For nearly thirty years, I’ve been getting queries about writing a book for or with someone. Quite often the person making the query is not well informed about what’s involved in getting a book written to professional standards, finding a legitimate agent to represent it who will sell it to a trade publisher, and then promoting it heavily enough to make it a financial success.
This as a more informative response to all such queries than I could provide individually. After reading these words—and after examining your willingness to invest time, energy and your hard-earned cash to get your book written, published and selling in bookstores across the nation—you may or may not want to go ahead.
However, if you are willing and able to go ahead, please let me hear from you again. Helping people get published is my profession.
Some of the people who will read this message know little about how the publishing business operates today, so I’ll define terms as we go along.
Trade
Trade refers to the legitimate, royalty paying publishers such as Simon & Schuster, Random House, Pearson, Thomson, Penguin Putnam and Berkley—to name some of the largest ones. Beyond the giants are a large number of smaller publishers. On the average, the trade book industry issues 75 different new titles every working day, 150,,000 each year.
A key fact to keep in mind is that trade publishers generally take nine months to a year to publish a book AFTER they have a fully approved final manuscript. What does this mean to you?
If your manuscript isn’t complete and in publishable shape today, your book won’t arrive in bookstores for two years or more. Contrast that with self-publishing, where you can have books a month after your manuscript is complete and all other prepress requirements are in your printer’s hands.
Vanity
Legitimate, royalty-paying trade publishers never advertise seeking authors. (Anytime they do advertise, its purpose is to sell the books they have already published.) Firms who advertise seeking authors are called “vanity presses” because they will print anything anybody will pay them to print. I hear at second or third hand about a lot of major dissatisfaction with vanity houses. They tend to make lavish promises they don’t keep. Going to a vanity press is a sure way to fill your garage with books that will never sell.
Self-publishing
Self-publishing is totally different from vanity publishing, although in both, the author pays for the book’s production and printing. However, self-publishers know how to market their books—often doing so at their public speaking events. Thousands of self-published books written by or for public speakers (some written by me) have been very profitable for the speakers who commissioned them. An outstanding example is HOW TO MASTER THE ART OF SELLING, which I wrote for Tom Hopkins. After being self-published by Tom, it was picked up by a major trade publisher, went back to press 42 times, was translated into several languages and sold nearly two million copies worldwide.
POD Publishing
POD means Print on Demand. With this system, you only print books as you sell them. However, your costs per copy are so high it’s difficult to sell them at a profit. But at least your garage doesn’t get packed with books.
E-books
This is the least expensive way to get your message out because no paper and ink is involved. At least in theory, several hundred million people around the globe can access your book if it’s on a website—and even pay you for it. However, it takes a lot of skillful work to sell enough of them to make it worthwhile. Buy HOW TO GET YOUR E-BOOK PUBLISHED from Writer’s Digest Books if you’re interested in putting out an E-book.
I hope this information will be helpful to you. If you have more questions, I’m available for phone consultation at $40.00 for a half hour, $70 for a full hour, payable in advance. Schedule a mutually convenient time by email to w@jamison.org/
I am on Pacific Standard Time.
If you like, include some of the issues you’d like to discuss in your email.
