Should we change an author’s words?
I’m accepting the challenge to post weekly in 2011!
I’ve decided I want to blog more. Rather than just thinking about doing it, I’m starting right now. I will be posting on this blog once a week for all of 2011.
I know it won’t be easy, but it might be fun, inspiring, awesome and wonderful. Therefore I’m promising to make use of The DailyPost, and the community of other bloggers with similar goals, to help me along the way, including asking for help when I need it and encouraging others when I can.
If you already read my blog, I hope you’ll encourage me with comments and likes, and good will along the way.
Signed,
Marcia
A Partial List of New York Area Book Publishers
Balloons on Parade
Should I Find a Traditional Publisher?
Today’s technology makes it easy and attractive for more and more authors to consider going the self–published route. Skill and writing chops aside, self-publishing takes an author with a certain kind of temperament.
While traditional publishing has its share of obstacles, many authors believe it provides a stamp of approval to their work. Here’s how to determine if traditional publishing is the right vehicle for you:
You just want to write: Let’s face it, for some authors, DIY ends at finishing their manuscript. If you are one of those authors, don’t even think about self-publishing.
You believe your work will be taken more seriously if it is published by a traditional publisher: The reality is that self-publishing still has a bad reputation. Many authors who self-publish realize its limitations very quickly and wish they had found a traditional publisher.
You want to give your book the possibility of being reviewed by a major press: Unfortunately, at this time, many newspapers, like the New York
Times, several smaller ones and even some blogs won’t even consider reviewing a book that is self-published.
You want to have your book available in your local library or bookstore: Many bookstores and several libraries won’t touch self-published books. Some bookstores cite pricing – many self-published books are priced too high for them to make a profit or cannot be returned to the publisher if they are unsold.
Self-publishing sounds like work: If finding an editor, thinking about layout, book cover design, or book distribution don’t make you feel warm and fuzzy, look for a traditional publisher.
You don’t have the time: Self-publishing required an investment in time, and a lot of attention to detail. If you have neither, find a traditional publisher.
7 Simple Ways to Publicize Your Book
Should I self-publish?
Should I get an early review?
Whenever I speak with authors, I always encourage them to not to wait until their books are published to begin getting the word out.
Here to address this issue is Abby Plesser, fiction editor at Bookpage. I started out by asking what a book review is and why it’s important.
Here’s Abby:
Book reviews vary widely—both in scope and content—so I’ll speak to the reviews we run at BookPage. We aim to be a selection guide for readers, so we read and review books that have received our stamp of approval. That means we only run positive reviews—something that sets us apart from other review publications. Of course not every review is a rave, but if we cover a book in BookPage, we feel it deserves our readers’ attention.
In the simplest sense, book reviews are necessary because there are millions of books out there, and readers need guidance in deciding what they want to read. Advertising, recommendations from friends and word-of-mouth buzz can all inform readers about what they might like to try, but a good review—or an informative negative review—can really help a reader make his or her decision on whether to pick up a book.
How critical are early reviews? Why does Bookpage only do early reviews?
It varies from book to book. Personally, I find early reviews helpful because they get the dialogue going. Before a book goes on sale, you really don’t know whether it’s going to be something that might interest you. Maybe it’s a first time author, so you have no idea what to expect, but the topic sounds interesting. Or it’s a new book from an author you love, but you aren’t sure if you’re going to love the new book as much as the last book. Having a review come out before the book does—or very close to publication—can be very helpful as you make your book-buying decisions. Of course there are always books that either don’t get a ton of early review coverage—or get mixed early reviews—and go on to be big hits. And vice versa.
BookPage is a monthly publication, so we aim to review the best books in each genre each month. From a production standpoint, we work two to three months ahead of publication dates, but when our issues hit the stands, books that are included are either on sale or going on sale very shortly.
Do some reviews carry more weight than others?
At a basic level, reviews are all about exposure. And in the sense of exposure—getting the word out about a certain book to the largest number of people—reviews in the national publications carry a lot of weight. So obviously authors (and their publishers) are hoping to get positive reviews in the big national papers—the New York Times, the New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, USA Today—and magazines—Time, People, The New Yorker, Newsweek, etc. But it also depends on the individual reader. When you read a review, you are trusting the reviewer—and the newspaper or magazine—and their opinion. So it’s a personal thing. I have certain papers and magazines that I like more than others, so I would probably buy a book based on their recommendation more than I would a recommendation from a source I don’t read or love.
Self-Publishing on the Kindle? Read this before you do
Amazon.com’s announcement last Friday that authors can now self-publish Kindle versions of their books has me thinking, and smiling and nervous at the same time.
Smiling because authors who write in English, and now French and German, can upload PDF, text, Word or HTML versions of their work, set the own prices and get 35% of sales.
Nervous because as a publishing professional who works with many self-published authors, I know that the quality of self-published works is spotty, at best.
(That said, I’m wondering if Amazon will, in future, establish any minimum requirements for writers who want to publish via their platform, offer editorial services, weed out bad writers, etc.)
But before you run out and upload your latest manuscript, there are a few things first time authors need to consider.
Working style/Personality: If you are the kind of author who loves only to write and cares little about the business aspects of publishing, this news might not affect you.
Thoughts on Oprah’s Leaving
While most people in the publishing industry are bemoaning Oprah’s recent announcement that she’s ending her long running talk show, most authors I know think it’s next to a non-event. Don’t get me wrong: they know the power Ms. Winfrey has to change their lives with just a nod of her stylishly coiffed head. But since she’s only selected the works of about 60 authors for her book club during its 13-year existence, you don’t need to be a genius to know that a lot of good books go unanointed.
True, she does also recommend books via her magazine but getting into the magazine doesn’t seem to have the same clout and cachet as being selected for the book club. Maybe one of her final acts could be to introduce some up and coming authors or some young adults who are writing – something different than what she’s done before?
As a book lover, I don’t need Oprah to tell me what to read. In fact, I’d already read several of the books she’d selected before she put the spotlight on them, like Edwidge Danticat’s, Breath, Eyes, Memory or Garcia Marquez’s, One Hundred Years of Solitude, which I even attempted to read in the original Spanish!
As a book publicist, I’m always meeting authors who’d give their first born to get their books picked, which is what prompted me to write my last post, Managing Expectations, Part I: Getting on the Oprah Winfrey Show.
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