Writers often ask me when they should consult a developmental editor.  The concerns go something like this:

I’ve heard that literary agents and commercial publishers don’t want to see a book until it’s already edited and ready for production. And if I decide to self-publish, I’m out on a limb by myself. So when during the process of writing a book do I need an editor?

Three phases of writing

There are three distinct phases of the writing process when a developmental editor can make a big difference in the outcome of your book: In the planning stage, while you’re writing, and once you’re done.

Professional feedback and developmental editing are important at each of these three stages.  However, when and how this collaboration occurs can vary, depending on the individual creative process and collaborative relationships. Most successful fiction and non-fiction writers work with developmental editors, with very few exceptions. Here’s how it works:

1. Before writing the first draft

Many authors consult me as they begin their creative process, at a point when there may be only a germ of an idea, a few pages of a preliminary draft, or perhaps a rough outline. We both take careful notes and authors are welcome to record the consultation. Lately, several authors have recorded our Skype video consultations.

We discuss core questions like:

• What’s this book about? In the case of fiction, like a mystery, thriller, romance, sci-fi, or YA, could this be the first of a series? In a memoir, on which part of your life do you want to focus? In nonfiction, what’s the premise, the main take-away, the point of the book?

• Who are the main characters? Who are the essential secondary characters?

• Is this book a work of passion or a deliberate attempt to craft something for the commercial market?  Or is this book intended to enhance a business, individual career, or academic position? How should that impact the focus and organization?

• Deciding on the point of view. Should the narrative voice be an “I” first person or omniscient third person?

• Where to begin, how to incorporate the backstory? Is it essential to have some strategic flashbacks?

• How should it end?

We resolve these issues and put together a working plan, a penultimate outline that usually evolves as the work progresses, but most importantly provides a useful blueprint for launching the writing.

2. While you’re writing

Authors often want and need feedback while producing the first few chapters of their book, since these pages are frequently the hardest to write and require the most revision. It’s like clearing your throat, getting into a groove, finding the right tone, pitch, and pacing. I encourage writers to take the time to be sure they’re on the right track before going any further, since these preliminary problems don’t self-correct and shouldn’t be left unresolved.

Another big reason for consulting a developmental editor while writing the book is if the writer is getting stuck. The original impulse, or even an outline, can go off the track. You may lose interest or passion for a character or element of the plot. You may wonder if more backstory is needed and if so, how and where to bring it in. The ending may no longer make sense.

Help! Call 911! This is when rapid response and a creative partnership with an editor can be invaluable.

3. When the manuscript is finished

There are two distinct circumstances when I see a finished manuscript.

An author may send me a book that we’ve been working on together from the outset for one final read through, since it may need some additional polish to make it as good as it can be.

Or, authors submit completed manuscripts which I see for the first time, seeking assistance before sending to a literary agent or in preparation for self-publishing. If I see fundamental flaws, such as a core problem in the structure, a wrong turn in the plot, characters that require a radical makeover, or the need to change the narrative voice, I’ll usually suggest a consultation rather than a developmental edit. In such a consultation, I offer specific constructive solutions to incorporate in a new draft before the manuscript can be ready for a full edit.

The good news is that it’s never too late to make a book better.

In a full developmental edit, I go through the entire manuscript several times, offering specific page-by-page recommendations, alterations in the plot, concept, character development and visual descriptions, small and large structural shifts, fine tuning the pacing and literary style. I insert tracked changes that indicate deletions within the sentence, or entire paragraphs, sections or chapters. I suggest new language for polish and clarity. And in cases of historical fiction and non-fiction, I do my own research to become more familiar with the background and context.

When completed, I return the manuscript with its tracked changes, along with a lengthy letter that both summarizes and explains the editorial work. I include a subsequent hour consultation with the author by phone or in person to go over remaining questions and brainstorm any new options that may arise. Authors may disagree with or modify the recommendations I’ve made, which usually leads to an even more creative solution.

Finding your own editor

What happens when you first send your work to a prospective developmental editor? Keeping in mind that all editors have individual styles, here’s how I handle submissions: First I request the entire manuscript, which I read start-to-finish without charge. I evaluate the complexity and level of work required, the time it would take, and whether we’re a good fit. Only then do I provide an accurate estimate of cost.

I believe this initial assessment of the whole book, rather than reading only a chapter or two, is the best way to see how the author sustains the narrative arc — creates the premise, develops the action, resolves the problem – and brings the reader to some kind of satisfying personal experience, an emotional landing place, whether it’s inspiring, happy, tragic or just plain informative. I’m essentially previewing the experience any reader will have, and that gives me valuable information about the book’s weaknesses and strengths.

A good editor brings to the relationship both literary skills and human sensitivity. An editor watches your back and anticipates when there’s trouble ahead. But the author is the boss, in the driver’s seat. It’s not the editor’s book, so my job is always to enter the creative world of the author and help fulfill this vision.

I also advise that before investing in an editor, be sure you’re working with someone experienced with a track record of producing books that have succeeded. You should also expect the editor to be available and to complete the edit within an agreed-upon schedule. For more detail, here’s an earlier post with my advice on how to evaluate the best editor for your book.

What about you?

Have you worked with a developmental editor?  Anything you’d care to share about the process?  I’ll watch for any questions, so fire away!

Every good book needs a great cover. It’s a powerful billboard for conveying the spirit and content of your book.

An eye-catching cover can persuade readers to pick up and buy a book. But a jacket that’s confusing or boring or worse, can stop a potential buyer from giving that same book a second glance. Covers also need to pop as thumbnails, for all those online shoppers.

Publishers rely on talented jacket designers to create great covers. These specialized graphic artists are either on staff or hired as freelancers.  Staff designers frequently cross over, creating a jacket for their own publisher one week, freelancing for another house the next week and taking on an indie author client the week after that.

Attention indie authors

For self-publishing authors, the ability to hire a professional designer is a new and important development, because nothing shouts amateur louder than a lousy book jacket. “There’s no reason why a self-published book should look “self published,” says Laura Duffy, a senior art director at Random House.

Hear hear! Read on to learn how four highly successful book jacket designers create stunning, memorable covers, along with their practical advice for writers who want to understand and participate in the crucial process of getting it right.

How 4 professional designers create great covers

Laura Duffy is Senior Art Director at Crown, a division of Random House, where she has worked in the art department for 15 years.

Kimberly Glyder is principal at her own book-design firm based in the Philadelphia area.

Henry Sene Yee is the Creative Director of Picador, a leading literary trade paperback imprint of Macmillan Publishing.

David Drummond is founder and principal of Salamander Hill Design, based in Québec, Canada.

What’s the most important thing to accomplish in a jacket design?

Laura Duffy: My goal is to create a cover that stands out, gets the correct message across, and looks interesting and even exciting. In the olden days our only goal was to have a jacket standout on a crowded bookstore shelf that would inspire someone to cross the store to pick it up. Now we also have to consider how covers will look online, so we’re doing things like making fonts thicker and subtitles bigger and really paying attention to how designs look when they’re shrunk down.

Kimberly Glyder: It’s been said before, by Chip Kidd [one of the industry’s best known designers] that a successful book cover is one that gets you to pick the book up in a store. I would add to that in this day and age, if someone “clicks” on a book online I’m doing my job well. Book covers are still marketing tools and a good design is one that makes someone want to take a closer look. My fear with e-books is that a large image and big type is what ebook publishers consider successful. Clickable covers are not ideal though, I still hope people buy their books in bookstores!

Henry Sene Yee: My goal is that the reader has an emotional response and connection to the story and characters or ideas. The minimum you can do is give out info, but how you say determines how it will be received, like hey, by the way, your house is on fire.

David Drummond: To surprise the viewer – not in a gimmicky way – but hopefully by solving the visual problem in an intelligent way.

How do you begin the design of a new jacket?

Duffy: Here at Random House we have concept meetings at the beginning of every list where we sit down with the editors and listen to what they’d like to see on the cover, as well as offer ideas of our own. I try to read whatever is available in order to have as much to work with as possible. Occasionally I work directly with an author. I look at other jackets in the same genre (comp titles). I also research online to get a bigger picture of what I’m working with, perhaps looking at an author’s website.

Glyder: I do like to read the manuscript in its entirety. Typically, I’m given a pub sheet with information regarding the sales handle and competing titles. With about 90 percent of my cover jobs, my interaction is limited to working with the art director who acts as a go-between with the editor, publisher, sales, marketing, and the author. I do sometimes see email exchanges with the author, but mostly I’m kept out of that discussion. The benefit of working with a traditional publisher, rather than with an author who’s self-published, is to make use of the specialists who deal with books on a daily basis.

Yee: In my meetings, I may ask for plot summary, characters and description but what I need to know is the theme, tone, mood, point of the book, what makes this different than other similar books, the meaning of the title, etc. An author & the editor can get too personally close to the project and know and want too much on the cover. I need to reduce and suggest using symbols, metaphors, tone. Not say everything. I do not want to illustrate a scene or turning point in the book but the subtext of that scene and what it means to the overall theme.

Drummond: I read the book if it’s fiction. If it is non-fiction I try and get a really good brief. I am always looking for a hook or a way into the material. If I need more information I talk to the editor and on occasion the author although that rarely happens.

Have you taken on self-publishing authors as clients?

Duffy: Yes, many times. I love working with these authors because I can bring all my experience to the project, including marketing ideas. Many times I’ve helped them evaluate their copy and its emphasis, perhaps changing wording or including elements in the design that make information pop that they didn’t realize was important. I’ve also helped them create selling back cover copy and discussed ways to market their books. It’s a lot of fun. My advice to them, is that if they’re hiring me they’re in good hands, so let me do what I do best and not over think the design. There’s no reason why a self-published book should look “self published”.

Glyder: Up until last year, I rarely accepted self-publishing authors. However, it’s hard not to notice that the publishing environment is changing rapidly and self-publishers have many more resources available to them. Still, I’m picky–I tend only to take on self-publishing authors whose work I find very interesting. As a designer, it’s difficult to take on authors directly who may not understand the publishing process and how books are marketed, especially just how important it is to consider the audience in finding a successful tone for a design. My experience working directly with authors is that they become set on one vision, rather than being open to understanding that the way they view their book may be different than how a book needs to be marketed so it appeals to a wider audience.

Yee: I have. The best advice is to hire someone good and then trust them to do their best job. Have all your information ready for them to create.

Drummond: Lately I have been doing quite a few covers for self-published authors. The ones I have worked with have been really good about letting me do my thing with a few exceptions.

Do you have a standard contract with mutual expectations, dates and other terms? What’s the typical cost range for a jacket design?

Duffy: Some of the houses I do freelance for send me very specific contracts with design direction, due dates, and budgets. The costs vary from house to house with the smaller ones paying $500-$800 a cover, and the larger ones $1200-$1800.

Glyder: Most of my contracts come directly from the publisher. Dates and terms are included, covering all expectations, including (sometimes most importantly) the kill fee. When I hand off the initial comps and can bill for half the fee, that’s already a large amount of time spent. Typical fees range on the low end for university press clients approximately $800, all the way up to $3000 for some trade publishers.

Yee: In general, two weeks for sketches/comps for the art director and another week to refine an idea to show the editor. And then the game of a thousand cooks with their own opinions of the cover begins. The base amount is $1500. But can range as low as $1,000, and as high as $5,000

Drummond:  The process is usually quite informal. I do sign contracts for the bigger publishers. My range for cover designs runs the gamut. Average fee is about $1000.

DIY book jackets

Many authors feel strongly about having a hand in their own jacket design. The late Steve Jobs reportedly loathed the initial cover design of his own biography by Walter Isaacson. Jobs, although not the author, insisted on redoing the cover himself with the clean white aesthetic typical of Apple products.

In the case of author Bruce Spitzer, a background in advertising led him to design the jacket to his debut novel Extra Innings, a sci-fi baseball thriller about Red Sox legend Ted Williams, who is brought back to life with cryonics in the year 2092. Spitzer, experienced working with graphic print media, had a strong sense of the front cover photo and design he wanted, and a creative way of achieving his goals.

Spitzer had a limited budget, so he recruited a graphic design college intern who could translate his rough sketches into a polished jacket. He then found a photographer online who turned out to be a huge Red Sox fan. A neighbor with a young son fit the bill perfectly as the tall, lanky Ted Williams and Johnnie, a child who plays a central role in the novel. Then he located a vintage Ted Williams’ jersey with his famous number nine, bought some cleats and authentic red socks, and they were ready to go.

Spitzer’s garage became a photo studio using the photographer’s lights, a white backdrop, reflectors, shades, power cords and cameras on tripods. He found a model release online, always a good idea. A few days after the photo shoot, Spitzer and his designer sorted through the shots to pick a favorite, choose the jacket’s colors, the type, and to organize the copy Spitzer had written.

Costs so far for his jacket, still a work in progress: Art Direction/Graphic Design: $300. Photography: $300. Props:$200. Models: $1. Collaboration: “Priceless!” Spitzer says.

What about you?

As authors, what’s your take on all this?  Have you been satisfied with your jacket designs?  Did your publisher involve you in the process?  If not, do you wish you’d had the opportunity?  And if you’re self-publishing, what are your plans for your cover design?

Any thoughts on the jackets pictured in this post?  Which stand out for you?

Despite all the excitement about self-publishing these days – and I’m a big proponent –many writers still dream of being published by a big house like St. Martin’s Press or a prestigious literary publisher like Algonquin or Bloomsbury.

“I want the pride of making a major-league team with superstars on the roster,” a writer client told me recently.

“I want a big advance and that distinctive imprint on the spine. I want to tell my family and friends that I’ve finally made it, that I’ll have that beautiful jacket, that gorgeous type design, and a whole staff of first-class editors, sales and marketing people who think I’m just great.”

It’s a goal worth pursuing for authors who have good connections or the patience to keep pursuing that key gatekeeper, the literary agent; for those who may have already self-published their book and achieved sales numbers that can make an agent or publisher sit up and take notice (10K or more); and for those who are building or already have a solid online platform.

Three top editors tell all

Acquisition editors at major publishing houses are hot to find the next big thing, especially that elusive debut author whose manuscript both inspires their personal devotion and appears to have the necessary commercial appeal. Forward looking editors also see exciting new opportunities for authors coming down the pike, books that are interactive, “books that are more than books.”

That’s some of the scoop from these three savvy, successful acquiring editors I surveyed recently, all VIPs in the field.  Read on for more:

Jennifer Enderlin, Vice President and Editor-in-Chief at St. Martin’s Press, one of the largest publishers in America, with 700 titles per year under eight imprints. Enderlin is a top dealmaker, recently signing a six-book deal for a family saga by Kieran Kramer called The House of Brady and another with New York Times bestselling author Sandra Dallas for a historical novel called The Deliverance.

Chuck Adams, Executive Editor at Algonquin Books, a literary press publishing quality fiction and nonfiction books, often by young up-and-coming authors. Adams signed Water for Elephants by Sarah Gruen, a publishing phenomenon on the New York Times bestseller list for more than a year with 2 million copies sold.

George Gibson, Publisher of Bloomsbury USA, which published two recent hits: The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson and My Horizontal Life by Chelsea Handler.

Do you sign up many books from “debut” authors?

Enderlin: Signing up books from debut authors is what I live for!

Adams: We publish a lot of debut authors, preferring to take promising but unproven writers and attempt to launch their careers, rather than getting into a bidding war for the next bestseller from an already established author.

Gibson: We publish quite a few debut authors, both fiction and nonfiction

Will you consider authors who originally self-publish?

Enderlin: Absolutely

Adams: Yes, one of my favorite buys in the past year was a self-published memoir by Julia Pandl called Memoir of the Sunday Brunch and prior to that I purchased a self-published novel by Stanley Gordon West, Blind Your Ponies. I think publishers are increasingly open to considering books that have proven themselves, albeit in a fairly limited market, and that’s especially true today, since self publishing has become so much easier, and more writers are taking that route without even attempting to find an agent or publisher first.

Gibson: Yes

What can a traditional publisher offer authors that they can’t get with self-publishing?

Enderlin: The entire business end of it:  everything from designing the cover, to selling it into accounts, to publicizing it, to marketing it online and through traditional methods. There are at least 50-75 people involved in the publishing of your book.  Could a self-published author pay 75 people to do what we do?  Not unless he or she was very rich!

Adams: An established publisher has relationships with the national network of bookstores that an individual can only dream of developing, plus the house’s professional publicity and marketing teams know which reviewers, which publications, which media outlets are most likely to respond to any given title, and they work to get attention for the book in a way that an individual could never duplicate.

Gibson: Editorial guidance, leverage with all major sellers, marketing experience, connections with the media.

Do you acquire most books from agents, from authors, or from your own initiative and ideas?

Enderlin: Mostly from agents

Adams: Most come from agents. In fact, in my entire career I’ve only purchased two titles directly from an author.

Gibson: The vast majority come from agents

What’s the most effective way you’ve found to market books today?

Enderlin: Early word-of-mouth campaigns to key booksellers, bloggers and reviewers. It’s a plus if an author feels comfortable connecting through social media online.

Adams: Marketing begins inside, as publishers work to create a “buzz” around a title. We do this through the machinations of our amazing publicity and online marketing staffs, and through the store-by-store, title-by-title pre-publication hand selling by the head of our marketing department, who focuses his efforts primarily—although not exclusively—on the independent booksellers. They tend to be true “book people,” and if they respond to a title, they will get behind it and help to make it a success.

Having a “platform” is increasingly important in marketing a writer’s work, so when we take on a new author, we always work to create an online presence if one does not already exist. Typically, this involves the creation of a website and establishing active social media accounts, especially Facebook, Twitter, and GoodReads.

Gibson: Good major publicity still is key, but increasingly we’re going direct to consumers online, and it’s working. We also push authors hard on self-marketing.

How has the role of a traditional publisher changed?

Enderlin: I’m not sure it has.  Retailers look to us for quality control.  If we as a publisher are standing behind a book saying, “This is good” then the seller has a better chance of believing it because it has had to pass through so many levels to get there.

Adams: In many ways, the role of the traditional publisher has not changed at all. We still look for talent, for a writer and a manuscript that we feel will connect with a large readership. We develop that manuscript, prepare it for publication in a way that hopefully will attract readers, market and sell it to the stores and other suitable outlets. We pay for all this, plus we warehouse the books and, sadly, still take the returns when a title fails to sell as hoped.

Traditional publishers are also insisting more and more that a manuscript be in a more or less “finished” form when it comes in, meaning that the author and/or agent may have to hire an outside editor to polish their work.

And, obviously, the increasing sales of eBooks is creating a whole new kind of “product.” There are whole new opportunities for books in this brave new world, for books to become more than books, certainly more than anything anyone of us in the business could have imagined only a few years ago.

Gibson: Much of the process is the same: Good books are the key. The big change seems to be in how we reach the marketplace. We used to rely on bookstores as the conduit. As their number has diminished and more business has gone online, we need to learn how to reach the consumer directly.

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So there you have it, the inside track on traditional publishing today, at least according to these three smart acquiring editors. The message is clear: If your dream is a traditional book deal, you’ve got to go in through an agent, it helps if you’re a fabulous unknown, and you’d better be prepared to self-market like there’s no tomorrow.

Both Jennifer Enderlin and Chuck Adams, by the way, will be appearing in person at the upcoming San Francisco Writers Conference, February 24-26, 2012.  I’ll be there too.

What About You?

Are you going for the big enchilada, and if so, what’s your strategy?  Or are you considering alternatives?  I look forward to your comments.

The gold standard for success as an author is to make the New York Times Best Seller list. That’s the big brand banner that publishers, authors and readers want to see on the front cover.

It shouts “Read Me! I’m certified!”

How does an author accomplish this feat? What does it take for a book to become a bestseller?  Some of the answers are right there in the list. So let’s drill down and and see what can we uncover about writing, getting published and appealing to readers.

♦ What’s the single most important thing an author can do to get on the list? Scroll down for the answer from a writer whose book has been on the coveted list for 117 weeks.

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6 lessons from the New York Times bestseller lists

1. The list is widely diverse

The New York Times now publishes 23 separate bestseller lists. The lists range from Combined Print & E-Book Fiction and Non-Fiction, to Hardcover, Advice, Political, Business,and Children’s books. They include everything from literary novels to thrillers, memoirs, romances, mysteries, sci-fi paranormal books, YA and middle-grade, self-help and how-to, religious, inspirational books, and many others.

The lesson:

Don’t worry about following any so-called trends. There’s tremendous variety and no dominant category of successful books. Put away the notion that if you’re story doesn’t have a vampire or get-rich quick scheme, it’s going to die on the vine. Trying to anticipate what category of book will be selling by the time your book is written or published is a waste of time.

2. Book length varies

In my work as a developmental editor, authors ask me frequently “How long should my book be?” or “I’ve heard no book can be over 300 pages.” My response has always been that a book should be as long as it needs to be and no longer.

What the New York Times lists reveal is a broad range of lengths in both fiction and nonfiction. Kathryn Stockett’s best selling novel The Help is a heavyweight at 544 pages, while Blind Faith by CJ Lyons is 392. On the nonfiction side, Heaven is for Real by Todd Bupo is only 192 pages, but Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand is 496.

The lesson:

Don’t pad or cut to fit any arbitrary length for your book. If you have nothing else to say – stop. If there’s more essential story or information – keep going. I always do recommend, however, that a book should include nothing that will be never missed, so avoid any self-indulgent tangents or digressions.

3. E-books are the future

Earlier this year, the New York Times began running four new bestseller lists that include e-book sales, and it’s about time. The Association of American Publishers (AAP) and the Book Industry Study Group of Bookstats show unit sales growth of e-books increased a whopping 1039.6% between 2008 and 2010, with 114 million units sold last year. This number only includes those reported by traditional publishers, not all e-books sold by self-publishing authors, so the actual numbers are even greater.

The lesson

The old days when hardcover was king are over. You can sell large quantities of your book in a virtual e-book format that’s either self-published or traditionally published. Authors can pick their own formats and channels.

4. Self-published books can compete

Here’s an astonishing fact: Three books on the top ten titles on the Combined Print and E-Book Fiction Best Seller List are self-published: #4 Blind Faith by CJ Lyons, #5 The Mill River Recluse by Darcie Chan, and #6 The Abbey by Chris Culver. Wow. The speed with which self-published books have risen in acceptance and success is something traditional publishers never anticipated.

The lower cost of e-books have made waiting for mass-market reprints of higher-priced hardcover or trade paperbacks increasingly obsolete. AAP and Book Study Group reports show that mass-market paperbacks are down 13.8% during same period.“The people who used to wait to buy the mass-market paperback because of the price aren’t going to wait anymore,” says Liate Stehlik, publisher of Morrow and Avon at HarperCollins.

The lesson:

Think about self-publishing as an honorable and attractive option to the frustration of trying to find a literary agent and traditional publisher. Self-publishing is increasing exponentially. It’s not easier. You still have to write a good book and sell it largely on your own. But it’s faster, you have more control over it, and you get a bigger share of the profits.

5. Film and TV tie-ins are changing

The #1 hardcover fiction on NY Times Combined Print & E-Book Fiction list is The Help by Kathryn Stockett, the 544-page blockbuster novel about African-American maids working in white households in Jackson, Mississippi during the early 1960s. Originally published in 2009 it has spent 107 weeks on the Hardcover Fiction bestseller list. The film based on the book was released in August of 2011 with what these days is a modest budget of only $25 million. It’s a big hit, grossing more than $123 million to date in the US alone.

The lesson:

Think film, and not only if you’re writing a conventional thriller, mystery or romance. Don’t assume your book has no chance of becoming a major motion picture.

6. Bestselling authors are avid self-marketers

The top ten combined print & e-book fiction and nonfiction authors are able self-marketers, including famous writers with big track records, like Lee Childs, Kathy Reichs, James Patterson, J.A. Jance, John Grisham, and Johanna Lindsey. The newcomers are also at it, including Rebecca Skloot, Chris Culver, Darcie Chan, Alexandra Fuller, Erik Larson, and others.

The lesson:

No one can sell your book as well as you can, whether you already have a big platform or not. Publishers have finally realized that readers want to have direct contact with authors, not with publishers. They don’t really care who published the book but look for reading advice from book bloggers, online reviewers, websites, blogs, tweets and Facebook posts from people they know and trust.

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What’s the single most important thing a writer can do to make it to the list?

For an answer, we turn to Garth Stein, whose novel Racing in the Rain has been on the New York Time Trade Paperback Fiction list for 117 weeks, this week at #8.

“Well, not to sound simplistic or anything, but the single most important thing has to be having a good book, doesn’t it?  I mean, I’ve heard there are clever ways to spend a lot of money to get on the list, and once on the list, there’s a little bit of self-sustaining momentum.  But that doesn’t last unless it’s a good book and people want to read it and they buy extra copies for their friends and family and so forth.

I’m all about marketing and social networking and rah, rah, rah!  And it takes a lot of work from a lot of different people, like the publisher, sales force, booksellers, and the author to land on a (or “The”) list.

But if the emperor has no clothes, the readers will see it right away. So write a brilliant book first.”

Thanks Garth.  Easy to say, right?

What about you?

Do you monitor the bestseller lists?  Or do you avoid them entirely?  I’m interested in your own observations and insights as writers, which I hope you’ll share here in comments.

There’s lots of excitement bubbling about new publishing opportunities for writers of short stories, essays, journalism and other less-than-book-length works.

Both established authors and self-publishing newcomers with short-form pieces that once appeared only in places like literary and news magazines are finding brand new markets with Kindle Singles and other digital venues like Byliner and Atavist.

Scroll down for my advice and tips for authors of short works

What’s a Kindle Single?

Kindle Singles is Amazon’s newest publishing imprint, launched earlier this year and designed for “compelling ideas expressed at their natural length”. That includes short stories, reporting, essays, memoirs and other narratives that are typically between 5,000 and 30,000 words long. Works are published using the Kindle Direct Publishing platform and authors choose a selling price from $.99 to $4.99, receiving royalties of 70 percent. Like all Kindle books, the singles can be purchased and read on Amazon Kindles, and all devices using the free Kindle reading apps, including Mac and PC computers, iPads and smart phones.

There were about 75 Kindle Singles published the first half of this year, with six of them reaching the Top 20 bestselling titles in the Kindle Store, which includes all Kindle books. Not bad! Take a look at the current Kindle Single bestseller list. At #6 today is The Bathtub Spy, a 15-page “offbeat but tender” short story by Tom Rachman, the New York Times bestselling debut author of The Imperfectionists, published by Random House. Rachman appears to have self-published his Kindle Single story.

Byliner and Atavist

Amazon’s not the only player in the short-form arena. Two other recent start-up digital publishers include Byliner and The Atavist, both focused on investigative reporting and other works of nonfiction narrative. Both also distribute their published works on Kindle Singles, with several starring on the bestseller list there, including The Fearless Mrs. Goodwin (Byliner) by Elizabeth Mitchell, a 44-page true-crime account of a brutal bank heist taking place in turn-of-the-century Manhattan, and Blind Sight (Atavist) by Chris Colin, a 38-page nonfiction narrative about a Hollywood movie producer’s horrific car wreck that killed his new wife and his subsequent 10-year journey recovering from devastating brain injuries.

Mainstream publishers are also taking advantage of these new channels, notably Tor.com, the science-fiction imprint of MacMillan, and Penguin eSpecials, both publishing low-cost short-form works by their existing authors in the form of excerpts, reprints and original new pieces.

Fingers crossed

Book publishers and agents are hoping with fingers crossed that these new venues will develop into reliable income streams, and will also draw readers to their authors’ full-length books. The senior VP of digital and audio publishing at Hachette Book Group told Publishers Weekly recently that author David Baldacci’s Kindle Single 15-page short story No Time Left, priced at $.99 was “tremendously successful” for them and characterized the publisher as “extremely satisfied with the results.”

A big appetite for short works

Readers have made many best sellers out of traditional books of short form work, including Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature, and the perennial best-selling The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien. Meanwhile the appetite for essays, articles, and in-depth journalism remains unabated, for example What the Dog Saw, the current bestselling collection of essays by Malcolm Gladwell.

There’s so much good short form writing out there, past and present. Choose from classics and contemporaries like O’Henry, Guy de Maupassant, Katherine Mansfield, Flannery O’Connor, Eudora Welty, J.D. Sallinger, Alice Munro, Stephen King, Malcolm Gladwell, John McPhee, John Updike. It’s inspiring, so read and enjoy!

You might be interested in an earlier post called Why Book Publishers Love Short Stories – take a look.

More success stories

Three Cups of Deceit, best-selling author Jon Kraukuer’s 75-page expose of Greg Mortenson’s Three Cups of Tea, has sold 30,000 copies, according to a reliable source.

Leaving Home, a 43-page story by Jodi Picoult, the well-known author with 14 million copies of her previous books in print, submitted to Kindle Singles by Picoult’s agent Laura Gross Literary Agency and reported among the top 20 bestsellers of all Kindle Books.

Pakistan and the Mumbai Attacks: The Untold Story, by foreign correspondent Sebastian Rotella sold 1900 copies in its first two weeks by ProPublica which published the 38-page work of investigative journalism as a Kindle Single that went as a high as #2 on the Kindle bestseller list.

Russ Grandinette, VP for Kindle Content at Amazon has said “Ideas and words should be crafted to their natural length, not an artificial marketing length that justifies a particular price at a certain format.”

Hear hear!  Authors of short form fiction and nonfiction reading this post will no doubt agree and look for a way to sell their own short-form work online. But as an insider who champions digital and self-publishing in all its various new options, I nevertheless urge you to consider the following tips and precautions.

Tips for writers

1. Price flexibly

Kindle Singles permits pricing from $.99 to $4.99. The Bathtub Spy is priced at $1.99 for 15 pages, while No Time Left by bestselling author David Baldacci is only $.99 for a story of the same length. Stephen King’s 80-page novella Mile 81 is selling for $2.99, though some readers are griping that the last 20 pages are really only a preview of an upcoming book.

My advice is to set the lowest price you can and hope for volume rather than testing a shot-in-the-dark higher price that the market might or might not tolerate. Readers are used to paying lower prices for digital writing these days, particularly when many short- form works are available as time-limited free samples on author web-sites.

2. Read the fine print

Many reputable vendors have dense boilerplate legal language in their standard agreements that grants them exclusive rights, license and ownership of your intellectual property. This is not to your advantage, needless to say, so don’t just sign whatever they give you. Get legal advice if you need it.

3. Market as usual

The same principles of online self-marketing apply as with long form fiction and nonfiction. There is no proportionate slackening of effort permitted if you’re serious about being an author in these times. Balance your marketing and work at a comfort level where you can do both and still get a few hours sleep. Nobody said it was easier now than it’s ever been!

4. Be sure your work is ready for prime time

Short-form work needs to be tightly focused and carefully organized. In these respects it can be more difficult to write than a full-length book. So be sure your work is fully baked before sending it out.

Even seasoned veteran writers can make mistakes – there were some scathing reader reviews on Amazon of Lee Child’s Kindle Single Second Son, with one disgruntled fan posting: “This left me cold and disappointed. The sketchy plot went nowhere…”  And more than a few readers of David Baldacci’s story No Time Left wrote blistering comments.  One reader, describing himself as a “rabid fan” of Baldacci’s novels, posted this: “This is the weakest writing that I have ever read from Baldacci…This first efort at a kindle short story is predictable, implausible, and never links the character motivation that drives the ending.”  Whew!

Many successful writers now use private professional developmental editors prior to submitting work for publication. Full disclosure: I work with a limited number of private clients, but I’m not the only developmental editor around. There are many others out there, and here’s my advice on how to find the best editor for you.

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What about you?

Are you a writer of short stories, or narrative nonfiction? Are you considering submitting your work to Kindle Singles or another of the short-form venues out there? If you’ve already done so, please share something about your experience, positive or otherwise.

You may also be interested in these posts:  Growing a short story into a novel and Why book publishers love short stories

Here’s a situation that editors encounter frequently: manuscripts with a large cast of potentially interesting characters, sparkling dialogue, and the glimmer of ideas churning just beneath the surface.

But after a little while the scenes become repetitious, the characters and their machinations turn formulaic — and reading becomes a chore.

Books that keep readers awake

A good book, whether it’s a novel, memoir, biography, history, or narrative non-fiction, must take readers somewhere new and end up far from where they started. Readers want to identify, engage, and be inspired by what happens to people they can care about.

Scroll down for DIY tips to thicken a plot

Story as transformative journey

The idea of story content as a transformative journey goes back to the earliest Greek and Roman classical literature. In Homer’s Odyssey, written around 850 BC, Odysseus, also known as Ulysses, has to win the Trojan War, escape the Lotus Eaters, defeat the Cyclops, avoid the Sirens and overcome many other deathly metaphorical temptations to return home to his faithful wife, a wiser and better man.

Similarly, in the third century BC, Apollonius of Rhodes wrote about Jason and his Argonauts, who had to defeat Amazons, the Harpies, the Clashing Rocks, and then harness the fire-breathing Oxen to win the Golden Fleece.

George Lucas told the same basic story in his six Star Wars films.

The names and places are always new, but the core story line doesn’t change. The hero or heroine of any good story, whether it’s a novel, memoir, or narrative non-fiction, must endure a series of symbolic events that precipitate a life changing degree of development and change.

How an editor can help

When I’m working with a promising but incomplete story, I suggest specific line-by-line additions for new plot development that add depth, pacing, and flesh out the details that accelerate big changes in the lives of the major characters.

I may also suggest deletions when dialog or an action is repetitious or digressive. This can be painful. “It was like drowning your kittens,” one writer said mournfully. “But it was the right thing to do.”

An editor shouldn’t advise you to sweeten up a Hollywood climax. An unhappy ending is OK, if the reader can say “yes, that’s life” and put the book down at the end with emotional satisfaction.

If you’re interested in working with a developmental editor, here’s my advice on finding a good one.

If your book is getting rejected

If your manuscript has been receiving rejections accompanied by vacant stares and long yawns, check out these red flags and solutions.

Remember:  Readers need plot!  Or they doze off.

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DIY plot thickening

Red flag #1: No compelling leading character

You need characters with whom the reader can get involved. Don’t give readers only big losers or unattractive predators. They need to feel either joy or empathic sorrow at what happens to the person they carry around in their head for days.

Take care not to introduce too many characters. Diluting the reader’s focus of engagement is one of the biggest problems I see in early drafts. Pick a couple of core characters to expand and reduce the rest to essential supporting roles.

Red flag #2: Repetition

Circling around the same behaviors and actions again and again is the bane, the curse, the kiss of death for any story.

We need variety: not just the same experience or emotional desire over and over, but progressive challenges, successes and failures, gradual changes, and ultimate maturity or at least hope for the future. Or not. Again, failure and tragedy works too, if it’s honest, credible and moving.

So make your points and move on. Get out the red ink and prune down to just what moves the plot toward a meaningful ending.

Red flag #3: No change

The main characters should develop dramatically for better or worse, winding up in quite a different situation than they were at the beginning regarding their identities, relationship, thoughts and feelings. This substantial transformation is what the story is about. It’s the promise, the takeaway for your reader.

Be ready to add substantial new scenes that introduce difficult challenges that alter the characters’ lives, and provoke their evolution.

Red flag #4: No ending

The ending must represent the climax of a series of events, each of which show incremental change, step-by-step, with significant action and interaction reaching a meaningful conclusion. This is the kind of ultimate engagement, identification, information and inspiration that a reader wants and deserves.

Before you start writing or revising an existing draft, figure out the end. You can revise and modify this as you go along but it’s extremely helpful to have a good sense of what happens to each chapter that is moving the characters towards their big change.

Avoid an ending that relies on an abrupt stop action, interrupted dialogue, or cliffhanger. These may work for an occasional chapter ending but will not ultimately give the reader a satisfying close to the book.

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What about you?

Are you working on a story that isn’t quite there yet?  Try some of the troubleshooting tips here, and see what happens. Any questions?  Fire away!  And please weigh in with your thoughts and ideas here in comments.

The author platform isn’t what it used to be. A new definition is emerging, based on the reality that in the 21st century, readers don’t depend on the Today Show or the feature pages of the New York Times to find a new book to read.

Instead, they’re looking online and expecting to find a more direct path to a favorite or yet-to-be-discovered author.

The tired old model

By definition, the old model of the author platform was the writer’s public visibility and reputation that the publisher’s publicity department used to promote and sell the book.

During the many years I signed up authors as an acquiring editor at Simon & Schuster, Bantam, Wiley and elsewhere, I did indeed look hard at the writer’s platform, and favored authors with high gloss visibility in the national media, big buzz for recent accomplishments, an Ivy League affiliation with maybe a Nobel Prize thrown in for good measure. We insisted on a stellar track record in book sales and appearances on radio and TV. Everyone understood that the bigger the platform, the higher the advance. But like everything else in the book business these days, things have changed and all bets are off.

The new approach

It’s still about visibility, but today’s approach has changed. The New Author Platform requires a focus on developing an unobstructed back and forth between authors and their readers, with the authors — not the publishers — controlling the flow. Now it’s the author, not a publicist, who inspires readers to buy the book. The New Author Platform allows not only well-established authors, but unknown, first-time beginners to do an end run around the conservative gate-keepers and reach readers directly.

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The New Author Platform

Here are some of the elements of the New Author Platform I discuss with my author clients who want to build their currency and visibility with readers online.

Personality

Successful authors today are designing websites filled with their work-in-progress, writing frequently updated blogs, tweeting, and shooting home-style, brief videos to post on their sites and on YouTube. They’re offering original content in samples and chunks, with invitations for feedback, and taking every opportunity to comment and join forums and other online venues on topics that relate to their own work.

In this way, they’re creating a public face that represents who they are and what they want to say.

Authenticity

Readers like to know and trust an author before buying their book. An artificial, smiley-face false front won’t do the trick. Instead, authors need to extend their literary skills to create a genuine bona-fide online persona that has human quirks, dimension, and nuance. You can be funny, cranky, indignant, nostalgic, didactic.

As long as you’re honest and persuasive, you have a better chance of getting potential readers interested to the point where they make the final commitment and put their money down.

Expertise

Authors don’t need to be full professors at Harvard to contribute useful comments and information online. Post brief sections from your book, and take social networking seriously by commenting and tweeting to build your reputation and visibility. This is true whether your subject is science and technology, history and biography, food and cooking, parenting and relationships, really any subject in any genre, and whether you’re a fiction or non-fiction writer.

Consider yourself a public service resource in the field you’re writing about. Your reputation and expertise will flourish in proportion to the value of the content you offer.

Subtlety

A cardinal rule of the new author platform is never to actually ask people to buy your book. Rather promulgate your work by making an enduring connection. Establish an authentic online personality, offer valuable information, analysis, opinion, and inspiring entertainment.

These are the elements of the New Author Platform that will ultimately sell your book.

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Examples

Here are four illustrative case histories with strengths and weaknesses as noted.

1. Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

The co-authors of the hugely successful Freakonomics books offer up a website that exemplifies the New Author Platform. It’s deep on content with terrific value for the reader, including a very active blog with posts on breaking news from their famously no-prisoners-taken perspective.

The authors and a roster of 13 top-drawer contributors (but no women on the roster — hmm…) post daily and cover topics from the current budget crisis to the economics of the latest NFL Lockouts. The site also does a great job with sharp video graphics that explain things so that even mathophobes (like me) can understand the numbers. The site is easy to navigate, cohesive and sharply focused on the subject of the books, but there’s no hard sell. Overall, a great sense of humor and brilliant content.

2. In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson – This portrait of Berlin during the rise of the Nazi Party concentrates on William E. Dodd, who became the U.S. ambassador to Germany in 1933, and his daughter, Martha. Current #3 NYTimes non-fiction bestseller.

This bestselling author has created a charming and engaging website. Larson is funny and self-deprecating, providing both an official and a “real story” author bio and including some humorous jibes from his young daughters and a full-page devoted to photos and tributes to his late dog Molly.

What’s missing is an active back and forth with readers. While Larson invites visitors to send in questions about his work or on the subject of writing, he doesn’t promise to respond, saying only “From time to time I’ll choose one and answer it in my blog as frankly as possible.” And there’s no option for comments on his blog posts — which however, are definitely worth reading as deeply felt and revealing insights from an enormously successful writer. The latest, for example, is about being “stranded in the dark country of no ideas,” after completing In the Garden of Beasts.

3. The Paris Wife by Paula McLain — Ernest Hemingway’s first wife narrates this novel set in Paris. 17 weeks on the NYTimes fiction bestseller list.

This is a glitzy publisher-generated website and it shows. There’s some very interesting background information regarding how this novel relates to the true story of Ernest Hemingway’s marriage to Hadley Hemingway during the period documented later in his book A Moveable Feast. There’s also an excellent time-line with key events in Hemingway’s life for fans and readers.

The site also has a couple of video taped conversations with the author, but that’s as close as readers get. There’s no blog or invitation for readers to weigh in. So the website stops short of creating reader engagement, and remains a publisher’s sales tool, like an elaborate publicity kit.

4. My Dangerous Pleasure by Carolyn Jewell — Book 4 in the My Immortal series. Self-published author of historical and paranormal romances

This website  establishes the author as an easy-going, likeable person, with quirks and idiosyncratic tastes, who encourages readers to contact her, promising to reply to every email.

The site includes a personal blog about Jewell’s struggles as an author. There’s also has a section directed at writers, which is highlighted on the homepage, offering tips and advice on topics such as “Why do romance novels get no respect?” and “Are critique groups any help?”  The peer-to-peer advice is frequently spot-on, and probably much appreciated by aspiring writers, but does this focus inspire visitors to buy her romance novels?

What about you?

Please weigh in on how you’re building your platform, what seems to be working well, what isn’t, and please include any special tips and advice for fellow authors. Your input is greatly valued!

Q: How can i be sure my readers will understand my core message, my purpose for writing the book in the first place – unless I help out with a little commentary or explanation?

A: Authors need to respect their readers and allow them their own reactions to the narrative.

This issue comes up frequently for authors at the early stages of writing a novel, memoir, or non-fiction narrative. The writer wonders: “How present should I be in the story?”

What’s wrong with explaining?

The original motivation for an author is usually to illuminate a story that the reader can easily identify with and care about. So what’s wrong with underlining an idea or focusing on the intentional meaning of what’s going on?

What’s wrong is what I see frequently as a developmental editor. Authors who insert themselves intrusively into the story in a misguided effort to explain the meaning of what’s happening and control how the reader responds to the characters and action.

A guiding principle

Have you ever been to a movie where there’s an annoying voiceover narration that keeps commenting without adding anything to what you’re seeing on the screen?

That’s equivalent to an excessive explanation that an author inserts unnecessarily.

Far better to let the story tell itself.

Don’t do this

“’Goodbye forever, you creep!’ Emily screamed hysterically, slamming the door. George was devastated, coiling a strand of his hair around his finger desperately and pulling on it violently in an act of existential anguish until it tore a raw, blood-seeping chunk out of his poor and innocent scalp.”

Do we need all those adjectives and adverbs to help us understand what’s happening here? Not really. We get it. Emily left him. George is upset.

Don’t do this either

At the other extreme, I sometimes see prose stripped down to terse action and minimalist dialogue, like “Emily walked out. George pulled his hair.”

It’s a style that can be so self-consciously diminished it becomes annoying. As a developmental editor, I might suggest new language to add a bit of color, attitude, and a sense of human feelings.

How much should writers reveal themselves?

Should writers reveal themselves as the omniscient puppeteers behind the curtain, or remain completely in the background, totally invisible?

My view has always been that less is better. Let your readers have their own experiences with your book. As readers ourselves, we know that we bring to the book our own perspective, our own unique response to the characters and their stories.

In the first sample above, for example, some readers may resent the author’s apparent intention to make us feel sorry for George, preferring Emily’s point of view. Others may feel otherwise. That’s what is wonderful about reading a book — or experiencing any work of art, including music, painting, film — our own emotional and psychological backstories and personal, intimate temperaments influence profoundly how we respond to what’s written.

Mistrust is at the heart of the question

Consequently, I believe all writers should avoid the mistrust at the heart of engineering artificially authorized feelings. Instead I recommend an author include only what’s necessary to achieve a proper balance between the quick and the dead, the hollow shell of rapid surface events and the overwrought laboring of an author preaching from a soapbox.

Here’s a good example of such a subtle balance from a very good short story by Tessa Hadley called Clever Girl that recently appeared in the New Yorker magazine:

“Our new garden, which my window overlooked in blind indifference, was only a rectangle of clay, marked off with fence posts and wire from the clay rectangle belonging to the other houses.”

Hardly any explicit emotional direction here. “Blind indifference” is the only clue of where the author might be coming from, but the author hasn’t chosen the words: It’s a first-person narrative.

Meanwhile, the bare description and repeating appearance of the clay rectangle again and again sent a shudder down my spine, evoking, for me at least, desolation, dread, isolation, vulnerability and fear. All very powerful in this story, which is narrated by an unhappy ten-year-old girl who has just moved to the suburbs with her mother and unwelcome new stepfather.

The  debate between too much and too little

There are no sure-fire formulas for great writing, however. The debate continues.

For example, Aine Greaney an Irish-born author and essayist wrote a piece on the website Gently Read Literature which addresses this problem entitled The Ghost Behind the Page.

“In my author-school days, Rule Number 1 was to never insert yourself between the story and the reader. Yet, I believe that too many modern fiction authors eclipse themselves completely from the work. As we read their books, we cannot sense the presence of an author-ghost behind the pages. While the story is clever or exciting or readable, the narrative provides no window into that author’s sensibilities or philosophies or attitudes. Quite simply, there’s no author there.”

Here’s a different approach from best-selling author Abraham Verghese, who sets out explicit meaning and explanation for the story that he’s going to tell at the opening of his novel Cutting for Stone.

“We come unbidden into this life, and if we are lucky we find a purpose beyond starvation, misery, and early death which, lest we forget, is the common lot. I grew up and found my purpose and it was to become a physician. My intent wasn’t to save the world as much to heal myself.”

Very nice. Well written. Pretty much tells us what the book is going to be about. Not every author, however, has the literary skill or story-telling ability of Verghese.

What about you?

What kind of balance between explaining and trusting the readers are you choosing? Send in your examples and thoughts on these subtle but critical literary choices.

This is the best time ever to be a writer.

Especially for those in the vanguard: the self-publishing writers at the cutting edge of the brave new turbulent world of literary art and commerce.

I say that with some authority. As a worker bee from deep within the trenches of the book publishing industry, I can tell you from the inside that we’re living in an era of topsy turvy shifts in the balance of power and major changes in the core business of the book publishing industry.

Authors are steering the ship

What’s emerging is a new paradigm. That was the message loud and clear at Book Expo, the publishing industry’s behemoth annual convention, held recently in New York.

The advent of digital writing and publishing and the spontaneous democratic practice of social networking has in fact revolutionized the book business, challenged and changed how books are written and published irrevocably and forever, and shifted the balance of power from the commercial book publishers to the author.

Yes, you. The authors. The iconoclastic, idiosyncratic, garrulous, shy, outgoing, charming or grouchy writers working at home, courageously facing the blank screen or typewriter paper or yellow pad, getting up early before work or when the kids are still sleeping, up in the attic, down in the basement – you writers now have the upper hand.

Publishers confess they’ve goofed

Here’s why: Book publishers have been very slow to realize this but gradually began to admit that they really didn’t know all that well what they’re doing.

Seriously. They don’t. And they know it. Did you know that nearly all published books – conservative estimates range between 80-90 percent – lose money? These books don’t earn out their advances, don’t have second printings, they sell in the low four digits at best, are returned from the retail accounts and pulped or recycled.

The rest have to make up for it, and often don’t. What kind of a business is that?

So as book publishers have begun to admit to themselves and even publicly that they can’t really predict what will sell or not, they’ve also realized that the old methods of selling, of marketing a book have stopped working.

That $50K space ad in the New York Times? Forget it. It’s only for the author’s mother. The twenty-city bookstore tour with first class airplanes, limousines, and hotel suites? A waste of money.

Not even an appearance on the Today Show can guarantee more than a brief spike in sales. And Oprah, bless her heart, isn’t around anymore to guarantee sales for the very small number of titles she once had as her book club picks.

The old ways don’t work, and smart people in book publishing know that and say it openly now.

It’s all about buzz

What works, all agree, is the creation of “buzz”, one person telling another, “Hey you have to read this!”

This is where you, the author, come in. What creates buzz is when the author connects directly with the reader. Readers don’t care who published the book; they want a relationship with the author.

Authors today can reach their market without an intermediary. Not through the publisher, not through advertising or the mass media. Authors now have the technology to connect directly with interest groups, book bloggers, websites, to use Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other social networking channels to reach precisely the readers who might be interested in knowing about their work, whether it’s fiction or non-fiction, whether it’s an ambitious literary novel or genre romance, sci-fi and mystery, paranormal or super-wholesome faith-based inspirational stories.

You can connect with these readers through the new art of self-marketing which has its own etiquette and best practices, which does require time and effort, but which can be done powerfully and effectively without every leaving the house, while still in your pajamas.

For years publishers have preached “platform, platform, platform” but now they realize that this platform is not built only on media or celebrity status, but most importantly on the author’s ability to reach readers and create visibility and connection online.

Why more authors are self-publishing

So now publishers expect all authors they acquire to be the bedrock of the work’s marketing plans. It’s often in the contract: the author must be available, willing to spend time and energy, willing to figure out the skills of self-marketing.

And that’s why more authors are asking: If publishers don’t know what they’re doing and rely on the author to sell their own books, why should authors endure the long, frustrating, seemingly impossible job of finding a literary agent and selling your book to a commercial book publisher?

And more are saying: “Hey I’m tired of running up against brick walls. The book business is an impenetrable fortress. I can’t get anyone to pay attention to me. No one returns my call or answers my query letters. Months are passing and I’m getting nowhere.”

Meanwhile we’ve all read about Amanda Hocking, The Shack (ten million copies sold), Chicken Soup for the Soul, John Locke, Stephanie McAfee (Diary of a Mad Fat Girl), Bella Andre, and the phenomenal success of Joe Konrath and his many self-published titles.

That’s why more authors are diving into self-publishing.

The myth versus the reality of doing it yourself

Self-publishing has become the tsunami, the 9.6 earthquake, the paradigm shift of the literary world, overwhelming book publishing with more titles published by authors than by mainstream publishers in the year 2010.

So now let’s take a good look at what self-publishing is and what it isn’t.

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Three Myths about Self-Publishing

#1 Commercial publishers won’t touch a self-published book

Not true!

Self-publishing has become the most powerful and effective device for test marketing your book around. If you can sell five thousand books or more on your own, you can prove there’s a market for your book and you know how to reach it, whether it’s through the media, social networking, back-of-the-room sales, whatever.

Conversion from self-publishing to mainstream commercial publishing is becoming more common, frequent, and normal – IF that’s what you want.

Many self-published authors, however, don’t want to convert. They want to control everything themselves: the content, design, marketing of their book and most importantly the division of royalties, since instead of the 10-15 percent of list price publishers pay, an author can receive 70 percent or more of list price and make a lot more money. Do the math. But be sure to read the fine print, since there may be strange restrictions and adjustments in the boilerplate of agreements reached with any vendor, agent, or publisher.

There’s a lot of experimenting going on with lower-pricing, greater volume, and fluctuating royalty deals, but generally you can make a lot more money self-publishing – if your book sells.

#2 Agents won’t represent an author who self-publishes

Wrong.

Top agents have begun to represent self-published authors, including such leading lights as Jim Levine, founder and principal of the Levine-Greenberg Agency and Jane Dystel, President of the Dystel and Goderich Literary Management.

They’re representing translation and film rights for these self-published titles, and they’re selling self-published books to traditional publishers, if that’s what the author wants.

Agents are also beginning to help self-publishing authors to get professional outside developmental and copy-editing, a great jacket designer, set up their website and learn how to social network, make a video for YouTube, get on Facebook, and learn how to strategically blog and tweet.

So agents are becoming managers and coaches in the career development of self-published authors. Not all agents, but more and more of the hipper, younger ones who understand how to do this.

#3 It’s easy to succeed as a self-published author

Absolutely not. Here’s why:

You still have to write a good book. No mean feat. Successful writers I know – whether they’re published commercially or self-published – need to write and rewrite their books many times, usually with the support of a developmental editor, not someone who does spelling and punctuation but a creative partner who is able to identify and solve problems with the story, structure, characterization, dialogue, visual description, literary style, pacing, the narrative arc – with a first, second, and third act that engages the reader and reaches some kind of epiphany or denouement that entertains, illuminates and provides emotional satisfaction for the reader. Read here for my advice on finding your own developmental editor.

You need to put as much time and energy as you can on self-marketing. You need to be online with your website, you need to start blogging, tweeting, connecting on Facebook and making short videos for YouTube.

You still have to expand your platform, be visible, let people know about yourself and your book. The old cliché about platform, platform, platform is still true. Ask anyone who’s made it and most will agree. However you do it, if you want readers to know about your book you have to sell it yourself. It’s part of your job. It’s essential for success if you want to be a writer today. There’s no guarantee it will work, but it’s nearly impossible to get readers without it.

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Forecast: Mostly sunny with a chance of rain

Self-publishing offers more control, an accelerated approach to the market, and a much greater share of the profits. But beyond the myth, our reality is that it’s just as hard as ever to write a good book that generates and sustains the buzz, a book that people want to tell their friends about, a book that produces major sales.

That part is as hard as ever. But it’s still the best time ever to be a writer, don’t you agree?

If you’re an author of books that have gone out of print, you could be sitting on a goldmine.

Savvy writers – especially those with an online following — are reveling in unexpected profits by self-publishing their defunct backlist titles as new e-books.

“Today, my backlist has value to me”

“In six weeks, I’ve made three times the advance I was paid initially,” says Carolyn Jewel, an author of historical and paranormal romances who has reissued the first of her backlist titles originally published by Hachette and Penguin-Putnam. I spoke with Carolyn recently about her surprise bonanza.

“I’ve also made more than I did in royalties while the book was in print. My out-of-print titles weren’t earning anyone any money — except used books stores I suppose. Today, my backlist has value to me.”

Scroll down for DIY instructions to reissue your own backlist books

Bestselling author reissuing archive of 40 books

“I’m more excited than I’ve ever been,” says New York Times bestselling author Bob Mayer, who blogged recently about plunging into self-publishing and reissuing his defunct titles as e-books. The former Green Beret wrote the first of 40 military thrillers and historical novels in 1991, which he says have sold more than 4 million copies over the years. In addition to self-publishing his entire backlist, Mayer has opted to reject his longtime publisher St. Martin’s and their six-figure advances. Instead he’s publishing his new epic novel Duty, Honor, Country, a Novel of West Point and the Civil War, himself.

“One trait those of us coming from traditional publishing have had, is knowing it’s the long haul that counts. In digital, it’s not the spike for the bestseller list, but the long tail of sales that is the key.”

An important added benefit for an established author like Mayer is recycling the blurbs and reviews that were printed with the original edition.  Those quotes lend instant credibility to readers browsing sites like Amazon.

“Isn’t this just awesome?!”

That was Nyree Belleville’s reaction to her sales figures for the first three months of 2011: books sold: 56,008, income: $116,264.

Pretty awesome indeed for a writer whose publisher unceremoniously dumped her for lack of sales only last October. Things looked very bleak, but then something important happened: the publisher handed back the rights to the first two of her 12 romance novels. The Sonoma, California-based author, who writes under the pseudonym Bella Andre, decided to reissue the two titles herself as e-books on Kindle. The results startled her: nearly $500 in a matter of months. Things started getting giddy and soon Belleville was self-publishing new titles, picking up more of her out-of-print rights and it all kept snow-balling.

“Publishers created this monster”

“I’m making a phenomenal amount of money self-publishing, more every day, more than I ever made being published by Hachette or Simon & Schuster,” Belleville told me by phone recently. “Publishers created this monster themselves by insisting and pulling on authors to sell their own books. So we’ve learned a whole new skill set that proves you don’t necessarily need a publisher.”

You can read more about Belleville in this recent Washington Post article, which featured her success as an e-book self-publisher. It’s a great story, but it didn’t happen by chance. Belleville’s a hard-working, disciplined writer with a degree in economics from Stanford, and says she writes around 4,500 words every single day.

Putting your own backlist to work

The self-publishing revolution has made it possible for authors to bring their moribund out-of-print titles back to life by repackaging and in some cases revising the contents for major sales to old fans and new readers. And as literary agent Jessica Faust told me, “Republishing backlist titles not only increases revenue, it’s a highly-effective brand-builder for authors.”

Interested? Here’s how to get started moving your own out-of-print books onto Kindle and other e-book readers:

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DIY Steps for Authors

Reissuing  Backlist Titles as New E-Books

1. Get back your rights

This is the crucial first step. You need a signed letter of reversion of rights from your publisher. Without it, you can’t go any further. Dig up your original contract, and if you have an agent, go over it together. For more detail, look here for a good rundown of the process and strategies if you run into problems.

I can tell you as a publishing veteran, the original publisher may be reluctant to let go, citing boiler-plate language that permits them to retain the rights as long as there are any copies left in the warehouse, or any subsidiary editions are still around, like book-club, translation or other editions. E-rights are especially contentious these days, but hold your ground. The ultimate decision will be based on the language in your contract.

Most recent book contracts, for example, have a minimum units or dollar figure to hit before rights revert to the author. Publishers may try for as few as 100 units, which makes it nearly impossible for the rights to ever revert.

Good literary agents negotiate hard on this point. “I usually try to get it changed to something like 400 units, though publishers aren’t excited to grant this,” said literary agent Rachelle Gardner on her prolific blog. “It’s helpful to have an agent who can watch your sales in each royalty period, and make that reversion request at the right time and in the proper manner.” Read more of Gardner’s take on the subject of rights reversion here.

2. Get a digital file

Here are two of the many services out there that charge a reasonable flat rate to convert a print book to Kindle-friendly digital format:

52novels (highly recommended by self-publishing guru JA Konrath)

DigitalMediaInitiatives (recommended by Amazon)

3. Get a new jacket

Author rights don’t include the original jacket design, which was paid for by the publisher. That leaves the author with at least two options: Try to repurchase the original art, or commission a new design.

“I had to buy the rights from the photographer’s estate for the original front cover photo on Looking Back, since that book came out in 1973 and the fellow who took the shot had passed away,” author Joyce Maynard told me recently. “For my other out-of-print reissued title, To Die For, I had my web designer create a new cover and I like it much better than the original.”

For a good discussion on effective jacket design, check out this post at the Self-Publishing Review on the 10 Secrets of Professional Book Cover Designers. Their cautionary note: “Nothing says ‘amateur’ faster and more effectively than a poorly designed book cover.”

4. Consider updates and revisions

Some writers wonder if it’s OK to revise a work of fiction when republishing an out-of-print book. My opinion is yes, absolutely.

Many writers I’ve worked with as a developmental editor have taken my suggestions for rewriting passages in a reprint edition, holding themselves to a high standard, seeing stylistic or structural changes that could improve the book. Why not? It’s the quality that counts. Tolstoy rewrote War and Peace several times over the decades, and so did Scott Fitzgerald with The Great Gatsby.

5. Network, network, network

Author outreach and social networking to readers online is the most effective way to sell any book. Let your readers know these once dormant books are available again!

What about you?

Are you sitting on a gold mine?  Do you have out-of-print books that could add to your inventory of available works?

I’d like to give the last word to JA Konrath, the tireless self-publishing evangelist. I endorse his message: “I urge all writers to look at their backlist, and figure out how they can turn those dead tree books into ebooks. This should become a required skill for writers, like understanding narrative structure, or how to write a query letter.”

Your thoughts about all this?