Publishing

By Lisa Mangum, Managing Editor at Shadow Mountain

So you’ve written a book. Now what? Well, after revising it and polishing it and reading it through one more time, you’re probably ready to send your book to a publisher. Here are three things to get you started on that journey.

1. Do your research. Not every publisher publishes everything, so make sure the publishing house you’re submitting to is actually looking for the type of thing that you write. A house that doesn’t publish children’s picture books will not publish your children’s picture book, no matter how well written it is. You’ll need to research publishers online, look at their backlist titles, and perhaps even follow them or their editors on social media.

Another way to narrow down your list of publishers is to look at other books in your genre. In addition to looking at who the publishers are, check the acknowledgments page, since authors often thank their agents and editors by name.

2. Follow the guidelines. In your research, you’ll likely have found submission guidelines posted somewhere on each publisher’s site. The best thing to do once you’ve read through the guidelines is to follow them exactly. If the guidelines specify to submit 10 pages, do that. If they say to send the pages in the body of an email (as opposed to an attachment), do that. If they say you must have an agent in order to submit, get an agent.

As a general rule, agents, editors, and publishers like to see manuscripts formatted with the following specs: double spacing, 12-point Times New Roman font, and one-inch margins.

3. Write a query letter. Writing a query letter is one of the hardest steps in the process, but the document is required by agents and editors alike. There are a lot of resources online that can help you learn how to write a query letter (a great place to start is AgentQuery.com), but here’s a simple overview of how to structure your first draft:

A basic query letter has three paragraphs. The first is the “hook”—the premise of your story summarized in just one or two sentences. The second paragraph is where you can elaborate on the storyline, introducing secondary characters, plot points, and themes. The final paragraph is a short bio of who you are and why you wrote the book you’re pitching. Somewhere in the letter, you also need to mention the book’s title, genre, and approximate word count.

It can be hard to distill the entire plot of your book in one paragraph, so I recommend focusing on the four Cs: character, conflict, choice, and consequence. Introduce me to your main character. Explain the conflict he or she is facing—the goal that needs to be accomplished and some of the obstacles that are standing in the way. Focus on the choice your main character has to make at the end of the story. Make it clear what is at stake for the main character by presenting the consequences of that choice.

Finding a publisher for your book can feel like a marathon at times, so don’t panic if the path feels long and a bit unpredictable. Just keep moving forward and working on your craft, and you’ll find the path that is right for you.

By Michelle McCullough

I launched my first self-published book in 2013. In 2017, it got picked up by a publisher and released in an expanded form. Both times, I treated the launch like I self-published since most publishers don’t do much by the way of marketing these days.

The first time I published a book I took the “If you write it, they will buy it” approach to marketing. I posted a few times on social media, did a couple of podcast interviews, and refreshed my sales page approximately 27 times a day. As you can imagine, it wasn’t a very effective marketing plan.

The second time, I tried a few tricks I’d learned from friends and people smarter than I am. I watched and studied other book launches and dissected what worked. Then I figured out how I could put my own spin on the successful tactics. I could fill a new book with all the things I did, but today I’m going to share three of the most effective strategies with you.

First, I created a free call series the month leading up to the book launch. My web team designed a landing page so people could register for the series and I could collect email addresses. For four weeks, every Wednesday I offered a free one-hour group training call related to different sections of my book. I created a Facebook group so I could hold conversations with everyone between calls, and I offered giveaways for people who were willing to share the call series with their friends. I recorded the calls and made each recording available for seven days, to encourage people to listen close to the air date. Then, I offered all four of the recordings to folks who preordered the book at the end of the series (the recordings were part of a bigger bonus bundle, which I talk about below). Even better, I still have the emails and the Facebook group—two assets that outlasted my book launch.

Second, I reached out to friends and colleagues to contribute videos, audio, and ebooks that I could give away to people who preordered my book—I wanted to make sure online sales were incentivized and appreciated. In the end, I had over $800 in training materials that complimented my book and offered some promotion to the folks who donated. This bonus bundle also encouraged social sharing from friends and followers because it wasn’t just about “buying a book”; it was about getting a ton of value for a super low cost. My web team created a landing page where people entered their email address and receipt information, so once again I expanded my email list. Additionally, the bonus bundle helped me accomplish my main goal: climbing the bestseller charts on Amazon.

Third, and perhaps most important, I reached out to friends and family to be part of my book launch team. Many of them would have supported me anyway, but forming a team gave me a chance to remind people about key marketing launch dates, share artwork for the launch, and have fun with the people who supported me the most. I created a private Facebook group, added branded graphics (book excerpts and quotes, book reviews, etc.) that my team could use, and posted a schedule of key dates so that we could post in windows that capitalized on social media algorithms. I also held giveaways for my team. They received entries for sharing on social media channels, buying the book, and leaving a review. I had a lot of fun with my book launch team

These ideas are perfect for nonfiction book launches, and I’ve seen them used successfully for fiction books too. As you consider these options, ask yourself, “How could I make these work for me?”

Cheering you on during your next book launch!

Michelle McCullough, www.speakmichelle.com

By LDSPMA

1. The number of books being published every year has exploded.
According to the latest Bowker Report (September 7, 2016), more than 700,000 books
were self-published in the U.S. in 2015, which is an incredible increase of 375% since
2010. And the number of traditionally published books had climbed to over 300,000 by
2013 according to the latest Bowker figures (August 5, 2014). The net effect is that the
number of new books published each year in the U.S. has exploded by more than 600,000
since 2007, to well over 1 million annually. At the same time, more than 13 million
previously published books are still available through many sources. Unfortunately, the
marketplace is not able to absorb all these books and is hugely oversaturated.

2. Book industry sales are stagnant, despite the explosion of books published.
U.S. publishing industry sales peaked in 2007 and have either fallen or been flat in
subsequent years, according to reports of the Association of American Publishers (AAP).
Similarly, despite a 2.5% increase in 2015, U.S. bookstore sales are down 37% from their
peak in 2007, according to the Census Bureau (Publishers Weekly, February 26, 2016).

3. Despite the growth of e-book sales, overall book sales are still shrinking.
After skyrocketing from 2008 to 2012, e-book sales leveled off in 2013 and have fallen
more than 10% since then, according to the AAP StatShot Annual 2015. Unfortunately,
the decline of print sales outpaced the growth of e-book sales, even from 2008 to 2012.
The total book publishing pie is not growing—the peak sales year was in 2007—yet it is
being divided among ever more hundreds of thousands of print and digital books.

4. Average book sales are shockingly small—and falling fast.
Combine the explosion of books published with the declining total sales and you get
shrinking sales of each new title. According to BookScan—which tracks most bookstore,
online, and other retail sales of books (including Amazon.com)—only 256 million print
copies were sold in 2013 in the U.S. in all adult nonfiction categories combined
(Publishers Weekly, January 1, 2016). The average U.S. nonfiction book is now selling
less than 250 copies per year and less than 2,000 copies over its lifetime.

5. A book has far less than a 1% chance of being stocked in an average bookstore.
For every available bookstore shelf space, there are 100 to 1,000 or more titles competing
for that shelf space. For example, the number of business titles stocked ranges from less
than 100 (smaller bookstores) to up to 1,500 (superstores). Yet there are several hundred
thousand business books in print that are fighting for that limited shelf space.

6. It is getting harder and harder every year to sell books.
Many book categories have become entirely saturated, with a surplus of books on every
topic. It is increasingly difficult to make any book stand out. Each book is competing
with more than thirteen million other books available for sale, while other media are
claiming more and more of people’s time. Result: investing the same amount today to
market a book as was invested a few years ago will yield a far smaller sales return today.

7. Most books today are selling only to the authors’ and publishers’ communities.
Everyone in the potential audiences for a book already knows of hundreds of interesting
and useful books to read but has little time to read any. Therefore people are reading only
books that their communities make important or even mandatory to read. There is no
general audience for most nonfiction books, and chasing after such a mirage is usually far
less effective than connecting with one’s communities.

8. Most book marketing today is done by authors, not by publishers.
Publishers have managed to stay afloat in this worsening marketplace only by shifting
more and more marketing responsibility to authors, to cut costs and prop up sales. In
recognition of this reality, most book proposals from experienced authors now have an
extensive (usually many pages) section on the authors’ marketing platform and what the
authors will do to publicize and market the books. Publishers still fulfill important roles
in helping craft books to succeed and making books available in sales channels, but
whether the books move in those channels depends primarily on the authors.

9. No other industry has so many new product introductions.
Every new book is a new product, needing to be acquired, developed, reworked,
designed, produced, named, manufactured, packaged, priced, introduced, marketed,
warehoused, and sold. Yet the average new book generates only $50,000 to $150,000 in
sales, which needs to cover all of these new product introduction expenses, leaving only
small amounts available for each area of expense. This more than anything limits how
much publishers can invest in any one new book and in its marketing campaign.

10. The book publishing world is in a never-ending state of turmoil.
The thin margins in the industry, high complexities of the business, intense competition,
churning of new technologies, and rapid growth of other media lead to constant turmoil
in bookselling and publishing (such as the disappearance over the past decade of over 500
independent bookstores and the Borders bookstore chain). Translation: expect even more
changes and challenges in coming months and years.

STRATEGIES FOR RESPONDING TO “THE 10 AWFUL TRUTHS”
1. The game is now pass-along sales.
2. Events/immersion experiences replace traditional publicity in moving the needle.
3. Leverage the authors’ and publishers’ communities.
4. In a crowded market, brands stand out.
5. Master new digital channels for sales, marketing, and community building.
6. Build books around a big new idea.
7. Front-load the main ideas in books and keep books short.

By Steven Piersanti, President, Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Updated September 26, 2016

Vector illustration credit: Vecteezy!