Hello and thank you for visiting. Warner Coaching's new Wordpress site launched in October 2011 and I'm now posting my newsletter there. Read the latest HERE.
Thanks so much.
Brooke Warner
Warner Coaching Inc.
October 8, 2011
August 12, 2011
How to Hire a Proofreader, Part 3 of a 3-Part Series
This month’s newsletter is the final in the series about editors—and we’re talking proofreaders, the people you hire in the final stages of your project. You may have already employed the services of a developmental editor and a copyeditor by the time you hire a proofreader, or you may have even worked with several editors. This shouldn’t dissuade you from hiring a proofreader. Writers—and readers, too—are under the mistaken impression that editors catch every single error, and that if a book has been copyedited then it’s finished and ready for publication. Wrong.
What is Proofreading, Anyway?
Proofreading is a final pass on a document, manuscript, or piece of content. It’s different from line editing because a proofread shouldn’t entail substantive changes. A proofreader will note strange or wrong word choices. They will note redundancies (i.e., “This deep-felt experience resonated deeply.”) Now, it’s true that a copyeditor should have/might have caught something like this in the copyediting phase, but a proofreader is wearing a wholly different lens when they’re looking at your work. They are not reading for structure or logic like a copyeditor is. They’re looking for dropped words, and if a book is already formatted and/or designed, for mistakes a manuscript might contain as a result of being designed—things like bad breaks, inconsistent fonts, or wrongly formatted headings.
Why Do I Need a Proofreader?
I said in last month’s newsletter that if you only hire one editor, hire a copyeditor. It’s absolutely possible to take your manuscript to an agent or to shop your book without being proofread. I often see proposals and manuscripts that contain errors and it doesn’t make me want to write those authors off. However, if I’m looking at something that’s unsolicited, and the query letter and proposal are riddled with small errors, that’s a whole other story. Obviously good punctuation, spelling, and grammar make a good impression. If you’re unagented and trying to sell your manuscript directly to a publisher, it’s worth having a proofreader go over your work. If you’re self-publishing, do not skip the proofreading step. Most books, even after their proofread, STILL contain a handful of mistakes. You will be surprised and horrified by how many small things your proofreader catches, so be thorough and consider the value of that final few hundred dollars. After all, some agents and acquisitions editors are much more unforgiving than I am.
How Do I Work with a Proofreader?
Most proofreaders still mark up hardcopy pages. There are ways to proof online, and I still don’t like them as much as a good old-fashioned red pen on paper. So you can send your proofreader your content in the mail and they can mark it up and send it back to you, or you can consider an online method if it appeals to you. What’s important is what you do after you get your corrections back. If you do not know proofreading marks and you’re not editorially inclined, then you might want to consider working with your proofreader, copyeditor, or designer to implement the changes the proofreader made. All too often I see writers implementing perfectly good changes and introducing new errors because they don’t know any better. So be careful. Establish a process or this entire step might be for naught.
A Friendly Word of Advice
Be careful about hiring your best friend who’s a “pretty good proofreader” or your daughter who “passed the AP English test.” Unless they are trained proofreaders, they’re not proofreaders. They might be very skilled and have good instincts. They’ll probably even catch some errors. And, yes, if you’re not going to hire anyone then certainly have someone you know look over your pages for you. But understand that a good proofreader is someone who's going to go over your pages with a fine-tooth comb. And they will, I promise you, blow your mind.
Until next month,
Brooke
GO BACK TO THE WARNER COACHING HOMEPAGE
What is Proofreading, Anyway?
Proofreading is a final pass on a document, manuscript, or piece of content. It’s different from line editing because a proofread shouldn’t entail substantive changes. A proofreader will note strange or wrong word choices. They will note redundancies (i.e., “This deep-felt experience resonated deeply.”) Now, it’s true that a copyeditor should have/might have caught something like this in the copyediting phase, but a proofreader is wearing a wholly different lens when they’re looking at your work. They are not reading for structure or logic like a copyeditor is. They’re looking for dropped words, and if a book is already formatted and/or designed, for mistakes a manuscript might contain as a result of being designed—things like bad breaks, inconsistent fonts, or wrongly formatted headings.
Why Do I Need a Proofreader?
I said in last month’s newsletter that if you only hire one editor, hire a copyeditor. It’s absolutely possible to take your manuscript to an agent or to shop your book without being proofread. I often see proposals and manuscripts that contain errors and it doesn’t make me want to write those authors off. However, if I’m looking at something that’s unsolicited, and the query letter and proposal are riddled with small errors, that’s a whole other story. Obviously good punctuation, spelling, and grammar make a good impression. If you’re unagented and trying to sell your manuscript directly to a publisher, it’s worth having a proofreader go over your work. If you’re self-publishing, do not skip the proofreading step. Most books, even after their proofread, STILL contain a handful of mistakes. You will be surprised and horrified by how many small things your proofreader catches, so be thorough and consider the value of that final few hundred dollars. After all, some agents and acquisitions editors are much more unforgiving than I am.
How Do I Work with a Proofreader?
Most proofreaders still mark up hardcopy pages. There are ways to proof online, and I still don’t like them as much as a good old-fashioned red pen on paper. So you can send your proofreader your content in the mail and they can mark it up and send it back to you, or you can consider an online method if it appeals to you. What’s important is what you do after you get your corrections back. If you do not know proofreading marks and you’re not editorially inclined, then you might want to consider working with your proofreader, copyeditor, or designer to implement the changes the proofreader made. All too often I see writers implementing perfectly good changes and introducing new errors because they don’t know any better. So be careful. Establish a process or this entire step might be for naught.
A Friendly Word of Advice
Be careful about hiring your best friend who’s a “pretty good proofreader” or your daughter who “passed the AP English test.” Unless they are trained proofreaders, they’re not proofreaders. They might be very skilled and have good instincts. They’ll probably even catch some errors. And, yes, if you’re not going to hire anyone then certainly have someone you know look over your pages for you. But understand that a good proofreader is someone who's going to go over your pages with a fine-tooth comb. And they will, I promise you, blow your mind.
Until next month,
Brooke
GO BACK TO THE WARNER COACHING HOMEPAGE
July 21, 2011
How to Hire a Copyeditor, Part 2 of a 3-Part Series
Last month I wrote about what a developmental editor does. This month we’re talking about copyeditors (and next month will be about proofreaders). The decision to have your final manuscript edited is a big deal---and an important step.
What is Copyediting, Anyway?
Copyediting, also called line editing, is mostly about consistency, word choice, good grammar, and accurate punctuation. A good copyeditor will notice repetition in your work. They may also help you with any timeline issues or chronology lapses, and inconsistencies caused by things like changing people's names late in the game. They will generally do a base-level fact-check as well. They’ll make your word and punctuation choices consistent. In a well-copyedited manuscript, for instance, you’ll never see make-up and makeup. You’ll never see some sentences with series commas (I write, I edit, and I rewrite) and others without (I write, I edit and I rewrite). Copyeditors usually won’t point out issues in the story or plot unless you ask them to, or unless the issues are so glaring that they must. More generally, they’ll clean up your grammar and catch things you wouldn’t be able to catch even if you took a month away from your work and came back with fresh eyes. Why is this so? It seems to be physiological! People stop seeing the errors in their own writing after having spent so much time with it. (I've experienced this enough times myself to know it’s true!)
Why Do I Need a Copyeditor?
You must be copyedited. If you have to choose between a developmental editor, copyeditor, or proofreader, choose the copyeditor. You will be stunned by what comes back. The things copyeditors catch delight me to no end. It’s amazing to see that EVERYTHING contains errors, and it gives you a whole new appreciation for accuracy. If you’re already a perfectionist, knowing that you will have your work copyedited at the end of your process can be a weight off your shoulders. It can allow you to focus on the creative process of writing rather than worrying so much about sentence construction. If you’re not a perfectionist and don’t even know what a conjunction or series comma is, then by god, get your work copyedited!
How Do I Work with a Copyeditor?
Recently I was struck by something one of my clients said about her manuscript being out with a copyeditor: “I just figured I had to sit back and wait,” she told me. Well, not exactly. The most important thing to know about working with a copyeditor is that you can and should give them notes and establish boundaries around your own expectations. There are a couple reasons to do so:
What is Copyediting, Anyway?
Copyediting, also called line editing, is mostly about consistency, word choice, good grammar, and accurate punctuation. A good copyeditor will notice repetition in your work. They may also help you with any timeline issues or chronology lapses, and inconsistencies caused by things like changing people's names late in the game. They will generally do a base-level fact-check as well. They’ll make your word and punctuation choices consistent. In a well-copyedited manuscript, for instance, you’ll never see make-up and makeup. You’ll never see some sentences with series commas (I write, I edit, and I rewrite) and others without (I write, I edit and I rewrite). Copyeditors usually won’t point out issues in the story or plot unless you ask them to, or unless the issues are so glaring that they must. More generally, they’ll clean up your grammar and catch things you wouldn’t be able to catch even if you took a month away from your work and came back with fresh eyes. Why is this so? It seems to be physiological! People stop seeing the errors in their own writing after having spent so much time with it. (I've experienced this enough times myself to know it’s true!)
Why Do I Need a Copyeditor?
You must be copyedited. If you have to choose between a developmental editor, copyeditor, or proofreader, choose the copyeditor. You will be stunned by what comes back. The things copyeditors catch delight me to no end. It’s amazing to see that EVERYTHING contains errors, and it gives you a whole new appreciation for accuracy. If you’re already a perfectionist, knowing that you will have your work copyedited at the end of your process can be a weight off your shoulders. It can allow you to focus on the creative process of writing rather than worrying so much about sentence construction. If you’re not a perfectionist and don’t even know what a conjunction or series comma is, then by god, get your work copyedited!
How Do I Work with a Copyeditor?
Recently I was struck by something one of my clients said about her manuscript being out with a copyeditor: “I just figured I had to sit back and wait,” she told me. Well, not exactly. The most important thing to know about working with a copyeditor is that you can and should give them notes and establish boundaries around your own expectations. There are a couple reasons to do so:
(1) Many copyeditors can slip into becoming developmental editors in a snap. If you do not want to be developmentally edited, then you need to be clear that all you’re looking for is a line edit. There are plenty of copyeditors out there who will over-edit and take liberties if you don’t tell them that you want some parameters. I’ve worked with a fair number of authors who have been shocked (and upset) when they got their copyedits back. This happens most often with people who are writing humor, or writers who specifically are not striving for perfect grammar because their work is intentionally conversational. If this is the case with your manuscript, you MUST tell your copyeditor so that he or she doesn't edit out the funny, or edit out your conversational tone. Ask your copyeditor to edit a sample chapter, or at least a few pages. (Pay for this if you have to---it won't cost too much.) Make sure the editor’s marks make sense to you and that you agree with the changes they’re making.
(2) It can get expensive. A line edit is less time-consuming than a developmental edit, and you can further clarify the level of edit you want by asking for a bid (see calculator below). Ask the editor if they’ll read some chapters and offer an assessment before you get started. Yes, you will most likely have to pay for this, too, but it’s better to throw away $60-$80 than to spend hundreds, even thousands, on something you’re not happy with.
Calculator:
Heavy edit: Word count divided by 310 divided by 5
Medium edit: Word count divided by 310 divided by 6
Light edit: Word count divided by 310 divided by 7
This calculator can give you a rough estimate of how much time each level (heavy, medium, light) should take so at least you will know whether your copyeditor’s bid is in the right ballpark.
Finally, make sure you have good rapport with your editor. Talk to them. Again, pay them to read some or all of your manuscript and give you notes. In today’s publishing climate you can’t afford to submit unedited material to an agent or a publishing house. It can mean the difference between getting picked up or not---and as I said last month, if you’re self-publishing, being thoroughly and professionally edited matters even more.
Until next month,
Brooke
GO BACK TO THE WARNER COACHING HOMEPAGE
June 18, 2011
How to Hire an Editor, Part 1 of a 3-Part Series
I know, apparently I’m into series this year. But as I started to write about how to hire an editor, I quickly began to see how many things writers have to consider before taking the plunge. So this month’s newsletter will cover hiring a developmental editor, and then in July and August we’ll talk about copyeditors and proofreaders.
What Is Developmental Editing, Anyway?
Developmental editing is about the big picture. It’s about structure and theme and content. It’s about understanding what your eventual Table of Contents is going to look like (or your plot, if you're writing fiction) and making sure that everything is consistent and actually makes sense. A lot of the coaching I do is developmental editing in that I walk authors through what’s working and not working with their manuscript. If I start working with someone early on in their process, I work with them to develop their Shitty First Drafts (SFDs) and to get their content on the page. It’s a process and it involves a lot of refining. For those writers who decide that they need a developmental editor later in the game, like after they've written their entire manuscript, the process is a little different in that it can involve an overhaul. A developmental edit can get a little messy at this stage, and a good editor is more important than ever because there are so many moving parts to hold. If you find yourself in this situation, knowing that your manuscript is a bit of a mess and needs more help than you ever anticipated, don't fret. There are good people out there who can fix almost anything!
Why Do I Need a Developmental Editor?
A developmental editor should be your collaborative partner. You can bring them on board at any stage of your writing process, but in my opinion, the earlier you have them reading along with you, the better off you’re going to be in the long-run. A developmental editor is looking for the big picture. Because they're removed, they can see things you can’t because you’re too close to the story. They can also help guide you in a direction you might not have considered. Your developmental editor should be someone who defers to your choices, but also someone you can trust, and who hopefully occasionally pushes back and has an opinion about your work.
How Do I Work with a Developmental Editor?
There are any number of ways to work, and many editors will have strong feelings about how they want to work, but I will throw out some food for thought here since you do have a say in your process---no matter what. If you are just getting started on a new book project and you know you do well with feedback and partnership, consider hiring someone upfront who can read pages as you write them and talk you through decisions about the arc of the work or your plot. Ideally, your editor will ask you to create a chapter summary document that the two of you can use as your roadmap in the process of completing your book. This is my preferred way to work with clients, and it ultimately saves both time and money as pitfalls and inconsistencies are averted along the way. If you already have a complete manuscript and realize that you need or want a developmental editor, you will probably need to pay someone to read your entire manuscript and give you notes. This is kind of like paying for a home inspection before you buy a house. You might not end up buying the house, but you aren't going to regret having paid a little bit upfront to know what you were getting yourself into. If you’re going to pay someone to read, make sure you get good notes. Make sure you agree with the editor's direction and ideas. Make sure you have good rapport with the editor and that you like the way they talk and/or advise you. This is going to be an important relationship, and you want to feel like you’re being heard, that the editor understands your story, and that everything they’re saying actually makes sense to you.
Is This Going to Cost an Arm and a Leg?
A developmental edit can get expensive. When we outsource developmental edits at Seal Press, we generally expect that it will take between 60-100 hours. Editors are charging anywhere from $25-50 an hour for this kind of work. This is why I advise getting started working with an editor early on in your process. Spreading out that kind of expense over the year or more that you’re writing the book is much easier to swallow than spending it all at once because you’re desperate and you need someone to save or fix your book. That said, you never want to shop your book to an agent or editor without having some sort of professional assessment. So if the price tag here freaks you out, consider at least getting your manuscript copyedited. I’ve met many smart people who felt that the fact that their best friend and mother read and loved their book was evidence enough that it was going to be a bestseller. The best piece of advice I can give you is: Don’t be naive. If you want to get published by a traditional publisher, you need to have your work edited. If you want to self-publish, it matters even more.
Until next month,
Brooke
GO BACK TO THE WARNER COACHING HOMEPAGE
What Is Developmental Editing, Anyway?
Developmental editing is about the big picture. It’s about structure and theme and content. It’s about understanding what your eventual Table of Contents is going to look like (or your plot, if you're writing fiction) and making sure that everything is consistent and actually makes sense. A lot of the coaching I do is developmental editing in that I walk authors through what’s working and not working with their manuscript. If I start working with someone early on in their process, I work with them to develop their Shitty First Drafts (SFDs) and to get their content on the page. It’s a process and it involves a lot of refining. For those writers who decide that they need a developmental editor later in the game, like after they've written their entire manuscript, the process is a little different in that it can involve an overhaul. A developmental edit can get a little messy at this stage, and a good editor is more important than ever because there are so many moving parts to hold. If you find yourself in this situation, knowing that your manuscript is a bit of a mess and needs more help than you ever anticipated, don't fret. There are good people out there who can fix almost anything!
Why Do I Need a Developmental Editor?
A developmental editor should be your collaborative partner. You can bring them on board at any stage of your writing process, but in my opinion, the earlier you have them reading along with you, the better off you’re going to be in the long-run. A developmental editor is looking for the big picture. Because they're removed, they can see things you can’t because you’re too close to the story. They can also help guide you in a direction you might not have considered. Your developmental editor should be someone who defers to your choices, but also someone you can trust, and who hopefully occasionally pushes back and has an opinion about your work.
How Do I Work with a Developmental Editor?
There are any number of ways to work, and many editors will have strong feelings about how they want to work, but I will throw out some food for thought here since you do have a say in your process---no matter what. If you are just getting started on a new book project and you know you do well with feedback and partnership, consider hiring someone upfront who can read pages as you write them and talk you through decisions about the arc of the work or your plot. Ideally, your editor will ask you to create a chapter summary document that the two of you can use as your roadmap in the process of completing your book. This is my preferred way to work with clients, and it ultimately saves both time and money as pitfalls and inconsistencies are averted along the way. If you already have a complete manuscript and realize that you need or want a developmental editor, you will probably need to pay someone to read your entire manuscript and give you notes. This is kind of like paying for a home inspection before you buy a house. You might not end up buying the house, but you aren't going to regret having paid a little bit upfront to know what you were getting yourself into. If you’re going to pay someone to read, make sure you get good notes. Make sure you agree with the editor's direction and ideas. Make sure you have good rapport with the editor and that you like the way they talk and/or advise you. This is going to be an important relationship, and you want to feel like you’re being heard, that the editor understands your story, and that everything they’re saying actually makes sense to you.
Is This Going to Cost an Arm and a Leg?
A developmental edit can get expensive. When we outsource developmental edits at Seal Press, we generally expect that it will take between 60-100 hours. Editors are charging anywhere from $25-50 an hour for this kind of work. This is why I advise getting started working with an editor early on in your process. Spreading out that kind of expense over the year or more that you’re writing the book is much easier to swallow than spending it all at once because you’re desperate and you need someone to save or fix your book. That said, you never want to shop your book to an agent or editor without having some sort of professional assessment. So if the price tag here freaks you out, consider at least getting your manuscript copyedited. I’ve met many smart people who felt that the fact that their best friend and mother read and loved their book was evidence enough that it was going to be a bestseller. The best piece of advice I can give you is: Don’t be naive. If you want to get published by a traditional publisher, you need to have your work edited. If you want to self-publish, it matters even more.
Until next month,
Brooke
GO BACK TO THE WARNER COACHING HOMEPAGE
May 27, 2011
Going Shopping---for an Agent or Publishing House
Shopping for an agent or an editor is an important step on the journey to getting published. For a lot of writers, it’s the first time they’re getting outside feedback from professionals about their work; for many, it means that countless hours spent in silence, toiling away in solitude, is coming to an end. But when do you shop for an agent? How do you decide whether to shop for an agent or to go directly to an editor at a publishing house? What do you need to have complete before you approach an agent or an editor? And once you know you’re really ready, what are some best practices to keep in mind for keeping track of whom you’re pitching to? This month’s newsletter answers all of these questions and more.
When Should I Shop My Manuscript?
Novelists: If you’re writing a novel (adult or YA), do not shop until you are completely finished with your manuscript. Many agents only require a query letter in addition to your manuscript, but I highly recommend creating a chapter-by-chapter summary of your entire book to send along with your first fifty pages when an agent expresses interest in your work. This helps the agent get a sense of the arc of your narrative without having to read the entire manuscript. If the summary holds together well, they will be more likely to request your full manuscript.
Nonfiction writers: If you’re writing creative nonfiction, a memoir, or self-help, you can shop with a proposal and sample chapters, though some agents prefer a complete manuscript. Critical to shopping your nonfiction manuscript is a proposal. You must have a complete book proposal that includes some variation of the following elements: Overview, About the Author, Competitive Titles, Target Audience, Marketing/Publicity, Chapter-by-Chapter Summaries, Sample Chapters.
Tip: Don’t feel pressured to go out with your work before it’s ready. I have worked with writers who are so anxious to land an agent that they have gone out too soon---before their concept was completely secure, or before the proposal had been thoroughly edited or proofread. Agents are flooded with mediocre proposals. Don’t be one of them!
How do I decide whether to shop for an agent or go directly to a publishing house?
The answer to this question has everything to do with your expectations. If you think your work is commercial and you expect a good advance, you must get an agent. If you think you have a fairly niche project and money doesn’t matter that much to you, then you might consider shopping directly to a publisher. Some publishing houses simply do not accept unsolicited manuscripts, making the decision of whether you need to be agented an easy one. If you want to publish on Random House, Penguin, Simon & Schuster, or any number of bigger houses, you have to be agented. If you know that you would like to publish with a small house, and you absolutely feel an alignment to a particular house or editor, consider pitching to them directly.
Tip: Never pitch agents and publishing houses simultaneously. If you pitch to a publishing house and get a rejection, your agent will not be able to circle back around to that house to pitch on your behalf. You never want to be in the position of telling an agent who’s just agreed to represent you that you’ve stacked up a list of rejections from various publishing houses you approached before you approached them.
What do I need to have complete before I approach an agent or a publisher?
Novelists: First, you must have a finished manuscript. As I mentioned above, I also recommend completing a chapter-by-chapter summary of your book. Ideally, this is a three- to four-sentence summary of each of your chapters, which you save in a single document called ChxChSummary.doc. Additionally, you must create a query letter. The query letter is sometimes called a pitch letter, and it’s what you send to an agent or publisher when you want to ask them to take a look at your work. A good resource for query letters is Query Shark.
Nonfiction writers: First, you must have a complete proposal. In addition to this, you may opt to complete your manuscript. There are pros and cons to shopping a whole manuscript versus shopping on sample chapters, and some agents and editors have strong feels about which they prefer---and it varies from person to person. Like novelists, you also need to create a query letter, which you send to an agent or publishing house for the purpose of getting them interested in your work.
Tip: Do your research and find out the names of the agents and editors you want to approach. If you are a more casual person, feel free to address them by their first name; if you’re more old-school, address them as Mr. or Ms. Never address a query letter to “To Whom It May Concern” or “Dear Sir.” (I have been known to immediately trash letters addressed to “Dear Sir.”) Note that Publishers Marketplace gives you access to agents’ and editors’ full names, titles, and email addresses on their homepage. (Scroll down to the "Quick contact search," which gives you the option of entering name and/or company to find who you're looking for.)
What’s the best way to pitch my work to an agent or editor?
When you’re ready to pitch your work, choose ten agents you want to approach. Researching an agent is an important part of this process, so take your time. I recommend spending the $20/month it takes to be a member on Publishers Marketplace. Look at the deals and see who’s buying and selling what. Spend time on The Guide to Literary Agents and zero in on agents whose websites, mission statements, personal statements, and interviews you like. There’s a wealth of information about agents and editors online.
Start your pitching process by pasting your query letter into the body of your email. At the end of your query, you will ask the question: “May I send you the first fifty pages of my novel?” (if you are a novelist), or, “May I send you my complete proposal?” (if you are a nonfiction writer). Then you wait to get an affirmative response.
Once you get a “Yes, you may send me your first fifty pages,” or, “Yes, you may send me your proposal,” you follow up by saying, “Thank you for agreeing to take a look at my chapters,” or “Thank you for agreeing to take a look at my proposal,” and you attach the work as an email attachment. If you are a novelist, this is when you attach your chapter summaries document as well, and make sure to note that you are taking the liberty of attaching a chapter summary document in addition to the first fifty pages of your novel.
Tip: Name your document appropriately. If I wrote a novel called Book Blazer, I would call my document BookBlazer_1st50.doc or BookBlazer_Warner.doc. Or if my memoir were titled, Confessions of a Booklover, I would title my document Confessions Booklover_Proposal.doc or Warner_finalproposal.doc. Avoid sending your proposal to Agent Frank Gage and titling it FrankGage.doc.
What’s the best way to keep track of the agents and editors I’m pitching to?
I mentioned above starting with just ten agents or ten publishing houses. The reason for this is because this process gets very messy very fast. It may seem like it’s not a big deal to pitch to twenty agents, but what if they all get back to you right away?
You’ll want to create a spreadsheet that keeps track of each agent’s name, email address, and the date you sent the query. Then keep track of whether they respond yes or no to receiving your work. If they respond yes, note what date you sent them your material (attachments). The normal amount of time to wait before hearing back is four to six weeks. Once you hit the six-week mark, it’s completely acceptable to send a follow-up email.
Once you receive five or more rejections, send out to five more agents at a time, never having more than ten open queries at a given time. Once you receive notice that an agent is interested in representing you, consider the Five Questions You Should Ask Your Would-Be Agent.
Tip: Use your spreadsheet to keep track of what you like about the agents you’re pitching. If they represent an author you admire, write that down. If something they said on their website resonates with you, take note. It’s very easy to lose track of who’s who when you’re juggling multiple agents, so get organized early!
Good luck in this process. It’s exciting and terrifying, and hopefully somewhat comforting to know that everyone who’s ever gotten published before you has been subjected to this process.
Until next month.
Brooke
GO BACK TO THE WARNER COACHING HOMEPAGE
When Should I Shop My Manuscript?
Novelists: If you’re writing a novel (adult or YA), do not shop until you are completely finished with your manuscript. Many agents only require a query letter in addition to your manuscript, but I highly recommend creating a chapter-by-chapter summary of your entire book to send along with your first fifty pages when an agent expresses interest in your work. This helps the agent get a sense of the arc of your narrative without having to read the entire manuscript. If the summary holds together well, they will be more likely to request your full manuscript.
Nonfiction writers: If you’re writing creative nonfiction, a memoir, or self-help, you can shop with a proposal and sample chapters, though some agents prefer a complete manuscript. Critical to shopping your nonfiction manuscript is a proposal. You must have a complete book proposal that includes some variation of the following elements: Overview, About the Author, Competitive Titles, Target Audience, Marketing/Publicity, Chapter-by-Chapter Summaries, Sample Chapters.
Tip: Don’t feel pressured to go out with your work before it’s ready. I have worked with writers who are so anxious to land an agent that they have gone out too soon---before their concept was completely secure, or before the proposal had been thoroughly edited or proofread. Agents are flooded with mediocre proposals. Don’t be one of them!
How do I decide whether to shop for an agent or go directly to a publishing house?
The answer to this question has everything to do with your expectations. If you think your work is commercial and you expect a good advance, you must get an agent. If you think you have a fairly niche project and money doesn’t matter that much to you, then you might consider shopping directly to a publisher. Some publishing houses simply do not accept unsolicited manuscripts, making the decision of whether you need to be agented an easy one. If you want to publish on Random House, Penguin, Simon & Schuster, or any number of bigger houses, you have to be agented. If you know that you would like to publish with a small house, and you absolutely feel an alignment to a particular house or editor, consider pitching to them directly.
Tip: Never pitch agents and publishing houses simultaneously. If you pitch to a publishing house and get a rejection, your agent will not be able to circle back around to that house to pitch on your behalf. You never want to be in the position of telling an agent who’s just agreed to represent you that you’ve stacked up a list of rejections from various publishing houses you approached before you approached them.
What do I need to have complete before I approach an agent or a publisher?
Novelists: First, you must have a finished manuscript. As I mentioned above, I also recommend completing a chapter-by-chapter summary of your book. Ideally, this is a three- to four-sentence summary of each of your chapters, which you save in a single document called ChxChSummary.doc. Additionally, you must create a query letter. The query letter is sometimes called a pitch letter, and it’s what you send to an agent or publisher when you want to ask them to take a look at your work. A good resource for query letters is Query Shark.
Nonfiction writers: First, you must have a complete proposal. In addition to this, you may opt to complete your manuscript. There are pros and cons to shopping a whole manuscript versus shopping on sample chapters, and some agents and editors have strong feels about which they prefer---and it varies from person to person. Like novelists, you also need to create a query letter, which you send to an agent or publishing house for the purpose of getting them interested in your work.
Tip: Do your research and find out the names of the agents and editors you want to approach. If you are a more casual person, feel free to address them by their first name; if you’re more old-school, address them as Mr. or Ms. Never address a query letter to “To Whom It May Concern” or “Dear Sir.” (I have been known to immediately trash letters addressed to “Dear Sir.”) Note that Publishers Marketplace gives you access to agents’ and editors’ full names, titles, and email addresses on their homepage. (Scroll down to the "Quick contact search," which gives you the option of entering name and/or company to find who you're looking for.)
What’s the best way to pitch my work to an agent or editor?
When you’re ready to pitch your work, choose ten agents you want to approach. Researching an agent is an important part of this process, so take your time. I recommend spending the $20/month it takes to be a member on Publishers Marketplace. Look at the deals and see who’s buying and selling what. Spend time on The Guide to Literary Agents and zero in on agents whose websites, mission statements, personal statements, and interviews you like. There’s a wealth of information about agents and editors online.
Start your pitching process by pasting your query letter into the body of your email. At the end of your query, you will ask the question: “May I send you the first fifty pages of my novel?” (if you are a novelist), or, “May I send you my complete proposal?” (if you are a nonfiction writer). Then you wait to get an affirmative response.
Once you get a “Yes, you may send me your first fifty pages,” or, “Yes, you may send me your proposal,” you follow up by saying, “Thank you for agreeing to take a look at my chapters,” or “Thank you for agreeing to take a look at my proposal,” and you attach the work as an email attachment. If you are a novelist, this is when you attach your chapter summaries document as well, and make sure to note that you are taking the liberty of attaching a chapter summary document in addition to the first fifty pages of your novel.
Tip: Name your document appropriately. If I wrote a novel called Book Blazer, I would call my document BookBlazer_1st50.doc or BookBlazer_Warner.doc. Or if my memoir were titled, Confessions of a Booklover, I would title my document Confessions Booklover_Proposal.doc or Warner_finalproposal.doc. Avoid sending your proposal to Agent Frank Gage and titling it FrankGage.doc.
What’s the best way to keep track of the agents and editors I’m pitching to?
I mentioned above starting with just ten agents or ten publishing houses. The reason for this is because this process gets very messy very fast. It may seem like it’s not a big deal to pitch to twenty agents, but what if they all get back to you right away?
You’ll want to create a spreadsheet that keeps track of each agent’s name, email address, and the date you sent the query. Then keep track of whether they respond yes or no to receiving your work. If they respond yes, note what date you sent them your material (attachments). The normal amount of time to wait before hearing back is four to six weeks. Once you hit the six-week mark, it’s completely acceptable to send a follow-up email.
Once you receive five or more rejections, send out to five more agents at a time, never having more than ten open queries at a given time. Once you receive notice that an agent is interested in representing you, consider the Five Questions You Should Ask Your Would-Be Agent.
Tip: Use your spreadsheet to keep track of what you like about the agents you’re pitching. If they represent an author you admire, write that down. If something they said on their website resonates with you, take note. It’s very easy to lose track of who’s who when you’re juggling multiple agents, so get organized early!
Good luck in this process. It’s exciting and terrifying, and hopefully somewhat comforting to know that everyone who’s ever gotten published before you has been subjected to this process.
Until next month.
Brooke
GO BACK TO THE WARNER COACHING HOMEPAGE
April 28, 2011
Book Marketing, Part 3 of a 3-Part Series: Marketing/Publicity
This month we’ll be covering the third and final part of this three-part series, which to date has covered the Competitive Titles and About the Author components of the book proposal. With these two aspects behind us, we can now turn to “Marketing/Publicity,” arguably the most time-consuming and elusive part of the proposal. Marketing/Publicity, as I’m referring to it throughout this post, is a component of your book proposal, and it requires you to get comfortable using a little smoke and mirrors.
I’m not suggesting that you lie, but I am absolutely suggesting that you’re not required to deliver on everything you include in your Marketing/Publicity plan. This section of your proposal exists as a marketing tool, and its sole purpose is to make a case to your would-be agent or editor that you understand how to reach your readers. This is not the place to make a case for the fact that there’s an audience. You do that in another section of the proposal called “Target Audience.” This is the place to talk about where your readers hang out. It’s the place to make long lists of TV shows, radio stations, and magazines that might want to feature your work. If you have connections to any particular outlets, that’s wonderful, but again, it’s not required. The point of this section is to show the person reading the proposal that you get that you have to cast your net wide, and the more information you can pack in there, the better.
Tools to Drive It Home
1. Statistics: Use stats wherever possible to talk about your target demographic. Remember, it’s important to differentiate the Marketing/Publicity section from the Target Audience section. Here you’re using stats to say things like, “14% of family caregivers care for a special needs child—an estimated 16.8 million care for special needs children under 18 years old (National Alliance for Caregiving/AARP, 2009)” or “According to a 2005 article by Pew Internet & American Life Project, some 55% of adult internet users have looked for "how-to," "do-it-yourself," or repair information online, and roughly 1 in 20 internet users—about 7 million people—search for repair help on a typical day.” These are called “marketing points” in the industry because they make the case that there are real numbers to support your claim that there are people out there who will want to read your book.
2. Lists: I mentioned compiling lists of TV shows, radio shows, and magazines, but this also includes organizations, blogs, and ezines. Use any and all of these outlets as subheads in your Marketing/Publicity section to make an impression. If I were writing a spiritual memoir, for example, I might include a subsection that reads something like this:
Magazines
Women’s interest magazines regularly cover stories about women’s personal journeys. Warner’s story will appeal to mainstream readers of the following magazines:
Ladies’ Home Journal
Self
Ms. magazine
Woman’s Day
Redbook
O, The Oprah Magazine
Women Today
You might wonder about the point of including this kind of research in your proposal, but again, it’s a marketing tool. Agents and editors need all the ammunition they can get to make a case for your book. Agents are selling to editors and editors are selling to their Editorial Boards and ultimately to the reps who in turn sell your book to book-buyers who sell your book to consumers. The more robust your Marketing/Publicity section, the better equipped your agent or editor will be to make the case that you’re worth taking a risk on.
3. Your personal marketing plans and/or connections: The Marketing/Publicity section is also the place where you drive home any and all ideas, plans, connections, and favors you might be able and willing to pull. This may include possible speaking engagements even if they’re not yet booked. You could say you’ll approach your local JCC, for instance, even if they haven’t formally invited you to speak. As long as it’s true, you can say that you have a connection to Julia Roberts and that she may blurb your book. This is where the smoke and mirrors part comes in. You’re not necessarily having to deliver on all the things you propose, but you’re putting forth all of the things you think you can do. Don’t say you’re going to start a blog if you have no intention to do so, but do say that you’ll blog every day if you’re willing to, even if you’re not currently blogging every day.
The Marketing/Publicity section of your book proposal is meant to show the ways in which you’re thinking big—bigger than you might be feeling even. It shows that you’re thinking outside of the box and that when push comes to shove you’ll step up to the plate and be a strong collaborator who’s willing to go the distance to help your publisher sell books. Publishers are increasingly relying on their authors to bring the readers, and understanding this as you’re creating your Marketing/Publicity section is key. You honestly can’t go too big. And this is intimidating to a lot of folks. I’ve seen more than a few authors balk at the idea of having to sell themselves in this way. But trust me, it’s worth it. Put in the time to create a solid presentation. Hire someone to do the research if you need to. Putting forward a flimsy Marketing/Publicity section gives agents and editors a good reason to pass on your project. And giving it all you’ve got can make the difference between getting representation and a book deal and being left wondering why you got a rejection.
Until next month.
Brooke
GO BACK TO THE WARNER COACHING HOMEPAGE
I’m not suggesting that you lie, but I am absolutely suggesting that you’re not required to deliver on everything you include in your Marketing/Publicity plan. This section of your proposal exists as a marketing tool, and its sole purpose is to make a case to your would-be agent or editor that you understand how to reach your readers. This is not the place to make a case for the fact that there’s an audience. You do that in another section of the proposal called “Target Audience.” This is the place to talk about where your readers hang out. It’s the place to make long lists of TV shows, radio stations, and magazines that might want to feature your work. If you have connections to any particular outlets, that’s wonderful, but again, it’s not required. The point of this section is to show the person reading the proposal that you get that you have to cast your net wide, and the more information you can pack in there, the better.
Tools to Drive It Home
1. Statistics: Use stats wherever possible to talk about your target demographic. Remember, it’s important to differentiate the Marketing/Publicity section from the Target Audience section. Here you’re using stats to say things like, “14% of family caregivers care for a special needs child—an estimated 16.8 million care for special needs children under 18 years old (National Alliance for Caregiving/AARP, 2009)” or “According to a 2005 article by Pew Internet & American Life Project, some 55% of adult internet users have looked for "how-to," "do-it-yourself," or repair information online, and roughly 1 in 20 internet users—about 7 million people—search for repair help on a typical day.” These are called “marketing points” in the industry because they make the case that there are real numbers to support your claim that there are people out there who will want to read your book.
2. Lists: I mentioned compiling lists of TV shows, radio shows, and magazines, but this also includes organizations, blogs, and ezines. Use any and all of these outlets as subheads in your Marketing/Publicity section to make an impression. If I were writing a spiritual memoir, for example, I might include a subsection that reads something like this:
Magazines
Women’s interest magazines regularly cover stories about women’s personal journeys. Warner’s story will appeal to mainstream readers of the following magazines:
Ladies’ Home Journal
Self
Ms. magazine
Woman’s Day
Redbook
O, The Oprah Magazine
Women Today
You might wonder about the point of including this kind of research in your proposal, but again, it’s a marketing tool. Agents and editors need all the ammunition they can get to make a case for your book. Agents are selling to editors and editors are selling to their Editorial Boards and ultimately to the reps who in turn sell your book to book-buyers who sell your book to consumers. The more robust your Marketing/Publicity section, the better equipped your agent or editor will be to make the case that you’re worth taking a risk on.
3. Your personal marketing plans and/or connections: The Marketing/Publicity section is also the place where you drive home any and all ideas, plans, connections, and favors you might be able and willing to pull. This may include possible speaking engagements even if they’re not yet booked. You could say you’ll approach your local JCC, for instance, even if they haven’t formally invited you to speak. As long as it’s true, you can say that you have a connection to Julia Roberts and that she may blurb your book. This is where the smoke and mirrors part comes in. You’re not necessarily having to deliver on all the things you propose, but you’re putting forth all of the things you think you can do. Don’t say you’re going to start a blog if you have no intention to do so, but do say that you’ll blog every day if you’re willing to, even if you’re not currently blogging every day.
The Marketing/Publicity section of your book proposal is meant to show the ways in which you’re thinking big—bigger than you might be feeling even. It shows that you’re thinking outside of the box and that when push comes to shove you’ll step up to the plate and be a strong collaborator who’s willing to go the distance to help your publisher sell books. Publishers are increasingly relying on their authors to bring the readers, and understanding this as you’re creating your Marketing/Publicity section is key. You honestly can’t go too big. And this is intimidating to a lot of folks. I’ve seen more than a few authors balk at the idea of having to sell themselves in this way. But trust me, it’s worth it. Put in the time to create a solid presentation. Hire someone to do the research if you need to. Putting forward a flimsy Marketing/Publicity section gives agents and editors a good reason to pass on your project. And giving it all you’ve got can make the difference between getting representation and a book deal and being left wondering why you got a rejection.
Until next month.
Brooke
GO BACK TO THE WARNER COACHING HOMEPAGE
April 20, 2011
LISTEN: A conversation with Brooke & Linda Joy Meyers about Creative Nonfiction
Last Friday I was invited to do another teleseminar with Linda Joy Myers, President of the National Association of Memoir Writers.
This is a conversation about creative nonfiction and some of the points we cover include:
•What does this term mean to agents and editors?
•Does presenting your work as Creative Nonfiction give you a leg up or work against you?
•What’s problematic about Creative Nonfiction from a publishing perspective?
•Have public fallouts (like James Frey and Margaret Seltzer) changed the way publishers consider Creative Nonfiction?
•What do you need to know if you’re writing Creative Nonfiction and you want to sell it to a publishing house?
Thanks for listening.
GO BACK TO THE WARNER COACHING HOMEPAGE
This is a conversation about creative nonfiction and some of the points we cover include:
•What does this term mean to agents and editors?
•Does presenting your work as Creative Nonfiction give you a leg up or work against you?
•What’s problematic about Creative Nonfiction from a publishing perspective?
•Have public fallouts (like James Frey and Margaret Seltzer) changed the way publishers consider Creative Nonfiction?
•What do you need to know if you’re writing Creative Nonfiction and you want to sell it to a publishing house?
Thanks for listening.
GO BACK TO THE WARNER COACHING HOMEPAGE
April 1, 2011
Book Marketing, Part 2 of a 3-Part Series: Your Bio
Last month’s newsletter covered the importance of Competitive Titles in positioning your book.
I wrote that there are three marketing-related aspects to your book proposal that you need to understand and execute well if you want to sell your book in today’s publishing climate:
1. Your Competitive Titles section, which is about positioning your book
2. Your About the Author section, which is about marketing you
3. Your Marketing/Publicity section, which is about marketing your book
This month we’re covering #2, the About the Author section. This may seem like the most straightforward and easy section of the proposal, but if you’ve ever attempted to write your professional bio in this capacity you may already know that it’s actually quite hard.
The three most important things to know are:
1. Write your bio in the third person
2. Don’t leave out anything important, even if it feels like your being boastful or repetitive
3. Make sure your bio sounds like you
1. Write your bio in the third person
It’s important to know that it’s not a dealbreaker if you write your bio in the first person; it’s simply more professional to write it in the third. It also gives you some distance from the content, allowing you to list your achievements and toot your own horn with a little more recklessness.
2. Don’t leave out anything important, even if it feels like your being boastful or repetitive
There are many opportunities to promote yourself throughout your book proposal. It’s a good idea to work on self-promotional language in the query letter, the overview, the marketing section (which we’ll cover next month), and even in the Comparative Title section. But there’s no aspect of the proposal quite like the author bio section. So don’t waste it! Just because you’ve already said something in the query letter doesn’t mean you should leave it out of your author bio. Too often authors leave out important information, like their website URL, or a specific achievement, because they’ve listed it elsewhere. Remember, the book proposal is an exercise in repetition. Most editors are skimming through it looking for things that pop out. And if you’re not comfortable saying how fantastic you are, work on it slowly. Create a “What’s Fabulous About Me” document and save it on your desktop. Add to it over time and allow yourself to be outrageous. Then you can weed out what truly doesn’t belong. In this competitive market, editors are looking for people who stand out, so your author bio is not a place to be humble or modest.
3. Make sure your bio sounds like you
Whether you’re writing a prescriptive how-to, a funny memoir, or your literary masterpiece, you employ a certain tone and style in your work—and you’ve probably found your voice by the time you’re working on your proposal. Use that voice in your proposal, too, and don’t drop it when you get to the author bio. Too often I see lists of accomplishments without much personality showing through. And while I tell my clients not to lead with their hobbies, it’s completely appropriate---even advisable---to include what you love in the last graph of your bio—including where you live and who you live with (partner, animals, children).
Until next month.
Brooke
GO BACK TO THE WARNER COACHING HOMEPAGE
I wrote that there are three marketing-related aspects to your book proposal that you need to understand and execute well if you want to sell your book in today’s publishing climate:
1. Your Competitive Titles section, which is about positioning your book
2. Your About the Author section, which is about marketing you
3. Your Marketing/Publicity section, which is about marketing your book
This month we’re covering #2, the About the Author section. This may seem like the most straightforward and easy section of the proposal, but if you’ve ever attempted to write your professional bio in this capacity you may already know that it’s actually quite hard.
The three most important things to know are:
1. Write your bio in the third person
2. Don’t leave out anything important, even if it feels like your being boastful or repetitive
3. Make sure your bio sounds like you
1. Write your bio in the third person
It’s important to know that it’s not a dealbreaker if you write your bio in the first person; it’s simply more professional to write it in the third. It also gives you some distance from the content, allowing you to list your achievements and toot your own horn with a little more recklessness.
2. Don’t leave out anything important, even if it feels like your being boastful or repetitive
There are many opportunities to promote yourself throughout your book proposal. It’s a good idea to work on self-promotional language in the query letter, the overview, the marketing section (which we’ll cover next month), and even in the Comparative Title section. But there’s no aspect of the proposal quite like the author bio section. So don’t waste it! Just because you’ve already said something in the query letter doesn’t mean you should leave it out of your author bio. Too often authors leave out important information, like their website URL, or a specific achievement, because they’ve listed it elsewhere. Remember, the book proposal is an exercise in repetition. Most editors are skimming through it looking for things that pop out. And if you’re not comfortable saying how fantastic you are, work on it slowly. Create a “What’s Fabulous About Me” document and save it on your desktop. Add to it over time and allow yourself to be outrageous. Then you can weed out what truly doesn’t belong. In this competitive market, editors are looking for people who stand out, so your author bio is not a place to be humble or modest.
3. Make sure your bio sounds like you
Whether you’re writing a prescriptive how-to, a funny memoir, or your literary masterpiece, you employ a certain tone and style in your work—and you’ve probably found your voice by the time you’re working on your proposal. Use that voice in your proposal, too, and don’t drop it when you get to the author bio. Too often I see lists of accomplishments without much personality showing through. And while I tell my clients not to lead with their hobbies, it’s completely appropriate---even advisable---to include what you love in the last graph of your bio—including where you live and who you live with (partner, animals, children).
Until next month.
Brooke
GO BACK TO THE WARNER COACHING HOMEPAGE
February 26, 2011
Book Marketing, Part 1 of a 3-Part Series: Positioning
I’ve found that lots of aspiring authors are confused by what it means to market themselves. I often see proposals that are lackluster at best in the marketing components; or worse, proposals that claim there are no Competitive Titles (a big no-no). If you want to sell your book in today’s publishing climate, there are three aspects to your proposal that have everything to do with marketing:
1. Your Competitive Titles section, which is about positioning your book
2. Your About the Author section, which is about marketing you
3. Your Marketing/Publicity section, which is about marketing your book
For the sake of brevity, we’re only going to tackle one of these today---#1---and I’ll come back to the other two in future newsletters. I tend to choose topics based on where I’m seeing my clients struggle, and this month, in the small window I’m coaching on my maternity leave (see below for the baby photo), positioning is begging to be better understood.
What is positioning?
According to Wikipedia, “positioning has come to mean the process by which marketers try to create an image or identity in the minds of their target market for its product, brand, or organization.”
In book publishing, hours-long marketing meetings can be spent talking about positioning. The reason it’s tied to Competitive Titles is because those titles that are similar (note: similar does not mean the same) to your book help publishers figure out: a) whether your book belongs on their list in the first place; b) where your book belongs in the bookstore (ie, category); and c) how their publicists can pitch your book to media.
Understanding and knowing how you want to position your book before you shop it can increase your chances of getting a book deal. So, let’s look at a couple examples---one prescriptive and one memoir.
Example 1: Prescriptive Self-Help
One of my authors at Seal Press, Joan Price, came to me a couple years ago with an idea for a second book (Naked at Our Age is being published this spring). Her first book, Better Than I Ever Expected, was about senior sex, and though the book had performed well, our marketing department was reluctant to do another book solely focused on the same topic by the same author. Joan’s book, however, was equal parts sex and health, and the marketing team was very interested in a sex book that focused on health. This is where positioning came into play. It’s not that Joan had to write a different book. She, and by extension me as the editor, simply had to keep in mind that health was a key component to what she was doing. This meant more expert opinions. We floated the idea (though it ultimately didn’t happen) of getting an MD to write the book’s foreword to give it more health credentials. This small adjustment to the way we thought about and later pitched (read: positioned) Joan’s book was what allowed Seal to be able to publish it. It’s important to note that publishers don’t want replicas of books they've published in the past. They need and want fresh content. So if you’re approaching a press because they’ve done something similar to what you’re doing, help them out by being creative about your positioning. Make sure to tell them what’s unique about your book, and how it might be differently positioned from other similar titles on their backlists.
Example 2: Memoir
Memoirs are tricky because their positioning isn’t always as easy to manipulate. Although positioning has to do with how you talk about your book, the book itself does have to deliver. This example comes from one of my clients who wrote a spiritual memoir, and yet she and her agent positioned the book as both spiritual and as a Girl, Interrupted or Prozac Nation---meaning edgy, truth-telling, and raw. It was, in fact, a blend of all of these things, but in this writer's case, the positioning ended up being problematic for publishers. Many of the editors who saw it wanted the grittier, edgier book promised in the proposal, and some even suggested she lose the spiritual undertones. It’s probable that she could have reworked her book per editors’ suggestions and repositioned (and in her case cut) the book to make it work for a particular press. Or she could do what she did: decide that the spiritual aspect was integral to the work and to her story. This particular book still hasn’t sold (and the author moved on to writing another book), but I don’t think she regrets not having changed her book for other people’s vision.
When you’re in the seemingly enviable circumstance of having editors weighing in on your proposal and telling you they might be able to buy/publish it if you’d just . . . (fill in the blank), it’s important to be careful. This can be a great thing, and it can lead to being published. But it can also lead to you sacrificing the book you were meant to write. I’ve seen authors have their book hijacked by editors who were trying to make a book work. I’ve also seen authors get more closely aligned with their original visions for a book by editors who were trying to make it work. So it goes both ways.
So think about where you are with positioning, and do your homework on your Competitive Titles. Help your agent, and by extension your publisher, understand how you think about your book, and be open if they have other suggestions for you---but not to the extent that you sacrifice your original intentions or story.
Good luck, and until next month.
Brooke
GO BACK TO THE WARNER COACHING HOMEPAGE
Postscript. There was no January newsletter in the midst of my new motherhood haze. James Lyons came into the world on December 22. Thank you for all of your well wishes. I’m back to work, as I mentioned, in a limited capacity, but I’m happy to have squeezed a February newsletter out just under the wire.
James Lyons
1. Your Competitive Titles section, which is about positioning your book
2. Your About the Author section, which is about marketing you
3. Your Marketing/Publicity section, which is about marketing your book
For the sake of brevity, we’re only going to tackle one of these today---#1---and I’ll come back to the other two in future newsletters. I tend to choose topics based on where I’m seeing my clients struggle, and this month, in the small window I’m coaching on my maternity leave (see below for the baby photo), positioning is begging to be better understood.
What is positioning?
According to Wikipedia, “positioning has come to mean the process by which marketers try to create an image or identity in the minds of their target market for its product, brand, or organization.”
In book publishing, hours-long marketing meetings can be spent talking about positioning. The reason it’s tied to Competitive Titles is because those titles that are similar (note: similar does not mean the same) to your book help publishers figure out: a) whether your book belongs on their list in the first place; b) where your book belongs in the bookstore (ie, category); and c) how their publicists can pitch your book to media.
Understanding and knowing how you want to position your book before you shop it can increase your chances of getting a book deal. So, let’s look at a couple examples---one prescriptive and one memoir.
Example 1: Prescriptive Self-Help
One of my authors at Seal Press, Joan Price, came to me a couple years ago with an idea for a second book (Naked at Our Age is being published this spring). Her first book, Better Than I Ever Expected, was about senior sex, and though the book had performed well, our marketing department was reluctant to do another book solely focused on the same topic by the same author. Joan’s book, however, was equal parts sex and health, and the marketing team was very interested in a sex book that focused on health. This is where positioning came into play. It’s not that Joan had to write a different book. She, and by extension me as the editor, simply had to keep in mind that health was a key component to what she was doing. This meant more expert opinions. We floated the idea (though it ultimately didn’t happen) of getting an MD to write the book’s foreword to give it more health credentials. This small adjustment to the way we thought about and later pitched (read: positioned) Joan’s book was what allowed Seal to be able to publish it. It’s important to note that publishers don’t want replicas of books they've published in the past. They need and want fresh content. So if you’re approaching a press because they’ve done something similar to what you’re doing, help them out by being creative about your positioning. Make sure to tell them what’s unique about your book, and how it might be differently positioned from other similar titles on their backlists.
Example 2: Memoir
Memoirs are tricky because their positioning isn’t always as easy to manipulate. Although positioning has to do with how you talk about your book, the book itself does have to deliver. This example comes from one of my clients who wrote a spiritual memoir, and yet she and her agent positioned the book as both spiritual and as a Girl, Interrupted or Prozac Nation---meaning edgy, truth-telling, and raw. It was, in fact, a blend of all of these things, but in this writer's case, the positioning ended up being problematic for publishers. Many of the editors who saw it wanted the grittier, edgier book promised in the proposal, and some even suggested she lose the spiritual undertones. It’s probable that she could have reworked her book per editors’ suggestions and repositioned (and in her case cut) the book to make it work for a particular press. Or she could do what she did: decide that the spiritual aspect was integral to the work and to her story. This particular book still hasn’t sold (and the author moved on to writing another book), but I don’t think she regrets not having changed her book for other people’s vision.
When you’re in the seemingly enviable circumstance of having editors weighing in on your proposal and telling you they might be able to buy/publish it if you’d just . . . (fill in the blank), it’s important to be careful. This can be a great thing, and it can lead to being published. But it can also lead to you sacrificing the book you were meant to write. I’ve seen authors have their book hijacked by editors who were trying to make a book work. I’ve also seen authors get more closely aligned with their original visions for a book by editors who were trying to make it work. So it goes both ways.
So think about where you are with positioning, and do your homework on your Competitive Titles. Help your agent, and by extension your publisher, understand how you think about your book, and be open if they have other suggestions for you---but not to the extent that you sacrifice your original intentions or story.
Good luck, and until next month.
Brooke
GO BACK TO THE WARNER COACHING HOMEPAGE
Postscript. There was no January newsletter in the midst of my new motherhood haze. James Lyons came into the world on December 22. Thank you for all of your well wishes. I’m back to work, as I mentioned, in a limited capacity, but I’m happy to have squeezed a February newsletter out just under the wire.
James Lyons
December 20, 2010
Plan Your 2011 Sabbatical
This Christmas season it seems that everywhere I turn, people are telling me about laying low, reassessing, taking time off, hibernating.
It’s true that winter lends itself to this already, and perhaps my own attunement to this message has to do with the imposed sabbatical that’s just around the corner as my partner and I wait for Baby James to arrive. Seasoned parents, I’m sure, will tell me that having a new baby is not a sabbatical, but I say, why not?
A sabbatical is, according to Wikipedia, a "ceasing," a rest from work, or a hiatus. For most of us, going nonstop at breakneck speed is just part of what we’ve trained ourselves to do. We’re working, starting and growing businesses, writing books, trying to stay on top of social media. This is only the beginning, and it’s literally exhausting.
One of my writers is taking the month of December off. My mom has devised a series of weeklong workshops for 2011 in which she’s inviting writers, artists, and entrepreneurs to come to her retreat center, Pine Manor, to gift themselves the space to just be with their creative process. Another of my writers, like me, is expecting a baby, and the invitation to approach her away from work as a sabbatical was a welcome relief from the self-imposed pressure she felt around taking time off.
We live in a culture that doesn’t value time off, and so we must carve it out for ourselves. We all know that stepping away from something gives us perspective, and yet too seldom do we actually heed our own instincts for fear that we’ll fall behind, or worse, fall completely off track.
This month I have an offering and an invitation. My offering is a poem by Mark Nepo, the brilliant teacher and poet I have the honor of representing at Three Intentions.
Kiss Everything on Fire
Everyone keeps stopping me with their urgency.
As if the secret of life was written in a corner
of their mind and before they could
read it, it burst aflame.
The first hundred times, I rushed to do their
bidding. Then one day, exhausted by my own
secrets burning, I stopped running and
kissed everything on fire.
And yes, it scarred my lip and now
I have trouble saying anything complicated,
but wind no longer gets trapped in my head.
I know you understand. I’ve seen you suffer
the secrets no one asked us to keep secret. I’ve
seen them burning up your mind. But today,
we can part the veils and let in whatever
it is we thought we had to keep out.
Today, urgency dies because the heart
has burned its excuses.
My invitation is to plan a sabbatical. Perhaps it’s just a week, but find a time to get away in 2011. Get it on your calendar and make no exceptions! It’s not so much a time to put your projects on hold as it is to approach them from a slower, more intentional place and see what’s there for you. Go on retreat, take a “staycation,” rent a beach house for a few days, find silence. And see what opens up when the urgency dies.
Until next month!
Brooke
GO BACK TO THE WARNER COACHING HOMEPAGE
It’s true that winter lends itself to this already, and perhaps my own attunement to this message has to do with the imposed sabbatical that’s just around the corner as my partner and I wait for Baby James to arrive. Seasoned parents, I’m sure, will tell me that having a new baby is not a sabbatical, but I say, why not?
A sabbatical is, according to Wikipedia, a "ceasing," a rest from work, or a hiatus. For most of us, going nonstop at breakneck speed is just part of what we’ve trained ourselves to do. We’re working, starting and growing businesses, writing books, trying to stay on top of social media. This is only the beginning, and it’s literally exhausting.
One of my writers is taking the month of December off. My mom has devised a series of weeklong workshops for 2011 in which she’s inviting writers, artists, and entrepreneurs to come to her retreat center, Pine Manor, to gift themselves the space to just be with their creative process. Another of my writers, like me, is expecting a baby, and the invitation to approach her away from work as a sabbatical was a welcome relief from the self-imposed pressure she felt around taking time off.
We live in a culture that doesn’t value time off, and so we must carve it out for ourselves. We all know that stepping away from something gives us perspective, and yet too seldom do we actually heed our own instincts for fear that we’ll fall behind, or worse, fall completely off track.
This month I have an offering and an invitation. My offering is a poem by Mark Nepo, the brilliant teacher and poet I have the honor of representing at Three Intentions.
Kiss Everything on Fire
Everyone keeps stopping me with their urgency.
As if the secret of life was written in a corner
of their mind and before they could
read it, it burst aflame.
The first hundred times, I rushed to do their
bidding. Then one day, exhausted by my own
secrets burning, I stopped running and
kissed everything on fire.
And yes, it scarred my lip and now
I have trouble saying anything complicated,
but wind no longer gets trapped in my head.
I know you understand. I’ve seen you suffer
the secrets no one asked us to keep secret. I’ve
seen them burning up your mind. But today,
we can part the veils and let in whatever
it is we thought we had to keep out.
Today, urgency dies because the heart
has burned its excuses.
My invitation is to plan a sabbatical. Perhaps it’s just a week, but find a time to get away in 2011. Get it on your calendar and make no exceptions! It’s not so much a time to put your projects on hold as it is to approach them from a slower, more intentional place and see what’s there for you. Go on retreat, take a “staycation,” rent a beach house for a few days, find silence. And see what opens up when the urgency dies.
Until next month!
Brooke
GO BACK TO THE WARNER COACHING HOMEPAGE
November 29, 2010
Subheads, em-dashes, plural possessive, and other things I’m grateful for
Like many American families, ours honors the Thanksgiving tradition of going around the table and saying what we’re thankful for each year. This year I have a lot to be grateful for, most especially my amazing partner and stepsons, and my first baby, James, who’s due on Christmas Day.
This year, after the Thanksgiving meal was over (and probably because I spent a lot of the weekend working), I started thinking of some of the less-often-recognized things for which I am thankful. This Thanksgiving season, therefore, I want to give a shout out to a few of my favorite editorial whatnots.
The Subhead
Because my professional career has been mostly devoted to nonfiction, I must profess my love of the subhead. Memoirists and novelists, you can bypass this section, but my feeling is that all writers should understand the value of the sub.
Subheads give us structure and hierarchy. They help readers by containing information and giving a sense of what’s to come. A good writer understands that the content that falls beneath a given subhead is meant to be contained to the subject matter the subhead professes to cover. The space under a subhead is like a bucket. Throw in everything you want to say about that topic, but don’t let it overflow or spill out. There’s skill to keeping relevant content within the constraints of the subheads you’ve delineated, and oftentimes I feel that one of my biggest job as an editor is helping people shove certain lines or paragraphs of text back under its appropriate sub after an author has accidentally let it leak.
Subheads come in different levels. Don’t be afraid to use A-level, B-level, and C-level heads. However, any time you make use of subheads, remember the cardinal rule: Do not open your chapter with a subhead. It conflicts with the chapter title and deprives the reader of some introductory and general text about the chapter they’re about to read.
A simplistic example of a chapter that uses multiple levels of subheads might look something like this:
Chapter 2. Best Desserts
There are so many good desserts in the world that narrowing them down to just a few in this chapter is going to be hard. I must also note that it’s a subjective exercise and you will only be reading about desserts I love to eat.
[A]Ice Cream
I love ice cream and I eat it every day. There are so many reasons I love it. I love the texture, the different flavors, and the fact that it’s a healthy dessert.
[B]Texture
The texture of ice cream varies, and I like it creamy or icy. I like it in milkshakes, too. I’m a fan of added elements as well, like cookie dough and Oreo and Heath bar. Crunchy or smooth, I’ll eat it.
[B]Flavors
Chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry, of course, but also Chunky Monkey and spumoni and orange sherbet.
[B]Health Value
Ice cream is high in protein. Many people may argue that the fat content cancels out the health benefits the protein offers. But I’ll just defer to a video posted at http://fasteasyfit.blogspot.com on how to make high-protein, low fat ice cream. I think these people are geniuses.
[C]Fat Content
According to CBS News, “A chocolate-dipped waffle cone at Ben & Jerry's has about 320 calories and 16 grams of fat. Add one scoop of Chunky Monkey ice cream and the total surges to 820 calories and 26 grams of saturated fat---roughly as much as a one-pound rack of ribs.” Hmmm … maybe I should consider cutting back on Chunky Monkey.
[A]Tiramisu
And then we start all over again…
Not all books require you to think about multiple levels of subheads. Many self-help books, for instance, tend toward using only A-level headers, and this is another fine choice.
I recommend that any author preparing to write a book think about their chapter outline---and subheads---when they sit down to write their summaries. Having a good outline is just like getting the foundation of your house done before you start putting up the walls. It shows you where to build, and in the end, it also makes for a better reading experience for the public out there who will be clamoring for your book.
I’m thankful for subheads because I’m a structure freak, I admit it. But if you have a book that would benefit from structure and hierarchy, you should become one too. And give thanks to the subhead's capacity to organize your information and keep you on track!
The Em-dash
The em-dash is my favorite punctuation mark, hands down. However, too many people misuse it and/or don’t know the key command to get an em-dash into their writing.
Mac key command: option+shift+hyphen
PC key command: Alt+0151
Good alternative: pressing the hyphen three times in a row, like this ---
The em-dash should never have spaces around it. Do not --- as shown here --- have spaces on either side of your em-dash. Em-dashes need to run up right against the text---like this---and always get closed up on the other side. It’s fine, too, to end a sentence on other punctuation following an em-dash---because that’s allowed, too!
The em-dash exists to show a break in thought or a shift in tone. It’s also used to convey an aside---because our minds tend to wander---when we’re otherwise very much on track with an idea. A sentence that’s broken by an em-dash should make perfect sense and read as a complete sentence when you read it without the em-dash. Taking the above sentence as an example:
“It’s also used to convey an aside ---because our minds tend to wander---when we’re otherwise very much on track with an idea.”
I’m thankful for the em-dash because it’s pretty and I've always loved it, but it's way too often shoved aside by people mistakenly using en-dashes ( – ) or hyphens ( - ). Learn to love em-dashes like I do, but once you do, resist overusing them. You shouldn’t, for instance, use them when you should be using commas. But if you don’t use them at all, start today!
Plural Possessives
I’m not going to get into the rules of plural possessive here. If you want a good little write-up, click here. The only reason I bring it up is to highlight that names ending in “s” get the possessive apostrophe-s tacked onto the end just like any other proper noun. This is a self-serving addition because we’re naming our new baby James, and I figure he's in for a lifetime of seeing this like "James' room is cool." Also, there's a new edition (16th) of Chicago Manual of Style, the Bible of all editorial style choices. The 15th edition exempted Jesus and Moses from the plural possessive. So while we would still write about James’s choices, we would only speak of Jesus’ followers. This has now changed and there’s one single rule for everyone, dead or alive. They all get the apostrophe-s. Thank you, Chicago 16! Yes, very small things make editors happy.
I’m thankful for the plural possessive (and specifically the s-apostrophe-s rule, because it’s hard to have a first or last name that ends in “s.”And it's hard to remember exceptions to the rule. So life just got that much easier for everyone.
And Other Things I’m Grateful For
I’m thankful for my readers, my clients, and my authors and for all of you who put time and energy into good writing. For those of you who value good writing. For those of you who read books---and who buy books! Thank you. I’m thankful to people who have the ambition and passion to write, and I’m thankful for all the many many types of writers and projects that come my way. People’s creative depths inspire me week in and week out.
Until next month,
She Writes Live webinar, December 8th (10am PST/1pm EST)
"EVERYTHING YOU WANT AND NEED TO KNOW ABOUT GETTING YOUR NONFICTION BOOK PUBLISHED IN TODAY'S PUBLISHING CLIMATE"
Weds Dec 8 10am-11am PT | 1pm-2pm ET, via web and call-in
Hosted by Deborah Siegel
October 27, 2010
Writing as Meditation, with a Twist
There are many deterrents to writing. Every writer knows that. Top Five (off the top of my head) are:
(1) Procrastination (ie, everything in my life, including the dishes, comes before my writing);
(2) High expectations, leading to paralysis (ie, I don’t want to write a shitty first draft and have some unfounded expectation that my first draft be perfect);
(3) I’m going to hurt someone’s feelings or mischaracterize what really happened (curse of the memoirist who’s trying to protect everyone else);
(4) I’m too busy with work, school, social life, kids, etc. (very similar to #1 as it also leads to paralysis, but these types of excuses often help us feel more validated because they feel very legitimate);
(5) It feels like an obligation (ie, you’re not having fun).
Do any of these barriers sound familiar? (And by all means, if you have others please leave them in the COMMENTS below! Who loves to commiserate more than writers, after all?)
So how do you pull yourself out of the funk? I talk with my writers extensively about scheduling, but that can only take you so far. Getting when you’re going to write on your calendar is critical, but it doesn’t solve the fact that all writing deterrents are psychological barriers, not actual time barriers.
Last month, one of my writers had a breakthrough, and she’s given me permission to share it here. She was struggling with a few of the above sentiments, and we talked about writing as meditation. I suggested to her, as I do to many of my writers, to create a sacred space. You can light candles, say a mantra before you start, do meditative breathing—whatever it takes to help you set an intention around your writing. And as you do all of these things, you commit yourself to your hour, two hours, three hours, what have you.
This process worked for my client, but she added a spunky twist, inspired by Elizabeth Gilbert’s TED talk, which I posted about in February 2009. She scooped up an uglydoll and named it Genius and placed it in her writing space. Not only does Genius delight her every day, he reminds her to have fun, that it doesn’t have to be perfect, and that Genius doesn’t have to look a particular way. After all, this guy is UGLY!
I love this extra little structure my client created because for two reasons: (1) It’s working for her. She’s more productive and inspired than she’s been in months; and (2) It’s a reminder to shake it up a little bit. I do believe in setting intentions and creating space—both physical and emotional—to write. But it’s actually quite difficult for some people to make this a priority, to really make it happen. Everyone likes the idea of cultivating space, of setting an intention, of writing their six or nine or twelve hours a week, but only the most disciplined writers I know succeed at this week in and week out—and that's because they live their practice.
For those of you struggling to live your practice, consider something special to add to your writing space. Invite in Genius, or Inspiration, or Creativity. Assign it to an object that’s going to make you smile or catch your attention. Have fun with it! If you’re anything like the writer who dubbed her uglydoll Genius, you’ll discover that motivation sometimes comes from the most unlikely of places.
Until next month!
Brooke
GO BACK TO THE WARNER COACHING HOMEPAGE
(1) Procrastination (ie, everything in my life, including the dishes, comes before my writing);
(2) High expectations, leading to paralysis (ie, I don’t want to write a shitty first draft and have some unfounded expectation that my first draft be perfect);
(3) I’m going to hurt someone’s feelings or mischaracterize what really happened (curse of the memoirist who’s trying to protect everyone else);
(4) I’m too busy with work, school, social life, kids, etc. (very similar to #1 as it also leads to paralysis, but these types of excuses often help us feel more validated because they feel very legitimate);
(5) It feels like an obligation (ie, you’re not having fun).
Do any of these barriers sound familiar? (And by all means, if you have others please leave them in the COMMENTS below! Who loves to commiserate more than writers, after all?)
So how do you pull yourself out of the funk? I talk with my writers extensively about scheduling, but that can only take you so far. Getting when you’re going to write on your calendar is critical, but it doesn’t solve the fact that all writing deterrents are psychological barriers, not actual time barriers.
Last month, one of my writers had a breakthrough, and she’s given me permission to share it here. She was struggling with a few of the above sentiments, and we talked about writing as meditation. I suggested to her, as I do to many of my writers, to create a sacred space. You can light candles, say a mantra before you start, do meditative breathing—whatever it takes to help you set an intention around your writing. And as you do all of these things, you commit yourself to your hour, two hours, three hours, what have you.
This process worked for my client, but she added a spunky twist, inspired by Elizabeth Gilbert’s TED talk, which I posted about in February 2009. She scooped up an uglydoll and named it Genius and placed it in her writing space. Not only does Genius delight her every day, he reminds her to have fun, that it doesn’t have to be perfect, and that Genius doesn’t have to look a particular way. After all, this guy is UGLY!
I love this extra little structure my client created because for two reasons: (1) It’s working for her. She’s more productive and inspired than she’s been in months; and (2) It’s a reminder to shake it up a little bit. I do believe in setting intentions and creating space—both physical and emotional—to write. But it’s actually quite difficult for some people to make this a priority, to really make it happen. Everyone likes the idea of cultivating space, of setting an intention, of writing their six or nine or twelve hours a week, but only the most disciplined writers I know succeed at this week in and week out—and that's because they live their practice.
For those of you struggling to live your practice, consider something special to add to your writing space. Invite in Genius, or Inspiration, or Creativity. Assign it to an object that’s going to make you smile or catch your attention. Have fun with it! If you’re anything like the writer who dubbed her uglydoll Genius, you’ll discover that motivation sometimes comes from the most unlikely of places.
 | ||||||
Until next month!
Brooke
GO BACK TO THE WARNER COACHING HOMEPAGE
September 15, 2010
Think like a publisher (plus a few insider tips on industry bad habits)
For an industry that’s in the business of creativity, most publishing houses are actually extremely uncreative. (Caveat: I’m speaking mostly of bigger houses and mostly of nonfiction.)
If you want to get your nonfiction work published on a mainstream press, here’s a few insights into how to think like a publisher:
•Recognize that there is no such thing as a new idea. Editors have seen everything, and any attempt by you to say that you’re doing something that’s never before been attempted or done is only going to make you sound like an amateur. In that vein, do your competitive title research and do it well. The deeper the analysis and the more books you add to your list of comps, the more you’re helping your own cause.
•Understand that what you think is important about your book might not be what a publisher thinks is important about your book. Most editors get into publishing because they love to read, and/or maybe love to write. And most of us probably think we know a good book when we see one---that’s our job, after all. But good writing is not enough. I’ve turned down plenty of memoirs for being too literary, actually. And why is that? Because the longer we’re in the industry the more we’re trained to think like marketing people. I have fallen in love with books that are great reads, but in today’s publishing climate what’s far more important than your talent is proving to the marketing department that there’s an audience for your book. Spend time thinking about marketing. Do not assume that the most important thing about your book is the writing and/or the originality of the manuscript.
•Know that publishers are actually not very good at reaching readers. I know, this might seem like an insane thing to say, but it’s true. Publishers have relationships with media, and every good publicist’s job is to get the word out. Then it’s the media that attracts the readers to the book. Understand that it’s your job to create relationships---through your blog, Twitter, getting out and speaking, organizing events, workshops, etc. Whatever you have to do. The more you can think about your readers early on and identify who they are, the more you’re going to be able to make a case for publication, and then actually sell books once your book is published.
INDUSTRY BAD HABITS
While it’s helpful to think like a publisher, I also think knowing some of publishing’s bad habits helps authors be in relationship with publishers. After all, any one of us in relationship with someone knows that you have to take the good with the bad. So on that note, here are a few things you should know so you’re not surprised if and when it comes up later:
•Publishers ghettoize books. Whether it’s for the Library of Congress or to help local bookstores know where to shelf books, publishers need to categorize---and some categories actually do a disservice to the book by limiting their visibility and appeal. Knowing your category is important because books do get lost because of category. I’ve seen it happen. Bad categories for books include: gay/lesbian; essays; Latino studies; African-American studies; women’s studies. Notice a trend? Yes, publishing (and I would argue that this isn’t necessarily intentional and has more to do with an unwillingness to think creatively) works against women and minorities.
•Publishers copy each other. Every once in a while I feel envious of my colleagues who work for New York houses, if only because I can feel out of the loop out here in Berkeley. That said, most often I feel grateful. Why? Because Manhattan is the ultimate creative bottleneck. If you can get on the inside publishing track in New York, you can have a great writing career simply by merit of who you know. But for the rest of you, all you have to do is follow publishers marketplace for a couple days before you start noticing trends. We’re all buying the same books over and over and over again.
•Publishers don’t make good business decisions. Publishers are notoriously risk-averse, and yet they throw huge money (sometimes) at books for incomprehensible (at times) reasons. Sometimes books go to auction because of the hype (refer back to the insularity of Manhattan publishing and how agents and editors talk to each other about the next sure bet). Unless the author is a celebrity, however, throwing $100,000+ advances honestly doesn’t make sense. A book has to sell through 100,000 copies to break even on a $100,000 advance, and I could come up with a pretty short list of books that have managed to do that. Huge advances are not as common as they used to be, but my personal opinion is that it screws the midlist author with a good book who has the potential to earn out a midlevel ($15,000-$30,000) advance. How? Because ALL the resources are going to the author who got paid $100,000. And if you are that big advance author and your book doesn’t work, watch out. I’ve heard of more than a few authors whose publishers stopped taking their calls.
•Publishers will base your potential sales on sales tracks of other books that may have nothing to do with your book. That’s right! This is why it’s important to think outside of the box when you’re compiling your comparative titles. Anyone who’s worked on a proposal with me knows how much I harp on the importance of comparative (synonymous with competitive) titles. What, those aren’t really synonyms? Exactly! But they’re one in the same where publishing is concerned, so start to think about books that are like yours for ANY reason: voice, scope, category, theme—it’s all fair game.
ON A HAPPIER NOTE
I know some of you have come to rely on my optimism, so here are a few parting thoughts:
1. There are legitimate and good reasons to look within yourself for a greater reason to finish your book than just getting published on a mainstream press. Shopping your book, especially before it’s finished, can be a creative buzzkill. If you’re in the flow and you believe in your work, keep writing!
2. There are lots of signs pointing toward a Brave New World of book publishing. No, we’re not there yet, but many authors are choosing not to get discouraged and just publish their work themselves. If you’ve been reading my newsletters for any amount of time, you know I’m a fan of self-publishing---as long as you have an online presence and a way to reach your readers. This July 19 keynote by Seth Godin speaks to mistakes publishers make (some of which I’ve covered here) and why he thinks authors with audience and platform shouldn’t even bother with traditional publishers. Take the time to listen. It’s a great conversation-starter.
If you want to get your nonfiction work published on a mainstream press, here’s a few insights into how to think like a publisher:
•Recognize that there is no such thing as a new idea. Editors have seen everything, and any attempt by you to say that you’re doing something that’s never before been attempted or done is only going to make you sound like an amateur. In that vein, do your competitive title research and do it well. The deeper the analysis and the more books you add to your list of comps, the more you’re helping your own cause.
•Understand that what you think is important about your book might not be what a publisher thinks is important about your book. Most editors get into publishing because they love to read, and/or maybe love to write. And most of us probably think we know a good book when we see one---that’s our job, after all. But good writing is not enough. I’ve turned down plenty of memoirs for being too literary, actually. And why is that? Because the longer we’re in the industry the more we’re trained to think like marketing people. I have fallen in love with books that are great reads, but in today’s publishing climate what’s far more important than your talent is proving to the marketing department that there’s an audience for your book. Spend time thinking about marketing. Do not assume that the most important thing about your book is the writing and/or the originality of the manuscript.
•Know that publishers are actually not very good at reaching readers. I know, this might seem like an insane thing to say, but it’s true. Publishers have relationships with media, and every good publicist’s job is to get the word out. Then it’s the media that attracts the readers to the book. Understand that it’s your job to create relationships---through your blog, Twitter, getting out and speaking, organizing events, workshops, etc. Whatever you have to do. The more you can think about your readers early on and identify who they are, the more you’re going to be able to make a case for publication, and then actually sell books once your book is published.
INDUSTRY BAD HABITS
While it’s helpful to think like a publisher, I also think knowing some of publishing’s bad habits helps authors be in relationship with publishers. After all, any one of us in relationship with someone knows that you have to take the good with the bad. So on that note, here are a few things you should know so you’re not surprised if and when it comes up later:
•Publishers ghettoize books. Whether it’s for the Library of Congress or to help local bookstores know where to shelf books, publishers need to categorize---and some categories actually do a disservice to the book by limiting their visibility and appeal. Knowing your category is important because books do get lost because of category. I’ve seen it happen. Bad categories for books include: gay/lesbian; essays; Latino studies; African-American studies; women’s studies. Notice a trend? Yes, publishing (and I would argue that this isn’t necessarily intentional and has more to do with an unwillingness to think creatively) works against women and minorities.
•Publishers copy each other. Every once in a while I feel envious of my colleagues who work for New York houses, if only because I can feel out of the loop out here in Berkeley. That said, most often I feel grateful. Why? Because Manhattan is the ultimate creative bottleneck. If you can get on the inside publishing track in New York, you can have a great writing career simply by merit of who you know. But for the rest of you, all you have to do is follow publishers marketplace for a couple days before you start noticing trends. We’re all buying the same books over and over and over again.
•Publishers don’t make good business decisions. Publishers are notoriously risk-averse, and yet they throw huge money (sometimes) at books for incomprehensible (at times) reasons. Sometimes books go to auction because of the hype (refer back to the insularity of Manhattan publishing and how agents and editors talk to each other about the next sure bet). Unless the author is a celebrity, however, throwing $100,000+ advances honestly doesn’t make sense. A book has to sell through 100,000 copies to break even on a $100,000 advance, and I could come up with a pretty short list of books that have managed to do that. Huge advances are not as common as they used to be, but my personal opinion is that it screws the midlist author with a good book who has the potential to earn out a midlevel ($15,000-$30,000) advance. How? Because ALL the resources are going to the author who got paid $100,000. And if you are that big advance author and your book doesn’t work, watch out. I’ve heard of more than a few authors whose publishers stopped taking their calls.
•Publishers will base your potential sales on sales tracks of other books that may have nothing to do with your book. That’s right! This is why it’s important to think outside of the box when you’re compiling your comparative titles. Anyone who’s worked on a proposal with me knows how much I harp on the importance of comparative (synonymous with competitive) titles. What, those aren’t really synonyms? Exactly! But they’re one in the same where publishing is concerned, so start to think about books that are like yours for ANY reason: voice, scope, category, theme—it’s all fair game.
ON A HAPPIER NOTE
I know some of you have come to rely on my optimism, so here are a few parting thoughts:
1. There are legitimate and good reasons to look within yourself for a greater reason to finish your book than just getting published on a mainstream press. Shopping your book, especially before it’s finished, can be a creative buzzkill. If you’re in the flow and you believe in your work, keep writing!
2. There are lots of signs pointing toward a Brave New World of book publishing. No, we’re not there yet, but many authors are choosing not to get discouraged and just publish their work themselves. If you’ve been reading my newsletters for any amount of time, you know I’m a fan of self-publishing---as long as you have an online presence and a way to reach your readers. This July 19 keynote by Seth Godin speaks to mistakes publishers make (some of which I’ve covered here) and why he thinks authors with audience and platform shouldn’t even bother with traditional publishers. Take the time to listen. It’s a great conversation-starter.
August 15, 2010
Social Networking: Keeping It Simple
Last month I facilitated a weekend-long writing/publishing workshop in Bellingham, Washington. In workshops I like to gauge the temperature of the crowd to see what concerns and anxieties people have. Our group was 27 strong, so there were a lot of them, but overwhelm and how to juggle new technology/social media was one that stood out.
Lots of writers I work with are concerned with staying on top of social media. We’re talking Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, SecondLife, and a many many others. Recently, in a mastermind group I’m a part of, a hardworking entrepreneurial woman in the group was sharing about backlinking her Digg, del.icio.us, Foursquare, and more. I only vaguely understood what she was talking about.
There are writers out there who are tremendously tech-savvy, and of course many others who are not. Most people are drawn to write because they love words, not because they love computers and html. And yet, the power of social media, and the importance of having an online presence and traffic, makes it so that you—the aspiring (or especially published) author—MUST in fact care and tend to your social media. But you can keep your social networking in check.
After all, you might ask, where does anyone find the time? Good question. The majority of the writers I work with are struggling to find time to WRITE. I try to get all my writers (except those maniacs who write every day) to get on a three-by-three schedule (3 hours, 3 days a week). But that’s just for the writing alone. Social media could easily take up that much time or more a week—and for some people it does. (For a great read on being obsessed with being connected, check out this essay by Gary Shteyngart.)
If you want to publish, at least do Facebook and Twitter—and update them. You really can get away with only doing these two, in addition to having your own website. You can link your accounts so that every Facebook post also updates Twitter, releasing you from the burden of double-posting. Later, once you publish your book, you’ll need to make a fan page for it. As far as other forms of social media go, I think it’s important to ask yourself how much time you are willing and able to commit; and it’s not just about time. It’s mental energy being expended into the universe in a particularly deliberate way. I know people who can’t go out to dinner without updating their status mid-meal. If this strikes you as problematic, set a schedule and some ground rules about when and what you’ll post online.
In her recent New York Times article, Peggy Orenstein wrote about the ways in which Twitter propagates life as performance. She writes:
“The fun of Twitter and, I suspect, its draw for millions of people, is its infinite potential for connection, as well as its opportunity for self-expression. I enjoy those things myself. But when every thought is externalized, what becomes of insight? When we reflexively post each feeling, what becomes of reflection? When friends become fans, what happens to intimacy? The risk of the performance culture, of the packaged self, is that it erodes the very relationships it purports to create, and alienates us from our own humanity.”
This is coming from a self-professed fan of the medium. Everything I’ve read about Twitter suggests that we’re waiting to see its actual capacity to sell things. It’s so much a part of the social networking landscape that it’s not going anywhere, but it still feels like people haven’t quite figured out how to harness its real power—and by power I guess I mean influencing decision-making and consumer choices. Interestingly, the authors of a book I edited called The Choice Effect did a free Kindle giveaway of their book, largely promoted through Twitter. The result: 10,000 copies downloaded. So the viral capacity of Twitter is nothing to bat an eye at; the question is, how do authors (or anyone) get similar results for things that aren’t free?
If you’re working on a book now and don’t Facebook or Twitter, start now. Do consider how connected you want to be, though. Three posts a week is a solid place to start. And keep a check on how into it you get. Try to keep it relevant to your work and/or process. If you start needing to post to Facebook every time you’re doing something fun with your family or friends, you might want to reel it in. After all, there's a name for what you might be setting yourself up for: Internet addiction disorder.
July 2, 2010
Practice, Process, Publish: July 24 - 25, 2010, at The Chrysalis Inn & Spa
Presents:
A Summer Writing Workshop: Practice, Process, Publish
July 24 - 25, 2010 at The Chrysalis Inn & Spa
July 24 - 25, 2010 at The Chrysalis Inn & Spa
General Info:
Join Senior Editor and Writing Coach Brooke Warner and Award Winning Writer and Teacher Laura Kalpakian for an intimate and inspiring weekend of workshops, hands-on classes and one-on-one discussion. Take advantage of this intimate opportunity to ask questions and move forward with your individual writing goals.
Saturday, July 24 – 8:30am - 5:00pm
Sunday, July 25 – 8:30am - Noon
Sunday, July 25 – 8:30am - Noon
The Chrysalis Inn & Spa, Bellingham, WA
$150.00 per person (includes coffee and snacks)
15-minute consultations with Brooke Warner are available on Sunday for an additional $20
For information and to sign up, call Cami at 206.890.8694 or email us at CLOSTMAN@live.com.
$150.00 per person (includes coffee and snacks)
15-minute consultations with Brooke Warner are available on Sunday for an additional $20
For information and to sign up, call Cami at 206.890.8694 or email us at CLOSTMAN@live.com.
Improve your writing Practice:
• Soul searching---defining and redefining your project
• Where to start when you’ve got more than one project in mind
• The importance of structure, scope, angle, and hook
• Writing with “relatability” and universal conclusions in mind
• Getting out of the way so the book that wants to be written comes through
• Creating accountability: schedules, deadlines, and discipline
• Where to start when you’ve got more than one project in mind
• The importance of structure, scope, angle, and hook
• Writing with “relatability” and universal conclusions in mind
• Getting out of the way so the book that wants to be written comes through
• Creating accountability: schedules, deadlines, and discipline
Learn about the writing Process:
• Effective editing---the right questions to ask as you revise and develop
• Tips for seeing and shaping your work with new eyes
• How to revise creatively throughout the writing process
• Hands on practice with new techniques
• Tips for seeing and shaping your work with new eyes
• How to revise creatively throughout the writing process
• Hands on practice with new techniques
Get ready to Publish:
• The dos and don’ts of publishing---secrets of a pro
• Marketing yourself---why you need a platform
• Deconstructing query letters and proposals
• How to stand out from the crowd
• Building relationships with editors and agents
• Digital, self-publishing and the future
• Marketing yourself---why you need a platform
• Deconstructing query letters and proposals
• How to stand out from the crowd
• Building relationships with editors and agents
• Digital, self-publishing and the future
Register Today! Enrollment Limited
Cash, Check, and Paypal Accepted
Contact Cami @ Write on Bellingham:
206.890.8694 or email at CLOSTMAN@live.com
PO Box 29043
Bellingham WA 98228
Workshop Schedule
Saturday, July 24
8:30am - Noon, Practice and Process, Brooke Warner
12pm - 1:30pm Lunch Break
1:30pm - 4:30pm The Writer and Creative Revision, Laura Kalpakian
4:30pm - 5:00pm Day 1 Wrap Up
Sunday, July 25
8:30 am - noon The Inside Scoop on Publishing, Brooke Warner
noon - 3:00pm Individual Consultations Available with Brooke
Guest Bios
Brooke Warner is Senior Editor at Seal Press, publisher of women’s nonfiction books, written for women, by women. Brooke has been in the publishing industry for over ten years and has been coaching and consulting individual writers for the past three years. She specializes in coaching writers through the completion of their book proposals and manuscripts and helping them to identify the best route to getting published. Brooke works with writers across many genres, including writers of nonfiction, from women’s issues to mind/body/spirit, novelists, memoirists, poets, and essayists. Read more about Brooke on her website and see her list of acquisitions.
Laura Kalpakian is the author of ten novels, including The Memoir Club, Steps and Exes, and most recently, American Cookery, nominated for the 2007 IMPAC/Dublin Literary Award. Her stories are published in the UK and USA, and gathered into three prize-winning collections. Her memoirs and essays have appeared in quarterlies and anthologies. She has long taught both Memoir and Fiction classes in Washington. The Chrysalis Inn Location:
804 10th Street
Bellingham, WA 98225
Bellingham, WA 98225
June 6, 2010
Platform versus Passion
This past month I went to back-to-back conferences. One was an entrepreneurial program and the other was Book Expo. At both conferences, I ended up talking and thinking a lot about books. The two conferences exemplified to me two writing extremes: the platform writer and the passion writer. They’re not mutually exclusive. I’d argue that the most successful writers are those who have figured out how to be both. But this is what they look like:
The platform writer wants to have a book to boost their credibility and professional legitimacy. I met a lot of these people at the entrepreneurial conference I went to. They’ve heard they should have a book, that it'll bring in more clients and speaking gigs, make them experts in their fields. A lot of these people just wish someone would write their book for them. They want to be spending their efforts on their business, where there’s real moneymaking potential. In their mind, a book looks good and they want it to be something their proud of, by their identity isn’t too wrapped up in the process or the publication itself.
Then there’s the passion writer. These are the writers I end up talking to at BEA. Because it’s not a good venue to pitch your book, those writers who do pitch books at BEA have generally paid a lot of money or finagled their way in there to get to agents and editors. My heart goes out to these people because they are definitely in the passion category. They care so much about their projects. They’re projects are their babies. Women often use pregnancy and laboring metaphors when they speak to you about their process, and far too frequently these writers are too attached to their projects and don’t understand that good writing doesn’t make up for a nonexistent platform.
So . . .
If you are one or the other of these writers, don’t despair. It’s not a bad thing to be a platform writer or a passion writer. It’s just important to know which you are. Why?
Because if you’re the former then you might want to adjust your strategy a little bit. You might want to hire someone who can transcribe or ghostwrite. You might want to consider self-publishing your first book to get your feet wet and to have something immediately available to your clients. Start with a downloadable e-book.
If you’re the latter, then you might benefit from taking a day off a week from your writing to focus on your platform. Publishing is changing so much, and it’s harder than it’s ever been to get published without a platform. You can build a platform, yes, which I’ve written about in a previous post. But also, importantly, don’t assume that your book is one of a kind. I personally advise my clients to love their books, yes, feel passionate about them, but help agents and editors help you by understanding the books that are similar to yours. And don’t be so tied to your words and your concept that you can’t change if and when someone comes to you with feedback, editorial remarks, or because they want to publish you.
The vast majority of you probably see yourself a little bit in both of these scenarios. And that’s okay. It should be a healthy balance. When you pitch yourself to an editor or an agent you want to be informed. You want to wow. The platform part tells the industry professional that you know what’s up, that you’re worth taking a risk on. (Because unless you have proven book sales from a previous book, you’re a risk.) The passion part tells the industry professional that you’re willing to kick your butt into high gear, that your book means the world to you and that you’re not going to get sick and tired of it (even though you will).
It’s a hard act to balance---to be both kinds of writers. Neither extreme makes for an ideal publishing candidate, and being just in the middle is a lot to ask of yourself. So just feel into which is more true of you, and consider that you might need to focus your energy, your proposal, your attention on the other when you go to present yourself and your book to the world.
Brooke meets up with a skeptical Jon Stewart at BEA:
Until next month.
Brooke
GO BACK TO THE WARNER COACHING HOMEPAGE
The platform writer wants to have a book to boost their credibility and professional legitimacy. I met a lot of these people at the entrepreneurial conference I went to. They’ve heard they should have a book, that it'll bring in more clients and speaking gigs, make them experts in their fields. A lot of these people just wish someone would write their book for them. They want to be spending their efforts on their business, where there’s real moneymaking potential. In their mind, a book looks good and they want it to be something their proud of, by their identity isn’t too wrapped up in the process or the publication itself.
Then there’s the passion writer. These are the writers I end up talking to at BEA. Because it’s not a good venue to pitch your book, those writers who do pitch books at BEA have generally paid a lot of money or finagled their way in there to get to agents and editors. My heart goes out to these people because they are definitely in the passion category. They care so much about their projects. They’re projects are their babies. Women often use pregnancy and laboring metaphors when they speak to you about their process, and far too frequently these writers are too attached to their projects and don’t understand that good writing doesn’t make up for a nonexistent platform.
So . . .
If you are one or the other of these writers, don’t despair. It’s not a bad thing to be a platform writer or a passion writer. It’s just important to know which you are. Why?
Because if you’re the former then you might want to adjust your strategy a little bit. You might want to hire someone who can transcribe or ghostwrite. You might want to consider self-publishing your first book to get your feet wet and to have something immediately available to your clients. Start with a downloadable e-book.
If you’re the latter, then you might benefit from taking a day off a week from your writing to focus on your platform. Publishing is changing so much, and it’s harder than it’s ever been to get published without a platform. You can build a platform, yes, which I’ve written about in a previous post. But also, importantly, don’t assume that your book is one of a kind. I personally advise my clients to love their books, yes, feel passionate about them, but help agents and editors help you by understanding the books that are similar to yours. And don’t be so tied to your words and your concept that you can’t change if and when someone comes to you with feedback, editorial remarks, or because they want to publish you.
The vast majority of you probably see yourself a little bit in both of these scenarios. And that’s okay. It should be a healthy balance. When you pitch yourself to an editor or an agent you want to be informed. You want to wow. The platform part tells the industry professional that you know what’s up, that you’re worth taking a risk on. (Because unless you have proven book sales from a previous book, you’re a risk.) The passion part tells the industry professional that you’re willing to kick your butt into high gear, that your book means the world to you and that you’re not going to get sick and tired of it (even though you will).
It’s a hard act to balance---to be both kinds of writers. Neither extreme makes for an ideal publishing candidate, and being just in the middle is a lot to ask of yourself. So just feel into which is more true of you, and consider that you might need to focus your energy, your proposal, your attention on the other when you go to present yourself and your book to the world.
Brooke meets up with a skeptical Jon Stewart at BEA:
Until next month.
Brooke
GO BACK TO THE WARNER COACHING HOMEPAGE
May 6, 2010
Know your hook before you pitch
Thank you for submitting your proposal to Seal Press. Unfortunately, your project doesn’t have enough of a hook or angle for me to be able to truly define what you’re doing to my Editorial Board and sales team. I appreciate your story, but I’m afraid it’s a bit too vague and sprawling for us to be able to pursue your project for our list.
Sincerely,
Brooke Warner
Senior Editor, Seal Press
This is typical of rejection letters I write in my role as Editor at Seal. In fact, there are more submissions than not that fall into this category of too diffuse, too big, too sprawling, too vague—even too common. All writers, but especially writers of memoir, must must understand that they need to define a unique angle in their pitch, cover letter, and/or manuscript.
I hear and read pitches all the time that that do nothing to give me a unique sales handle, nothing to tell me what’s different about their book, or alternately (flip side of the same coin) what’s similar to other books that are on the market. I’ve talked in previous newsletters about the difference between high concept and low concept books, and it’s not so much that you have to have a high concept, but you do need to help the agent or editor you want to publish with make their job easier.
This vagueness happens so often in memoir because memoirists are trying to tackle the landscape of their lives. Unless you're famous, your life story is not enough. Typical submissions might look like: (1) a writer’s life story from point A to point B, (2) a writer’s experience as a mother, (3) a writer’s bizarre set of experiences that led them to where they are today. And it’s a conundrum, because there are writers who get published under these scenarios. After all, #1 could be Eat, Pray, Love; #2 could be Operating Instructions; and #3 could be Running with Scissors. But Elizabeth Gilbert, Annie Lamott, and Augusten Burroughs were/are writers with well-established platforms. For the average writer trying to catch a break, the hook can make or break the deal.
As a case study, I’ll share the example of a memoir I edited at Seal called Loaded, by Jill Talbot. When Jill first approached me with a book idea, she actually proposed an entirely different book. It was going to be coauthored with a friend and the title was South of 30, which the authors described as “a collaboration, a collection of essays, that creates a conversation as well as our own individual ruminations about life as women in our late thirties.” Not a bad concept, but too big? Yes. And ruminations about life? Definitely too vague. I rejected that proposal, but I was struck by Jill’s writing. So you could say she caught a break. I wanted to develop something with her. She was---is---a beautiful writer, and in a follow-up conversation she mentioned she’d been in rehab. It just so happened that I wanted a book about addiction at the time, and she was open to going down that road. And so we developed a proposal together that worked. The angle was clear: addiction. Addiction to alcohol, addiction to men, addiction to troubled relationships. The result is Loaded, and it’s a fantastic book that’s highly literary while still being high concept.
Not all of you will be lucky enough to develop a proposal for an editor who’s really interested in your book, but some of you might. Listen to people who work with books. Have conversations about hook. Look at the books you love and try to figure out if the hook is immediately apparent. Make sure your pitch is clear. The tighter your concept is, the more likely you are to get positive responses. And remember, this doesn’t mean that your writing has to be simple or that the scope of your book needs to be necessary scaled back. Your hook is not the entirety of the book, and it doesn’t need to be. Think of it like CliffNotes for your would-be agent or editor. We want to work with people who help us help them, and a well-defined hook goes way farther than you might think.
A special thanks to Jill Talbot this month for letting me share her story.
Until next month.
Brooke
GO BACK TO THE WARNER COACHING HOMEPAGE
Sincerely,
Brooke Warner
Senior Editor, Seal Press
This is typical of rejection letters I write in my role as Editor at Seal. In fact, there are more submissions than not that fall into this category of too diffuse, too big, too sprawling, too vague—even too common. All writers, but especially writers of memoir, must must understand that they need to define a unique angle in their pitch, cover letter, and/or manuscript.
I hear and read pitches all the time that that do nothing to give me a unique sales handle, nothing to tell me what’s different about their book, or alternately (flip side of the same coin) what’s similar to other books that are on the market. I’ve talked in previous newsletters about the difference between high concept and low concept books, and it’s not so much that you have to have a high concept, but you do need to help the agent or editor you want to publish with make their job easier.
This vagueness happens so often in memoir because memoirists are trying to tackle the landscape of their lives. Unless you're famous, your life story is not enough. Typical submissions might look like: (1) a writer’s life story from point A to point B, (2) a writer’s experience as a mother, (3) a writer’s bizarre set of experiences that led them to where they are today. And it’s a conundrum, because there are writers who get published under these scenarios. After all, #1 could be Eat, Pray, Love; #2 could be Operating Instructions; and #3 could be Running with Scissors. But Elizabeth Gilbert, Annie Lamott, and Augusten Burroughs were/are writers with well-established platforms. For the average writer trying to catch a break, the hook can make or break the deal.
As a case study, I’ll share the example of a memoir I edited at Seal called Loaded, by Jill Talbot. When Jill first approached me with a book idea, she actually proposed an entirely different book. It was going to be coauthored with a friend and the title was South of 30, which the authors described as “a collaboration, a collection of essays, that creates a conversation as well as our own individual ruminations about life as women in our late thirties.” Not a bad concept, but too big? Yes. And ruminations about life? Definitely too vague. I rejected that proposal, but I was struck by Jill’s writing. So you could say she caught a break. I wanted to develop something with her. She was---is---a beautiful writer, and in a follow-up conversation she mentioned she’d been in rehab. It just so happened that I wanted a book about addiction at the time, and she was open to going down that road. And so we developed a proposal together that worked. The angle was clear: addiction. Addiction to alcohol, addiction to men, addiction to troubled relationships. The result is Loaded, and it’s a fantastic book that’s highly literary while still being high concept.
Not all of you will be lucky enough to develop a proposal for an editor who’s really interested in your book, but some of you might. Listen to people who work with books. Have conversations about hook. Look at the books you love and try to figure out if the hook is immediately apparent. Make sure your pitch is clear. The tighter your concept is, the more likely you are to get positive responses. And remember, this doesn’t mean that your writing has to be simple or that the scope of your book needs to be necessary scaled back. Your hook is not the entirety of the book, and it doesn’t need to be. Think of it like CliffNotes for your would-be agent or editor. We want to work with people who help us help them, and a well-defined hook goes way farther than you might think.
A special thanks to Jill Talbot this month for letting me share her story.
Until next month.
Brooke
GO BACK TO THE WARNER COACHING HOMEPAGE
April 11, 2010
The future of feminism panel that wasn't
Dear Warner Coaching readers, I have never before cross-posted with Seal, but I'm doing so because I realized I had a tremendous spike in the number of readers visiting this site over the weekend, which I think has to do with AWP. So here goes, for those of you who are interested in reading:
I flew to Denver this weekend to attend AWP. I was supposed to be sitting on a panel called The Future of Feminism, which Amy Scholder at The Feminist Press had organized quite some time ago.
We got the very last time slot of the conference: 4.30 on Saturday afternoon. I was prepared for a not-so-good turnout, but I’ve been to enough conferences to know that sometimes the biggest impact is made on the smallest groups.
When I showed up to my panel, this was the sign I saw on the door.
I had no notification, no advance warning, no opportunity to have made a different decision. I was, needless to say, bummed. At first I thought the conference had canceled the panel on our behalf, and I couldn’t understand why. Then, as woman after woman came by, some audibly disappointed, I started to feel genuinely upset.
One group of students from Western Washington University turned to me, and recognizing my name on my badge, asked if I would do a talk without my panel. I wish I had said yes. One of them said, “We thought it was so cool that this was going to be our last panel of the day. We were going to go out with a bang!”
As it turned out, Amy had a family emergency. These things happen. The other panelists decided, it seems, that they didn’t want to do the panel with so few people. Later that evening, at a meet up hosted by SheWrites, Lucy Bledsoe, a beloved Seal author who has a new novel out, asked me what happened. It was kind of ironic, she said. What does that say about the future of feminist publishing? And I had been thinking the same thing as I sulked back to my hotel room.
And because I wish I’d had the wherewithal to tear down that sign and just do a talk about feminist publishing, or about women and publishing at the bare minimum, I’ve composed a few thoughts that I might have highlighted had the panel happened:
1. We still have a presence.
The fact that presses like Seal and The Feminist Press, as well as Cleis and Belladonna and Firebrand, and many others (please comment and list yourselves!) are still out there publishing with a feminist mission is extraordinary. I meet with women all the time who think that feminism died with the second wave. They are thrilled to know that the younger generation is carrying forth messages about women’s equality, and that we don’t just sit idly by and think that all of the disparities have ceased to exist. There’s room for new feminist voices, and there’s a thriving online community of bloggers and activists (too abundant to list here) who are doing amazing work in the name of feminism. And lots of them are getting published.
2. There’s more than one kind of feminism.
Seal is increasingly publishing “mainstream” feminism, for which we’ve been criticized by some and commended by others. Whatever your feelings are about mainstream feminist writers, the good news is this: they reach a wider audience. We’re expected to bring in books that can sell---that’s the nature of the book business, even though lots of books don’t. So for us to be able to say that we have feminist books that sell well is, to me, a huge win. Notably is Jessica Valenti’s Full Frontal Feminism, but there are many others. Some Seal books are overtly feminist in scope, while others simply have a feminist or pro-woman sensibility to them. That is critical to who we are, and it won’t change for as long as Seal continues to be around. I would have loved to hear what some of my fellow editors have to say about mainstream feminism and/or popular or celebrity feminism. And I want to note, in the interest of talking about a mainstream book that Seal has coming up in 2011, that we are publishing our first ever male authors*, Michael Kimmel and Michael Kaufman, who are writing a mainstream book that tackles feminism for men---and it’s actually targeted toward men (and not only their girlfriends, sisters, wives, and moms).
*It’s important to qualify here that Seal has published men in our anthologies, and we have two memoirs by trans men.
3. Women are keeping publishing real.
When it comes to accolades and honors it unfortunately seems to be the case that men are still getting more attention in the publishing industry than women. But I see women pushing the envelope. Women are bringing things that matter to their writing. Women are keeping it real. Sure, not all women are feminists, or they are and they don’t know it. This very complex issue of women and their feminisms was tacked in the Seal book Girldrive, by Nona Willis Aronowitz and Emma Bee Bernstein. In my ideal world, every woman would call herself a feminist, but what I realize more and more is that all we really need to do is acknowledge that we care about the same things and that we are stronger than our differences. Feminism can be a torturously divided movement, and I hesitate to even call it that, though I’ll leave it for lack of a better word. If I were going to leave our would-have-been audience on one note, it would have to do with coming together. I don’t think the goal of feminism was ever for women to be more divided, but it can sometimes feel like that. At Seal, and I imagine this is true for my other feminist press colleagues as well, part of what we look for in our manuscripts is inclusiveness, a pro-woman sentiment, bridging the divides, educating our audience, and owning a uniquely female perspective on whatever the topic is---be it motherhood, social issues, organizing your life, or breaking out of your career rut.
So that's what happened. Because there are so many charged issues that come up around feminism, and because feminist publishing and feminist bookstores have been so obliterated over the past three decades, I thought Lucy's noting that it was indeed ironic that the panel was canceled couldn't have been more true. So I apologize to those of you who wanted to be there.
Thanks for reading.
Brooke
GO BACK TO THE WARNER COACHING HOMEPAGE
I flew to Denver this weekend to attend AWP. I was supposed to be sitting on a panel called The Future of Feminism, which Amy Scholder at The Feminist Press had organized quite some time ago.
We got the very last time slot of the conference: 4.30 on Saturday afternoon. I was prepared for a not-so-good turnout, but I’ve been to enough conferences to know that sometimes the biggest impact is made on the smallest groups.
When I showed up to my panel, this was the sign I saw on the door.
I had no notification, no advance warning, no opportunity to have made a different decision. I was, needless to say, bummed. At first I thought the conference had canceled the panel on our behalf, and I couldn’t understand why. Then, as woman after woman came by, some audibly disappointed, I started to feel genuinely upset.
One group of students from Western Washington University turned to me, and recognizing my name on my badge, asked if I would do a talk without my panel. I wish I had said yes. One of them said, “We thought it was so cool that this was going to be our last panel of the day. We were going to go out with a bang!”
As it turned out, Amy had a family emergency. These things happen. The other panelists decided, it seems, that they didn’t want to do the panel with so few people. Later that evening, at a meet up hosted by SheWrites, Lucy Bledsoe, a beloved Seal author who has a new novel out, asked me what happened. It was kind of ironic, she said. What does that say about the future of feminist publishing? And I had been thinking the same thing as I sulked back to my hotel room.
And because I wish I’d had the wherewithal to tear down that sign and just do a talk about feminist publishing, or about women and publishing at the bare minimum, I’ve composed a few thoughts that I might have highlighted had the panel happened:
1. We still have a presence.
The fact that presses like Seal and The Feminist Press, as well as Cleis and Belladonna and Firebrand, and many others (please comment and list yourselves!) are still out there publishing with a feminist mission is extraordinary. I meet with women all the time who think that feminism died with the second wave. They are thrilled to know that the younger generation is carrying forth messages about women’s equality, and that we don’t just sit idly by and think that all of the disparities have ceased to exist. There’s room for new feminist voices, and there’s a thriving online community of bloggers and activists (too abundant to list here) who are doing amazing work in the name of feminism. And lots of them are getting published.
2. There’s more than one kind of feminism.
Seal is increasingly publishing “mainstream” feminism, for which we’ve been criticized by some and commended by others. Whatever your feelings are about mainstream feminist writers, the good news is this: they reach a wider audience. We’re expected to bring in books that can sell---that’s the nature of the book business, even though lots of books don’t. So for us to be able to say that we have feminist books that sell well is, to me, a huge win. Notably is Jessica Valenti’s Full Frontal Feminism, but there are many others. Some Seal books are overtly feminist in scope, while others simply have a feminist or pro-woman sensibility to them. That is critical to who we are, and it won’t change for as long as Seal continues to be around. I would have loved to hear what some of my fellow editors have to say about mainstream feminism and/or popular or celebrity feminism. And I want to note, in the interest of talking about a mainstream book that Seal has coming up in 2011, that we are publishing our first ever male authors*, Michael Kimmel and Michael Kaufman, who are writing a mainstream book that tackles feminism for men---and it’s actually targeted toward men (and not only their girlfriends, sisters, wives, and moms).
*It’s important to qualify here that Seal has published men in our anthologies, and we have two memoirs by trans men.
3. Women are keeping publishing real.
When it comes to accolades and honors it unfortunately seems to be the case that men are still getting more attention in the publishing industry than women. But I see women pushing the envelope. Women are bringing things that matter to their writing. Women are keeping it real. Sure, not all women are feminists, or they are and they don’t know it. This very complex issue of women and their feminisms was tacked in the Seal book Girldrive, by Nona Willis Aronowitz and Emma Bee Bernstein. In my ideal world, every woman would call herself a feminist, but what I realize more and more is that all we really need to do is acknowledge that we care about the same things and that we are stronger than our differences. Feminism can be a torturously divided movement, and I hesitate to even call it that, though I’ll leave it for lack of a better word. If I were going to leave our would-have-been audience on one note, it would have to do with coming together. I don’t think the goal of feminism was ever for women to be more divided, but it can sometimes feel like that. At Seal, and I imagine this is true for my other feminist press colleagues as well, part of what we look for in our manuscripts is inclusiveness, a pro-woman sentiment, bridging the divides, educating our audience, and owning a uniquely female perspective on whatever the topic is---be it motherhood, social issues, organizing your life, or breaking out of your career rut.
So that's what happened. Because there are so many charged issues that come up around feminism, and because feminist publishing and feminist bookstores have been so obliterated over the past three decades, I thought Lucy's noting that it was indeed ironic that the panel was canceled couldn't have been more true. So I apologize to those of you who wanted to be there.
Thanks for reading.
Brooke
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