Book and Journal Article Services

Reading/Evaluation
Copyediting
Manuscript Preparation
Developmental Editing
Research/Fact Checking
Indexing
Proofreading

Computer Capabilities

PC
Mac
Word
WordPerfect


Editorial Styles

Chicago
APA
MLA
GPO


Contact for Rates gkessler@editsbooks.com

Note:I do not charge for discussing your project or for answering simple questions stemming from guidance and discussion given on this web site. If you wish to engage my editorial services and we agree on a sample edit or critique, there is no charge unless and until a written contract is established for a full project.

Government
International Relations
Political History
Military/Naval History
Asian Studies
Middle East Studies
Education
Philosophy
Art History
Literary Criticism
Music History
Theater
Gardening
Children's Books
Fiction

Work Experience

Over 140 published book projects for over 30 mainline publishers since 1997
27 years with FBIS, the U.S. Government's foreign media news agency
Project editor for the University of Virginia Press (academic publisher)
Internship with Hampton Roads Publishers (trade publisher)


Education

B.A. and M.A. in foreign affairs, University of Virginia
M.S.A. in governmental administration, George Washington University
Diploma, U.S. Army War College
Certificates in Editing and Publishing, University of Virginia

Associations

Southern Political Science Association
Freelance Editors Association
Virginia Writers' Club

Institutional Clients (In addition to private clients)

AM Publishing Services
Appingo
Appledown Press
Bernan Press
Brassey's, Inc.
Brookings Institution Press
Cambridge University Press
Capital Books
Center for Political and Strategic Studies
CIVICUS (World Alliance for Citizen Participation)
Colburnhouse Publishing
Continuum (London)
CSIS (Center for Strategic and International Studies)
Global Link
Gorgias
Greenwood Press
Hampton Roads Publishers
Howard University Press
M.E. Sharpe
Naval Institute Press
Naval War College Press (BR> Palgrave-Macmillan
Pathwork Press
Potomac Books
Praeger
Scribe, Inc.
Shambhala Publications, Inc.
Southern Charm Press
Stylus
TechWorld Publishing
Temple University Press
Teora USA
University of Virginia Press
Urban Institute Press
Wadsworth
The World Bank

1998

(These are published books for publishing houses only; does not include projects for private clients)

1998 Guidelines for Managed Care (NF)

Inside Stalin's Kremlin, Peter Deriabin (NF)

Statistical Portrait of the United States (NF)

The Rogue's March: John Riley and the St. Patrick's Battalion, 1846—1848, Peter Stevens (NF)

A 1-900 Psychic Speaks, Donna Kenworthy (Memoir)

Books in My Life, Colin Wilson (Memoir)

Lifeboat Sailors, Dennis Noble (NF)

Handbook of Research on Teaching, American Educational Research Association (NF)

Bush Hat, Black Tie, Howard Simpson (Memoir)

In God's Truth, Nick Bunick (NF)

Obo, Bob Anderson (Children's book)

Herman's Magical Universe, Becky McCarley (Children's book)

Conversations with God, Book 3, Neale Donald Walsch (NF, Best-seller)

Homepathy Made Simple, R. Donald Popon (NF)

The American Paradox: Politics and Justice, Patrick J. Gallo (NF)

Your Cosmic Kids, Trish MacGregor (NF)


1999

NATO Expansion, Rodman, Goodpaster, Brezezinski, eds. (NF)

Entertaining Spirits, Valerie Wilkinson and Russ Reed (NF)

Infinite Grace, Diane Goldner (NF)

The True Size of Government, Paul Light (NF)

The Psychic Reality, Robert Cracknell (NF)

Judas the Gentile, D. S. Lliteras (Novel)

Future Memory, P. M. H. Atwater (NF)

Comparative Politics, Charles Hauss (Textbook)

The Last Laugh, Raymond Moody (NF)

World Civil Society (NF)

Voyages into the Afterlife, Bruce Moen (NF)

Elements of Dental Danger, Morton Walker (NF)

Choosing Equality: School Choice, the Constitution, and Civil Society, Joseph Viteritti (NF)

Outposts of the Spirit, William Justice (NF)

Not Whether but When: The U.S. Decision to Enlarge NATO, James M Goldgeier (NF)

Promoting Corporate Citizenship: Opportunities for Business and Civil Society Engagement, Laurie Regelbrugge, ed. (NF)

Vouchers and the Provision of Public Services, Steuerle and Reischauer, eds. (NF)

The Wandering Peacemaker, Roger Plunk (NF)

U.S. by the Numbers, Raymond J. Keating & Thomas N. Edmonds (NF)

The Role of Naval Forces in 21st-Century Operations, Richard H. Shultz Jr. and Robert L. Pfaltzgraff Jr., eds (NF)

24-Hour Lucid Dreaming, Arnold Mindell (NF)


2000

Training with a Beat, Lenn Millbower (NF)

Travels with Power, Ken Eagle Feather (NF)

Wolfsangel: A German City on Trial, 1945—1948, August Nigro (NF)

Spirit Matters, Michael Lerner (NF)

Picasso in Context: War and the Cosmos, Lydia Gasman (NF)

Dead Water Rites, Monty Jones (Novel)

The Last of the Cape Horners, Spenser Apollino (NF)

Memories of God and Creation, Shakuntala Modi (NF)

Judicial Independence in the Age of Democracy, Peter Russell and David O'Brien (NF)

Under Custer's Command, Karla Jean Husby and Eric J. Wittenberg (NF)

The Vivaxis Connection, Judy Jacka (NF)

Hitler's Personal Pilot, C. G. Sweeting (NF)

The Water Is Never Cold, James Douglas O'Dell (NF)

The Tyranny of Printers, Jeffrey Pasley (NF)

The Prune Book 2000, John H. Trattner (NF)

Diary of an Abduction, Angela Thompson-Smith (NF)

Aces in Command, Walter Boyne (NF)

Mexico, Jaime Suchlicki (NF)

Duty, Honor, Privilege: New York's Silk Stocking Regiment and the Breaking of the Hindenburg Line, Stephen Harris (NF)


2001

Glory Enough for All, Eric Wittenberg (NF)

Hitler's Squadron, C. G. Sweeting (NF)

International Conflict Resolution, Charles Hauss (NF)

An American Cutting Garden, Suzanne McIntire (NF)

The Early Republic and the Sea, William Dudley and Michael Crawford (NF)

Undefended Self, Susan Thesenga (NF)

Memory and History in East and Southeast Asia, Gerrit W. Gong (NF)

War of Words, Harry J. Maihafer (NF)

Unequal Partners, Julius Friend (NF)

Encyclopedia of Modern Asia (NF)

Eurasian Security Yearbook, 2001, Ustina Markus and Daniel Nelson, eds. (NF)

Brassey's Central and East European Security Yearbook, 2001, Daniel Nelson and Ustina Markus, eds. (NF)

CIA, Inc., F. W. Rustmann, Jr. (NF)

Command Legacy, Raymond Millen (NF)

Shadow of the Dragon, Henry Kenny (NF)


2002

Autobiography of a Yankee Mariner, Michael Crawford (NF)

Through Our Enemies' Eyes: Osama Bin Laden, Radical Islam, and the Fate of America, Anonymous (Michael Scheuer) (NF, Best-seller)

Remembering O-Sensei, Susan Perry (NF)

Counting Road Signs, Derek Signore and Michael Gazo (F)

The Swifts: Printers in the Age of Typesetting Races, Walker Rumble (NF)

Modern Lebanese Short Stories, Touma Al-Khoury (F)

The National Guard: An Illustrated History of America's Citizen-Soldiers, Michael D. Doubler and John W. Listman, Jr. (NF)

Taking Stock: Life in NASCAR's Fast Lane, Monte Dutton (NF)

Cold War Submarines, Norman Polmar and Kenneth J. Moore (NF)

The WritersNet Anthology of Prose: Fiction, Gary D. Kessler, ed. (F)

The WritersNet Anthology of Prose: Nonfiction and Children's Literature, Gary D. Kessler, ed. (NF/F)

Uncovered Nukes: Tactical Nuclear Weapons and the Challenge of Arms, Brian Alexander and Alistair Millar, eds. (NF)

Brassey's International Intelligence Yearbook, Robert D'A Henderson, ed. (NF)


2003

Shenandoah: Views of Our National Park, Hullihen Williams Moore (NF)

Safe Living in a Dangerous World, Nancy Harvey Steorts (NF)

Creating Constitutional Change, Gregg Ivers and Kevin McGuire, eds. (NF)

Opening to Your God-Given Abundance, Charles Cresson Wood (NF)

The Strategic Attitude: Why Universities Should Stop Planning and Start Doing, Nathan Dickmeyer (NF)


2004

Strategic Planning in Higher Education: Guide for Leaders, Sherrie A. Tromp and Brent D. Ruben (NF)

Let's Play with Animals: Little Bears Are Brown, Emmanuelle Fojit (children's book)

Let's Play with Animals: Little Rabbits Have Fur, Emmanuelle Fojit (children's book)

Thomas Jefferson's Military Academy: Founding West Point, M. S. MacDonald, ed. (NF)

1,000 Games for Smart Children, Traducere de Adina Mandiuc Teora (children's book)

Virginia's Civil War, Peter Wallenstein and Bertram Wyatt-Brown, eds. (NF)

Diversity in Democracy: Minority Representation in the United States, Gary M. Segura and Shaun Bowler (NF)

Animals Encylcopedia, (children's book)

God Vs The Gavel: Religion and the Rule of Law, Marci A. Hamilton (NF)

Ghost Strasse, Simon Burnett (NF)


2005

Philanthropy, Fund Raising, and the American Capital Campaign, G. David Gearhart (NF)

Judging on a Collegial Court: Influences on Federal Appellate Decision Making, Virginia Hettinger, Stefanie Lindquist, and Wendy Martinek (NF)

Flexing Your Soul: Moving with Energy and Consciousness, Jalieh Juliet Milani and Alessandra Shephard (NF)

Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway, Jon Parshall and Tony Tull (NF)

Security in Saudi Arabia: Threats, Responses, and Challenges, Anthony H. Cordesman and Nawaf Obaid (NF)

Military Life: The Psychology of Serving in Peace and Combat, vol 2, Operational Stress, Thomas Britt, Amy Adler, and Carl Andrew Castro, eds. (NF)

Dominica: Chronicles of War, D. M. Gordy (F)

Institutional Games and the U.S. Supreme Court, James Rogers, Roy Flemming, and Jon Bond, eds. (NF)

The Sword of Eden. A Jaime Richards Thriller, Sharon Linnea and Barbara Sherer (F)

Transforming Politics, Transforming America, Taeku Lee, Karthick Ramakrishnan, and Ricardo Ramirez, eds. (NF)

Through Our Enemies' Eyes, Michael Scheuer (2nd edition) (NF)

Operation Enduring Insurgency: Why America Cannot Conduct Unconventional Warfare, Hy S. Rothstein (NF)

First People: The Early Indians of Virginia, Keith Egloff and Deborah Woodward (2nd edition) (NF)


2006

Winchester Shotguns, Dennis Adler (Index) (NF)

The Dragon's War: Allied Operations and the Fate of China, 1937-1947, Maoshan Yu (NF)

Tennessee Patriot: The Naval Career of Vice Admiral William P. Lawrence, U.S. Navy, William P. Lawrence with Rosario Rausa (NF)

'Let a Common Interest Bind Us Together, Albrecht Koschnik (NF)

Latino Politics: Indentity, Mobilization, and Representation, Roldolfo Espino, David Leal, and Kenneth Meier (NF)

The Blue Ridge Anthology: Poetry and Prose of Central Virginia Writers (F, P, NF)



2007

My First Encyclopedia, (Children's book)

Animales Domesticos And Animales Salvajes, (Children's book)

Charge! History's Greatest Military Speeches, Congressman Steve Israel (NF)

Journal of a First Command, Admiral James Stavridis (NF)

Averting Global War: Regional Challenges, Overextension, and Hard Options for American Strategy, Hall Gardner (NF)

Learning Good Habits with Matilda/Charles, (two volumes), Jacqueline East Bright, ill. (children's books)

My First Sticker Activities, (two volumes, 3-5; 5-7) (children's books)

Superfun Activity Books, 1 and 2, (children's books)

The History of Discrimination in U.S. Education: Marginality, Agency, and Power, Eileen Tamura, ed. (NF)

Darwin and Faulkner Novels: Evolution and Southern Fiction, Michael Wainwright (NF)

A Terrorist's Call to Global Islamic Jihad: Deciphering Abu-Mus-ab-Suri's Islamic Jihad Manifesto, Mustafa bin Abd al-Qadir Setmariam Nasar; Jim Lacey, ed. (NF)

Contemporary Debates in Indian Foreign and Security Policy: India Negotiates its Rise in the International System, Harsh V. Pant (NF)

The Long Farewell: Americans Mourn the Death of George Washington, Gerald E. Kahler (NF)



2008

In the Hands of a Good Providence: Religion in the Life and Family of George Washington, Mary V. Thompson (NF)

I Can Do It! Beginners' Piano Workbooks, Christine Bemko Kril (children's book)

Night Fighters: Luftwaffe and RAF Air Combat over Europe, 1939-1945, Colin Heaton and Anne-Marie Lewis (NF)

Leadership 101 for White Men: 101 Ways to Work Successfully with Black Colleagues and Customers, Chuck Shelton (NF)

Bound for Africa: Cold War Fight along the Zambesi, Douglass Hubbard (NF)

Laughter in the Shadows: A CIA Memoir, Stuart Methven (NF)

The Blue Ridge Anthology 2009: Poetry and Prose by Central Virginia Writers (F, P, NF)

Network-Centric Warfare: How Navies Learned to Fight Smarter through Three World Wars, Norman Friedman (NF)



2009

International Journal of Political Economy, Winter 2009 (NF)

Commanding Attention: Promoting Your Organization the Marine Corps Way, Keith Oliver (NF)

U.S. Marine Corps Aviation since 1912, Peter Mersky (NF)

A Society of Gentlemen: Midshipmen at the U.S. Naval Academy, 1845–61, Mark Hunter (NF)

Digesting History: The U.S. Naval War College, the Lessons of World War Two, and Future Naval Warfare, 1945-1947, Hal M. Friedman (NF)


2010

To Train the Fleet for War: The U.S. Navy Fleet Problems 1923-1940, Albert A. Nofi (NF)

The Ablest Navigator: Lieutenant Paul Shulman, USN, Israel's Volunteer Admiral, J. Wandres (NF)

Ship Killer: A History of the American Torpedo, Thomas Wildenberg and Norman Polmar (NF)

Who Is Talking Now, Patricia Peres Garcia (NF)





"We are grateful to Gary Kessler for his patient, thorough, and effective editing. He, too, had difficult deadlines to meet, but met them cheerfully and professionally."
Promoting Corporate Citizenship
Laurie Reggelbrugge (CIVICUS)

"For a second time, Gary Kessler has mucked his way through my gnarled prose and made it far more consistent and readable."
International Conflict Resolution
Charles Hauss (Continuum)

"Thank you very much indeed for your truly professional work."
"Countess Arundel at Tart Hall"
Elizabeth Chew
Assistant Curator for Collections
Monticello

"'Critical' is an overused word, but the only one that can describe [his] flexibility, understanding, expertise, and ideas."
The Prune Book 2000
John H. Trattner (Brookings)

"Gary Kessler was an extremely efficient copyeditor, who had the misfortune of dealing with a somewhat rebellious author."
The Tyranny of Printers
Jeffrey Pasley (UPVa)

"I am happy to say your grasp of the subject and comments and suggestions were outstanding. . . . Many thanks for making the book a better product than it was before you got your hands on it."
CIA, Inc.
F. W. Rustmann Jr. (Brassey's)

"As copy editor, Gary Kessler performed a remarkable feat: He ensured clarity, consistency, and style across the chapters, while preserving each author's distinctive voice."
Creating Constitutional Change: Clashes over Power and Liberty in the Supreme Court
Gregg Ivers and Kevin T. McGuire (UVaPress)

Some Tips about the Process for the Aspiring Author

1. Write from the base of experience and good research. Your writing will be more fluid and convincing, publishers select (nonfiction, at least) largely on the basis of the author's credentials, and publishers are more willing to adopt books when the author has a good idea how to reach a market for the topic.

2. Write primarily for the sheer enjoyment of it. If you do not have a flexible, patient, and thick-skinned disposition, consider taking up golf or tennis instead. If you feel pressured by short-term expectations, your writing will reflect that. There are hordes of authors and potential authors; very few of these live on royalties alone.

3. Produce the very best writing and manuscript submission you can before seeking a publisher. If you are literary enough to produce a work that will catch the interest of an acquisitions editor at a traditional publishing house, chances are good that your writing style and grammar will be sufficiently good for you not to need to have your work professionally edited before submission (and noting on your submission that it already has been professionally edited most probably will not cut any ice with publishing house editors). That said, well-written and grammatically clean manuscripts submitted in keeping with standard format guidance will naturally have the advantage with acquisition editors. If you are submitting to a subsidiary or vanity publisher or are self-publishing, of course, you will want to provide a nearly flawless manuscript at the submission stage and very possibly will want to seek professional help in producing the finished manuscript. See the Manuscript Preparation Tips, Resources, and Links areas of this website for help. Use your computer program's spell check program at every stage of writing, but do not fully trust this program. It will not catch acceptable words used incorrectly in context, and it will question perfectly acceptable words, especially those in tenses other than the present, plurals, and publishing industry-preferred hyphenations. Check and recheck everything yourself with an acceptable dictionary. (See the dictionary discussion in the Resources section.)

4. Read as much as you can in the genre (or on the topic) you are writing, paying as much attention to how it's being said as to what is being said. Also note what publishers are publishing in this field; this is where you will start in finding a publisher of your own.

5. Don't finish your book in isolation, if you can avoid it. You alone, and even you in combination with your loved ones–and your cheering section bosom buddies (as important as these support mechanisms are)–can't be totally objective about your manuscript. Take writing classes; join a writing group. Find more than one person who will read your material and who will be vocal and expansive in telling you what they liked or didn't like and what seemed to work and didn't work. If they tell you they didn't understand something, rewrite it. That you, the author, understood it when you wrote it is not sufficient or relevant. You want your reader to understand it without the benefit you had of knowing before the thought was written what idea you meant to convey. At the minimum, read your material out loud to yourself after writing it. If you quickly get off track in understanding what you are reading, find that the words lack a natural--or the intended--rhythm, or lose your breath and get blue in the face before reaching the next period, you don't really need anyone else to tell you it's time to revise.

6. You usually should be able to avoid paying someone to read and evaluate your work. I have paid for professional evaluations, but only when I was trying to enter a new genre, intuitively felt there were problems with what I was writing, and did not have enough qualified and forthcoming readers for the material among my friends and colleagues. I do offer reading and evaluations in my Services, but more comprehensive help is provided by a copyedit.

7. Have someone else edit your manuscript before submitting it for consideration by publishers. You are too close to what you have written to see all of the grammatical mistakes, typos, irrelevancies, and failed linking of concepts and plot. This need not be a professional copy editor if you can find a colleague or acquaintance you feel is qualified and who will work for the pleasure of your company or gratitude or for a few free bags of potato chips and a can of avocado dip.

8. At what point should you submit your book idea to a literary agent or publisher? For nonfiction, publishers usually want to see a formal proposal (and the credentials of the author in the topic's field) before you begin writing a manuscript, although they certainly will look at a finished manuscript as well if your credentials are solid and a sufficient target market has been identified. For much of the nonfiction in the market, as a matter of fact, the publishers decide what they want to publish and go looking for likely authors. For fiction, nearly all literary agents or publishers demand a completed manuscript.

9. Be prepared to have your publisher make acceptance of your manuscript conditional on your arranging and paying for a copy edit yourself. Many of the publishers below the blue chip level have a gray area in which they think the book is good enough to publish and market, but only if it comes to them in publishable form. The better publishers, of course, will not require this. And this does not mean that you should rush to pay for a professional edit before submitting the manuscript to literary agents or publishers (unless a burning bush has told you that you have a guaranteed best-seller in your hands). Under normal conditions, the manuscript will be rejected by many, many, many, many agents and publishers before you find your match.

10. Get a reputable literary agent to represent you, if you can. (If the literary agent asks for money up front, or says there is a reading fee, or has someone to recommend to you to improve your book in any way for a fee, run for the exit.) The difficulty in doing this will be a good index to the difficulty in finding a publisher. Finding agents and publishers is one of the Catch-22 propositions for your first published book; neither will feel there is an incentive to consider your project unless you have already published (and therefore already have an agent and a publisher, neither of which wanted to take you on unless you had already published). See the Resources area of this website for help on connecting with agents and publishers.

11. Know the genre and target audience of your work before trying to find a literary agent or publisher for it. See the Resources area of this website for help.

12. Be prepared for circular talk from literary agents and publishers concerning what they are looking for, especially for fiction (the offerings of which have swamped the available market). They all say they are looking for something fresh and new (and indeed best-sellers usually get to where they are by blazing trails), but publishers will typically reject authors, especially first-time authors, by saying that their work doesn't follow this or that formula that is guaranteeing adequate sales this month. If you have something off-beat or cross-genre, consider electronic publishing, which is more experimental and freewheeling, rather than a traditional print publisher. Through print-on-demand publishing, you can produce a book that is virtually identical to one published as a traditional printed book (but will be more expensive to buy and nearly impossible to get into traditional book stores). (There's still the problem of connecting your book with your readers, of course.)

13. Traditional publisher, Print-on-Demand (POD) Producer or E-publisher? Traditional print publishing still provides the aura of quality books that have weeded out the now-considerable chaff. Such publishing is harder to obtain, (usually) takes longer, and pays (most) authors less than either POD production or e-publishing potentially can provide. (I say "potentially," because POD-produced books usually lack promotion and aren't shelved in bookstores and the anticipated market has yet to arrive for e-books.) My own research has pointed to e-publishing, with print-on-demand (printed from electronic files after it has been ordered) capability, as combining with traditional print publishing to share a multidimensional future of publishing, although there are still high bookseller barriers constricting a connection between authors and readers in the e-book form. Traditional publishers already are publishing from electronic files, but they must speculate on how many books they can sell (with fewer and fewer hardcover versions and more and more paperback versions being produced over time) and many of these books wind up in warehouses, on remainder tables, and in bonfires. The author takes a share of the cost of this overhead. When (if) e-publishing and POD production come into their own, authors should make more in royalties per book (having saved a share of the remainder and warehousing costs). E-books also will be able to reach a larger audience via electronic text for a new generation of readers acclimated to reading books on the computer and for those who own e-book readers (which will become cheaper over time). Both e-books and POD-produced books are increasingly looking little different from a traditional publisher's product books. E-book versions of fiction have not been selling well except for such genres as Romance (which continue to sell well in paperback as well), but the multimedia and nonfiction applications for e-books is quite promising, the latter because electronic versions are searchable and e-book textbooks are compact enough to be taken to class in large quantities without straining your kids' backs.

14. Big New York publishing house or small publisher? Unless you have written a certified blockbuster, you may do best with a smaller publisher who will spend more than the three weeks the major publishers give a book to rise to the top before cutting the advertising budget. A good, comfortable fit with your acquisitions and copy editors at a publishing house is very important, but, unless you don't care about sales (read "connecting with an audience"), pay even greater attention to how your book is going to be marketed. Expect to spend as much if not more time and energy getting your book to market as you expended in writing it. The market is saturated with books trying to connect with their readers, and there is an aspiring book author under every rock. Publishing houses increasingly are expecting authors to carry the bulk of the publicity burden. Some authors are now contracting with publicists to augment the advertising of their books. (See the Links section for an example of such a publicist.)

15. Traditional, subsidy, or vanity press? Traditional publishers will not charge the author for anything in the publishing process (beyond costs associated with producing the manuscript, which would include the author-born cost of permissions to use copyrighted material and images). They will pay royalties, and, if they determine they will make a tidy profit from the venture, will often pay the author an advance. They also will cover the costs of copy editing, cover and interior design, printing, advertising, and distribution. This is the paradise level of publishing; the publisher has signaled a high degree of commitment to the author's work by assuming most of the considerable publishing costs and risks. The author will share costs, to a lesser or greater degree, with a subsidy publisher. There, in fact, are few real traditional publishers left in today's world except for authors perpetually populating the best-sellers' lists. As noted earlier, even traditional publishers are increasingly demanding that authors deliver submissions in nearly publishable shape and contribute heavily to sales promotion, both of which incur what were traditionally publisher's costs for the author. The true subsidy publisher (note that many "subsidy publishers" are really vanity press publishers in drag--pay very close attention to the wording of who does what for how much) has at least enough commitment to the book to share some of the risks. A vanity press will charge the complete costs of production and advertising (if any) to the author. There is no publisher commitment to the project in this category; such a publisher would publish your laundry list (with all the words misspelled), if you were willing to cover the costs. All three types of publishers are represented in the traditional print and e-book publishing fields, so read that small print carefully.

16. When you have gotten your manuscript to the contract stage with a publisher, carefully read the sections on rights and future obligations. The legal ownership (and thus earning power) of books is sectionalized. In play are hardcover and paperback rights, electronic book rights, foreign edition rights, movie rights, serialization rights, and so forth. It is in your interest to make money off each category of rights, either by retaining what you can for yourself or by making your publisher give you something for them. Publishers also typically will include first refusal rights on your next book in the contract. Be clear what limitations this might create for what you can make on your next book.

If it is immediately obvious to a publisher to whom you are submitting a manuscript that you are a new Hemingway (and if the publisher has a need for a Hemingway on its list), it really doesn't matter if you submit your manuscript in perfect shape or handwritten and on the back of used envelopes. For the rest of us, however, it's good to give our manuscripts the best possible chance to gain favor with the publisher. Conversely, at the submission stage, don't worry more about how your manuscript looks than you do about what it has to say and how well it is written.

Many publishers will provide guidelines on how they prefer to receive a manuscript. If they do, follow these guidelines carefully. If they don't, here are a few general tips on preparing a professional-looking manuscript and a few do's and don'ts about the presentation of your content, including some common writing errors to try to avoid. Also provided are a few tips on such issues as copyright, what your rights are in choosing a title, and who is responsible for obtaining images and graphics and for providing indexes and final proofing.


Manuscript Preparation Tips

1. Produce your manuscript on a computer (either PC or Mac will do, although the industry mainly uses PCs at this stage of production).

2. Word is the most-accepted word processing program; WordPerfect is also used by publishers, but to a decreasing extent.

3. Laser printing is preferred; ink jet printing is tolerated. Excellent-quality photocopies are acceptable.

4. Use 8 1/2 x 11-inch 20-pound weight regular typing paper. Double space everything, including extracts, tables, notes, bibliography, etc. Set 1-inch margins on all sides. Use 12-point type (for everything). Publishers once preferred use of a nonproportional font (like Courier or New Courier), but an increasing number are showing a reference for a proportional font (most typically New Times Roman). The only extra line spaces should be before and after headlines. There should only be one character space following terminal punctuation (in contrast to the typewriter, where there are two spaces–the computer compensates for this) and there should be no extraneous character returns or extra character spaces at the end of paragraphs. Use left-only justification. All of these settings help publishers in estimating how many final book pages the manuscript will require (which is important both in projecting production costs and in helping the publisher determine whether they want to publish your book).

5. All tables and graphics should be extracted from the manuscript and printed on separate pages (and kept in separate electronic files). Publishers tend to prefer that separate electronic files be set for each chapter of the book. Mark placement of tables in graphics in the text with notes (e.g., "table 1 goes here") in brackets, separated by line spaces above and below.

6. Pagination should be consecutively numbered, in Arabic numerals, in the top right corner, starting with the first page of the text (following all of the front matter) and should continue on through to the end of the bibliography.

7. Publishers prefer notes gathered at the end of chapters or the book (most preferred) rather than footnotes. They also prefer that you use the word processor note programs so that they can manipulate the notes, as needed.


Manuscript Content Presentation Tips

1. Publishers prefer manuscripts between 70,000 words and 120,000 words long from unproven authors, depending on the most common length for a genre (Romance novels run shorter; historial fiction runs longer). Anything shorter or longer generally is not cost-effective to produce or market.

2. Publishers will normally want to be contacted at the planning stage (with a formal prospectus) for nonfiction books and only after the manuscript has been completed for fiction. (Don't send a publisher a complete manuscript until and unless they have requested it, however.)

3. Make liberal use of a dictionary (publishers prefer Webster's most recent collegiate edition–currently the 11th) in addition to your computer's word processing spell-check system. Spell-check systems have a very limited vocabulary, at best; do not discriminate between different meanings for words spelled the same, will accept any correctly spelled word even if that word is not the intended word for that context; and don't work at 100 percent efficiency. Also (for no particular reason) those who created spell-check programs apparently didn't always consult publisher-accepted dictionaries themselves before making their spelling decisions, especially for proper hyphenation. It's always useful to have writer's aids on hand and to consult them often on word and grammar choices. See the Resources section for help with writing aids.

4. Don't bother to create any fancy or cute word processing system format styling for your book. The publisher does all of the designing of a book, and all of the styling you put in will have to be figured out and stripped out by someone (invariably by an overworked someone who may have a say in whether your book is accepted for publication). Use manual tabbing rather than indent styles (except do hang indent bibliographies to aid editing). Follow the manuscript preparation tips given in the previous section. No bolding, and most (although not all) publishers want italics designated by underlining rather than script italics.


Some Common Writing Errors

There are many habitual writer's practices that are either clearly grammatically incorrect, even though commonly used, or do not match the presentation practices of most publishers. (There are some practices, like the use of serial commas, that may be optional in writing but that are usually uniformly rendered one way in published works.) It is helpful when writers have not fallen into these pitfalls, because although they usually are easy for editors to see and correct-–since they crop up so frequently-–when they are not present, the editor can spend more time concentrating on other elements of the manuscript. Here are some common errors (in alphabetical order) to keep in mind (and to try to avoid) while you are writing:

• Affect, effect: "Affect" is usually used as a verb, meaning "having an influence on." Its less-used noun form means "an emotion." "Effect" is most commonly used as a noun meaning "a result." Its verb form means "to bring about or execute." If you "affect" something, you are likely to have an "effect" on it. Whenever you use the word, you usually will be using the "affect" version.
• Compound Sentence Clauses: Independent clauses (ones with subjects and verbs) usually are set off by commas, and dependent clauses (ones with only verbs) usually aren't. It is precisely the presence or absence of such commas that unconsciously signals to the reader what sort of clause to expect next (and thus to smoothen their journey through your work).
• Comprise, compose: Careful writers don't use these terms as synonyms, because doing so will cause picky readers and editors apoplexy. The whole "comprises" the parts and the parts "compose" the whole. If you really want to see such readers and editors choke, use the verbose phrases "are comprised of" or "are composed of."
• Due to: The only legitimate use of "due to" is in the context of loan-sharking. In most cases in which you have the urge to use that phrase, you should be using "caused by," "because of," or "as a result of."
• E.g.,/i.e.,: "E.g." is an abbreviation for "for example." "I.e." is an abbreviation for "that is." Many writers incorrectly think they are synonyms. Also, each term has a comma separating it from the clause it introduces: (i.e., she shot him with his own gun, not hers). Also, the abbreviations should only be used in parenthetical phrases and endnotes; the terms should be written out in the body text.
• Endnote/Footnote and Bibliography Styles: There are several well-known and quite acceptable sets of rules for formatting endnote/footnote and bibliography citations, most commonly (and most usefully) the Documentation One style of the Chicago Manual of Style for humanities works, the APA Publications Manual for scientific works, and the MLA Handbook for academic works. Most writers use no known--or internally consistent--endnote/footnote style. As a result, publication processes tend to have to devote a greater proportion of their effort working with reformatting endnotes/footnotes (and making authors go back looking for missing information) than with book content. This doesn't seem all that bright, when a nonfiction writer can easily find out how to create complete, consistent endnotes/footnotes from the beginning of the process.
• Etc.: "Etc." is an abbreviation for "etcetera," or, more commonly expanded, for "and so forth." It should only be used as an abbreviation in parenthetical phrases and endnotes; the term should be written out in the body text.
• Farther, further: "Farther" and "further" are actually interchangeable as adjectives, but so many people have come to think that they aren't that you might as well make a distinction in your writing, so that people don't point mockingly at you in their ignorance. "Farther" is thought to be restricted to meanings connected to distance, while "further" is thought to be restricted to meanings connected with addition.
• Fewer, lesser: "Fewer" is used with countable units (e.g., people: "fewer than five kumquats"); "less" is used for spans of things (like time: "less than five minutes.")
• Foreign Words:Unfamiliar foreign words are set in italics; familiar foreign words are set in roman type. Deciding which is which can be as simple as looking in the dictionary. If the word is there, it's a familiar foreign word (e.g., de facto, a priori, dacha, fait accompli, mea culpa, status quo).
• Impact: If your car has hit a brick wall, you can use "impact" as a verb to describe your experience. If you use "impact" as anything but a noun in any other context, you have been writing memos for the Pentagon too long.
• Insure, Ensure, Assure: When writers reach for one of these words, they almost always use "insure," and they almost always should have made another choice. "Insure" is only used for taking out an insurance policy. "Ensure," the most commonly meant variation of the words, means "to make secure or certain." "Assure" is usually used in reference to a person, as in "setting the mind at rest."
• Hopefully: Most word experts, which would include most editors in publishing, insist that "hopefully" cannot be used as it almost always is used: "Hopefully, we will survive until spring." They do not offer up very good substitutes for all instances where the writer would be encouraged to use the word, however. Whether or not they are right, if you use it, they will mark it out–-so try to write without using it.
• Most Importantly: Whenever a book editor sees this phrase, the "ly" will be excised in one swift stroke. You might save editors (and readers) from being distracted by this by writing it "most important" in the first place.
• Not Only/But Also: This is a "complete set" combination. Writers often leave out the "also," but the book editor won't let it go without the "also."
• On the Other Hand: The "On the one hand/on the other hand" construction is another complete set. Writers often use just the "on the other hand" part and send intelligent readers running back up the page looking for something they missed. The isolated "on the other hand" should really be something else, such as "however," "conversely," or "in contrast."
• Parallelism: Much editing time is spent in making clauses in series and such things as subheadings parallel (e.g., if you use a verb in one element of a series, every element of the series should use a verb, or vice versa). These also are among the hardest errors to see before the book is published, but the easiest for snickering readers to see afterward. Time spent going over your manuscript, checking on parallelism, is time well spent.
• Personal Titles: Personal titles in apposition (e.g., U.S. president George Bush) are more often rendered incorrectly than they are rendered correctly. That's because proper usage looks like it can't be proper. This is the proper progression (and I'm using the U.S. president's title to make a point that, if it's right for this position, it's right for all other positions, even–-in U.S. publishing–-for British queen Elizabeth, or "the queen"): the president; U.S. president George Bush; president of the United States, George Bush; former president George Bush; President George Bush; President Bush.
• Serial Comma: Use of a serial comma, or the comma before the "and" or "or" in a series (e.g., blue, green, and purple cows) has become optional in American word usage, and the trend is toward not using it. Conversely, the majority of American publishers do use it. So, if you don't know your publisher doesn't use it, you'd best do so.
• That/Which: There are convoluted rules on when "that" and "which" can be used for independent clauses (thus set off with a comma) and dependent clauses (thus not set off with a comma). Most publishers make it quite simple. If it's a dependent clause, use "that"; if it's an independent clause, use "which." Therefore, if you've written a "which" clause and not put a comma in front of it, you may have been grammatically correct, but most publishers will insert a comma or change the word to "that" (and they'll also be grammatically correct in doing so).
• Troops: "Troops" means a unit of soldiers, not an individual soldier. (Oh, yes it does; go look it up in the dictionary yourself.) Thus, it's highly unlikely you would send 10,000 troops (units of multiple soldiers) into battle. You'd send 10,000 soldiers or combatants. You also, incidentally, wouldn't be sending "servicemen," unless you were dealing with the army of a country so backward it doesn't include woman in its armed forces.
• Unclear Antecedents: In following up a reference to a formal noun (e.g., "Gertrude") with a pronoun (e.g., "she"), writers will often let another formal noun intrude between the antecedent and the pronoun (e.g., "Hector") that can be confused as intended as the antecedent. This is anathema for the writer, because the reader invariably will stop reading and backtrack to figure out where they went off track. Do what you can to keep your antecedents clear.
• U.S./United States: "U.S." is the adjective; "United States" is the noun. They are not interchangeable.
• Verb-Noun Agreement: Everyone knows that singular nouns require singular verbs (even when a prepositional phrase with a plural objects intercedes) and plural nouns require plural nouns. Wonder why writers fail to correctly match them so often?
• Website Citations: The use of sources found on the Internet as endnote citations has become very popular, and it is very new. It is so new that authors rarely provide enough information on Internet citations in the endnote references and invariably have to be sent back into belated research to find more information. (Incidentally, publishers will rarely do the footwork to ensure that full endnote and bibliography citations have been obtained. But they usually demand to have complete citations before publishing, because the content of these is connected to copyright requirements. The author usually has to do any necessary follow-up research.) What authors usually fail to provide is an access date, a date on which they can affirm that the material was, in fact, present on the website being cited. Since the content of websites is quite dynamic, there's a good chance the material will no longer be there if a reader wishes to check out the source citation–-and if it's not there, suspicion builds that the author has just made up the supporting citation.
• Word Capitalization: Writers are habitually cap happy and publishers aren't. When in doubt, don't.
• Word Hyphenation: The rules for word hyphenation are very complex, and authors can be forgiven for not being experts on this. However, it's hard to forgive them when whether or not the word they are using is hyphenated is very clearly explained in black and white in the dictionary and they still render it incorrectly. This happens an astonishingly large percentage of the time.
• Youths: Although it's becoming a losing battle, the word "youth" has a perfectly good plural form: "youths." Thus, you don't grammatically send twenty youth over the cliff in a bus, no matter how much they irritate you.

Other Issues

1. Copyright of your Work: As long as you keep original copies of your manuscript, don't worry greatly about protecting your intellectual property rights on the book. Under recently established copyright law, your rights are protected just as soon as you've put your thoughts on paper. (To be realistic, also, there is little risk that anyone else will try to steal your work, but if you can't keep from worrying about protecting your work and you can afford the low fee to do so, there's no reason why you shouldn't.) At some point, you will want your work to be formally registered with the U.S. Copyright Office, which is part of the Library of Congress. Most traditional publishers will take care of formally registering your book, but there is little reason for you to pay someone else to do this when the publisher offers it for an add-on fee. Copyright registration currently costs $30 per application (which can cover one book or a related series of books, just as long as you have complete manuscript drafts to turn over at the time of registration), and can be easily accomplished by following directions on the Copyright Office's Internet site at http://www.copyright.gov/. good resources on the topic are The New & Updated Copyright Primer offered for $15 by the Association of American Publishers (50 F Street, NW, Washington, D.C., 20001) and Paul Goldstein's Copyright's Highway (New York: Hill and Wang, 1994).

2. Your use of copyrighted material: Ensuring that you have the required "fair use" rights or permissions to quote from someone else's work or to use images and graphics owned by someone else is the author's responsibility, not the publisher's. (In fact, the author usually has to track down and provide necessary printable copies of these.) The author is responsible for knowing how much they can quote from another work under the "fair use" provisions of copyright law or whether they have to obtain permissions for use of written material, images, and graphics (usually at their own expense, if the owner wants to charge for use). Publishers usually won't go to publication until copies of all necessary permissions are in their hands (because at this point they become equally responsible for proper use). Again, a good resource on this topic is Paul Goldstein's Copyright Highway (New York: Hill and Wang, 1994).

3. Does your title have to be unique? No. Titles cannot be "owned" under copyright law. At the same time, you normally will want your title to be unique enough not to be confused with or overshadowed by a more marketable book. The U.S. Library of Congress has the most complete collection of and records on books that have been published in the United States. You can check existing titles yourself at the library's Internet site at http://catalog.loc.gov.

4. Who will create the index for your nonfiction book or arrange for, and pay for, creation of an index? In nearly all cases, you will.

5. Who will do the final proofing of your book after it is edited and before it is printed? Until you reach best-seller ranks, in nearly all cases, you will.

Even if you are basically a great storyteller, you can further enhance your chances of attracting a publisher by producing copy with high-quality grammar, word use, spelling, note and bibliography styling, and format styling. This section identifies some sources the publishing industry itself uses in producing books. It also points to some resources on finding the right literary agent or publisher for your book.

This listing, of course, is not exhaustive, but it provides a good collection to start with. Most of these books are carried on the shelves of major book chains. Nearly all are available on order at these book stores or at Amazon.com. (Some can be consulted online. See the Links section for website addresses.)

Writing Aids

Dictionaries

Most publishers use the latest edition of the Webster's collegiate dictionary (currently the 11th) for basic editing and the hefty latest edition of Webster's international dictionary (currently the 4th) as the final authority. Few individuals are willing to devote money or space to the international version on their desk tops, however, and generally make do with the collegiate edition. Webster's is a "descriptive" dictionary, in that it neutrally describes "how" words are defined and doesn't help much in making choices whether those words are generally accepted in formal writing. The bulky Webster's International Dictionary is used as the final arbitrator of spelling in the U.S. market by those who can afford to have (and give space to) that dictionary.

The second-most used dictionary is the latest edition of the American Heritage college dictionary (currently the 3d). This dictionary is a "prescriptive" dictionary in that it isn't as quick as Webster's in accepting slang and gives the writer a better idea of whether and how words are acceptable for use in formal writing.

British written English has some striking differences from American written English. For writers preparing a work for a British publisher, I recommend the compact Collins standard and pocket dictionaries (published by HarperCollins), although the Oxford Dictionary is the most authoritative.

For personal names, publishers usually use Merriam Webster's Biographical Dictionary (still in its 1st edition).

For place names, publishers usually use Meriam Webster's Geographical Dictionary (currently the 3d).

For synonyms, use J. I. Rodale and Nancy LaRoche's The Synonym Finder (Warner Books, 1986).


Style Manuals

Publishers almost always have a few "house style" preferences of their own, but they generally rely on a few standard style manuals.

By far, the style manual most in use by the publishing industry is The Chicago Manual of Style (Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 2003), now in its 15th edition.

Many scientific publishers use the American Psychological Association's (APA) Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association, 2001), currently in its 5th edition. APA also has a helpful FAQ Internet site at
http://www.apastyle.org/faqs.html.

Some academic publishers rely on Joseph Gibaldi's MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 1998), currently in its 2d edition.


Useful Grammar, Style, and Word Usage Aids

The American Heritage Book of English Usage: A Practical and Authoritative Guide to Contemporary English (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1996). I often find the clearest and most up-to-date-explanations here.

Theodore M. Bernstein, The Careful Writer: A Modern Guide to English Usage (New York, Atheneum, 1965). Usually very helpful.

David Daniels and Barbara Daniels, HarperCollins College Outline: English Grammar (New York: HarperCollins, 1991). Useful when you need the "Jack and Jill" version of an explanation on grammar use.

Eugene Ehrlich, Schaum's Outline of Theory and Problems of Punctuation, Capitalization, and Spelling, 2d edition (New York: McGraw Hill, 1987). Useful when you are so confused that you need not only an explanation but several examples of usage.

H. W. Fowler, A Dictionary of Modern English Usage, 2d edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996). This is considered by many as the ultimate authority on grammar and style, but I often find that it is so taken with its own elegant language that it's hard to determine just what guidance it's giving. There's a newer edition out than this, but most of the Fowler material has disappeared from this edition, and it hasn't received good reviews.

Karen Elizabeth Gordon, The Transitive Vampire: A Handbook of Grammar for the Innocent, the Eager, and the Doomed. For those who will only check their grammar if they are entertained in the process.

Thomas S. Kane, The New Oxford Guide to Writing, Oxford University Press, 1998. A standard for British usage.

The New York Public Library Writer's Guide to Style and Usage (New York: HarperCollins, 1994). Often good for a second opinion.

Harry Shaw, Dictionary of Problem Words and Expressions (New York: McGraw Hill, 1987). I've found this very useful for doing exactly what its title says it does, but I found it in a second-hand bookstore, so good luck in finding your copy.

Sol Stein, Stein on Writing (Griffin Trade Paperback)

William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White, The Elements of Style (New York: MacMillan Publishing Co., 1979). A college student's standby that is getting long in the tooth but that is still useful for the basics.

William Zinsser, On Writing Well: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction, 5th edition (New York: HarperCollins, 1994). Packed with helpful guidance and engagingly written.


Where to Find It

For quotes, I find useful John Bartlett and Justin Kaplan's Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 16th edition (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1996). Of course, many quotation databases can also be found on the Internet. http://www.bartleby.com/ carries the 10th (1919) edition of Bartlett's. A selection of searchable quotation databases is provided at http://www.libraryspot.com.

For general in-print help in tracking down information, try Sherwood Harris's The New York Public Library Book of How and Where to Look It Up (New York: Prentice Hall, 1991).

Of course, the richest source for information is the Internet. Some of the information you'll find there is accurate. The trick is deciding what is and what isn't. See the Links section.


Literary Agents and Publishers' Lists

The best listing by far of literary agents and publishers (cross-referenced by such categories as genre and location) is free and available in the reference section of your local library. The Literary Market Place (New York: R. R. Bowker), current version is the 2005 edition, is called the LMP in the publisher's industry, for which it serves as the yellow pages. Do note, however, that the LMP does not screen its entries to identify and filter out scammers. If you don't want to consult it at the library, you can get your own copy from Amazon.com for $312.50.

If you want something to take home, just go to your local chain bookstore. There are new editions of the Writer's Market (all flavors) and Literary Agent Guide books updated and published each year. You also might find Jeff Herman's Guide to Book Editors, Publishers, and Literary Agents (Prima Publishing, 2004) useful, especially when the next updated version is published. Herman has been using the services of the Writers Beware website program for his last couple of editions to help weed out listings by unethical agents.

If you want help on what literary agents or publishers to flock to or to avoid (for a variety of reasons), check out

http://www.sfwa.org/beware. This is the Writers Beware website.
http://www.anotherealm.com/prededitors
http://www.literaryagents.org
http://www.publishersweekly.com/aar/
http://writerswall.tripod.com

Information on Copyright

Paul Goldstein, Copyright's Highway: The Law and Lore of Copyright from Gutenberg to the Celestial Jukebox (New York: Hill and Wang, 1994).

Self-Publishing and Self-Marketing Guides

Tom and Marilyn Ross, The Complete Guide to Self-Publishing (Cincinnati, Ohio: Writer's Digest Books, 1994).

Kathleen Brehony and Karen Jones, Up the Bestseller Lists!" (Avon, Mass.: Adams Media Corporation, 2001).

Jodee Blanco, The Complete Guide to Book Publicity (Allworth Press).

John Kremer, 1001 Ways to Market Your Book

Help with Proposals and Query Letters

Michael Larsen, How to Write a Book Proposal (Writer's Digest Books).

Blythe Camenson, Marshall I. Cook, and Marshall J. Cook, Your Novel Proposal--From Creation to Contract (Writer's Digest Books)

Links for Editors and Authors

http://www.copyeditor.com. Has a good (free) job bank, which I can get to using Netscape 4 but not Netscape 6.

http://www.the-efa.org. Website for the Freelance Editorial Association. (offers a good fee subscription job board)

http://www.writers.net. WritersNet. Networking location for authors, editors, publishers, and literary agents. Includes a discussion arena to help you get questions answered.

http://www.epicauthors.org. Networking site and organization for electronic publishing. Includes the EPPIE award.

Style and Usage Writer's Aid Links

http://www.refdesk.com/factdict.html. Access to Miriam Webster's dictionary and many other specialty dictions.

http://www.yourdictionary.com. Access to a compendium of dictionaries, including those for foreign languages and specialty professions.

http://www.westegg.com/cliche. Check out whether the phrase you want to use is a cliche.

http://www.apastyle.org/faqs.html. The American Psychological Association's (APA) helpful FAQ Internet site for its editorial style manual.

http://www.bartleby.com. Provides all sorts of reference books (including many listed in this site's Resource listing) on line in searchable form.

http://www-english.tamu.edu/wcenter/handouts.html. Provides handouts on grammar and writing issues.

http://www.grammarlady.com. Help with grammar, although the Gramar Lady herself died in early 2004, the site is still up with good basic information.

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/index2.html. Provides handouts and exercises on grammar and writing issues.

http://www.well.com/user/mmcadams/reference.html. An extremely helpful grammar site, with excellent links to other helpful sites.

http://bailiwick.lib.uiowa.edu/journalism/cite.html. Provides style guides on how to cite sources in notes and bibliography. Includes APA, MLA, and citation of Internet sources.

http://www.apsu.edu/%7Elesterj/CYBER5.HTM". Footnoting of electronic sources in Chicago style.

http://www.stetson.edu/~rhansen/writweb.html#General. Information on writing resources.


Facting-Finding Research Aid Links

http://lib.umich.edu. A virtual library. Click on "Reference" and then on a subject category.

http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/Collections. Another virtual library. Click on the type of information in the left window; then click on a category or information resource in the right window.

http://www.bartleby.com. Provides all sorts of reference books (including many listed on in this site's Resource listing) on line in searchable form.

http://www.refdesk.com/facts.html. Gateway to a large collection of reference links, including encyclopedias, libraries, dictionaries, thesauri, and information on genealogy, government, law, postal codes, time zones, history, and so forth.

http://promo.net/pg/. Home of the Gutenberg Project. Provides texts of lots of books published before 1923 (when restrictive copyright regulations kicked in).

http://bioguide.congress.gov/biosearch/biosearch.asp. Biographical directory of the United States Congress, 1774 to the present.

http://exlibris.memphis.edu/resource/unclesam/whos.html. Who's Who in the federal government.

http://www.libraryspot.com. Provides a selection of searchable quotation data bases.

http://www.copyright.gov/. The U.S. Copyright office. Information on and forms for registering intellectual property.

http://catalog.loc.gov/. The Library of Congress's book catalog site, the most comprehensive listing of books printed and registered in the United States.

http://thomas.loc.gov. current and historical congressional documents.

http://www.inta.org. A list of some 3,000 trademarks (click on "Trademark Checklist" and scroll down) and a guide to proper use in writing.

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook. The CIA World Factbook site. Provides facts and figures on world geography, including maps; population; government; economy; transportation; communications; defense establishments on countries worldwide. Also provides listings of current leaders of foreign governments.

http://www.ucc.ie/info/net/acronyms. Check expansions for unfamiliar acronyms.

http://s9.com/biography. Over 28,000 histories of famous people from ancient to modern times.

http://www.usa-people-search.com/content-genealogy-resources-on-the-internet.aspx A complete resource to genealogy on the Web.

Publisher Links

Many print publishers have a presence on the Internet, where you can find such useful information as the types of books they publish, the number of books they print annually, submission guidelines for authors, contact information, and the names and functions of press staff members. The sites for print publishers can normally easily be found with simple searches.

For listings and comparisons of print-on-demand, essentially self-publishing services, check Clea Saal's charts at http://www.booksandtales.com/pod.index.html.

The following listing concentrates on websites for electronic publishers. As the genres these publishers accept change from time to time, check the website for most recent guidelines. (Note that electronic publishers have periods of overload during which they won't accept submissions; just check back later.)

Listing of links to publisher websites: http://www.claytabletpublishing.com/publishers-directory.htm.


http://www.awe-struck.net

http://www.cmonline.com/boson/

http://www.diskuspublishing.com

http://www.dlsijpress.com

http://www.domhanbooks.com

http://www.hardshell.com

http://www.iuniverse

http://www.ltdbooks.com

http://www.newconceptspublishing.com

http://www.xlibris.com

http://www.booklocker.com/mar/intro.php. Affiliated with Booklocker.com.



Publishing Aid Articles

This section provides authors' aid articles I have written that are posted on various Internet writers' Web sites.



Method in the Madness: Finding a Good Agent or Publisher


Once you have written (and highly polished) your book or article, you naturally are struck with the question of how you can share this work with others. If you wish to share it beyond your immediate circle of friends and family, you will want to publish it in the public venue. To do so, however, you naturally will want to know whether you need an agent or can directly submit your material to publishers and how you can most efficiently and cost-effectively go about this.


When Agents Are Needed and the Services They Should Provide

The first consideration in the submission process for publication of your manuscript is whether or not you need to engage the services of a literary agent to seek and represent the sale of your work. Agents aren’t required for all approaches to publishers. Agents will only become involved when there is enough money in a publication deal to make their time and effort worthwhile, which means they operate almost exclusively in the realm of major trade publishing houses. You do not need--and, in fact, probably will not be able to engage--an agent if you are self-publishing; if your work is an article, short story, or poetry; or if it is the type of book that is more appropriately published by a small, medium-sized, or academic press. For these types of manuscripts, you can submit directly to publishers.

The good literary agent will target the search for a publisher on the best fit for the author. He/she will fully understand the provisions of the contract offered by a publisher (to the extent that most lawyers can’t, because most lawyers don’t specialize in publishing terms) and will be able to explain the terms of the contract to the author. He/she will negotiate the best possible terms and advance for the author. The agent may edit the manuscript--as part of the basic service--to make it more marketable. But if the agent offers to edit the manuscript for a fee or recommends someone specific who can do this, it’s quite possible that the agent actually is in the edit-for-a-fee business rather than the literary agency business. And a good agent will run interference for the author during the publication process and the marketing phase, will help take the best-possible advantage of the rights, and will handle the business matters for the book, including the collection and disbursement of royalties.

Literary agents work through networking. They network with publishers and other agents to determine what is on demand--and at what general price. They usually make their offers of representation based on this knowledge. They also network to determine what publishers will fit best with the clients they are representing.

Reputable agents will charge a standard commission on the advance and royalties from all uses of rights--most generally 15 percent currently for U.S. print publication--plus a reasonable fee for copying and postage on manuscripts they send to prospective publishers--all of which (ideally) should be collected out of the money as it comes in from the publisher(s). Most generally, all such moneys come through the agent to the author, so the agents usually take their cut out as it passes through their hands.

A large number of businesses are only posing as serious literary agents. They use the publishing hopes of neophyte book authors to prey on them. Thoroughly check out prospective agents by the methods outlined in this article, and if the literary agent asks for money up front, or says there is a reading fee, or has someone to recommend to you to improve your book in any way for a fee, run for the exit.


Submitting Directly to Publishers

You can directly submit to any publisher that will accept unagented submissions. Whether or not they do is usually noted in the submissions guidelines they post on their Web sites and list in the various guides on agents and publishers. Small and medium-sized publishers and academic publishers normally deal in unagented works (but pay no or low advances). Agents come into play where there’s a big enough advance in the offing to provide them a good commission (usually from the big New York publishing houses).


A Method for Finding an Agent or Publisher

You can use the same basic research method in finding both reputable agents and publishers that will be a good fit for your book. The following is offered as a basic efficient and cost-effective method to link up with an appropriate agent or publisher:

Possibly the most efficient way to go about directly finding an agent or publisher is to do careful research up front and to target only those that will lead to a high-quality book and that are able to point to previous success in profitably selling books similar to yours. This means you need to zero in on agents and publishers that would represent your work in the best light, give you the best benefit, and be the most reputable available. Unfortunately, unless you don’t mind making no money or taking a loss on a book you’ve spent considerable time writing, the ability to sell books like yours should bottom line heavily in your evaluation of your agent and publisher options.

There are several ways to find out what agents and publishers are available and to zero in on the best fits for your book. All of these ways can be employed to obtain a master list of possibilities:

• Go to the local big box bookstore and find the section presenting books that are most similar to the genre you want to publish. Note down the publishers of these books and check out the acknowledgment sections to see if specific agents are identified (and praised by their client author). You can find “similar books” listings on some library Web sites and at such online bookstores as http://www.amazon.com and http://www.barnesandnoble.com as well.

• While in the bookstore, go to the writers’ reference section. Buy some of the books that list agents and publishers. The most useful of these are the annual Writer's Market series published by Writer's Digest (which can also be obtained on constantly updating annual subscription at the Writer’s Digest Web site, http://www.writersdigest.com, and Jeff Herman’s annual Writer's Guide to Book Editors, Publishers, and Literary Agents.

• Also, go to the local public library and ask for the latest edition of the Literary Marketplace, known as the LMP, which probably will be in the reference section. (It’s in two volumes the size of big-city telephone directories). This is the bible for the publishing industry concerning who does what and how to get in touch with them. The LMP contains a pretty comprehensive list of publishers, along with the genres they represent, the number of books they published the previous year, and contact names and addresses.

• Look for a subsidiary rights section on agent and publisher Web sites and note agents listed there (and elsewhere) who frequently place books with target publishers.

• Follow the discussions on the Publishers Weekly Web site (http://www.publishersweekly.com) for what is selling and to whom--especially the “Hot Deal” section. Also, keep track of Publisher’s Lunch at http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/lunch/subscribe.html, which is a subscription service on what’s being published.

• For a fee, the Agent Research and Evaluation service will review a precis of your work and provide you with the names of agents who have sold similar work (http://www.agentresearch.com). The Writer’s Digest school will do this as well (http://www.writersdigest.com).

• Search the Internet for agent lists. Good listings for both U.S. and U.K. agents can be found at http://www.bloomsburymagazine.com (in “Writers Area”) and http://www.writersservices.com (use the buttons on the home page), respectively.

When you have a list of agents or publishers that seem likely to be interested in your book and that will accept direct submissions, you now can start focusing on the most desirable of these.

The first thing you should do is to set up a record-keeping system to keep track of the status of your submissions. At minimum, you should include check-in categories of where you sent queries and follow-up material (with specific names and contact information), dates of submissions, and dates and content of responses. When you send queries out that include self-addressed stamped envelopes (SASEs), remember to use the individual addressee as the return address on these envelopes so you can be sure you can identify who is sending a response to you. (They sometimes send short form letters that don’t identify themselves.)

You are now ready to review all of the information you have gathered on your master list and categorize these in sections from the most attractive to you as far as benefits and services and closest to the content and style of your book to the least desirable. Concentrating on the top three or four categories (while saving the categorized master list--your journey to publishing may be so rough you may eventually have to consider querying publishers in the lower categories), you now find out all you can about the reputations of these agents and publishers on the following publishing industry watchdog Internet sites:

• Preditors & Editors at http://anotherealm.com/prededitors,

• Writer Beware at http://www.sfwa.org/beware,

• Agent Research and Evaluation Service at http://www.agentresearch.com, and

• The professional agent’s association (AAR) at http://www.aar-online.org.

This process of determining who will actually deal with you honestly will have weeded out a high percentage of the agents and publishers you had on your master list. Don’t mourn over how short your vetted list now appears. Take heart that the time and money you are now going to put into querying agents and publishers has a higher probability of success than all of those around you who didn’t vet their choices first and who are now engaging in unproductive and ultimately expensive and disheartening discussion with unsuitable and/or disreputable agents and publishers.




Pondering the Whether/How of Seeking a Private Edit


Absent a handy little publishing rule book, it's fairly easy to be brought up short with questions of "what now?" after you've written the literary gem you wish to see in print. At this point, questions such as this run thicker than answers. Is my work expected to be pristine? Am I expected to have it edited for publication myself? Am I expected to know the preferred styles and format? What constitutes a good--or good enough--edit? Will it advantage me to have it professionally edited? Where can I find an editor who won't take me for a ride and/or not improve my manuscript? What can I expect an editor to do? How much should I expect to pay?

Ballpark answers to these questions are, respectively: No, not really, but "close to" helps; not normally, but you may find someone you submit the work to suggest that you do--and they may be right, but they may also be a scammer; not precisely, but pretty closely if you want to be competitive; one that helps the manuscript sell and helps you learn how not to need a editor the next time; not usually; can be done on the Internet, but follow the credentials; a range of services that this article will tell you about; not as much as most of the advertising tries to make you believe. Perhaps the following will help make the questions less burdensome.

If you have sufficient training and talent to be competitive in publishing your book or article in today's tough markets, you really should not need to engage the services of a professional editor to work on your manuscript before you submit it to an agent or publisher. The strength of your writing and ability to tell a story should shine through minor content and style problems in your manuscript, and traditional publishers have editors of their own to polish the manuscripts they contract to publish (and it will mean nothing to them that you have already had it edited to your specifications).

However, there may be situations in which you feel a professional edit would enhance the salability of your manuscript, an agent (honestly) feels you need to have the manuscript edited before approaching publishers, or a publisher is only interested in publishing the work if you make revisions that you need the help of a professional editor to accomplish. With the current deluge of well-written manuscripts in the publishing market, agents and publishers indeed are expecting work to be more highly polished when they receive it than ever before. Also, if you are self-publishing or contracting the services of a book production company (e.g., a POD producer or other form of vanity press), you will probably have to arrange for and pay for the edit of the book yourself.

So, what can you do if you think your manuscript needs an edit before you submit it to an agent or publisher, if you are self-publishing, or even if you just wish to have a sample of your work professionally edited so that you can uncover and be made aware of bad habits and unwanted quirks (which is one of the best reasons to seek a private edit)?

You can find a fresh set of eyes to review your manuscript by asking literary or extensively read friends to read and make suggestions and point out possible grammar, spelling, and punctuation problems or by asking for recommendations for such readers from other authors or from local publishers or university creative writing programs. You can also find editors listed in the publisher's "bible" of publishing services listing, the Literary Marketplace, a large, two-volume set published annually and available in the reference section of most public libraries in the United States. Or, with a wary eye, you can do an Internet search for editorial help. Reliable editorial services that can be contacted via the Internet include the following:

• The Editorial Freelancers Association (http://www.the-efa.org), which has demonstrated training and experience requirements for membership and has a job board where you can list jobs (for at least $15/hour). The Web site also has a listing of members who offer their services and who can be approached directly with project proposals.

• http://www.consulting-editors.com.

• http://editorialdeparment.net.

• http://book-editing.com.

A less reliable Internet job board where you can advertise for an editor can be found at the Copyeditor Web site (http://www.copyeditor.com). Credentialed editors do check this Web site, but there is nothing to keep those with no experience or ability at all from bidding for an editorial job from this listing. If you use this service, it is doubly important that you ask for and verify credentials.

When considering engaging the services of an editor, pay attention to the type of editor you think you need and the credentials and experience in working with books similar to yours of the editors you are researching. Book and journal/magazine article editing is a specialty--primarily because the publishing industry has highly specialized style and format preferences that don't match college-level English rules. Just because someone is a college English teacher or a technical or newspaper editor does not mean they have the right qualifications or skills to be editing for the book-publishing world. In addition, the different genres and categories of book publishing are specialized to the point that, once you've decided to invest in your own editorial help, you'd be best served by only engaging an editor with demonstrable editing experience in that genre or category.

The type of editor you need depends on what you need done with your manuscript (a fuller description of the various levels of editorial services can be found on the Bay Area Editors Forum Web site at http://www.editorsforum.org/what_do_sub_pages/definitions.php:

• If you are looking for an evaluation of the marketability of your book or primarily for advice on the structure or content of your book, you need a substantive editor. Those with experience as acquisitions editors in publishing houses have good credentials for this type of editing. Experienced literary agents also often do well with this.

• If you are looking for someone to do a complete overhaul of the content and structure of your book, you need a book doctor. This specialty requires considerable writing talent and experience in the specific genre or category of the book, however. So look for evidence of work on published books in your genre or category. And, if you are truthful with yourself, you'll recognize that if you need a book doctor (or someone to do all of the writing--a ghost writer), it's not really you who are writing the work.

• If you are looking for an editor to clean up the style and format of your manuscript, engage the services of one with formal training in book publishing and experience in books in your genre or category that were actually published by traditional publishers. Although literary agents often offer to help clean up the style and format of manuscripts, few are actually credentialed to do so.

And above all, if you have actually bitten the bullet and paid for any type of edit of one of your works yourself, spend a good deal of time examining what was done in that edit. If you are able to observe and absorb the restyling the editor did of your work, you should be able to work these techniques into your next work yourself.


How Much to Pay

Book editing, like many businesses, has an unregulated, "what the market will bear," payment structure--and those looking for clients are just delighted that authors tend to believe that editing services are quite expensive. What editorial services publicize as their rate structure is often significantly more than what they are willing to work for--and most certainly is usually more than publishers pay for these services.

Claims of $40/hour and $60/hour pay structures are frequently encountered, but for regular copyediting, what publishers pay is generally in the $15-$20/hour range by academic and small publishers and the $18-$25/hour range by larger trade publishers. Publishers generally pay in the $22-$27/hour range for substantive editors. Private clients should be able to find a good editor by offering payment within these ranges. Ghost writers are usually paid by the book, and their payment is often indexed to the projected sales of the book (which itself is often indexed to the existing celebrity of the "author"). Charts giving ranges of suggested fees for all sorts of jobs in the publishing world can be found in Lynn Wasnak's "How Much Should I Charge" article for Writer's Digest at http://www.writersmarket.com/content/charge3.asp and on the Editorial Freelancers Association Web site at http://www.the-efa.org/services/jobfees.htm.

The general copyediting rate is considered to be seven or eight pages (depending on the condition of the syntax) of standard manuscript copy per hour. A standard manuscript pages is considered to the normal 8 1/2 X 11-inch page and margin settings provided by computer word processing programs, 12-point font in either Courier or New Times Roman (hint: New Times Roman uses fewer pages than Courier), everything double spaced, and extra line spaces only between chapters and sections.

To estimate how much your edit should cost, take the number of standard manuscript pages and divide by both seven and eight, which will give you a range of the estimated number of editing hours, and multiply by the hourly rate. Most editorial services will add three or four hours to the time to cover the preparation of general notes and will negotiate who pays for delivery costs if hardcopies need to be exchanged. But you should be able to find a credentialed and competent private edit of your 80,000-word book for less than $900.


What to Ask For

To get the most help for your money, you should clearly specify to your editor what you want the edit to cover. A common mistake is to ask simply for a "proof," which, by definition, is only a comparison of old (dead) copy with new (live) copy and marking of the differences. In most cases, what you really will want is a careful grammar, spelling, punctuation, and word use copyedit, with marking of bad-habit overuse of terms and phrases and marking of passages that don't seem to make sense or that contain internal inconsistencies. A good editor will not just rewrite your voice to match her/his own voice and his/her own favorite words. The edit will be most useful to you, if the editor provides reasons for suggesting changes for at least the first instance they occur in the copy. Your most constructive goal is to learn the basics through the editor's work, so that you don't need the editor for your next work. If you want extensive help with structure, you really want a substantive edit instead of or in addition to a copyedit, which will take a longer time than a copyedit and most assuredly will cost more money.

If you are preparing your work for publication, you will want your editor to follow the most-frequently used authorities for style and format. Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (currently in its eleventh edition) is the most-frequently used dictionary in the U.S. publishing market. The Chicago Manual of Style (currently fifteenth edition) is most commonly used for works in the humanities, and the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA) (currently fifth edition) is most commonly used for works in the sciences.



Self-Marketing Tips and Resources


This article provides tips and resources concerning what an author can do in self-promotion for his/her book--subject, of course, to author efforts that fit into any promotion plan the publisher may have. If the book is being released by a royality-paying publisher, marketing is normally the responsibility of the publisher--and, depending on how blue-chip the publisher is--it will be designed, provided, and controlled by the publisher, with the author's promotion activities melding with the publisher's plan. If the author is self-publishing, though, or is releasing through a marginal publisher, she/he will need to become actively involved in book promotion. For general discussion on book marketing, authors should take a good long look at the marketing Web site of John Kremer at http://www.bookmarket.com and that of Dan Poynter, the marketing guru of self-publishing. Poynter’s marketing tips can be checked out at http://www.parapublishing.com. Both of these individuals are respected by the publishing industry for their marketing expertise. In addition, self-promotion guru M. J. Rose has several books out, which can be found on Amazon.com, that provide specific ideas on book self-promotion.


Press Release


Authors can work up their own initial press release. Usually, this is a single sheet that includes several selling points about the book, the cover blurb on the book's contents, a few (favorable) comments from reviewers (as and if you can collect them), the cover design, a brief bio, where the book can be bought--and at what bookstore discount, and how and where to contact the author for book signings, interviews, reviews, and other types of personal appearances. A press release is sent along with a cover letter to the appropriate managers at bookstores, to review editors, and anyone the author wishes to approach to talk about or sell his or her book. For a good list of booksellers in your target area--those that are members of the American Bookseller’s Association--you can go to the Web site at http://www.bookweb.org/bd-bin/browse_bd?Country=usa&State_Name=State Name, putting in the target state name in place of "State Name." For a fuller listing of booksellers in a targeted area, you can check with the on-line version of the Yellow Pages at http://yellowpages.com. To connect with newspapers, radio stations, and television stations where you want to target your press releases, you can find their Web sites through Kidon Media at http://www.kidon.com/media-link/usa.shtml.


Getting the Book Reviewed


Print magazines and newspapers will almost always provide names and addresses for their book review sections within their editions. The Internet also provides a wealth of information on who does book reviews and how you can contact them. A list of such URLs, includes:

Reviewers International Organization at http://www.rio-reviewers.com

Book Crossroads provides a directory of book reviews at http://www.ebookcrossroads.com/book-reviewers.html

Book Zone Pro provides a Co-op Reviewers Database, indexed by subject and physical location, at http://www.bookzonepro.com/reviewers/

An index of and hyperlinks to Internet book review sites can be accessed at http://freeroads.topcities.com/bookreview.html

GetBookReviews.com has established a Web site at http://www.GetBookReviews.com to bring authors together with book reviewers

Motown Writer’s Network provides guidelines on requesting book reviews and an index to book review Web sites at http://www.motownwriters.homestead.com/bookreviewers.html

Children’s book reviewers can be found at http://www.writing-world.com/children/reviewers.shtml

Women reviewers of women’s books can be found at http://home.cybergrrl.com/review/reviewers.html

Midwest Book Review at http://www.midwestbookreview.com/get_rev.htm

http://bookreview.com/get_rev.htm

http://www.wordweaving.com/submission_guidelines.html

http://www.scribesworld.com/index.htm


For a detailed discussion of what goes into a good book review request and how the review system works, read "How the Book Review System Works" by Midwest Book Review editor in chief Jim Cox at http://bookzonepro.com/insights/articles/article-110.html.

Authors who must use their own resources in sending out press releases and proofs to reviewers can have the proofs bound at a commercial copier shop such as Kinkos. The cover and back cover should be plain white, with a centered title. In the lower left corner put the author’s name. Below that put the name of the publisher along with the publisher’s address, the name of the contact person at the publisher, and the date of book’s release. Fold the press release and brief cover letter in half and insert inside the front cover. A cover letter should include the E-mail address, if the author has one.


Engaging a Professional Publicist


Engaging a publicist can be very expensive and use of a professional publicist usually does not pay for itself for self-published books. The use of publicists is based—as is the whole book publishing structure--on the human tendency to more quickly believe a product is worthwhile if someone other than the creator of the product endorses it and is promoting it. This promotion can be taken on as cheaply as hiring a college student specializing in public relations on a part-time basis to send out fliers and pitch your book to local newspapers and other media outlets or as expensively as hiring a national firm that specializes in promoting people through their books.

Professional publicists are mostly engaged to boost the profile of a person rather than a single book they have written. Using a publicist for a book is something you more likely want to do if you had a nonfiction book to use as a base of a lecture tour or to promote your own particular theories or methods for doing something the public would likely connect with and that would generate significant attention and income--something like a new diet program or medical procedure. Thus, publicists would rarely be engaged to boost the sales of a book of fiction, unless the fiction was planned as a platform for commercial spin-off, such as a Star Trek-type of series or a children’s cartoon series with other products tied to it.

You could hire someone to handle on a part-time basis the basic promotion chores that author develops and might otherwise expect to have to do him/herself, such as sending out promotional fliers, soliciting book reviews, getting material on the book posted on Web sites, setting up a book-launching event and book signings, trying to work to get the book onto bookstore shelves, and/or trying to arrange newspaper, radio, and television coverage. At the other end of the scale, the professional publicist could take the whole burden of developing the strategies and tactics of promotional activities from the shoulders of the author. Services at this level could include creating and distributing press materials; developing and handling media relations; developing and maintaining a Web site; providing a clipping service on all media coverage of the author and the book; researching, creating, and coordinating cross-promotional events (for instance, arranging for the book and the author to be used in an appropriate conference or program being presented by someone else); scheduling and monitoring book signing tours; soliciting endorsements; arranging for printing of posters and bookmarks; soliciting book reviews; creating press coverage and arranging media interviews; and/or researching other promotional venues.

Professional public relations services do not come cheaply. You could pay minimum wages to that public relations-major college student who is just taking some of the promotional burden off your shoulders, but a professional publicist could easily set you back thousands of dollars a month. In either case, whatever you pay will come out of your pocket and will (significantly) decrease the profit to be made from book sales. A publicist is rarely a cost-effective method of promotion unless you can get your book into national bookstore distribution.

For basic help in following up on a book promotional plan that you have devised yourself, help may not be any farther away than the business department at your local university, where you can probably find public relations or marketing students who would be eager for some hands-on experience in their field of endeavor and a little ready cash. For more substantial support, you’ll be more interested in hiring an experienced book publicist. There aren't too many professional specialists in book promotion work, however. Most publicists are focused on promoting people or highly commercial products, and there usually isn’t enough money that can be generated by profits from an isolated book to support a professional publicist. However, you may be able to find a local public relations firm that would take on book promotion, and there are a few national-level companies that include book promotion in their specialties. These can be found in a careful and patient Internet search. Examples of such firms are Phenix & Phenix Literary Publicists, which can be found at http://www.bookpros.com, and Five Star Publications, which can be found at http://www.fivestarpublications.com/marketing.php.


Postrelease Promotion


Setting up newspaper announcements and radio and television interviews to coincide with a coming book signing event will certainly entice a few people to peruse and possibly buy a book. Just in case such media coverage is not so easily attained or is not possible, there are things an author can do to advertise the book signing. If the publisher has not supplied or cannot supply table posters for the book, the author should seriously consider having posters printed by an inexpensive print shop such as Kinkos. One poster will do if the author remembers to retrieve it when the event is finished. The poster should show a color cover of the book along with much the same information the press release provides. It should be eye-catching. A bookstore can use it to set up a presigning display that advertises the coming book signing. At the same time the poster is printed, some bookmarks can be printed showing the cover, Web site URL, publisher’s name, the book's ISBN, and other pertinent information. Flyers advertising the book signing can also be made up with a computer and color printer. These should have a small cover graphic and should include the date, time, and place of the event. They can be mailed out to friends and acquaintances and can be placed in coffee shops, stores, and any place where people who are likely to be interested in reading a book of this genre gather. Bookmarks can be included along with the flyers. The bottom line is to get the word out so people will come. Attendance at a book signing can also be maximized by combining the signing with another relevant event that would draw people in its own right. For comprehensive book signing tips, go to the site of book signing guru Larry James at http://www.celebratelove.com/booksigningtips.htm.

To arrange for radio or television interviews for your book, send a synopsis of the book along with the press release and cover letter to the station program director. You can usually locate the name of the program director from the station’s Web site (which you can find through the Kidon Media Web site at http://www.kidon.com/media-link/usa.shtml or by calling the station using telephone numbers you find in the telephone book. You should get better results by contacting someone who works with the station’s program directly rather than addressing your cover letter to the station manager. Let the individual know you are willing to be interviewed at his/her convenience. You can offer a list of questions for the interviewer to ask.


Face-to-Face Promotion Venues


Speaking engagements, workshops, and readings are good ways for an author to market books. Social clubs are often open to special guests and speakers at their meetings. Libraries and bookstores are often looking for authors to make personal appearances to conduct writing workshops or readings. Schools are another potential outlet, especially if the work is appropriate to youths. Senior center programs are a great venue if the book can be related to their interests. The bottom line is to get out and talk about the book. An author should be sure to take along a stack of books to sign and sell to potential readers.


Using the Internet for Promotion


Web marketing is critical in the age of the Internet and no less so in the world of books, where readers are bombarded with options but have a finite time to read. At the base, authors should have their own Web sites--containing content they themselves control--that advertises their book(s). This should be a place where potential customers can go and read an excerpt or reviews, learn more about the author, and order the book directly or through an online bookstore.

Just having a Web site isn’t enough, however. The site will need to be listed on search engines and directories around the world. It will need keywords and site titles appropriate for the search engines to find the site. What an author can do is devote considerable time searching for sites on the Web where he or she can place a link to the URL of his/her own Web site. These can include sites that specialize in the same subject matter as the book, review sites, reader sites, ad sites, and any other appropriate Web site that will allow a link. Check out author-friendly sites and write articles for e-zines, or post excerpts of your book where appropriate. Join online writer groups and message boards, and while on such message boards, exchange marketing tips and be willing to offer advice--and accept it gracefully and gratefully.


Inexpensive Promotion Techniques


Here are some techniques you can use to promote your book cheaply. What must be kept in mind, however, is that promotion techniques such as these will produce a limited number of sales; these suggestions are not appropriate for a national-level promotional campaign, which could not be accomplished without spending a large amount of money.

1. Take advantage of the "six degrees of separation" concept--make a list of everyone you know who could conceivably be interested in your book and/or help in its promotion some way and make sure they know about the book and that any help they can give you will be appreciated. (If some of them will just call the local big box bookstore and order their copies of your book there, that will help.)

2. If you belong to a church or other community organization and your book is appropriate for those folks, make sure they know about your book and have an easy way to buy it--either a bit cheaper from you (and signed and personally inscribed) than retailed or at a church or other charity fundraiser, where you can share profit with--or give all your profits to--a worthy project.

3. This is the time to join a writer’s group and to do a reading there and talk up your book.

4. Have a copy of the book under your arm wherever you go--keep a box of books in your car trunk. Without crossing the pest line, be prepared to talk about and talk up your book in any venue.

5. An M. J. Rose (her books are listed on the resource list below) favorite: Go onto the chat boards and show interest in other people and in what they are doing. At some point, they’ll start showing interest in you and in what you are doing. And guess what you are doing? (Selling your book.)

6. Find out what Web sites will let you plug your book for free and list it there.

7. Exposure of the book cover is very important. Get someone with a good color printer to provide multiple copies of a blowup of the book cover and pin it to public bulletin boards around the area (with, of course, clear instructions on where the book can be purchased.)

8. Find out what Web sites will review your book for free (e.g., http://www.scribesworld.com/index.htm and apply for them to do so. (This, of course, isn’t free. Most of them require a nonreturnable print copy of the book.)

9. Explore how your book fits with local community and school programming and offer to do programs for free. Include contests that play off your book and give a book as a prize. (Again, not totally costless.) If the book is at all applicable to seniors, offer to do programming with a signing at senior centers and retirement communities.

10. If there’s any kind of book event going on in your vicinity, try your best to get on the program.

11. Do what you can to get an article on you and your book into your local newspaper. Make sure that if anything else you are doing is newsworthy enough to get into the paper that you manage to get your book plugged there in the process.

12. Get as many bookstore signings as possible.

13. Get on a local radio "drive-to-work" show. Similarly, try to get a plug on your local TV station.

14. Although this too costs money, a new activity is to leave copies of the book lying around in public areas, as if they were dropped by accident. Supposedly this heightens the familiarity with the book.

15. Wherever possible, get your book on shelves where there is a tie in to the subject of your books.


Getting the Book into Bookstores (Or at least understanding why you can't)


The only assured way to get your book into bookstores is to get it published by a traditional publisher that has sales agents who promote books directly to bookstore chains and that has a good returns policy. Bookstores normally take books to sell from publishers on what is more a consignment arrangement than direct purchase. They order books on a contracted returns policy with an understanding that they can return the book (usually by returning only the cover and destroying the book contents) for full reimbursement if the book does not sell within a time frame chosen by the bookstore (and most bookstores just don’t pay their book purchase bills until/unless they already sold most of the books they’ve taken).

An author who self-publishes or who has a book produced by a POD production service can usually only get this book into a bricks and mortar bookstore by establishing such a returns policy and by personally negotiating with individual bookstores to carry the book (or by buying the bookstore)--and even then it's difficult to get a store to deal with a one-book distributor. Such large chains as Barnes & Noble and Borders have very strict, centralized policies and procedures on book adoption that have to be negotiated by the single author who wants to get a single title directly stocked in an individual branch of the chain or a regional collection of bookstore branches. It thus becomes almost impossible for an author who is not published by a traditional publisher with book agents and an acceptable returns policy to get a book stocked beyond the highly localized area--and even then the local bookstore must be extremely author friendly to agree to stock the book.




Miscellaneous Discussion and Resource Tips on Self-Publishing


This article does not pretend to be a comprehensive guide to self-publishing, but, rather, skims across the surface of the topic, offering some discussion and "reality check" on both basic and frequent questions and myths that exist in this area of publishing.


Choices in Getting Published

You essentially have two pathways toward being published. You can contract with a traditional publisher to publish and market and distribute your work at his/her expense, a process that is often accomplished, in the case of book-length manuscripts, by first engaging a literary agent to initiate and represent the sale of your work. The other path is to produce the work yourself, either through self-publishing through your own, direct effort (in print or in electronic form) or through paying a book producer to produce, market, and/or distribute the book for you.


The Different Forms of Book Publishing

There basically are two forms of book publishing—print and electronic—and three types of book publishing, based on who pays for it—traditional publishing, in which the publisher pays nearly all of the production, marketing, and distribution costs and the author receives a royalty and perhaps an advance on sales; subsidy publishing, where the publisher and author share the costs of production, marketing, and distribution; and self-publishing/vanity publishing, in which the author bears all of the production, marketing, and distribution costs.

In print publication, a physical book, with printed pages between covers, is produced. In electronic publication, the work is provided in electronic form on a disk, a CD, direct computer download, and/or an Internet Web site post. Works can, of course, be offered in both forms consecutively or simultaneously.

The traditional print publishing method of financing the publication of a written work, which requires that the publisher take nearly all of the financial risk in publication (the author still foots the bill in finding the publisher and often swallows some of the promotion expenses), still provides the aura of quality books and periodicals that have weeded out the now-considerable chaff. Traditional publishers will not charge the author for anything in the publishing process (beyond costs associated with producing the manuscript, which would include the author-borne cost of permissions to use copyrighted material and images). They will pay royalties, and, if they determine they will make a tidy profit from the venture, will often pay the author an advance. They also will cover the costs of copyediting, cover and interior design, printing, advertising, and distribution. The risk taken by the publisher implies an independent professional determination on the part of the publisher that the work is of high enough quality to produce a sales volume profit for both the publisher and the author. Knowing this, the reader tends to have more confidence in books published in the traditional manner than those produced by other means.

The author will share costs, to a lesser or greater degree, with a subsidy publisher. There, in fact, are few purely traditional publishers left in today’s world except for authors perpetually populating the best-sellers’ lists. Even traditional publishers are increasingly demanding that authors deliver submissions in nearly publishable shape and contribute heavily to sales promotion, both of which incur what were traditionally publisher’s costs for the author. The true subsidy publisher (note that many “subsidy publishers” are really vanity press publishers in drag—pay very close attention to the wording of who does what for how much) has at least enough commitment to the book to share some of the risks.

Self-publishing, or publishing through a vanity press (the difference between the two is that the author does all of the legwork when self-publishing, and a production company does much or all of the production legwork with vanity publishing), will impose the complete costs of production and advertising (if any) on the author. There is no publisher commitment to the project in this category; such a publisher would publish your laundry list (with all the words misspelled), if you were willing to cover the costs. One of the most recent innovations in publishing is the rise of the POD producers (like iUniverse, 1stBooks, Xlibris), which will produce, list on their Web sites, and distribute books for authors using the print on demand method rather than the print run method that is used by the more traditional vanity presses. Writers who can’t stomach having self-publishing linked to vanity-press publishing probably don’t have the fortitude to face the world of publishing with a self-publishing project. There are quite legitimate uses for this means of publishing and neither “self-publishing” nor “vanity press” need to be seen as negative.

All three types of publishers are represented in the traditional print and e-book publishing fields, so read that small print carefully.


Types of Printing Technology

Books can either be printed in print runs by offset printing (high total cost; low cost per unit) or by one-up print-on-demand technology (high per-unit cost). Print on Demand (POD) is just a method of printing; it is not a type of publisher--although both the proponents and naysayers of a business paradigm based largely on use of the POD printing method have confused the world of publishing by assuming otherwise. Traditional publishers use both printing methods for their print books, depending on their assessment of the market for the book. If you anticipate high sales, you would choose offset printing; if you can’t realistically see the sale of at least 350 books or if you primarily want to keep a specialty book in print and available for sale, you would more likely to choose POD printing.


What's Involved in Self-Publishing?

Getting a book produced yourself, in addition to placing all of the costs, risks, and legwork squarely on you, calls up talents and abilities that are mostly different from those required in getting the book written--and takes time and energy away from further writing projects. The book has to be designed (a cover and the presentation style of the book itself), edited, set up, indexed (if nonfiction), proofed, printed, bound, copyrighted, matched with an ISBN number, bar coded, delivered (if printed by offset), and set up for distribution--and this is all before the hard part, which is promotion. This is no time for you to assume the best or not to center your planning on objectivity and reality. Publishers--and even self-publishing services--can cover the combined chores of getting a book into print better than individual self-publishers in most cases because volume work attracts experience, specialized talent, and economies of scale.


Finding a Self-Publishing Printer

There are various national-level book printing services (e.g., Donnelly, Sheridan, and Morris) that would do most, if not all, of services wrapped up in self-publishing on a per-service fee (and even print the book for you). These services can be found through the Internet. For what would probably be less money (but perhaps more footwork on the author’s part and with lesser quality), the author could ask around at printers in his/her area for prepress specialists recommendations. In most cases, editing and proofreading are not offered by such services (although they very well may have lists of editors and proofreaders who could be contacted, although there's little chance these would be trained specialists in the book publishing field. A few print on demand (POD) services and most printers will publish under the author’s own imprint, a helpful service if you don’t want it to be immediately know that you have used a self-publishing source. The major POD producers, such as iUniverse, Xlibris, and 1stBooks, won’t produce books with the author’s own imprint.

A good book to get if you are contemplating organizing the self-publication of your work under you own imprint would be Tom and Marilyn Ross’s Complete Guide to Self-Publishing (Writer’s Digest Books, 1994).


Services and Price Comparison of POD and Electronic Producers

A services and price comparison of the major POD producers can be found on Clea Saal’s website at http://www.booksandtales.com/pd/index.html. For a comprehensive list of POD production services (as well as e-book production services), go to http://www.bookmarket.com/ondemand.html. A large list of e-book publishers can also be found on Bonnie Mercure’s guide for writers markets at http://www.dowse.com/ezine-markets.html .


What to Look (Out) for in a Contract with a Self-Publishing Service

A contract with a self-publishing service (either print or electronic) should include some clauses that are more author friendly than can be expected from even some traditional publisher contracts. You should be able to restrict the production services’s rights to the book to nonexclusive print and/or electronic production. This means both that you should be able to retain nearly all subsidiary rights to the book and that you should even be able to exercise print and electronic rights yourself simultaneously with the publisher. You should be able to restrict the term of the contract more severely than you normally could with a traditional publisher. You should be able to contract for just two or three years. Regardless, your contract should clearly specify how and under what circumstances it can be terminated. You should also ensure that your work cannot be edited or otherwise changed without your review (although it is in your interests to have your work edited by a competent publishing editor) and that there are no nearly hidden clauses in the contract that could trigger further expenses to you beyond the basic agreement.


The Myth of Self-Publishing to Attract a Traditional Publisher

Considering self-publishing of a book a stepping stone to traditional publishing of the same book, writers sometimes ask what level of sales of their self-published book would attract an agent or traditional publisher for that book. In response to the surface question, an agent or publisher would probably take notice if you sold 500 of your self-published books. But the notice they would be taking was on your ability to help market a book you had managed to research and write, not on the quality of the book itself. Thus, the best you could count on was a zero-based willingness to look at a new manuscript on its own merits, with the knowledge that the author has the ability to finish a writing project, good instincts on what is marketable, and marketing talents to help with the promotion of the book—if the book manuscript was highly competitive in its own right against the other manuscripts on offer.

But the response to the underlying question here is that there isn’t really much use of wondering how many sales of a self-published book would impress an agent or publisher--and here there is a great difference in what your goal really is--a future for this particular book or a future for your writing career. If your goal is to get this same book picked up by a traditional publisher, this is something that rarely happens, and when it does, this usually is under special circumstances, such as determination of a whole new market for the book, current events renewing interest in the topic of the book, or popularity coming to the author’s works through subsequently published books. If your goal is to get future books published by a traditional publisher, the real question seems to be whether or not--and, if so, to what extent--having a self-published book out is a stepping stone to getting published by a traditional publisher.

Time really shouldn’t be wasted in pondering this at all--and traditional publishers won’t waste much time thinking about it. Having a self-published book out is evidence that you can take a book project to print. But it doesn’t say a thing (either positive or negative) about the quality of your writing or of your creativity in weaving a story--no one of any experience validated the worthiness of your book; you just decided to self-validate. Traditional publishers don’t see self-published books as having been published at all--they see them as inferior manufactured products, and they often give the author automatic demerits with the assumption that they just couldn’t get anyone in publishing to validate the book and put any risk into publishing it. so, rather than wondering how far ahead toward a traditional publishing goal having put out a self-published book got you, you’d best see yourself as at ground zero again vis-a-vis traditional publishers--with something on the plus side in the marketing angle if you sell a lot of your books and the same things to prove about your writing and story weaving ability that any previously unpublished writer had.


Best Track Record for Self-Published Books

Nonfiction books, especially ones that can easily be tied to a market and sales points (e.g., study books for business seminars or self-help or history books connected by topic to one or more direct sales outlets) sell significantly better as self-published books than does fiction or poetry. Just a fact of life.




Some Smoldering Questions on the Publishing Process

(As published in the Blue Ridge Anthology, 2007)


As if the time and effort involved in writing a book-length manuscript aren't enough of a hassle for a prospective published author, the process of finding an agent and/or getting the book in print and in the hands of the reading public can be even more frustrating and confusing than writing the manuscript was. The decisions that need to be made at this point on how to get from "here" to "there" in getting published are many and are risk filled. This essay provides basic discussion on just a few of the more fundamental and immediate questions on getting published that typically haunt writers.


Why Not Just Self-Publish


Those who tout the advantage to self-publishing your book as being that you maintain control of the process and can realize a larger percentage of the profit, which can be true—in the same context that playing the lottery can be profitable—are also pointing to the disadvantages for most of self-publishing. The writer will likely have to spend more time producing and marketing the book than writing it. Additionally, the writer becomes solely responsible for making the most quality- and cost-efficient decisions in the production process and for the marketing functions as well, skills the writer may not be trained and networked for, in an extremely tough market. And a large percentage of no profit or less than no profit—when the cost of producing and marketing a self-published book outstrips the sales profit—is still little or no profit—or, more likely, significant loss.

Unless you are a trained and experienced professional in book production and marketing in addition to being a good enough writer to produce highly salable books—and you must try not to kid yourself through wishful thinking on this issue—it almost always is to your advantage to leave these functions to the experts. A mainline traditional publisher will have production and marketing experience and access to economies-of-scale services targeted markets and will produce and market books at their own expense.

There are different ways to get your work before the public in a printed book. The traditional royalty-paying publisher still exists. But that institution has been joined by a whole range of subsidy presses, vanity presses, and self-publishing services as well as the option not to print the book at all but to have it set up and available on the Internet for download electronically. What then are the relative pros and cons of going through the process of contracting with a traditional publisher and just self-publishing the book yourself?

Traditional print publishing still provides the aura of (relatively) high-quality books that have weeded out the now-considerable chaff. In self-publishing, no one but the author has decided the book is worthwhile—and both bookstores and readers will know this and will not appreciate a self-published book as they would a traditionally published book.

Traditional publishers will not charge the author for anything in the publishing process (beyond costs associated with producing the manuscript, which would include the author-borne cost of permissions to use copyrighted material and images). The self-published author has to bear all of the costs up front and also bear the risk of selling enough books to clear a profit.

Traditional publishers will pay the author royalties, and, if they determine they will make a tidy profit from the venture, they often will pay the author an advance as well. The self-published author must realize sales covering the entire cost of producing and marketing the book before a penny of profit is realized. There may be about five cases out of several hundred thousand self-publishing ventures where the author has financially benefited from self-publishing (and these are mainly with nonfiction).

The traditional publisher also will cover the costs of copyediting, cover and interior design, printing, advertising, and distribution—and will do so with a professional staff trained for industry-standard work and with cost-effective economies of scales (that is, it's almost always cheaper to produce groups of products subject to the same production process than just one product). The self-publisher will have to subcontract all of these services at the author's own cost and own risk of being able to meet and maintain industry standards.

In terms of marketing, a traditional publisher will be able to put the book on shelves in a broad range of bookstores. The self-published author will have to negotiate with bookstores one by one and is unlikely to be able to meet the adoption criteria of most bookstores (for example, low retail prices, fast and convenient distribution, deep discounts, and returns policies—most of which can't be supported by self-published books at all). Traditional publishers can usually get the book reviewed; self-publishers have difficulty finding reviewers who have any impact on a significant number of readers/book buyers. Traditional publishers have targeted buying audiences they can directly sell to (and being able to do this is key in their decision to publish your book). Self-publishers have to find and solicit these targeted audiences on their own. Traditional publishers have established book distribution systems; self-publishers have to establish such systems just for the book(s) they are producing.

Traditionally published books are normally a building block to future publishing. If an initial book does well, it is much easier for the author to publish subsequent books—and at an increasing anticipation of reward (money and fame). In most cases, each succeeding self-published book project is a "back to square one" proposition. The publishing industry doesn't even accept self-published works as having been published unless they produce significance buzz or profit—which is an extremely rare occurrence, especially when the book has been marketed by someone without professional expertise in book marketing.

If you ignore or underappreciate these basic differences, you place your pocketbook, your time, and your emotional well-being at serious risk.

But, then, is there no circumstance in which self-publishing is a good idea? Yes, there are limited circumstances when you might consider it. First, if you can't get a traditional publisher interested in publishing your book and you still want to see it in print, you might consider self-publishing if the following factors also intersect: you have modest goals for the book (that is, you accept a limited distribution in which the project usually will cost more than the sales it produces) and you have a sufficiently sized target audience for direct distribution of the book (for example, the book supports a specialized group or business plan, such as a family reunion book or a textbook for a business seminar).


Do I Need an Agent


If you are self-publishing or submitting to academic presses or small or even medium-sized trade publishers that aren't known for giving advances, or if you have a short work to place (for example, a newspaper article, a poem, a short story, a magazine article), not only will you not need a literary agent, but also literary agents will not be interested in representing you. They will only be interested if there is enough money in the publishing deal to make the time and effort they put into finding a publisher for you worth their while.

If you are trying to be published through one of the big, New York publishing houses, get a reputable literary agent to represent you, if you can—if for no other reason than that this level of publisher usually will not look at unagented work. The difficulty in finding an agent will be a good index to the difficulty in finding a publisher.

It is very beneficial to have a good agent if you can get one. The good literary agent will target the search for a publisher on the best fit for the author; will fully understand the provisions of the contract offered by a publisher (to the extent that most lawyers can't, because most lawyers don't specialize in publishing terms) and will be able to explain the terms to the author; will negotiate the best possible terms and advance for the author; may edit—as part of the basic service—the manuscript to make it more marketable; will run interference for the author during the publication and marketing processes; will help take the best-possible advantage of the rights; and will handle the business matters for the book, including the collection and disbursement of royalties. And, if the agenting experience was mutually satisfactory, the author doesn't have to shop for another agent for the next manuscript.

The responses of several literary agents to the question of what part they play in the publishing process after a book is sold can be found at and at .

Literary agents work through networking. They network publishers and other agents to determine what is on demand—and at what general price. They usually make their offers of representation based on this knowledge. They also network to determine what publishers will fit best with the clients they are representing.

Reputable agents will charge a standard rate on the advance and royalties from all uses of rights—most generally 15 percent currently (or 10 percent if the author has already found a publisher and wants representation from the time of contract signing)—plus a reasonable fee for copying and postage for manuscripts they send to prospective publishers—all of which generally is collected out of the money as it comes in from the publisher(s), although increasingly agents are requiring reimbursement for such costs as expended, which the Association of Authors' Representatives condones. Most generally, all such moneys come through the agent to the author, so agents usually take their cut out as it passes through their hands. (The well-worn adage that all money flows to the author, by the way, is a myth—money realized from a manuscript sale flows in all sorts of directions, with much of it going to pay the expenses the author incurred in getting the manuscript sold to begin with.)

A large number of businesses and individuals only pose as serious literary agents, but, in reality, use the publishing hopes of neophyte manuscript writers to prey on them. Thoroughly check out prospective agents, and if the literary agent asks for money up front, or says there is a reading fee, or has someone to recommend to you to improve your book in any way for a fee, run for the exit.


Why Do Agents Take So Long Deciding Whether to Offer Representation?


It will take an agent anywhere from five minutes (for an electronic query) to never to respond to an initial query. Responses to most initial queries probably fall between two and four weeks, which allows time for the query to transit and to work its way up the incoming mail backlog at the literary agency. Agents request a look at far more material than they are going to offer to represent, so they will usually determine fairly quickly whether they are interested in seeing partials or full manuscripts. As far as the time taken to an offer of representation, reviews of and decisions on partials and full manuscripts can take from six weeks to six months or more depending on the agent's review workload and the complexity of the internal decision-making process within the literary agency.

In many cases, a long wait time for a response from an agent primarily means the author is trying to enlist the services of an agent who is good enough that lots of other prospective authors are also trying to sign with her/him. In fact, if an agent gets back to the author quickly and offers a contract, this often means that the agent either doesn't have a lot of business (and therefore might not be all that good at it) or that the author's pocketbook is of more interest to the agent than the author's manuscript is. (Granted it could also mean the author wrote a whambang of a book, the significance of which came across in a stellar query letter.)

Agents have more on their plate than just reading that one author's query letter/partial/full manuscript, contemplating whether/how their work fits in with the type and quality of work the agent is able to place, and then writing out and sending a response. First, the author probably isn't the only one who submitted a query to the agent today—and there are all of those query letters that came in yesterday, and the day before that, and . . . . In addition to query letters, the agent most likely has asked for partials and full manuscripts from a good many authors and must spend time reviewing and winnowing those down to the ones the agent wishes to represent (and then contacting those to offer contracts as well as sending "no thanks" rejections to all the rest).

Also, if the agent is any good, she/he already has clients to attend to—a set of clients whose work is being polished up before it can be submitted; a set of clients whose work the agent is actively trying to sell to publishers; a set of clients whose sales are in contract negotiations; a set of clients who have publishing contracts and the agent is trying to sell subsidiary rights for; a set of clients who need support in the book promotion field; a set of clients whose royalties are coming in and require management; and a set of clients who need to be told as tactfully as possible that an end to the author-agent partnership is looming. If the agent is going to give each one of these concurrently happening activities the attention it deserves—including whatever submission the author now has added to his/her desktop—the agent is going to need considerable time and energy—and patience from all of those who are either working with her/him already or who would like to be working with the agent on the book projects.


Why Do Agents Take So Long Deciding Whether to Offer Representation?How Do Publishers Select Manuscripts for Publication?


Traditional publishers are not selecting manuscripts to publish in isolation. They specialize in a set of book genres/categories, which is based on the sets of buyers they sell to. Their semiannual catalogs typically are a delicate balance of the books in their specialties—something for everyone and not too much of anything for anyone. So, your manuscript is not being assessed for purchase on its own merits alone. Publishers generally are looking for very specific manuscripts, not the next best manuscript of just any sort that crosses their desks. The timing of the acceptance process is greatly controlled by the size and formality/informality of the publishing house. Those involved can run from a one-person operation to a big New York publishing house. The larger and more complex the publishing house, the more individuals there are who are involved in the selection process.

A book manuscript usually gets selected as a possible purchase by a topic-specific acquisitions editor and then has to go to a combined selection committee, where the offerings for a future catalog season are all compared and contrasted to determine what the publishing house's optimum offering in that season would be. In preparing for this selection process, the acquisitions and manuscript and production editors, the head of marketing, and, often, the director of the press have to become at least familiar with the content of all of the books being considered. The editorial and production staffs have to do a rough estimate of the production costs of the books being considered, and the marketing team has to consider how each would fit—in relationship to other possible offerings—in a promotional campaign. For many nonfiction manuscripts and most academic press books, the manuscript also has to go through a peer review process in which it is read and critiqued by experts in the field and the author is asked to adjust the work for any significant academic shortfalls. This usually is not a book-by-book "I love it; let's do it" decision, and, except for small presses, the decision to publish does not come quickly.


What Does a Publisher Do to My Manuscript??


The total time for the actual production process (manuscript acceptance to bound books) in the typical publishing house usually takes at least nine months, although a month of so can be shaved off this if the book's release is being expedited to pair release with a particular promotional event. In fact, however, publishing houses typically release their books in two catalog seasons (fall and spring), and a book does not just drop into a conveyer-belt-like production schedule on the day the manuscript is accepted. The books are scheduled for particular future catalog seasons, and their production schedule can be accelerated or, more typically, elongated to meet a target release season. It thus is typical for a book not to launch in bound form for a year or eighteen months after the manuscript has been accepted.

In many nonfiction book cases, of course, the first thing that has to be done after the author signs the publishing contract is to actually go off and write the book. In the case of a completed manuscript, however, the first thing that happens to it in the publishing house is that all material is checked over to ensure the manuscript is complete. If new graphics—photographs, tables, figures, charts, maps, or illustrations—are to be included or written permissions are needed for existing graphics or to use quotes from previously published books, copies of use permissions for these either need to be in hand at this stage, or the author needs to be committed to a drop dead date on providing these. (It almost always will be the author's responsibility to obtain and pay for use permissions). At this point a tentative production schedule is drawn up for the book—and, contrary to what the author might think and probably would like, this schedule is driven by the release season that has been chosen for the book, not by a "first in/first out" service rule. If it is now winter, and the book is slated for the spring catalog of the next year, the production schedule will be expedited. But, more typically, the book may be scheduled for the fall catalog—or an even later one—in which case the manuscript will just be shelved until its production schedule becomes a priority.

After the production schedule is established (and approved by all departments)—and it has been decided that production can commence—the acquisition editor often will do a substantive edit of the book and return it to the author for explanations and rewrites based on issues surfaced with the content. When the author has finished responding to the substantive edit, an updated electronic disk is returned to the publishing house. The editorial department then cleans up the electronic disk, making it compatible for the specific publishing house's composition machinery, and the managing editor assigns copyediting of the book either to an in-house editor or to a freelance copyeditor. This editor, in turn, sometimes returns the edited manuscript, showing the edits and flagging queries to be addressed, directly to the author. But sometimes the time is even further elongated, because the publishing house's procedure may be that the editor returns the edited manuscript to the publishing house for review before it is sent back to the author for comment and approval. When the author has responded to the suggested edits and queries, the manuscript is either returned to the copyeditor for file corrections and cleanup and hence back to the publishing house's editorial department or returned directly to the publishing house's editorial department for in-house cleanup.

In the meantime, the production department is "casting off" (determining layout and the number of final pages in the book) and designing the format of the book and the cover (often farming cover design out to a specialty design company or freelance designer). The author will be consulted about the cover design, but in a traditional publishing house, the author will not have veto power over the cover design. The marketing department is devising a promotion plan for the book and folding this into the house's overall promotion campaign. (Books rarely are marketed individually; they usually are involved in combined ad campaigns with other books from that season's catalog.) The author usually will either be asked to provide a marketing plan of their own or, more typically, will be asked to fill out a marketing questionnaire. This is designed to find out any and all connections to paying readers the author may have to aid sales and to help target promotion.

When the edited book comes back and is checked over by the editorial department, it's sent to the production department to be composed in the design that has been selected for it. The production department then sends it to the selected printer. (Based on the figures obtained from the earlier "cast off" procedure, the production department has put out bids to the various printers used by the publishing house and received these along with a confirmation of a period during which the printer can schedule press time for the book, and has identified the winning bid—and to apparent surprise of many writers, no, publishing houses usually don't do their own printing.)

The composition files for the book, including the cover and any graphics, are sent to the printer, which produces at least one round of "blue lines"—a paginated dummy of the final copy. These come back to the publishing house, where the editorial department scans them for various problems that might have crept into the content and the production department scans them for flaws in adherence to design. This is when both the acquisitions editor for the book and the marketing department are writing up the jacket copy and trying to line up endorsements and prime book reviewers—which they often will ask the author to help acquire—and, often, are sending blue line copies of the book to the most important reviewers who have agreed to consider reviewing the book.

Having noted any problem areas on the blue lines, the editorial department then sends them to the proofreaders, which in today's world almost always means the author. Book proofs are rarely more than scanned—really for production problems—in house anymore. If there is to be an index, this is when one is constructed. Typically this is a responsibility delegated to the author or to a professional indexer the author hires.

When corrections to the blue lines are finished, these are sent to the printer for final corrections, and the book is printed. In most cases, the printer distributes copies of the books (based on order information provided by the publishing house) directly to the big distribution clearing houses in time for a release date, at which time the book moves from the production to the marketing phase.

For an amusing, but pretty accurate description of the publishing process itself by a top literary agent, Sheree Bykofsky, go to .



What About E-Publishing?


How to Get Your Book E-Published


In every dimension—time, cost, submission acceptance, marketing, distribution—it’s easier to get e-published than published in print. And, luckily for e-book author, the e-book market is growing much faster than the print market is.

The number of e-publishers and e-book only bookstores is increasing. On the downside, the number of electronic formats are also increasing.

First and foremost if you want to turn a profit on e-booking—and possibly the hardest for a budding writer to swallow—you need to write something readers want to read. At least if you want a second go at it. This is no less true with a print book, though. If you want to start making money at it, you need to invest the time, effort, and storytelling and presentation talent to play in the market. The e-book market is larger and more forgiving, but even it has standards and preferences (although here, too, e-booking makes niche subject publishing far more possible than print publishing does).

Don’t worry about giving your “precious babies” away for free on free-read story sites—or having them stolen because you laid them out where it’s easy to snatch them. Writing is a renewable resource.

-- The more you do of it and the better you get at it, the more inspiration will open to you for new and fresh stories and approaches to old themes.

-- And the more marketable you’ll become for profit sharing from your stories. (I use “sharing” on purpose. Anyone who helps you get a story published becomes part owner of the success of that story and deserves a piece of the profit as well. Thinking of a story as solely yours stops at the point that you need help from anyone else to get it published.)


When you have works you would like to see covers slapped on and competing in the marketplace, it’s time to do a little research.

-- Browse through the listings at such Internet distributors of e-books as Amazon.com, Fictionwise, All Romance E-books, Smashwords, Bookstrand, etc. and so forth, looking for books similar to yours

-- Take note of the e-publishers for these books (they are easily found in lists at Fictionwise and All Romance E-books with click throughs to the publishers’ home pages) and check out their book lists (for compatibility with your works) and their submission guidelines. You could also check how their books do in the marketplace—where they rank in the distributors’ best-selling and highest quality rating lists.

-- Then prioritize the most desirable e-publishers and start submitting to them, following their posted guidelines. Don’t be discouraged by initial rejections. If they point out why they don’t wish to publish what you sent, learn from those suggestions and adjust. And move on down the line in submissions. Be comforted in the knowledge that it’s much easier to find an e-publisher than a mainstream agent or publisher for a print book.


If you wish to publish yourself—and, especially, if you have talents and abilities in setting up files for publication and designing covers—check out the Kindle and CreateSpace services at Amazon and the programs at distributors like Smashwords and All Romance E-books. With talent, skills, and patience you can publish on a near-equal footing with established e-publishers. When shopping on Internet distribution sites, readers rarely look at who the publisher is. They are looking for an evocative cover, an inviting blurb, an engaging excerpt, a cheap buy, and, ultimately a good reading experience.

The cover design is all important—maybe even more so on the Internet than in a brick and mortar book store. Whether you go with a publisher or are publishing yourself, you can find the same cover designs most others use on such photo service Web sites as 123 Royalty Free or Dreamstime. Peruse and dream about what would look great on your book and help bring it to life—and sell it.


Getting Started in Getting Your Work E-Published


—Browse through the listings at such Internet distributors of e-books as Amazon (www.amazon.com), Fictionwise (www.fictionwise.com), All Romance E-books (www.allromanceebooks.com), Smashwords (www.smashwords.com), Bookstrand (www.bookstrand.com), and so forth, looking for books similar to yours

—Take note of the e-publishers for these books (they are easily found in lists at Fictionwise [www.fictionwise.com] and All Romance E-books [www.allromaceebooks.com] with click throughs to the publishers’ home pages) and check out their book lists (for compatibility with your works) and their submission guidelines. You could also check how their books do in the marketplace—where they rank in the distributors’ best-selling and highest quality rating lists.

—Then prioritize the most desirable e-publishers and start submitting to them, following their posted guidelines. Don’t be discouraged by initial rejections. If they point out why they don’t wish to publish what you sent, learn from those suggestions and adjust. And move on down the line in submissions. Be comforted in the knowledge that it’s much easier to find an e-publisher than a mainstream agent or publisher for a print book.

If you wish to publish yourself—and, especially, if you have talents and abilities in setting up files for publication and designing covers—check out the Kindle and CreateSpace services at Amazon (https://www.createspace.com/) and the programs at distributors like Smashwords and All Romance E-books. With talent, skills, and patience you can publish on a near-equal footing with established e-publishers. When shopping on Internet distribution sites, readers rarely look at who the publisher is. They are looking for an evocative cover, an inviting blurb, an engaging excerpt, a cheap buy, and, ultimately a good reading experience.

The cover design is all important—maybe even more so on the Internet than in a brick and mortar book store. Whether you go with a publisher or are publishing yourself, you can find the same cover designs most others use on such photo service Web sites as 123 Royalty Free (www.123rf.com/) or Dreamstime (www.dreamstime.com). Peruse and dream about what would look great on your book and help bring it to life—and sell it.


List of Online E-book Stores




Amazon.com http://www.amazon.com

Bookstrand http://www.bookstrand.com/index.html

B&N http://www.barnesandnoble.com/

Fictionwise http://www.fictionwise.com

Mobipocket http://www.mobipocket.com/en/HomePage/default.asp?Language=EN

Omni Lit http://www.omnilit.com

Smashwords http://www.smashwords.com/

Sony http://ebookstore.sony.com/





Other and Specialty Sites:



Adgregate Markets www.adgregate.com

Advantage Media Group (Australia) www.ebookbop.com.au

All Romance eBooks www.allromance.com

AudiobooksDirect (Australia - audio only) www.audiobooksdirect.com.au

Audiofy www.audiofy.com

BOL.com (both Dutch and English books) www.bol.com

BookSense / American Booksellers Association (ABA) www.booksense.com

BooksonBoard www.booksonboard.com

Bookshop Krisostomus (Estonia) www.kreso.ee

Cokesbury.com www.cokesbury.com

Computer Manuals Ltd. www.ereadable.com

Cyberread www.cyberread.com

Diesel eBooks (Tools of the Shade, LLC) www.diesel-ebooks.com

Direct Ebooks (Ireland) www.directebooks.com

DittoBook www.dittostore.com

DMC www.thecopia.com

eBookMall www.ebookmall.com

eBook Pie www.ebookpie.com

eBookShop (South Africa) www.ebookshop.co.za

eCampus.com www.ecampus.com

eCommSource (Ireland) www.bookvault.ie

EDigitalMediaStore.com/Audiobooks.com

(audio & e-book) www.edigitalmediastore.com

Fishpond (Australia) www.fishpond.com.au

Fishpond (New Zealand) www.fishpond.co.nz

For-Side.com (Japan) www.mobi-book.com

Interead.com Ltd. / Coolerbooks.com www.coolerbooks.com

Kalahari.net (South Africa) www.24.com

Kobo Books (Canada) www.kobobooks.com

Lulu.com www.lulu.com

Lybrary.com www.lybrary.com

MP Publishing (UK - e-book & audio) www.bookNebook.com

Payloadz.com www.payloadz.com

Powells www.powells.com

Publisher Services Inc. www.onebookshelf.com

Saraiva e Siciliano (Brazil) www.livrariasaraiva.com.br/

Team Research / Astak www.MyEZRead.com


Sample E-Publishers by Selected Category



(Taken from top-twenty best-seller Lists at one major distributor)



Fiction:



Children

Calderwood Books (http://www.calderwoodbooks.com/)

DiskUs Publishing (http://www.diskuspublishing.com/)

Fictionwise.com (http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/p1/Fictionwisecom/?)

Harlequin (http://www.eharlequin.com/)

Random House (http://www.randomhouse.com/)

Twilight Times Books (http://twilighttimesbooks.com/)

Writer Exchange E-Publishing (http://www.readerseden.com/writers/home.php)





Fantasy

E-Reads (http://ereads.com/)

EXtasy Press (http://www.extasybooks.com/)

Fictionwise.com (http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/p1/Fictionwisecom/?)

Harlequin (http://www.eharlequin.com/)

Lyrical Press, Inc. (http://www.lyricalpress.com/)

Mundania Press (http://www.mundania.com/index.php)

Samhain Publishing, Ltd. (http://www.samhainpublishing.com/)

Uncial Press (http://www.uncialpress.com/)

Whiskey Creek Press (http://www.whiskeycreekpress.com/store/)





Historical Fiction

Champagne Books (http://www.champagnebooks.com/)

E-Reads (http://ereads.com/)

EXtasy Press (http://www.extasybooks.com/)

Golden Apple, Wallaseye (http://www.GoldenAppleWallaseyeBooks.htm)

Highland Press (http://www.highlandpress.org/)

Random House (http://www.randomhouse.com/)

Small Beer Press (http://smallbeerpress.com/)

Twilight Times Books (http://twilighttimesbooks.com/)

Uncial Press (http://www.uncialpress.com/)





Horror

Aspen Mountain Press (http://www.aspenmountainpress.com/)

Asylett Press (http://www.asylett.com/)

Charles River Press (http://www.charlesriverpress.com/)

Double Dragon Publishing (http://double-dragon-ebooks.com/)

Fictionwise.com (http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/p1/Fictionwisecom/?)

Eternal Press/Damnation Books LLC (http://www.eternalpress.biz/)

L & L Dreamspell (http://www.lldreamspell.com/)

Random House (http://www.randomhouse.com/)

Raw Dog Screaming Press (http://www.rawdogscreaming.com/)

TTA Press (http://www.ttapress.com/)





Humor

DiskUs Publishing (http://www.diskuspublishing.com/)

Double Dragon Publishing (http://double-dragon-ebooks.com/)

Fictionwise.com (http://www.fictionwise.com/AuthorInfo.htm)

Random House (http://www.randomhouse.com/)

Renaissance E-Books (http://shop.renebooks.com/)

Summersdale Publishers (no Web site provided)

Treble Heart Books (http://www.trebleheartbooks.com/)

Zumaya Publications (http://www.zumayapublications.com/)





Mainstream

Harlequin (http://www.eharlequin.com/)

Lyrical Press, Inc. (http://www.lyricalpress.com/)

Random House (http://www.randomhouse.com/)





Mystery/Crime

Atlantic Bridge (http://www.atlanticbridge.net/)

BooksForABuck (http://www.booksforabuck.com/)

Dell Magazines (Multiple URLs)

ebooksonthe.net (http://www.writewordsinc.com/index.html)

E-Reads (http://ereads.com/)

Random House (http://www.randomhouse.com/)

Renaissance E-Books (http://shop.renebooks.com/)

Whiskey Creek Press (http://www.whiskeycreekpress.com/store/)





Romance

Alinar Publishing (http://www.alinarpublishing.com/)

Amira Press (http://www.amirapress.com/)

Belgrave House (http://www.belgravehouse.com/bookstore/)

EXtasy Press (http://www.extasybooks.com/)

Harlequin (http://www.eharlequin.com/)

Samhain Publishing, Ltd. (http://www.samhainpublishing.com/)

The Wild Rose Press (http://www.thewildrosepress.com/)





Science Fiction

Dell Magazines (Multiple URLs)

Double Dragon Publishing (http://double-dragon-ebooks.com/)

E-Reads (http://ereads.com/)

Fictionwise.com (http://www.fictionwise.com/AuthorInfo.htm)

Samhain Publishing, Ltd. (http://www.samhainpublishing.com/)

SynergEBoooks (http://www.synergebooks.com/)

Wildside Press (http://www.wildsidepress.com/)





Suspense/Thriller

BooksForABuck (http://www.booksforabuck.com/)

Champagne Books (http://www.champagnebooks.com/)

Harlequin (http://www.eharlequin.com/)

L&L Dreamspell (http://www.lldreamspell.com/)

Random House (http://www.randomhouse.com/)

Renaissance E-Books (http://shop.renebooks.com/)





Young Adult

Echelon Press (http://echelonpress.com/)

Eternal Press/Damnation Books LLC (http://www.eternalpress.biz/)

Fictionwise.com (http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/p1/Fictionwisecom/?)

Harlequin (http://www.eharlequin.com/)

Random House (http://www.randomhouse.com/)

Twilight Times Books (http://twilighttimesbooks.com/)

Whiskey Creek Press (http://www.whiskeycreekpress.com/store/)

Wings ePress (http://www.wings-press.com/)

Writers Exchange E-Publishing (http://www.readerseden.com/writers/)







Nonfiction:



Children

DiskUs Publishing (http://www.diskuspublishing.com/)

ebooksonthe.net (http://www.writewordsinc.com/index.html)

Guardian Angel Publishing, Inc. (No Web site given)

Random House (http://www.randomhouse.com/)

Twilight Times Books (http://twilighttimesbooks.com/)





Family/Relationships

Harlequin (http://www.eharlequin.com/)

Random House (http://www.randomhouse.com/)

Renaissance E-Books (http://shop.renebooks.com/)

The Fiction Works (http://www.fictionworks.com/)





Health/Fitness

Harper Collins Inc. (No Web site given)

Random House (http://www.randomhouse.com/)

Summersdale Publishers Ltd. (No Web site given)





History

Clocktower Books and Far Sector SFFH (magazine) (http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/p37/Clocktower-Books-and-Far-Sector- SFFH-/?&si=0)

E-Reads (http://ereads.com/)

Random House (http://www.randomhouse.com/)

Walker Books (No Web site given)

Writers Exchange E-Publishing (http://www.readerseden.com/writers/)





Politics/Government

Fictionwise.com (http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/p1/Fictionwisecom/?)

Random House (http://www.randomhouse.com/)

Seven Stories Press (No Web site given)

The EBook Sale (http://www.theebooksale.com/)

Tyndale House Publishers (No Web site given)





Self-Improvement

Fictionwise.com (http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/p1/Fictionwisecom/?)

Random House (http://www.randomhouse.com/)

Renaissance E-Books (http://shop.renebooks.com/)

The EBook Sale (http://www.theebooksale.com/)

Twilight Times Books (http://twilighttimesbooks.com/)

Walker Books (No Web site given)





Spiritual/Religion

Crossway Books (http://www.crossway.org/)

Dimensions for Living (No Web site found)

ebooksonthe.net (http://www.writewordsinc.com/index.html)

Harlequin (http://www.eharlequin.com/)

Random House (http://www.randomhouse.com/)

Tyndale House Publishers (No Web site given)

Whiskey Creek Press (http://www.whiskeycreekpress.com/store/)





Travel

Hunter Publishing, Inc. (http://www.hunterpublishing.com/)

Random House (http://www.randomhouse.com/)

SynergEbooks (http://www.synergebooks.com/)





True Crime

Random House (http://www.randomhouse.com/)

Raw Dog Screaming Press (http://www.rawdogscreaming.com/)

RosettaBooks (No Web site given)

SynergEbooks (http://www.synergebooks.com/)

Zumaya Publications (http://www.zumayapublications.com/)