I’ve been thinking for the past few days about putting together a list of a few services and books that I use a lot as a writer, but then I thought it may be a bit more useful as a gift-giving guide. If you want to know what I use for invoices, advertising, etc., check out the end of this post. For now I give you my gift guide for writers…

Creating Fiction

How much would you pay to attend the top MFA writing workshops in America? Would you be interested in learning the best advice from each professor? This handy textbook is an incredible resource that provides just that. It’s an amazing book with tips on everything from characters to plot construction. If you want to publish fiction, you need the advice in this book. It blows my mind pretty consistently.

Hooked: Write Fiction That Grabs Readers at Page One and Never Lets Go

This may be one of the most entertaining books I’ve read on writing, aside from Bird by Bird. Filled with practical advice and great examples, this book makes starting a novel easy and accessible.

A Moleskine Lined Journal

My writing thrives on giving focused attention to my ideas, and an old-fashioned journal is the perfect tool for writing down ideas and developing them without the distractions of my computer. These journals are relatively affordable, sturdy, and fun to use. Almost everything I write begins as a few ideas in my Moleskine.

A Nook Touch

You may be suspicious that I’ve included a big ticket item in my list, or you may question why I’ve chosen the touch and not a Kindle Fire. I have my reasons. For starters, every writer needs an e-reader because publishers are constantly throwing free and cheap books at us. At the start of NanoWriMo, I was able to download 6 excellent books on writing for free. Marketing companies send me free e-books all of the time about managing my website and social media accounts. There’s so much out there, you need something that you can use to read it all.

I endorse the Nook Touch in particular because it’s first of all a dedicated e-reader. There’s no temptation to check e-mail. Just read. Focus on one thing. I love that about my Nook. In addition, I like Barnes and Noble because it at least supports physical book stores where real human beings can get together, look at books, and interact about ideas. I use Amazon for some online shopping, but I shudder at the thought of Amazon closing down every book store in the country.

When it comes to technical end of things, the Nook Touch has been the darling of online technology sites with its easy to use interface that makes the previous Kindle model look like the ugly duckling.

A Path to Publishing: What I Learned by Publishing a Nonfiction Book

This is perhaps my most self-serving item on the list, but hear me out. There are great books out there on how to write a proposal, how to market a book, and how to prepare for publishing. I’m not as experienced as all of those other writers, but I do have one advantage on them: I published a book fairly recently and I wrote this book right after my book’s first year. I have yet to find another book that pays so much attention to the process of becoming a nonfiction author from start to finish.

I wrote this book as a first step, an introduction to publishing that teaches readers how to plan for the future, how to write a proposal, how to write a draft of a book, how to work with an editor, and how to promote it. The reviews have all been positive, and the endorsements quite strong. I wouldn’t include this book here if I many readers hadn’t told me how the book helped them.

That does it for gift ideas. However, if you want to know what else I recommend for freelance writers, there are 3 services that I recommend using.

PayPal

I try to get checks from customers when possible, but PayPal makes it possible to receive payments from international clients and from customers who prefer the convenience of online billing. 

Thumbtack.com

I apply for very few jobs. Rather, I post my services on Thumbtack and set up an auto-post of my advertisement to Craig’s List every three days. I have found all of my clients through Thumbtack. Even better, Thumbtack notifies you when someone has posted a project in my field of expertise! It makes advertising so incredibly easy, I can’t imagine freelancing without it.

Freshbooks

I hate paperwork and spreadsheets, and Freshbooks makes all of that go away. By simply tracking my time throughout the week in Freshbooks, I can send out invoices to my clients and track whether they are late for payments or whether their accounts are up to date. Freshbooks allows you to manage 3 clients for free, which makes it practical for a small operation like mine, while allowing me room to grow in the future. Once again, I would hate freelancing if it wasn’t for Freshbooks.

How does one arrive at such a position without having accomplished any of the required “rocking” or “stardom” that is typically associated with rock stars?

Don’t worry, I’m a professional writer, and I’m here to help. While I am not a rock star in either the literal or self-proclaimed sense, I have observed enough self-proclaimed rock stars to cobble together a handy little guide that will show you the can’t-fail path to self-proclaimed rock stardom:

Step 1: Choose A Non-Rock Career

Choose a career path that is most certainly not related to rock music—the more boring and technical, the better. For example, marketing, website design, or social media consulting are particularly fertile careers for non-rock stars to claim rock star status.

Step 2: Adopt a Peppy Tone

Rock stars are passionate, off the chain characters who defy bland copywriting. Jazz up your website’s about me pages and social media profiles with peppy descriptions of how awesome you are. You’re really living on the edge if you can also claim you’re a ninja while weighing over your recommended body mass index.

Step 3: Crown Yourself a Rock Star

Peppy copy alone does not make you a rock star. Rock stars are self-confident and cocky enough to call themselves “rock stars,” critics be damned. Claiming rock star status for yourself, even if you’re hardly a social media maven or a blogging guru, is about going out there and taking what’s yours.

You know you’re a rock star already, so go out there and type it into your profile now, you… you… rock star.

It’s tricky to figure out an ideal freelance writing rate since every client and project is quite different. One potential client had a 200 page double-spaced document that she wanted me to edit for $50—total. I didn’t take that project on.

Here are a few guidelines I follow in setting my price:

What is the nature of the freelance writing work?

Am I researching, development editing, blogging, proofreading, writing from scratch, or developing an entire plan for communication and marketing? Certain kinds of projects are more demanding, and therefore the price goes up. My lower prices are reserved for research and proofreading with development editing and communications work hit the higher range.

Who is the client?

Depending on the situation, I sometimes give clients price breaks. In the case of self-publishing authors, I’ll try to aim lower since all of the expenses are coming out of their pockets, and they can’t possibly understand how difficult and costly it will be to market their books! In the case of business clients, I may consider discounts for regular clients who consistently provide me with work.

What are the industry price guidelines for freelance writing?

Industry standards vary according to regions and segment of the writing business. The Writer’s Market guide has an extensive pricing list that puts my kind of work in the $15-$60 per hour price range depending on what it is. I try to aim somewhere in the middle to low middle of that price range, with $15 being my lowest rate for very specific projects and situations.

The number of clients who have balked at my prices are roughly equal number to those who have signed me on. I hope that enables me to focus on serving clients who truly value my services, rather than having to work at minimum wage for clients who don’t appreciate what a writer can do.

Based on my experiences as a freelance writer over the past five years, here are some reasons why it’s worth hiring a professional writer:

• Writers offer an outside perspective and feedback that add clarity to a message.
• Writers choose stronger and fewer words in the pursuit of clarity.
• Writers know how to delete the parts of a message that aren’t working.
• Writers have experience quickly recognizing problems in a book, article, or communications piece.
• Writers with experience know techniques and forms that work for particular writing pieces.

Whether editing a book or writing copy for a web site, I find that my clients usually hire me because I can quickly write something clear and concise. Most of my clients feel lost in a forest of words and ideas, and I chop out the non-essentials that are obscuring the path forward, leaving the sturdy trees and adding blazes so they know which way to go.

In fact, my book A Path to Publishing does something quite similar for prospective authors.

Ironically, even the most talented authors need talented editors, who are also skilled writers by another name, to eliminate rabbit trails and dead ends. That’s because no matter how good you are, when it’s your own book, article, press release, web site, newsletter, or whatever else, you’re often too close to the material to effectively evaluate its clarity.

That’s where writers can prove invaluable. Every author and business has something to communicate, and writers help send that message out quickly and effectively.

However, the monetary value of a writer’s work is quite another matter, even if we can all appreciate the need for writers today. A fair wage for writers is where we’re going next, though I can’t promise to be completely objective on that one.

The Problem

I was using Twitter and Facebook as sources of constant distraction from my work, family, and spiritual life. I wanted to use social media as a tool to communicate with potential readers, to network with fellow writers, and to keep in touch with friends. Instead I checked them both an unseemly number of times in search of links, conversations, or anything that I could read.

I responded to any mention or post immediately. Links to interesting posts were pursued, and I left comments without thinking about the time they consumed.

Any time I hit a tough spot in my writing, I’d drop by Twitter or Facebook.

I needed to break my dependency on these tools, while learning how to use them in healthy ways. It wasn’t going to help me if I could quit cold turkey for 40 days, learn a few lessons, and then gradually forget them over the following months while rediscovering the lure of social media again.

I needed a practical way forward so that my personal, spiritual, and work times were equally guarded that would last beyond Lent.

The Plan

I settled on a plan to spend only 30 minutes each day on Twitter and Facebook. To be honest, that seems absurdly long, but in practice the time goes by quickly! I broke it into 3 ten-minute slots. This meant that I needed to make the most of my time online and if I really wanted to interact with people, I needed to space my time out.

This required a decent amount of discipline, since I wanted to think of interesting things to say, but I also wanted to read what other people were sharing. I didn’t have unlimited time to follow blog posts and links.

In addition, effectively tracking your friends on a tool like Tweetdeck, as I do, I needed to leave Tweetdeck open for a while before I could look at it. I hide my menu bar so as to limit the temptation, but I still knew it was there.

The Results

While I certainly missed my sources of distraction, I soon appreciated the limits of my fast. Sometimes I followed links and ended up reading them beyond my time limit, so I had to subtract time from my next 10-minute session. I probably interacted online a lot less to my detriment in some ways, but I also thought a lot more about effectively using my limited time, which is a real benefit.

I’m most grateful that I broke the habit of checking social media first thing in the morning. Instead I spend my early morning time writing fiction, drinking coffee, reading scripture, and praying. My mornings are SO much better without Twitter and Facebook.

Waiting until 11 AM or later for social media really helps me use my most productive times in the most effective ways—both for work and spiritual growth. I never catch myself thinking, “Damn, I wish I’d spent 30 minutes on Twitter this morning instead of praying or editing my novel!”

In addition, HubSpot marketing found that more people are willing to retweet something on Twitter around 11 AM, so I really have no reason to use Twitter before 11 AM. I can share my links and socialize at 11 AM just fine.

Perhaps my biggest problem was that I found new distractions such as checking my e-mail, but even that was a bit easier to resist since it’s much easier to convince myself that no new e-mails have arrived in the past 15 minutes. Twitter guarantees fresh content. In addition, an empty inbox isn’t all that distracting even on my worst day.

Here are some outcomes from my limited fast:

• I now budget an extra 30 minutes for blog reading and networking.
• I stick to the 3 ten-minute social media sessions on Tweetdeck and Facebook. I aim for 11 AM, 2 PM, and 5 PM.
• I try to avoid social media at night. If I want to drop someone a note or need to send a message via Facebook, I can drop in, send the note, and then log off.
• I allow myself to visit Twitter online if I want to post something, but I can’t do anything else.

How have you dealt with your bad habits in social media? Have you tried sometime different that worked? 

I should have just followed up my query with a plea to not even read them.

You could say I’ve learned something over the past year, especially since my number of accepted and published articles has significantly increased over the past three months. Here are some lessons that may help you as you query magazine editors:

1. Brevity. Lead your query with two sentences—three maximum. Check a Writer’s Market for sample letters.
2. Ask about theme lists before querying. If the guidelines are not listed online, e-mail about them too. Make your first contact with an editor a positive one.
3. Scan the magazine and read a bit of it to get an idea of the tone and the departments. Most editors say, “Read several editions of our magazine.” Most published freelancers say, “Yeah, whatever.”
4. Query often. Get so many queries out there that you practically lose track of them.
5. “No” is not the same as a ban from sending future queries. Try something else.
6. Feedback in a rejection letter is a good sign. Send another query within two weeks.
7. Focus on practical, how-to articles in the beginning. Ask yourself, “What do readers of this magazine need to know about?” “What are the problems they’re trying to solve?”
8. Don’t pitch 3,000 word feature articles right off the bat. Query short, 200-500 word pieces.
9. Proof read query letters 3 times, with an hour break in between your second and third reading.
10. Work from small to large. Aim for smaller magazines with less circulation and lower pay before shooting for the big guys. You have a lot to learn if you’re starting off. When you do shoot for the big guys, write on spec. It will eventually pay off, but you need to work your way up.

As with any tips in writing, these are not hard and fast rules. The rules of writing are made to be broken. However, these ten lessons are often on my mind as I send out queries to magazines. Good luck!

When I wrote a short story for a contest a few months ago I gave it to my wife and to a friend for feedback. They both love to read, but I hadn’t anticipated the results.

My wife felt comfortable telling me that it was terrible. My friend just said it was alright.

I thought they would both say something similar, but my wife ended up giving me the feedback I needed in order to rework my story. She was right. The original one didn’t work.

Paying $15 to enter a lousy story into a contest is not my goal.

Just about every article that passes the “wife test” is accepted by an editor or at least receives praise. One story, that passed the wife test, even received an honorable mention in a Glimmer Train contest.

I’m lucky to have such a talented reader in my home that I can trust implicitly to provide honest feedback. She is my secret weapon who has saved me a lot of disappointment and frustration in the long run.

I have read similar stories from writers who rely heavily upon one trusted reader who is sometimes a spouse and other times a member of a critique group. Keep in mind that a spouse is not always the best choice for feedback.

What to look for in a reader:

• Interest in the same subject matter.
• Attention to the details in your genre (eg. what makes for a good plot in a novel).
• Trust and comfort to tell you the truth.

No writer can catch all of his/her mistakes. If there’s a hole in an argument, a weak point in the plot, or an explanation that falls flat, oftentimes an attentive and critical reader is one of the safest bets in finding them. If you’re waiting for an editor to catch your mistakes, chances are you’ll just receive a form letter saying, “Your work does not meet our current needs.”

That could be a clue that you really need better feedback before you submit your work.

They all write words on a page or on a computer.

Some have quite a few readers on their web sites.

And yet, they hesitate in calling themselves “writers.”

Why?

Because they haven’t published in magazines or they haven’t published books. They just think of themselves as word tinkers.

I used to think the same of myself before I published a book. At the time my only writing credit was an online magazine and a defunct humor magazine. Then someone said in an E-mail, “You’re a writer. Now you just need someone to pay you for it and some fame.”

It was a jarring comment. I’d built my identity as a writer around external sources of validation, namely money and popularity.

Here’s the thing, having published in several magazines, several books, and online over the past five years, I can just about guarantee you’ll never think you have enough money or popularity to call yourself a writer because there will always be someone with more money and more readers.

While there are good writers and writers who have a long way to go before they’re good, perhaps the matter of calling yourself a “writer” rests more with the individual. Do you personally believe you can call yourself a writer based on the work you do?

Forget money.

Forget fame.

Do you write seriously? Do you care about the words you put on the page? Is your writing an important part of who you are?

If you can answer yes to questions such as these, then you probably are a writer. Very few writers go on to make a lot of money or to become household names, so just focus on loving what you do, put your best into it, and savor every time a reader shares positive feedback about your work no matter how you publish it.

Writing is about crafting words for readers. Set goals for yourself, but never confuse legitimate writing with the side benefits of money and popularity.

Think about it. No one will visit a book store and stumble upon your book. No one will find it on a publisher’s web site. No one will read about it in a catalogue. No one will want to stock in a book store because it’s self-published.

Oh, of course you can sell it online, but how will readers find it?

That is the trick. Can you assemble a realistic marketing plan that will sufficiently take into account all of the setbacks that self-publishing brings, while still connecting with readers on a scale that will ensure you sell enough copies to at least break even?

Ah, distribution is a huge problem for self-published authors. Heck, when self-publishing A Path to Publishing, I still didn’t quite grasp the amount of work ahead of me or the sheer quantity of potentials readers I needed to connect with in my niche.

Where should you start if you’re self-publishing?

For starters, check out my free online marketing guide. That gives both traditional and new ways to market your work.

However, the most important principle in selling books is to make a real connection with a potential reader and to communicate clearly why he or she may want to buy your book. Someone else may be able to do that for you by way of an endorsement or a review, but kicking it all off depends on you and you alone.

I began this series saying that “self” is the key word when it comes to “self-publishing”. If you have any hopes of selling your book, make sure you have more than Plan A and B for distributing your book. You’ll probably need to have plans that range from A to Z.

Your job is to find the communities, blogs, forums, Twitter users, Facebook users, groups, societies, and any other group of potential readers in your content niche. That is the publishing sales game in a nutshell, and it’s a tough one on your own!

A Path to Publishing: What I Learned by Publishing a Nonfiction Book

When working on a self-published book you may have put together a passable first draft, and even managed to spruce up a pretty decent second draft. However, chances are your argument or story will have some significant holes in it, to say nothing of some sections that readers will find confusing.

While working on my third draft of A Path to Publishing I couldn’t think of any significant changes to make, so I sent it off to several friends and colleagues to read it. Sure enough, one reader found the same glaring flaw in two of the book’s chapters.

She very gently suggested that those two sections needed significant revision. She was absolutely right. I had a few doubts at first about those sections, but I had decided they worked fine. Thankfully she pointed out some other reasons why needed to be not only rewritten but largely deleted.

And that brings us to the challenge of editing your own book. You always need perspectives other than your own to make sure your book flows and makes sense. No matter how talented you may be as a writer or an editor, you can’t catch all of your own mistakes.

Depending on your relationship with your friends and family, you may ask them for help. However, remember that a good editor will not worry about hurting your feelings. A good editor needs to feel comfortable pointing out all of your book’s flaws. Will your friends and family be able to do that?

My friends through social media and blogging have been a tremendous help in reading drafts of my books, while several key friends and family members have helped at times as well. However, I think it’s important to choose your readers carefully and to give them deadlines that can be flexible if need be.

In addition, keep in mind that these friends may publish their own books some day. Guess who they’re going to e-mail before anyone else for help…

What Self-Publishing Involves

The most important word in self-publishing is “self,” not publishing. The publishing part is fun. The self part is not.

Of course self-published authors boast higher royalties, greater control, and many other benefits. These are all true to a certain extent, but consider what you’ll need to organize by yourself:

• Researching the market and audience for your book.
• Outlining, writing, and editing.
• Researching a publisher and comparing the various packages.
• Paying for and organizing the editing, design, printing, and distribution (which of course will vary).
• Putting together a marketing plan.
• Creating a publicity kit
• Contacting bloggers, radio producers, newspaper editors, and other media outlets about your book’s release.
• Contacting independent and chain book stores to set up book events. Many of them will not call you back because you are self-published.
• Finding conferences where you can sell your book—that is, if you pay for the space.
• Setting up book events and eating the cost if they flop.

Granted, many publishers today are quite light on the marketing end of things, especially for nonfiction books where a marketing platform is essential for new authors. That being said, at least having someone who is paid to help you send out press releases and to advise you on ideas can save you a lot of time and frustration. In other words, even the publisher who provides minimal help with marketing a book is still way better than doing everything yourself.

What You Need to Know about the Publishing Business

If all of this is new to you, then I’m guessing you’ve never commercially published a book. While self-publishing is easy to jump into from the standpoint of writing and printing a book, making it into a product that someone will actually deem worthy of $15 is quite another matter.

Here are a few things you need to know about publishing as a business:

• Most books need significant editorial development.
• It takes time to learn how to write for a specific audience.
• A bad cover and sloppy interior design can be fatal for a book.
• Distributing a book effectively will take a lot of e-mails and phone calls.
• Marketing a book is a full time job.

If you want to self-publish and to sell more than 500-1000 books, your work is cut out for you. Thankfully it can be done. In the coming days we’ll discuss the importance of a marketing platform for self-publishing.

Looking for a bit more about publishing right now? Check out A Path to Publishing. It’s available for $10 as an ebook and for $15 as a paperback.

The price through Amazon is $15, while the ebook price through Lulu is $10.

So far the feedback has been really encouraging, including comments from readers who have found the book both informative and well-organized. One book publisher enthusiastically purchased a copy, and he’s someone who certainly could have taught me a thing or two about publishing! So I’m grateful to see positive responses to the book as it starts out.

If you’re interested in hosting me for an event with your writing group or book store, I offer group discounts and free publishing workshops along with my book events.

Throughout the third and fourth weeks of May a number of bloggers will be posting reviews and interviews. I hope to have the schedule up soon.

In addition, I’ll be posting a series here next week covering what I learned in the self-publishing process. If you subscribe to my e-mail newsletter (in the right column), you can also read about the inside story of self-publishing, the decisions I made throughout the process, and why I followed the course I chose.

There are a lot of decisions to make in the self-publishing process, so believe me, reading about my process will help you a great deal! I learned a ton over the past 6 months.

Good books are rejected because of similar books.

You may have a great idea and you may be an incredible writer, but if someone has written a similar book, especially for your publisher, you may be out of luck. In addition, there may be projects in a publisher’s pipeline that you could never know about unless you submitted your proposal.

That isn’t to say that different publishers will back away from your book if there are similar books. You just need to show that it has a unique message or perspective that distinguishes it from its competition.

Good books are rejected because of different focuses at a publisher.

You may have addressed an important topic, and that topic may be within the interests of a publisher, but perhaps you wrote a book that didn’t strike the right angle or genre for that publisher. One publisher may aim for literary books, while others may opt for the academic route.

Good books are rejected because of cuts or changes with editors.

Sometimes publishers may change their focus or even eliminate a line of books. With new editors come new criteria for accepting books. Editorial changes will mean a book that may have been accepted a few months ago will no longer work for a publisher. Timing and luck are huge factors when pitching book and article query letters.

Good books are rejected because editors don’t always know what they want.

While publishers have guidelines and specifications, they don’t always know what book would work best. This is something that some editors themselves have admitted.  See editorial veteran Leonard Goss’ endorsement for my new book A Path to Publishing.

That doesn’t mean that all editors are fickle and indecisive, and you should never tell them what they want. Rather, they always aren’t able to know what exactly will work and what will not. There are plenty of stories of best-selling books passing through a series of rejections before finding success. The moral is that editors are human like you and me, and that publishing is not an exact science—as it should be.

Good books are rejected because of publicity concerns.

Even if you’ve written a great book, some publishers may reject your proposals because they fear they’ll be unable to market it to a particular group of people or that you aren’t popular enough to promote it. Those are big problems for writers to deal with, but at least they aren’t necessarily marks of a poorly written book.

In addition, if you are able to write a good book, you can certainly work on raising your profile and reworking your material so that it speaks more directly to an audience of readers. These are big problems, but they don’t spell doom for you as a writer.

Rejection is just about the worst thing a writer can imagine besides publishing a book that is hated by readers and critics. Both possibilities sound pretty terrible, but rejection is the one thing that every writer who hopes to publish a book or article has to face from the start.

Even well-known authors with a history of successful books have to sometimes face rejection. Legendary Christian writer Frederick Buechner has published shelves worth of fiction and nonfiction, but even his latest book, The Yellow Leaves, was rejected by his life-long publisher. He had to take it elsewhere before landing a book deal.

Rejection is a real issue that every writer has to deal with in one way or another.

I had intended to write this series last week, but a few other projects and a persistent head cold pushed it back to this week. Tune in tomorrow, and I’ll discuss the nature of rejection in the business of writing.

If you’ve accumulated some writing credits, you’re ready to begin planning out your queries to magazines that do pay well. Don’t forget about the non-paying, high quality magazines (for example, there’s Patrol and Next-Wave in my own Christian market). They have their place in building your marketing platform if you hope to sell books or to accumulate writing credits. However, you can now broaden your scope.

I’ve heard many editors say that you need to read their magazine before sending them a query. While that makes sense, the typical writer doesn’t have time to pour over the past twelve issues for fifteen different magazines. However, most writers should be able to read at least four or five editions (if not more) of four or five magazines, especially when some of them are available online. Choose wisely as you begin, and then add to your inventory of magazines you read regularly as you query more of them.

Still, the question remains, Why? Does it really make that big of a difference if the guidelines are listed online?

In a word, yes.

Besides simply knowing what a magazine is looking for topically, reading a magazine clues you in on the kinds of stories the magazine accepts, the angle most writers take, and the expectations of readers. For example, after reading about six issues of a regional magazine I began to think of solid story ideas that one editor purchased right away.

When you’ve read a magazine the query ideas will come faster and you’ll write better queries that appeal to editors. Perhaps you could hammer out a decent query after a few hours of staring at the guidelines, but investing a similar amount of time in reading the magazine will result in better queries that are far more likely to be accepted.

When you begin to seriously consider publishing a book your first step will be identifying your goals.

Are you hoping to write full time? Are you looking to add some credentials to your current career? Do you have one particular idea that is so important you want to publish it?

How you answer these questions will determine your next step.

Publishing a book requires a tremendous amount of time and planning. It is rarely as simple as pounding out a book and shipping it off to a publisher who then takes care of everything for you, mailing a fat royalty check each quarter.

You don’t write to become rich—it rarely happens.

In addition, if your goal is to merely share information with a wide audience, there are a lot of other avenues available today that may in fact be more effective in drawing a larger number of readers to your work. One poet I spoke with said he has reached thousands more readers through his blog than through his book. While his book lends him greater credibility in some circles, the simple act of sharing his work can be accomplished effectively outside of book publishing.

Keep in mind that as the economy contracts, so have publishers, editorial staffs, book acquisitions, and marketing dollars. The competition is a bit more fierce and the desire of publishers to stick with trusted names is greater than ever.

All that to say, it is still very possible to publish today, and with smaller presses and self-publishing options there is no reason why you can’t one day hold a bound copy of your work in hand. Nevertheless, before setting out into the challenging world of publishing, be sure to identify your goals and make sure that publishing a book will be the best way to accomplish them.

I’ll continue this series next week with a few more things to consider before you publish.

This past summer a book deal of mine fell to pieces in grand fashion over the course of a week. It was quite difficult, but at the same time I think matters ended on pretty good terms for all parties involved.

The planets had aligned perfectly for the deal to fail. So it goes.

Here are a few lessons to save in your bookmark folder so that you’re prepared should this ever happen to you:

Book Deals Can Fail, and It’s OK

Your career can survive and you can end the deal on good terms with your publisher. Really, I mean it. It can be a bit embarrassing to admit that your deal fell apart, but you can survive it. If you’re approaching your career wisely, you’ll already have another project or two in mind that you can jump into.

Give Yourself Time to Process

I needed about three days to process my situation before I felt able to have a constructive conversation and make a good decision. Expect to be angry and a bit low. It will pass, and in fact, it has to pass. You have books to write!

Seek Advice

In my own case I consulted my agent and several other agents at her firm. They helped me sort through my options and the appropriate responses. Every e-mail I sent to the publisher was filtered through them first. In addition, there were other authors and publishing professionals who offered me some good advice and even did some helpful research on my behalf.

Know Your Publisher’s Interests and Trends

If a publisher wants to terminate your book deal, take some time to look at it from the publisher’s perspective and examine the publisher’s concerns and goals. Perhaps you and your book aren’t a good fit with this publisher for the coming years anyway.

Prepare a Plan B, C, and D

Your book project does not have to die with this contract. Spring into action and seek out other publishers and if not another major publishing house, look into smaller press, ebook, and self-publishing options. The technology and marketing tools are out there for many authors to sell quite a few books on their own.

Even if your book never sees the light of day, you can always cannibalize chapters for submission to magazines that may provide a larger audience of readers and a comparable amount of money in the long run. Perhaps you can also steal a few chapters and stories to write your next book, which you should have already been working on anyway.

End On Good Terms

Life is too short to play the blame game. Publishing is a really tough business and sometimes book deals fall apart. Maybe it was your fault and maybe it wasn’t.

You gain nothing by burning your bridges with your former publisher, and you also never know how well connected they may be in the larger publishing world. Even if you lost the deal, you can still hold your head up high by moving on and resolving to make the next deal work.

Seinfeld’s lessons left a mark, as I make a point of having a ready supply of sticky notes and pens around the house and in the car. I have often pulled off the road to jot down an idea, and when I forgot to leave my notepad by the bed, I’ve jumped out of it in the middle of the night for the sake of capturing an idea.

Sometimes you won’t know if the idea is worthwhile until a few days later. Perhaps it would have been better in some cases to opt for the extra sleep. However, writers are in the idea business and something as insignificant as a pen or a piece of paper should not stand in the way of sharing a good idea with others.

I’ve thought about this a lot, but I think the solution is a both/and scenario rather than an either/or.

Revisit and Recycle Ideas in Various Mediums

Experienced writers learn that they can explore ideas and topics from a variety of angles with differing degrees of detail. If a writer can revisit or recycle an idea for two different magazines, then why not explore your idea on a blog and then later in a book or magazine article?

One author was quite resistant to the thought of charging readers for the ideas of his book, but a friend added some clarity by pointing out that most of his ideas in the book were available at no charge on his web site. However, the material in his book had a higher degree of refinement and clarity that some would be willing to pay for, which leads to my next thought.

Different Mediums Require Different Processes

The book publishing process involves numerous drafts, editorial development of ideas and a team of publishing professionals walking authors through each step of the process. There is a lot of revision and planning involved in writing a book. 

Blogs on the other hand are typically the work of a solitary writer or a small team of writers. I look at a blog post as a really good first draft. For a blog post I won’t write a draft, revise it, send it to an editor who suggests major changes, make my revisions, send it back to an editor for additional comments, make additional changes, and then send it off to a fact checker. Even uber-blogger Guy Kawasaki can’t afford to put that much time and involve that many people in a blog post.

That isn’t to say that blog posts are poorly written, only that the content found in books has gone through a different process. We can debate whether the book writing process is worthwhile, and in the case of some books it is not, but the final product often looks quite different from a blog post.

Some Content is Worth Paying For

Content that undergoes a rigorous editorial and design process in magazines and books may carry a price tag, but I still believe it is worthwhile to make some ideas available in these forms. They carry greater authority because they have passed through editorial boards and will tend to be of higher quality because multiple contributors were involved in the production process.

That is not a guarantee that books or magazines will always produce better content than blogs or self-published books and ebooks. There are some rather notable exceptions. However, I guarantee that almost every book produced by a major publisher will have certain advantages over a self-published book or an ebook given away for free. Whether it’s distribution, editorial development, or layout.

The Big Decision

Writers face the big decision of deciding which process works best for themselves and their ideas. If an idea is big enough to merit a long series of blog posts, then perhaps it’s worth working with those ideas for a future book project.

There are a lot of books out there with fairly simple ideas that are not capable of filling a full-length book. In those cases it’s worth it for writers to consider turning them into several solid magazine articles that may well reach more readers than a typical book.

Marketing expert Seth Godin tells writers to spend at least three years working on a blog and developing a ready audience of writers who will buy their books once released. That is a great guideline for writers and one that I have found to be true in my own experience. Blogs give writers great practice are writing regularly for the public and provide a chance to find a particular voice, angle, or, dare I say, brand.

Selling a book tends to be a very personal, one on one process. Advertising may raise awareness, but anything from a friend’s recommendation, a book seller’s comments, or an online review often makes the difference between a book staying on the shelf or ending up on the nightstand. In addition, a series of solid reviews do not guarantee brisk sales, just as negative reviews do not equal a book’s doom.

There is plenty of competition these days for not only the public’s attention, but also for the public’s disposable income. When trusted authorities recommend a book, authors have one more way to connect a book with readers. Influencers can vouch for an author’s credibility and provide a broad point of connection with potential readers.

The ideal influencers will have trusted names, contact with a large audience, and a willingness to endorse your book. Influencers may lead to direct sales or at least give readers another reason to recommend your book.

An influencer without one of these three qualities may not be a helpful contact. In the next post of this series I’ll look into some of the problems authors encounter in putting together an influencer list.

The next installments in this series…

• Selecting influencers for a book release: The Problem
• Selecting influencers for a book release: The Solution