Publishing

Authors who are selling their work to publishers will need to convince an editor that they have the qualifications to publish. While work and personal experiences may prove valuable in selling a book to a publisher, an authors education may also help answer the question, “Why are you the person to write this book?”

Attending an MFA program in writing is one of the most discussed ways that you can improve your chances at publishing.

There is a lot of spirited debate online and offline about the merits of an MFA program. On one hand, critics say that an MFA is a terminal degree that may not help your writing as much as you’d expect if the majority of your critique comes from fellow writers. However, if your goal is to simply write more often, then an MFA is just what you need. In fact, one advocate of MFA programs shared that these programs may simply enable more writers to take themselves and their craft more seriously.

It’s also important to remember that every program is a little different. There are different levels of interaction with professors depending on the school and the type of program—such as a low-residency program that may provide more direct contact with a professor. A lot of questions may be answered by taking a course or two to see if it’s what you need.

In my own case, I attended a graduate school to study theology in order to gain more experience and knowledge in my field. While an MFA program may be helpful for nonfiction writers, there is a lot of value in immersing yourself into your particular field through graduate study.

There are published authors with and without degrees, so there isn’t one correct answer. Rather, you need to figure out what will help you become a better writer and what will give you the best chance of becoming published. The appropriate education will give you the confidence you need and hopefully additional sway with editors that you are the correct person to write your book.

In addition, there are some other ways you can accomplish both of these goals without an MFA program. That’s what we’ll discuss next.

You’ll want to begin the publishing process by taking stock of your career and experience at this point. Is there anything about your current profession and resume that would make your proposal more attractive to a publisher?

For instance, a fiction writer who wants to tell the story of a policeman who served for years as an officer or state trooper will have an easy time convincing a publisher that he can write a convincing novel about such a character. That isn’t to say that you can’t write about something based on research, but writing about something where you have past experience will give you an extra credential to consider.

Nonfiction writers will need real-world experience and/or education for their own credentials. One former greeting card writer wrote a book called House of Cards about his time working for Hallmark, in Three Cups of Tea one man tells the story of his work building schools in Afghanistan, and bestselling author Malcolm Gladwell has used his experience researching and writing for the New Yorker (confirm) to lay the groundwork for his books. 

A great idea and a catchy title are just the beginning of publishing a book. Depending on your goals and your genre you’ll need to think about how your past work, volunteer, and writing experience have prepared you for publishing your book.

When you list out your experience and credentials you’ll want to be sure you have a list that raises eyebrows instead of causes a yawn. You may need to look into new volunteer experiences, a degree program, and even a new career. In the case of fiction writers such extremes may not be quite as necessary, but then again you need to think about the factors that will enable you to tell the kind of story you’re imagining.

Tomorrow we’ll talk about the role of education in answering the “Why you?” question in publishing.

Before Christmas break and my study guide promotion took over my life, I began a series of posts with ideas on what to do before you publish. I began with posts called Set Goals and Prepare for Rejection. I would like to continue that series this week with thoughts on how to prepare for revision:

After working on several book projects, chapters, short stories, proposals, and magazine articles I still hold my breath when an editor e-mails me with revision comments. I’ve received praise, challenges to rewrite my work significantly, and even a long note telling me my project simply didn’t work as written.

It’s never easy to read that your work needs significant revision, but revision is a big part of the writing life and the sooner writers prepare for it, the better. Here are a couple of thoughts on how you can mentally prepare for editors and the revisions they may request.

Scrutiny is Coming

When you publish anything for the public your reputation and that of the publisher will be on the line. Therefore, an editor is your best defense against either missing your readers, saying something offensive, or making some other embarrassing error. Editors aren’t out to chop up your ideas, but rather to help you communicate them effectively with your prospective audience.

This doesn’t mean that every editor will do that well, but by and large most editors will help you write better and connect with readers in ways that you couldn’t do on your own. There will come times that editors can’t move past their disagreements with your work or you don’t see eye to eye on how to communicate something of importance, but rest assured those instances are more exceptions than rules.

Ideas will be Altered

It is humbling to find out that your ideas aren’t recognized as brilliant and world-changing. I’ve learned it is very hard to pick the perfect way to communicate an idea with readers. In fact, effective communication through writing can be quite challenging and sometimes we become so attached to our ideas that we can’t understand why others would have a hard time grasping our presentation of them. Once again, editors are there to ensure your ideas are altered in ways that improve their effectiveness, even if us writers sometimes think they’re just fine as they are.

Titles will be Modified

Never buy a web site domain name based on the title of a book. It’s just a bad idea since every book passes through an extensive titling process with a committee of experts pitching ideas. While it’s important to come up with a strong title for your book, there will be no guarantee that it will make the final cut with the publisher. There are many authors who strongly dislike the titles chosen for their books, so count yourself blessed if you at least find your book’s final title remotely palatable!

Deletions

Words, sentences, paragraphs, and chapters will be deleted from your manuscript. Just count on that happening. Perhaps the best skill I’ve learned over the years is how to delete gracefully. Sometimes it’s better to count your losses and delete a chapter rather than breaking your brain trying to make it work. If a sentence or paragraph is noted as unclear by an editor, just delete it and write a better one.

Extensive Edits will be Required

Sometimes you’ll write a generally good chapter that needs extensive edits to its organization and ideas. I usually like to rewrite the outline of such chapters and then begin with that barebones outline for my rewrites with a copy of the previous chapter handy. Rather than mushing my revisions together in the edited draft, I find it easier to make extensive edits with a somewhat fresh start. Sometimes I’ll paste in a few paragraphs that worked from the previous draft and I usually keep many of the same ideas, but once again the deletion principle applies. My motto is, “I’ve never written a sentence that I couldn’t delete.”

Previous Posts in This Series

Set Goals

Prepare for Rejection

I used to think of a blog as a place to toss around thoughts, to sharpen ideas, and to establish my own voice and style. While I think those are true things, and I have certainly done all of them, there is another dimension to blogging that I feel I’ve neglected.

It’s no secret that many blogs have been converted to books, whether it’s the Post Secret blog or the now-famous Julie and Julia project. I know a lot of writers are afraid that their ideas could be stolen on web sites, and that’s something well worth considering, but for those us in this blogging thing up to our elbows, it’s time to dig a little deeper into the ways a blog could one day become a book:

Review Relevant Books

I need to focus on reading the most relevant books for my areas of interest and to that end I’m working on only reviewing books on my theology blog that relate directly to projects I’m working on or would be on my pleasure reading list. In fact, I’m calling my posts reflections on books rather than an in-depth review. I’ve spent too much time reviewing books on my theology blog that didn’t quite relate to what I need to be working on.

Invest Time in a Series of Blog Posts

For the ideas that may develop into a book or ebook in the future, I plan to take the time to map out the posts, plan them a bit, write a few outlines or drafts, and then get moving on the posts. Sometimes my ideas are too scattered, but if I want to turn those ideas into books one day, crafting some solid rough drafts in a series of blog posts may create enough material and momentum to carry the project forward.

Edit, Revise, and Consider Feedback

Of course my future book or ebook projects won’t move beyond the blog without taking the next step of editing and expanding my ideas. The one key advantage of blogging through some rough drafts of my ideas is the instant feedback readers have provided. I plan to continue gathering key information about my audience and the limitations of my knowledge or topic, helping to refocus or change directions if necessary down the line.

Last week I talked about lining up some goals before publishing, but with lofty goals come low points and even failure. That’s just part of the writing life, and one that prospective writers will need to prepare themselves for if they’re going to take a crack at it.

By the Numbers

There are hundreds of thousands of books published each year by a variety of publishers in numerous formats. That means there are thousands, upon thousands more manuscripts and proposals fighting for those limited spots. In addition, there are only so many topics and story lines to choose from, so there is a good chance that someone may have submitted a proposal before yours that has already been accepted. The competition is such that you can expect some rejections based on the limited number of books printed each year.

By Specialization

Publishers have target audiences and particular topics in mind when they review books. Even if your book is well-written, you may not fit the exact needs of a publisher at that particular time. You may be rejected because you didn’t quite fit the right niche or land on an editor’s desk at the right time.

By Platform

Publishers today are looking for authors who are known quantities with an existing audience or readership that will willingly buy their book and spread the word virally. Authors with a neglected Facebook profile and a blog with three posts over the past year need to invest in these networks before pitching their books. A proposal without a platform has a particularly rough road ahead.

By the Writing

Let’s face it, writing a good book is extremely difficult. One agent once said that he’s looking for a book that he will love. Are you writing that kind of book? I certainly hope so, but if you receive a rejection letter (or never hear back from the publisher), there’s nothing unusual about revising or completely rewriting a book. If you haven’t read books like Lamott’s Bird by Bird that provide details about the difficulties of the writing process, you really need to do so before submitting a book.

The Nature of the Writing Business

While we write to inspire, to help others, and to craft something elegant and beautiful, publishing is a business, and therefore every writer needs to figure out a certain level of detachment from their work in order to think about the business end of things. That doesn’t mean selling out, only that when an editor writes back with a business decision to not publish a book, writers should not take that as the end of their creative writing or dream of publishing.

When a book is accepted, it should be both artistically and commercially viable, but hitting that correct balance for the right publisher takes a mix of luck, practice, and hard work. It probably won’t happen overnight, and if it doesn’t, then you’re in good company.

The book industry is changing. Radically at that. No one will debate that point.

However, the question is whether or not this is a bad thing that spells the end of the book. I for one think that while the book and publishing world is going to be quite different, it does not necessarily have to be bad.

People still read quite a lot online and in books. People will always read.

My thoughts were spurred by this episode of On the Media that is a must-listen for every writer and publisher: Book It.

Too many books, not enough profits. That is the lament of many publishers these days. Plus, there’s the fear and loathing engendered by e-books. So, what is the state of the book industry and what can we expect in the coming years?

How books are written, published, and distributed may well change. In fact, the book as a sold commodity may become very, very rare. With the internet, readers have come to expect news to be free. I think that with so much file-sharing, they are beginning to expect that most music will be free or at least can be found for free. Books may well be next.

The difference will come with the kinds of ideas and stories within books, the design of the books themselves, and the desire of readers to have a copy of the book at their finger-tips after paying for it.

We’ve already been moving in this direction in many ways. I no longer feel a need to have a library of Bibles and dictionaries on theology since I can access them respectively online and from a CD-ROM. Some books are just a lot of fun to read and may have more value at a live event where the author performs and present the book in a fresh way, perhaps selling copies or perhaps giving the book away as an ebook and living off the performance profits. Nonfiction authors may have to live off their seminar fees, giving away ebook versions of their ideas.

And really, folks can already find most books for free at the local library, so there isn’t too far a leap into the world of free online ebooks. Just as a person will only purchase an exceptional or particularly relevant book after reading it for free in the library, we will soon expect to read most books online for free and then only purchase them if they truly grab us.

This is a different model for sure, and there will always be some remnant of the book industry since folks will always want to have certain invaluable books at the ready, but the scale of the industry will change, the paths to profit will diversify, and many authors outside of the bestsellers list will need to dig deep into their own wells of creativity and utilize the networks available to them.

Though some authors can still be just authors, the majority of authors will need to become speakers, performers, presenters, bloggers, podcasters, videographers, and who knows what else. The opportunities are out there. People are still reading books on paper and on screen. The only question is whether authors are willing to adapt to the changing times.