FEATURE — Writing a book is hard. Getting published can be even harder.
Publishing houses are inundated with queries from authors. How then, do writers rise above the chatter and make their books visible among a sea of other projects? Read on for tips from experts who have decades of experience working in the wonderful world of books.
Secret agent man
The publishing world is a mystery to many fine writers who have tried to penetrate the protective walls surrounding publishing houses. Agents can provide a key for unlocking doors for writers who want to see their work turned into books. Agents serve as the first level of vetting, thus assuring busy publishing companies that the projects being pitched to them come with a high level of professionalism and marketability.
Good literary agents have a host of publishers they work with, thus improving the chances of a book being published. They know the players and how to negotiate a business deal in the book industry. Having an agent can increase the amount of an advance payment from publishers.
Agents can also help put together licensing deals to turn books into movies and TV shows. This doesn’t come without a cost, however. Agents need to make money, too, generally charging around 15% commission on a published work.
Author and speaker Dorothy Allred Solomon, Kayenta, Utah, February, 2024 | Photo by Adele Park, St. George News
Landing an agent can be challenging. After all, they are just as flooded with offers from writers as publishers are. And like publishing houses, there is no point in querying someone who doesn’t represent the genre of the proposed work. Published author and speaker Dorothy Allred Solomon said it’s important to find an agent who already has experience getting books published in a specific genre.
“People should find books they love that remind them of their own work,” Solomon said. “Find out who that agent is and write to that agent.”
Solomon speaks from vast experience as a writer. As the author of five books, Solomon has worked with two agents and three book publishers. Her first book, an autobiography titled “In My Father’s House,” garnered a lot of national attention. As a result, that book landed her interviews on “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” the “Today Show” and “Larry King Live.”
Solomon advises using sources such as the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses as a starting point for finding agents who might be attracted to a specific work. The next step is to write a killer query letter. Solomon said this letter should grab their attention in the first sentence. The following paragraphs should describe how the book will benefit the publisher.
The query letter also should include a list of reasons why a certain writer is uniquely qualified to deliver on that promise. This could include data on how well books in a particular genre sell, what the author is willing to do to promote sales and numbers involving social media followers.
Some smaller publishing houses accept queries from writers who don’t have an agent. In these cases, Solomon said the author should think like an agent. This includes researching the publishing house to determine its wants and needs. This should be coupled with a proposal that dazzles a publisher into investing in that project.
Publishing houses versus self-publishing
Traditionally, publishing houses produced the majority of books available to the public. The early stages of self-publishing received the label of “vanity press,” which had a tendency to lessen the “street cred” of the author. All of that has changed in recent years with an array of self-publishing opportunities now available.
Author and speaker Stephanni Myers Bishop, St. George, Utah, February 2024 | Photo by Adele Park, St. George News
Stephanni Myers Bishop has been an inside player in the publishing world for decades. As an acquisitions editor at Paramount Books in New York, Bishop served as the ultimate gatekeeper.
“You’re not looking to correct grammar or rearrange chapters and content,” Bishop explained. “You’re looking at a manuscript to see whether or not there is marketing potential.”
Bishop said even great books are sometimes rejected because they require too much work to get them ready to publish, or the market is already saturated with similar projects. The bottom line is that publishers are there to make money. If a publisher doesn’t see that potential in a certain project, it is dead on arrival.
After a long stint in New York City working for various publishing houses, Bishop returned to Utah and began helping local authors. She was responsible for doing all the marketing for the massively well-received book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen Covey.
Bishop said just because a traditional publishing house doesn’t see the value in a book, doesn’t mean it doesn’t have any. The world of self-publishing has evolved to the point many authors are making huge amounts of revenue. Case in point: “The Christmas Box” penned by Utah’s own Richard Paul Evans. This book was originally self-published. When it hit the bestseller list, Evans was able to land a lucrative publishing contract, which then led to that book being turned into a movie for TV.
Bishop said other authors who have written books with great appeal can do the same thing. The best news is self-published writers have the potential to make a lot of money if they market their work well.
“One of the advantages of self-publishing is you retain your rights,” Bishop said.
By retaining the rights to a book, authors are free to market their work in foreign languages, turn their project into a movie or even teach a class based on their book. This also enables the writer to open other avenues of revenue by publishing their work in additional formats including Kindle, e-books or audiobooks.
Keep at it
No doesn’t always mean “no” when it comes to publishing books. While a traditional publisher may close a door to a writer, self-publishing companies are opening them up. The key to success is to research the market and then write a compelling pitch to attract publishers and readers. Like it or not, at the end of the day, the world of publishing boils down to sales.
Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2024, all rights reserved.