"New York"—Writers' Promised Land?
©Kris Wallace

Traditional publishing is not the answer to every writer's dream.

When your agent calls to tell you she has received an offer on your project, it's not the time to pop open the bubbly and quit your day job. You did not just win the lottery. To the contrary, if you accept this offer, you will have just signed away most of the rights to your manuscript along with the next three years of your life.

Advances for first-time authors are not normally beyond five figures; $50,000 is a respectable first advance. After your agent's commission - $7,500 and taxes - $10,000, you will receive $32,500 in three equal payments over the next two to three years. The first payment will come after you sign the publishing agreement four to eight weeks after the deal is made, the second payment will come after your manuscript is accepted six to 12 months later, and the third payment will come after your book is published nine to 14 months after it was accepted.

Out of your take home advance you should put aside a couple thousand dollars to pay for the services of a PR representative and some to cover the unpaid time you will take off from your day job to edit the book.

In your first conversation with your publisher you will discover that your private work, your manuscript, is not yours anymore. It is now a very small part of a very big business and as such, it must make money.

Maybe when it was submitted to the publisher, it had all the ingredients of a bestseller. Maybe it was flawless making readers think, laugh and cry at just the right times.

Or maybe not. In which case it will need some work.

But keep your chin up. Your publisher just wants your work to be the best it can be. Well, that, and he doesn't want to be fired before the next BEA. He will work at making your book perfect just as hard as you did writing the manuscript. He will make sure the art department has the right vision for the cover design, make sure the sales department has the right vision for the sales conference, and make sure the publicity department has the right vision for the marketing— while he's doing the same thing for twelve other books.

Your agent and editor will be in touch regularly, up until just after the time of publication when you may notice a bit of a drop off in communication. Their jobs are done. The book is published. Now it's your job to get out there to promote it.

The publisher may appoint someone on its publicity staff to send
out the usual pitches for magazine features and radio interviews, but that's about as far as their effort will go. Unless the publisher paid you a significant advance, there's not much motivation for them to spend more time or money on your book. That's why you set aside funds to hire a PR rep.

This is when you will do your best to make your book a bestseller! And this is then you will do your best to avoid having your book remaindered. Unless it is moving out of the publisher's warehouse and off bookstore shelves, your book is taking up valuable space that could be used for all of the Patricia Cromwell, Stephen King, J.K. Rowling or James Patterson books.

The next 12 months are very important to the life of your book in print. Bestsellers are made during this time and usually by people who do everything in their power to sell copies of their books while avoiding a remainder notice. Promoting your book can be the most rewarding, and challenging, task since
finishing your manuscript.

There are innumerable ways to push your book; check
out Guerrilla Marketing for Writers for wonderful ideas. It is unlikely that your publisher will spring for a full-fledged author tour, so you'll have to do it on your own.

On the other hand, you could always self publish. Yes, you can.

And, no, you don't need thousands of dollars to do it. You can edit your own work, create your own cover design and produce your own marketing materials. There are several print-on-demand publishers, like Xlibiris.com, who will put your
manuscript into book form. When Xlibris first started, their services were free. Now they charge $500 for basic publishing services. Your book will be a book with its own ISBN number and will be available on Amazon and BN.com for sale.

Instead of the traditional process of looking for a literary agent for months, or years, and then submitting to publishers for months, or years, you can start the self-publishing process right now.

First, make sure your manuscript is perfect. You won’t automatically have an editor sitting in an office in New York to catch errors or make suggestions. You will need to find an independent editor or a well-educated friend to read
through your manuscript. You want to submit your work to the on-demand publisher in the best shape possible. The publisher will format it and get it ready to sell. Once in book form, when an order comes in, a copy is printed and delivered and you make two bits. That's all there is to it. Of course, you still have to go out and promote it and make it sell. But it will be yours. You will not sign away any rights. The print rights, the audio rights, the foreign language rights and all the others are yours! (Along with the costs.)

With your manuscript in book form, you may continue to query agents and publishers - and they'll have a real book to read. After a while, you may have some sales figures to go along with your submission, and nothing atttacts attention faster than sales figures.

Now you just need to decide between self-publishing and going the traditional route. Your decision will focus on what you want from being published. Do you want the big publishing house logo on your book's spine? Do you just want to see your manuscript in book form? Do you want to retain absolute creative control over your book? Do you want to see your manuscript become a book immediately and do you have the money to make it happen right now, or would you rather someone else foot the production bill? Do you want to retain absolute control over every right in your work? It’s all up to you.

By the way, while checking out the guidelines for self publishing with Xlibris, I noticed a book that I had seen a couple years ago—Abandon Indiana— by Amy Hensley. She received an award for best self-published mainstream fiction in the 2001 Writers' Digest National Self-Published Writing Competition. Now she can send the agents who rejected her a little note about this award and see how long it takes for the phone to ring.

I wonder if she has a publishing deal yet.

QUESTIONS FROM WRITERSMONTHLY.COM READERS

Eric C.: I hate to take rejection personally, so help me--and I
suspect many others--out. Under what conditions would
you pass on representing a talented author?

Kris:I would never pass on representing a talented author—with a terrific manuscript, another project in the works, who was easy to work with, who was enthusiastic about making his work solid, who was willing to promote his work endlessly, and who treated me with respect.

Ginny M.: hi chris...my ms is 2 years old now and i've reread, rewritten, reworked, resubmitted and still have had no success in finding either a publisher or agent...no one seems interested in a substitute teacher's point of view: "desperately seeking humor: incredible and satirical tales of a subsitute teacher." educators are funny people and yet seem to lack a sense of humor. do you think the 'ivory tower syndrome' is still too entrenched for my book to find an audience?

Kris: Well, I hope you pay more attention to the details of your work than it seems you paid to the spelling of my name. Other than that, your writing needs to be superior, unforgettable, like nothing else these agents have seen. The "ivory tower syndrome" has nothing to do with why you have yet to find an agent. And the point of view shouldn’t matter if the writing is there. I’ll read any kind of story from any point of view if the writing is there. Try another title. Or try another project. Don’t be afraid to start something new when something else is not working for you. Maybe a few years down the road you’ll discover why this particular project didn’t work. As Jessica Clark says in her current column, The Coaching Corner, writers write. It’s a continuous process.

Here's a general tip—make your query letters stand out. Agents know why you’re writing to them. Make it impossible for them to put your letter down—in the rejection pile.