by Terry Callister at Smashwords
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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Chapter One
My first novel The Catalytic Programme was started over twenty five years ago, hand written at first and then typed up on an electronic typewriter, and then it was put on a computer, using WordPerfect and then eventually on Microsoft Office Word passing through all its various configurations. I reached one certain chapter where a lot was going on, the bad guys came across some other bad guys mixed in with a few good guys and I just could not get past that. I put the manuscript away and forgot about it for seven or eight years. Then my wife came across it in a wardrobe and asked me why I didn’t finish it. Three months later it was done.
Like a lot of aspiring authors I naively though I when my novel was completed, I would send it off to a couple of literary agents or publishers, they would grab my book like it was the next Lord of the Rings and then I could comfortably sit back and live off the royalties. How stupid am I. It wasn’t until the tenth or twentieth rejection letter or email that the message began to hit home, this writing business is difficult to get into. It didn’t seem to matter how persistent I was, nobody was interested in my book. After some research I found it has always been the case for new authors to get a break and even more so in these difficult and austere times. Literary agents and publishers are, after all there to make a profit, it has always been a conservative industry; they want as sure a thing as they can get and that basically boils down to established authors or so called “celebrities.” If your name isn’t Dean Koontz, Charlotte Bingham, Jane Fonda or George W Bush then it seems forget it, we don’t want to know. I was thinking of changing my name to Tony Blair, his book A Journey was reputedly paid an advance of four and a half million pounds, but I don’t think I would have got away with that for too long. I judge that about one in seven thousand new authors might scribe the right book and send it to the correct literary agent or publisher at the opportune moment. The other six thousand nine hundred and ninety nine manuscripts end up on the so called “slush pile.” This is a shame, I’ve found that many established authors that I read, and I read a lot as I guess you do if you’ve gotten this far, with long lists of novels become stale or even repetitive with their later books, my wife, who also reads a lot agrees with me. I believe it is wrong when there are literally thousands of new and talented authors out there with fresh ideas, new writing styles and incredible plots with amazing twists and turns that the reading public never get a chance to read, that is up until now.
When you go to the internet for information about writing there is so much out there it is easy to get sensory overload. There are websites telling you how to write your novel, how to write a synopsis even how to write a submission letter. Do you need a literary agent or not, the opinions quoted on this subject were very divided, I suppose it depends on whether or not the “professional” writing the piece is associated with a literary agency or not. In the end I personally felt that literary agents were just one more barrier in the way to getting my novel published.
I, like a lot of my fellow aspiring authors, spent a fortune on paper, printer heads, envelopes and postage, sending out three or four chapters of my novels complete with submission letter and synopsis. Most times I received the usual sort of standard reply; we liked your work, but didn’t love it, your work does not fit into our portfolio at this time, we wish you luck in your writing career etc, etc. Not one single reply came back with any advice or comment about how to improve my work, a short note would be all that’s needed, five minutes is all it would take, but no. Authors at the end of the day are the lifeblood of the industry; a little critique from a publishing professional pointing the author along a better path would not come amiss.
After three long years of trying the traditional route I began to look at self publishing, a very big no, no according to the “professionals.” We don’t want your work, but don’t go the self published route was their advice! (From their websites, never in their rejection letters I hasten to add.) If you search the internet you will find hundreds of companies out there offering to get your book printed with all sorts of additional services promoted, editing, formatting, cover design, marketing etc, etc but then you see the price and after a quick calculation to work our how many books you would have to sell before you break even, whew!
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Chapter Two
Then I was told about Createspace, part of Amazon who provide a service that lets you upload your book and cover for FREE so it could be digitally printed and sold over the Amazon websites. If you pay $39 you enter into their Expanded Distribution which puts your book out there with some of the world’s biggest book distributors. Now Createspace also offer other services, I don’t know what the take-up rate is but I’ve found that with a bit of trial and error most anybody can produce a well presented book and cover. Next I found out about Smashwords, here you can upload your book for digital distribution as an eBook and it doesn’t cost you a single penny, dime, centimos or rupee depending where you live. The World Wide Web makes this a world wide business with potentially billions of book buying people.
Let’s just talk about presentation for a moment or two. Printed books are I believe a matter of personal choice. Look at a few books and when you decide that you like a certain style, font type and size copy that as closely as you can on your favourite word processing software. I use Microsoft Word as I know a lot of people do and I’m always amazed at what it can do to enhance the look of your documents, books and novels etc. I can’t give you any advice on how to format your printed book, that will be your own choice. All I can say, if you are inexperienced with word processing, is either buy an Idiots guide for your software or keep playing with and trying out all the various icons at the top of the screen until you find out how to format your work to your liking.
EBooks are a totally different kettle of fish. Remember whoever buys and downloads your book will be viewing it on a myriad of electronic devices from Amazon’s Kindle to an iPhone. On these electronic gizmos they can change the font size, colour, background colour and just about anything else so your formatting counts for nothing. As Mark Coker CEO of Smashwords says “less is best when it comes to formatting your work for Smashwords.” Mark has written and published on his website a must have eBook Smashwords Style Guide. It is completely free to download to your PC or Laptop and is an essential read before you attempt to load up your eBook to Smashwords. It explains on a step by step basis what to do with your finished manuscript to make it suitable for Smashwords and more importantly to make it right for their Premium Status which means your book becomes available to a whole host of major eBook distributors. As the market for eBooks continues to grow you most certainly will want to get this right, follow the Smashwords Style Guide and you won’t go far wrong.
Incidentally, if you don’t have a Kindle or iPhone and are happy to read your downloaded eBooks on your computer or lap top a great programme to download is Kindle for PC it is FREE from Amazon and lets you build a library of eBooks onto your computer, organises them nicely and even lets you bookmark the pages you want. I wouldn’t be without it.
Moving onto your book’s cover, which is the first thing that people see when browsing for books to buy, it is essential that it looks a good and professional job. I tried all sorts of ways of achieving just that until I discovered Paint.net, thanks again Smashwords. Paint.net is a FREE image manipulation programme, a bit like Photoshop Once you’ve had a play with the software it is amazing what you can do to create a great looking book cover.
Marvellous, your printed book is now on the market worldwide relatively cheaply, and your eBook is on the market world wide at no cost to you, what next? You need the book reading buying public to see your tome, amongst millions of others, and then like it enough to make a purchase. This bit makes writing the book look easy. I was advised to develop my own website to market my book, which I did, but then you need your website to be seen, again a very difficult job. I then felt that my website with my two novels didn’t really cut the mustard, what if I put other self published books and novels on the site, now that should get noticed and so Books and Novels to Read.com sprang into life.
Smashwords don’t just abandon you there. They want you to sell your books, and remember selling your books is how they make their money, So Mark Coker came up The Smashwords Book Marketing Guide.Over eleven thousand words of very sound advice about how to market and sell your book.
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Chapter Three
It is very early days in the life of this website and there is vast competition out there, but I am slowly but surely developing Books and Novels to Read.com so it goes up the list in Google, Yahoo etc. It is solely dedicated to self published and indie authors whose work has gotten a raw deal from the traditional publishing industry and it will always stay that way. It is the age of the internet and the World Wide Web, where self publishing is relatively easy and eBooks can be out there on the ether within hours. This website aims to help all self published authors get some FREE publicity for their work, when all is said and done you and they deserve it after the effort they put into writing their book for all our reading pleasure.
Books and Novels to Read.com has one unique aspect that I personally have never seen before on any listing sites. Let me explain. You add your book onto a book sales website, or your house to an estate or realtor website, or your car to a car sales website, if you are lucky you get an immediate response because your item is at the top of the list and is new and fresh and is listed on the first page or two. Over time other people add their products and your item slowly gets lower and lower down the list. You know surfers; after page one or two they get bored and start looking in other places, result, after the initial week or two sales plummet or stop completely. Not so with Books and Novels to Read.com. As the book lists get longer and more web pages get filled (I’ve restricted entries to ten books per page for quick loading) the bottom page will move to the top, so page one then become page two and so on. This will happen on a weekly basis, that way everybody will have a chance for their book to be on page one or two and as a result get seen by the book purchasing public.
Unashamedly this is one of the methods recommended to me as a way to market and sell my novels along with the books and novels of every other self published or indie author world wide. If you would like to become part of Books and Novels to Read.com and have your book uploaded to the website just send an email to:-
terry@booksandnovelstoread.com
with your name, your book’s title and genre, I will do the rest.
THE END