Jane Friedman's Blog: Jane Friedman, page 110

My Interview with Leanpub: How I Learned to Edit and My Thoughts on the Author Aspirant

Jane working at the AWP Bookfair in 2009, while still an employee of F+W Media

Earlier this year, in May, I had an in-depth and engaging conversation with Len Epp at LeanPub. Last week, it was posted as part of their new Backmatter podcast, which is focused specifically on the publishing industry and its latest trends. In each episode Len interviews a professional from the publishing world about their background and their insider’s perspective on what’s happening in the huge and evolving world of book publishing.

We cover a lot of ground, and part of what makes the conversation so interesting is Len’s line of questioning and knowledge of what I do. Rather than approaching this as a how-to-publish-Q&A, it is more of a conversation with some give and take. (A nice change of pace for me!) Here are a few excerpts from the conversation.

On editing and editing styles

Len: You’re a self-described “late sleeping, bourbon drinking editor.” And while I’d love to talk to you about the first two parts of that description—because I more or less identify with them—I’d like to talk to you a little bit about your experience editing.

For any aspiring editors out there, for example, can you maybe talk about how you got your first gig and what that was like, and how you managed the facet of your career that when you’re maturing as an editor?

Jane: I feel like I’m the worst person to learn editing from, because I don’t necessarily think I learned in a way that’s writer-friendly. Let me explain that. … I was mentored by an editor who had very much a kind of a “scorched earth” editing style, where she would just totally rip things apart, rewrite them, and then send it back to the writer to basically sign off on.

On writer etiquette and frustration with the business

Len: One of the really interesting things for me in your Great Courses course was the importance of etiquette, where at times it seemed strange that you would have to highlight things that seemed like common sense, and at other times you were describing sets of rules that seemed as byzantine and arbitrary as cricket, or courtly manners under the Sun King.

I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about that? I mean, what is it about people who are aspiring authors that can lead them into behavior in that realm, where they wouldn’t walk into a store and get really demanding with the person they’re talking to or expect them to—”Hey drop everything you’re doing and do a bunch of work for me, please. And get back to me within a day.” I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about that. What is it about aspiring authors that leads them down a path they might not otherwise follow in the rest of their life?

Jane: There’s a certain category of aspiring author, particularly the person who has had a professional career, maybe they’re coming back to writing, which was their first love, like as they near retirement, or they have a chance at a second career. And often these people have held positions of authority or respect, like doctors, lawyers, people in investment banking for instance.

When they face the publishing industry from the outside, and they’re trying to get attention for their work—they can’t get a response. They’re sent cryptic rejections, no one will listen to them, they can’t pick up the phone and talk to a real person. They are very upset. Suddenly, all of this status that they have in the world means nothing. And I think it just really exacerbates the frustration, and also a lot of the vitriol that’s heaped on traditional publishing.

On the history of authorship

Len: So I wanted to ask you about the past. You make the great point on your website that writers have been innovating since the Gutenberg era, and I was wondering if you could talk, perhaps, about one or two of the highlights of writers adapting and innovating in the history of book publishing that really stand out for you.

Jane: One of the examples I frequently point to is Samuel Johnson. It was a time when things flipped, where the market was big enough that authors could sustain their careers based on sales. He was operating during a time when more and more books were being published. There was a growing literate class, and you could be a successful author just on bookstore sales.

Now, what’s interesting about that is, at the time, he was bucking the trend. Because it was considered more—I don’t want to say polite—but it was more customary for you to be paid for your work through some sort of patron, and you would dedicate your work to that patron and receive money. Or you were born into privilege, and you didn’t need money. So, there was something a bit crass there in that move, that he would just say, “Forget you, patron-whoever-you-are. I can live on my book sales.”

Go listen to the full interview or read the transcript.

Many thanks to Len and LeanPub for an excellent and fun conversation.

What It Means to Be a Writer—and to Emerge as a Writer

Photo credit: photophilde via Visual Hunt / CC BY-SA

Today’s guest post is excerpted from Writing as a Path to Awakening, by Albert Flynn DeSilver (@PoetAlbert). Sounds True, September 2017. Reprinted with permission.

There’s a term thrown around in the world of writing that I’ve never fully understood: emerging writer. To emerge as a writer, or anything else for that matter, you must emerge from one thing into an entirely different something else—that is, you must move from one state of being or existence to another. As a writer, that only happens through practice.

I like to define writer as someone who writes, not someone who is published for their writing per se. Let me qualify that a little: A writer is someone who writes regularly and consistently, someone who engages in the process. If you give yourself to that process, if you do the work, if you write regularly and consistently, then you are not emerging as a writer—you are already engaged, you are already a practicing writer.

What it takes to go from emerging to emerged is a shift of perception followed by consistent action. It’s like being a couch potato, becoming a couch surfer, and eventually transforming into a couch creator. You’re dealing with couches in one way or the other the whole time, it’s just that you’ve swapped the bowl of potato chips for a laptop or your favorite notebook and pen. Sometimes it really is that simple. You go from the idea of writing (one potato, two potato, crunch, crunch)—that is, fantasizing about writing “one of these days”—to actually signing up for that fiction class, poetry workshop, or writing retreat. You take in the inspiration, knowledge, and motivation you get from that and then, finally, sit your butt down in the chair (or upright on the couch, chips back in the sealed bag and locked in the cabinet) every day for the next year (or ten) and write the damn thing. For the record, I write on my couch every day, without chips. But heck, as long as you’re writing consistently and you’re capable of multitasking, crunch away!

Emergence means sticking with the practice long enough until you’ve experienced a sense of improvement, growth, and even transformation. Sometimes this takes minutes, sometimes years. Emergence is also about taking time to connect with your deeper self, touching into your creative desires and true intentions, and exploring the hidden layers of yourself that call out to be expressed. The timing for when we emerge, or when the writing emerges from within us, is a highly personal one and ultimately a decision that we shouldn’t put off until some nebulous future moment—not if we sincerely want to write. In other words, stop thinking and start writing.

I thought about writing for years and wrote nothing. Then I wrote in fits and starts. Then I wrote obscure (mostly) experimental poetry for fifteen years or so, which was fun and interesting and I learned a lot about craft in the process (heck, I even finished countless writing projects and published several small books along the way). And yet I was still writing only on occasion, still emerging. If I’m honest with myself, I was writing around my vulnerabilities, avoiding the deeper emotions, the truer story lurking within—until I couldn’t take it anymore. I had become so haunted by childhood scenes and memories—some difficult but compelling images—that begged to be written down. Something bigger was gnawing at me, yearning to emerge. Around this time my friends and neighbors recommended several memoirs that inspired me to give it a shot. I mean, these books virtually shouted words of insight, encouragement, and permission. The next thing I knew, I was writing a memoir.

Emergence is about showing up, about materialization—going from the nonphysical to the physical—from the darkness and mystery of incubation to the light of manifestation. To move from scattered ideas, broken dreams, and those frustratingly inconsistent false starts to solid discipline and completion, we need to first shift our thinking and then adjust our physical behavior—literally how we interact with the couch (or wherever it is we can finally get some writing done).

If you truly want to write—if you feel genuinely curious about this writing business and your potential to take part in it—you have to make time to do it, and that means you need to set some kind of schedule. I recently surveyed thousands of writers and would-be writers who are on my mailing list, and the number one thing they reported struggling with the most was time. Remember, time is not something that you have or don’t have—time is something you create. What are your priorities? What could you shift or tweak in your daily life to create some space for your writing? You have to make time to write if you are sincere in your desire to manifest your writing dreams. And if you are just too darn busy with work, kids, and life, then make your writing a kind of squeezing-in practice: squeeze it in on your lunch break, in the car while waiting to pick up the kids, in the morning, with your favorite flavor of caffeine coursing through your veins, by waking up fifteen minutes earlier than usual. If it’s important, you’ll find the time. I know writers who rent motel rooms for occasional weekends of concentrated binge writing, and one who records voice memos (that eventually grow into novels) while she’s stopped in traffic during her daily commute.

You’ve heard it over and over again, that annoying little adage about writing being a practice. The thing that often gets left out of the conversation around practice is how unappetizing the initial idea of practice actually is. You can hear the nagging parent or teacher in the back of your head, “Okay, Mary, it’s time to practice your scales,” when you’d rather be hanging out with your friends playing freeze tag or rearranging your sock drawer. Practice. That word voiced in our heads sometimes echoes ominously like scolding thunder; it seems to come with built-in resistance. Who wants to practice? It can sound so arduous and even unappealing, like a chore that needs to be completed.

But the key aspect of practice that we often forget is the discovery and enchantment we get along the way. After giving myself to the practice of writing for more than twenty years, I know the more I practice, the more I learn not only about the art itself but also about my own quietly evolving heart and mind. I learn more about consciousness itself. It’s fascinating, really. It’s not so much that I, Albert, am so fascinating—it’s that we as humans are fascinating. You are inherently interesting beyond compare, and you will become even more so when you take the time to delve deep and write forth your inner truth.

Note from Jane: If you enjoyed this post, I highly recommend taking a look at Writing as a Path to Awakening by Albert Flynn DeSilver.

 

What Authors Need to Know About Crowdfunding Their Book: A Case Study by the Numbers

Today’s guest post is by James Haight, who is currently awaiting the launch of his debut novel, Jack & Coke, and spends his time helping other authors navigate the crowdfunding landscape at The Book Crowdfunding Academy.

Crowdfunding a book is challenging, time consuming, and requires an author to expend a tremendous amount of social capital. Authors should not take this decision lightly.

I found this out first-hand when I set out to crowdfund my debut novel Jack & Coke. It was a grueling process. Thankfully, by the time it was all said and done, I had exceeded my expectations. As an unknown author, I was able to pre-sell 334 copies of my book, raise $6,475, and bring my book to market. The outcome thrilled me, but it certainly wasn’t easy.

I firmly believe that any author can successfully launch their book through crowdfunding if they are willing to put in the effort. However, it may not be the right path for everyone. Below I’ve shared the biggest insights from my experience that lay out the case for and against the decision to crowdfund your book.

Insight #1: Crowdfunding Makes It Easier to Sell Your Book

Crowdfunding is hard, but an individual book sale is never easier than when you are in the midst of your campaign.

That’s because crowdfunding lets people do more than just buy your book. With crowdfunding, your backers are the reason your book gets to exist. Every pre-order helps to make your dream come true, and that’s a powerful selling tool. It’s human nature to want to be a part of something special and crowdfunding lets you tap into this desire.

Further, authors can leverage crowdfunding to build excitement about more than just their book. They can build an audience that is excited about the book’s journey as well. Crowdfunding allows authors to incorporate creative benefits for backers. These opportunities are what make crowdfunding so exciting, and they can range from the extreme, like naming a character, to the more traditional, such as a signed copy or a dinner date with the author. These special (and limited) bonuses are often enough to transform a casual observer into a paying customer.

Not only that, but crowdfunding inherently creates a sense of urgency. One of the most difficult obstacles to overcome is convincing someone to “buy now” rather than to wait and buy it from Amazon later. Because crowdfunding campaigns have a time limit, it invokes an urgency that authors can convert into sales.

Insight #2: Crowdfunding Takes Serious Preparation (And Some Numbers to Prove It)

If you talk to anyone who has run a successful crowdfunding campaign (regardless of product), they will all tell you the same thing. Success is determined before the campaign launches.

The workload for campaigning is front loaded. About 80% of the total effort happens before you ever flip the switch to make your campaign live. Authors must remember that everything is dependent on a successful launch day.

Crowdfunding is a momentum game. People like being a part of successful projects. For the same reasons that sports teams draw bigger crowds when they are winning than when they are losing, people are more likely to contribute to your campaign if it looks like it’s going to hit your goals.

Achieving a critical mass on launch day is paramount to success. This means that success is dependent on weeks of hustling, building buzz, and calling in well-timed favors from friends.

You will need to spend the weeks leading up to your campaign nurturing excited fans along the path to becoming paying customers.

I dedicated a total of two months to managing my campaign. I spent the first month in preparation (planning a launch party, building an email list, etc) and the second month actually running the live campaign.

If you are skeptical as to if it’s necessary to spend a month prior to your campaign, then look no further than the actual sales data from my experience with Jack & Coke.

Figure 1: Daily Total Sales

As you can see, the bulk of sales came on launch day. (Note: Day 2 was my official launch day, but some fans found out it was available a few hours before midnight).

To emphasize this point even further look at the below chart. I’ve transformed the data to show the cumulative percentage of total sales over each day of the campaign.

Figure 2: Cumulative Percentage of Total Sales

This chart shows that launch day accounted for 30% of the campaign’s total sales. Not only that, but 50% of the campaign’s sales were generated by day 7!

This pattern of heavy initial sales followed by a trickle of sales until the last day is a typical pattern across crowdfunding campaigns. Early sales lead to future sales. If you want to reach your fundraising goals, then you must put in the prep work to get as many people to your launch as possible.

Insight #3: Your Pitch Video Is Not About Your Book

Pitch videos are the cornerstone of a successful crowdfunding campaign. However, author’s make a mistake when they think that their pitch video is about their book. It’s not. It’s about what you can provide to your audience.

Of course, you need to address what your book is about, but that’s not what is going to turn a viewer into a backer.

For fiction books, an author must create an emotional connection. You must create excitement about the journey of your book, and backers must be excited to help make your book exist.

For nonfiction authors, especially in the self-help/business space, it’s all about the transformation your book will provide. For example, if your book will help your audience eat healthier or be a more effective CEO then you need to convince them of this? If your audience believes in the transformation you are offering, then they will happily sign up for campaign.

When it’s all said and done, a good pitch video should:

Create an emotional connection with the audience
Create a sense of urgency for the audience to contribute now
Articulate what your backers will get for their money (i.e. the satisfaction of a limited edition signed copy, or the prospect of a personal transformation).

For a discussion about how to create the perfect pitch video, check out our full analysis here.

Insight #4: Fees Take a Chunk Out of Earnings

Everyone loves to talk about how much money people can raise from crowdfunding. But no one likes to talk about the fees that come along with it. Crowdfunding platforms will charge a fee that is generally a fixed percentage of the money raised.

Each platform will have its own fee structure, but you can generally expect fees ranging anywhere between 5% and 35% of your earnings.

My platform ended up taking a 30% cut of my earnings. As you can see in the chart below, this ended up being a sizable amount of cash.

Figure 3: Crowdfunding Fees



Copies Sold
Total Earnings
Platform Fees
Payment Fees
Author Earnings


334
$6,475
$1,942.50
$256.78
$4,275.73

Your goals as an author should dictate the platform that you choose. Those who are dead set on self-publishing may want to search for the platform with the lowest fee. Conversely, authors who are more concerned about working with a specialized platform may be willing to pay a higher fee.

Done right, crowdfunding allows authors to build an audience faster than they ever thought. Just be aware that it’s never as easy as it seems. Crowdfunding favors those who are willing to put in the preparation and those who are unwilling to quit.

If you decide that crowdfunding is right for you, you can join me at The Book Crowdfunding Academy, a community to help guide fellow authors to crowdfunding success. Or, you can check out the ebook that breaks down the exact steps authors need to take to go from zero to funded. It includes email scripts and pitch video examples that you can use in your own endeavor.

How Fiction Writing Influences Real-Life Relationships

In nonfiction—especially creative nonfiction works and memoir—it’s common for writers to tackle material that’s personal and speaks to real-life emotional struggles. And, quite naturally, writing about real lives and real people brings consequences that have to be carefully considered, if not from a legal perspective, then at least from a long-term relationship perspective. (This writer has been open about the challenges and fallout.)

Fiction writing, while not always associated with affecting one’s real-life relationships, can indeed have that power, too—and in a positive way. Novelists often revisit certain types of relationships or characters in their work again and again, as a form of therapy, to work through personal challenges.

In his recent essay for Glimmer Train, Matthew Lansburgh (@senorlansburgh) discusses this phenomenon—and the power of empathy:

What I find interesting is that, over time, as I began to deepen the character on the page, to find more nuance and humanity in my fictional mother, my perception of my actual mother began to shift too. The shift wasn’t seismic. I didn’t suddenly start sitting on her lap while she knitted me mittens and caps, but I did notice moments in our interactions in which the writer part of my consciousness helped me to filter challenging moments in real life.

Read the full essay.

Also this month in the Glimmer Train bulletin:

Choosing the Details by Rebecca Podos

Researching and Writing: Pith and Peel by Paul Griner

What Do Young Adults Want to Read? Let My Students Tell You

Today’s guest post is by Cyndy Etler (@cdetler), author of We Can’t Be Friends and The Dead Inside.

I’m the most privileged young adult author on the planet. It took me ten years to write my first book, The Dead Inside, but during that ten years, I taught high school English. Cha-ching! I used my work-in-progress as a textbook. Translation: my 958 beta-readers were real, live teens, I got feedback from them five days a week, and they trusted me enough to be honest. Whoa, Nelly, were they honest. I’ve boiled their lessons down to four key points on how to write killer-engaging YA; read on to let my students school you.

Lesson 1: Make it real.

If you want your book to be the one that teens scarf down in one sitting, talk to their friends about, and consider a part of their actual life, you’ve got to give them the dirt most adults won’t touch. Real language—meaning cuss words, if you can deal. Real sex stuff, instead of cutting the scene when the going gets going. Real substance use, if that’s how your characters would spend their Friday night.

This is a scary prospect. It feels like it violates some sacred oath: “Protect the children!” But here’s the thing: the children aren’t protected. They’re doing this stuff—the cussing, the sex, the drugs and the booze—or if they’re not, they know that their peers are. It’s ourselves we’re protecting, by pulling down the blinders.

In avoiding these topics, we get to feel like righteous role models. We’re able to maintain the sweet myth of innocent childhood. In the process, though, we’re leaving teens to their own (developmentally immature) devices to deal with life’s strongest influences. Because you know, and I know, and D.A.R.E. and Planned Parenthood know, that teens find, and do, whatever they want.

What we don’t know, unless we have direct contact with forthright teens, is this: teens are desperate for this information. They’re dying to understand how sex and substances work, to know how their peers are faring with them. And possibly, quite possibly, to learn that they don’t have to participate, because they’re not the only one who doesn’t want to.

When we cloak the taboo stuff under the guise of “protection,” teens turn to their peers for information, the same peers who will do and say anything to appear #cool, #chill, #down_for_whatever. If we’re willing to present gritty topics in a way that rings true—that sounds and smells and feels like their reality, without a moralizing agenda—teens will bust a library door down to get it. And more importantly, they’ll consider their own behaviors, and possible consequences, as they read about characters they identify with.

If we’re lucky, they might even start a dialogue on these topics. After reading a sexual assault scene in my book, one of my students told me—because she “knew I would understand”—her plan for that night: to run away from her group home and meet a boy at an abandoned house where they could have sex. She understood that, if she ran, she’d lose her bed at the group home. But so strong was her need to connect with someone, she was willing to sacrifice the roof over her head.

In talking her plan out, she evaluated rewards and consequences. By connecting with a non-judgmental adult, she met her original need: to feel seen, heard, and cared for. In the end, she chose not to run away. Without the exposure to this “too real” scene in a book, though, she’d have gone ahead and made a crippling “too real” life decision. Which one’s riskier: sheltering her from the grit, or exposing it to her on the page? You decide.

Setting aside the question of conscience, let’s consider the results of some YA literary risk-taking of the past. How about Go Ask Alice? That book was all about some drugs. Published 46 years ago, it has 9,241 Goodreads reviews today. Kids still cite it as a favorite. Judy Blume’s 1975 YA novel Forever…, in which the main character’s BFF advises her, on sex, to “just get it out of the way,” is number seven on the American Library Association’s list of 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books, and was also the runner up for the National Council of Teachers of English’s Best Book of the Year award. And Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak, about a teen girl’s rape, is so frequently taught in high school classrooms, it has its own Cliffs Notes. The moral? Not only do teens want and need the real scoop, but schools and libraries will support those books that tackle it. Further, those books stand the test of time, earning new fans over decades.

Lesson 2: Make the protagonist a kid with no parental oversight.

When you hang out in schools you learn, whether you’re a student or not. This tidbit came to me because my “classroom” was a conference room in the school library. During hall duty one day, the librarian told me this: “The books that get checked out most frequently, in school libraries nationwide, are the ones where the kid has no parent on the scene.”

*Click* Of course! I was getting certified as a teen life coach at the time, and had been studying Autonomy Theory, which says this: because their bodies and brains are about to fly the coop, the adolescent human goes through a developmental phase where they tell their parents to GTHO. It’s like, a human imperative. Baby bird needs to grow wing muscles to fly; teen kid needs to grow independent thoughts to get their own apartment. Books that feature teens who are forced into this autonomy, with no pressure or bad feelings from the parents they’re peeling away from, are a combination guidebook/escape hatch. No wonder they rocket off the shelves.

Looking at this through a lit-technical lens: to drive a story, we need a struggle. In books for younger children, the struggle might involve monsters under the bed, a cookie jar the kid can’t reach—the type of problem your average adolescent solves in a snap. Teen characters need to face challenges that are more complex. But if said character has an ever-present parental unit, well, why wouldn’t the parent just fix it? Even if that parent was somehow incapacitated, unable to save the day, if parent and teen share a cozy, close relationship, teen would just talk her plight out with the ‘rent for emotional support. And that, as a plotline? Ho-friggin-hum.

Maybe you’re the parent of a teen. Maybe you’re close with that teen. So maybe this isn’t ringing true. But let me tell you, as an adult who has taught and coached teens for 22 years, you are the narrow exception. From my juvenile jail students to my privileged coaching clients, the kids perceive a disconnect from their parents. They love ’em; some even obey ’em; but they feel a gap between their own experience and wishes and their parents’ expectations. Like, all teens do. They have to. It’s nature. So. If you want young adults to connect with your book, give ‘em a character who is experiencing this same strange new struggle.

Want proof? Okay, but I almost feel guilty, like I’m beating a five-year-old at Thumb War. You ready? Google “most popular books for teens,” and you know what pops up? Dude, The Outsiders. As in, kids who are exiled from society because they have no parents.

Need I continue? The Hunger Games, where teens are shipped off to fend for themselves or die, as the adults wordlessly watch. The Catcher in the Rye, which, duh. I don’t want to keep insulting you. Just name any successful book for teens; you’ll spot the trend.

Lesson 3: Feature the topics making headlines vis-à-vis teens: anxiety, suicide, bullying.

Have your characters experience these struggles, but don’t describe them in a way that’s instructive or glamorous. Lord, and you thought simply writing with cuss words was scary!

Let’s tackle the danger zone first. When we’re writing for youth, there’s an implicit understanding: we’re writing for youth. Our readers are impressionable. If our stuff is good enough to hold teens’ attention, they like it. And if they like it, they want to align themselves with it. That means—and this goes into the flipside of Autonomy Theory, to what teens are reaching toward, as they move away from their parents—they want to imitate it. Therefore we have a power, and an obligation to use that power for positive influence. Does this sound like a bunch of psych mumbo jumbo? One word for ya: Slenderman.

This influence accounts for the alarm bells going off around the Netflix series 13 Reasons Why, with critics saying it glosses over, and glamorizes, suicide. If self-destructive behaviors can be perceived as a solution, especially if they’re committed by a character with whom teens connect, those behaviors can look mighty appealing. However. If we convey the actual experiences attendant with these behaviors—the horror, the pain, the repercussions—then we’re not idealizing them; we’re edifying on the reality of them. We’re painting a deterrent.

Given the risks, why even go there? Long short: because so many desperate kids need to know they’re not alone. Abused kids. Depressed kids. Bullied kids. Anxious kids. The list is endless, and the struggles are taboo. Nobody wants to go there. There’s no quicker way to earn a lunchroom status of “nobody to sit with” than to throw your ugly truth on the table. So not chill.

Prepare to be astounded at the numbers. Just to scratch the surface, current data shows 6.3 million teens have an anxiety disorder, and suicide rates for teen girls are at a 40-year high. Even if kids decide to break the taboo and seek help, where are they supposed to go? As we’ve touched on, the parents are out. The guidance counselor is swamped with scheduling and college consulting. If the school has a social worker or psychiatrist—big if—she or he is only on campus part-time. But you know what kids have access to? Books. Books like yours. Books that can offer, at the very least, a character who’s facing the same struggles. A message, a sweet, kind, necessary message, that the struggling kid is not the only one.

Author Ellen Hopkins, a pioneer of the “edgy YA” genre, has written multiple New York Times bestselling novels. She writes about teens dealing with hardcore issues—drug addiction, sex trafficking, child abuse, mental illness, teen pregnancy—with a gloves-off, take-no-prisoners style that has landed her, multiple times, on the American Library Association’s “Most Frequently Challenged Authors of the 21st Century” list.

But that’s the adults talking. Know what the teens say? Thank you. Your books helped me understand someone I love. Thank you. Your books saved my life. Tens of thousands of readers have written; they all send the same message: without your edgy, dangerous books, I’d still be lost.

Lesson 4: Include hope.

As my students read my book, they highlight the stuff that relates to their lives. I watch as they carefully press bars of fluorescent ink over abuse scenes and drug experimentation and painful interactions with peers. And then we talk. The readings open them up. The bolder kids share their stories with the class; the shy ones wait ’til it’s just them and me. Their histories differ, but their wrap-up is always the same: “But now things are getting better.” Maybe optimism is another youthful imperative, because the kids, they keep looking up. They believe it’s gonna get better. Until, maybe, they don’t.

Kathleen Glasgow, author of the gorgeous New York Times bestseller Girl in Pieces, stressed this point at a recent reading: “If you’re going to write for kids, you must, you must, give them hope. It’s the price you pay in exchange for their trust.” Kathleen understands how readers seek solutions in the books they love; she found solace in titles that deal with self-harm and depression. She also knows how teens meld with the books they love, regularly receiving fan art of the characters in her story.

Given that teens do so strongly identify with fictional characters, à la Slenderman, we want to make sure we balance all that real, all that grit, with characters who find their way up and out. Not that the good has to be treacly—spoiler alert, the happy ending of John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars is when the boyfriend-widowed protagonist realizes, “You don’t get to choose if you get hurt in this world…but you do have some say in who hurts you.” Not exactly word confetti, but: the kid ends up empowered. She has a say in life. She’s not a victim.

That message—that you have the tools within to move beyond pain—is what we must leave our readers with. Because even if they don’t have lunch-friends, or parents, or a guidance counselor with time to counsel, our readers have themselves. Around the clock. If your book illustrates that one’s self is enough, you give readers the greatest gift possible: self-efficacy, tied with a bow of hope.

Long short, what do young adult readers want to see in the chapters of your book? They want to see themselves. Their pain, their experimentation, their autonomy. They want to read about what they’re living, what their friends are living, and they want it in detail. At the end, they want to see themselves figuring out how to win. Such truth can be scary to write. That’s good. Scary is real. Bathe in the fear; use it as your ink. Because when it comes to YA, the real is what gets you the win.

5 On: Lisa Tener

In this 5 On interview, book-writing coach Lisa Tener (@LisaTener) shares important lessons learned during the writing and publishing of her first book, the ups and downs of co-writing, the most important platform every writer should have, and more.

A book-writing and publishing coach, author, and speaker, Lisa Tener’s clients have signed 5- and 6-figure book deals with HarperCollins, Simon and Schuster, Random House, Scribner’s, HCI, Beyond Words, New World Library, Hay House, New Harbinger, Yale University Press, Johns Hopkins University Press, ABC-CLIO, and other major publishers, as well as self-published.

Tener serves on the faculty of the Harvard Medical School continuing education course on writing and publishing books. She teaches 8-week classes on book writing and workshops and is a contributor to the Huffington Post and Aspire Magazine.

5 On Writing

KRISTEN TSETSI: It took you seven years, you’ve said, to get from having the concept for your first book, The Ultimate Guide to Transforming Anger, to holding the finished product in your hands. One of the lessons you said you learned in those seven years was persistence. What was another unforgettable (whether painful or epiphanic) lesson you learned in that time?

LISA TENER: Listen!

No matter how painful the message—listen!

I started out with a really bad book but an interesting idea—a book to help people gain a new perspective on anger. I had this idea of offering exercises that help readers tap into their creativity, intuition and sense of humor to transform anger. Those exercises became “Anger-obics” – a way to heal, fuel personal growth, and improve communication, relationships, and mood.

The exercises were pretty cool from the beginning, but the rest of the book—let’s just say my friends who read my first drafts tried to let me down as easily as they could.

I really loved my original title—Engage Your Rage. When my friend, Lindsa, pointed out that no one wanted to engage their rage—rage is too scary—I listened again, even though I really loved that title. I knew she was right.

My friend, Peaco Todd, an author and cartoonist, saw the potential in the exercises and suggested that rather than write about my own experiences with anger, the book would be more powerful as a self-help book with well-researched information and a variety of anecdotes and vignettes.

Lucky for me, I listened and ended up collaborating with Peaco. I listened to Peaco a lot. We found a therapist with a PhD to vet anything we wrote and to contribute a page of writing to each chapter. We refined the idea, came up with a structure and sample chapters, and met with a handful of rejection letters over the course of several years. Those were the days when agents did not accept simultaneous submissions and we’d send one proposal out and wait for weeks—and up to six months—only to hear one agent wasn’t interested. Time to move on to the next.

My next opportunity to listen came at my first International Women’s Writing Guild Conference at Skidmore College. After an inspiring welcome by Hannelore Hahn the first night, I walked out to the cafeteria with a group of ten or so women. Within five minutes, everyone at our table left to go to bed. I was left with Rita Rosenkranz, the only literary agent attending the conference.

Rita was so generous with her time. She recommended I read Michael Larsen’s How to Write a Book Proposal, which I think was only in its second edition at the time (the 5th edition just came out this fall). She wasn’t interested in representing an anger book, but she spent at least half an hour advising me on how to make the proposal compelling.

In addition to listening to Rita’s suggestions, we asked for feedback from the agents who rejected the book. Our therapist contributor was not as committed to the book project as we were and we realized that we’d have the best chance of being published if we worked with an expert who wanted to be an equal partner in the project.

We researched and came up with our first choice—Jane Middelton-Moz. Oddly, our letter never made it to Jane due to a move and misspelling her name when we tried to correct for the “middle” part, but our second choice collaborator told us, “You should ask my colleague, Jane Middelton-Moz.” We did, and Jane brought her expertise to the project. Again, we listened, and it became a much better book—and a marketable one.

Throughout the project we got feedback, especially about the exercises. Which ones were clear? Which were confusing? We listened again and kept improving.

Listen to mentors, listen to experts in the field, listen to colleagues and, above all, listen to your beta readers! Of course one needs to sort out what’s useful—especially if some feedback conflicts with other feedback. First listen, then sort out, using your intuition.

Nowadays, a self-help book is unlikely to take seven years. Not only can you submit to more than one agent simultaneously but there are so many professionals available to help with every aspect of the process.

What inspired you to co-write The Ultimate Guide to Transforming Anger: Dynamic Tools for Healthy Relationships?

In terms of the original inspiration, short answer: I couldn’t sleep so I started writing a book.

The longer answer is that while lying in bed, I felt uncomfortable in my body and had no idea why. It felt like anger. I decided to imagine the feeling as this powerful energy coursing through my body. It felt great and I no longer felt that weird discomfort that kept me from sleeping. But I still couldn’t sleep with this powerful energy streaming through me.

So I got up and started writing and realized it would be very cool to come up with a whole bunch of exercises like that—exercises to engage with uncomfortable, angry feelings in playful ways to get at the message behind the anger and explore how to resolve or address it.

The collaboration part came when I realized my limitations both in ability and expertise but didn’t want to abandon the project. Peaco Todd suggested collaborating and adding cartoons. The cartoons added so much to the book. In fact, when we approached our third co-author, Jane seemed even more attracted to the idea of cartoons and adding humor than she was to the anger-obics exercises.

How did you and co-authors Jane Middelton-Moz and Peaco Todd, respectively, divide tasks, and what are the best and worst aspects of co-writing a book?

Best:

It’s a great way to get started on your first book. You can learn so much from colleagues and they can make up for your deficiencies—and mine were many!
When it comes to marketing the book it’s especially efficient. You have two—or in our case, three—people to spread the word, rather than one. We all had our specialties. Jane was the anger expert—she’s a therapist. Peaco addressed subjects that she had special expertise in. For instance, she appeared on ESPN to discuss anger in relation to sports and she was our go-to for humor. I did a lot of the interviews about anger-obics, since I came up with that idea and most of the exercises. Of course, it was also fun when we got to join each other for interviews, particularly on TV.

The challenges:

It’s inevitable that there will be differences of opinion. One thing we did was to try to anticipate problems that might come up and put together an agreement about how we’d resolve any differences.
It wasn’t always easy. One time, Peaco and I realized we had completely different perspectives coming into a planned co-writing retreat. Communication was key to resolving the issue. We definitely had to take our own advice—from the book—several times and be creative about how we dealt with anger and misunderstandings! As a side note, I find this often with self-help authors. If you are writing about a particular subject, one or more challenges will come up relative to that issue while writing the book. It helps you remember exactly where your reader is—in the muck and mire of the challenge. And it keeps you honest.
Another challenge when co-writing is how to find a consistent voice. Our solution was to divide up chapters and each write a first draft of three to four chapters. Then the chapter got passed around to the next person until all three of us had edited it. At the very end, we got together at Jane’s house in Vermont for three days and finalized all the chapters so that we could hammer out any creative differences in person. Jane had some great anecdotes from her work, so she added quite a few examples at the end—some of them very funny! Did we achieve a completely consistent voice? Maybe close. Not entirely.

To answer the first part of your question, Peaco and I first worked together brainstorming the book concept and structure. We had lots of fun naming chapters after popular songs—from Cry Me a River to Burning Down the House!

We also worked together at her computer on the book proposal. I think we may have even written the sample chapter together sitting at her computer. And then Peaco did these wonderful cartoons about a set of 20-something friends, some couples, some not, to bring the concepts to life and entertain readers.

A cartoon can communicate almost a chapter’s worth of information in so few words, and nails the message. Laughter is a powerful release, too—a perfect tool for working with anger! When Jane joined the project, she weighed in as a professional and expert. She offered excellent changes.

As I mentioned, once we were working on the book, we divided up the writing by chapters. Each person got a chance to edit, and then we hashed it all out in person. Peaco developed all the cartoons. And I created the majority of anger-obics exercises but Jane and Peaco contributed a few as well.

What do you tell a client who wants to write a how-to but can’t figure out how to turn their experience or advice into a book-length manuscript? That is, what they have to say can easily fill one chapter, but they have no idea how to stretch it into ten chapters.

Some ideas make a better article than book. I wouldn’t advise trying to stretch something just to make it a book if it can be communicated as effectively and completely in an article or short ebook.

If a client comes to me with a chapter’s worth of material and they want to expand it, I might offer suggestions about features that help readers engage with the material—adding stories that bring the material to life, adding exercises or journal prompts, adding tip lists. There are ways to make the experience richer and expand it authentically.

Developing a list of steps can be natural way to develop a structure and then organically expand. Yet, it’s also important not to be too formulaic or it may not feel very fresh to readers.

Interestingly, maybe because my clients tend to be experts in health, personal growth and business, they usually have a lot to say. The more common challenge is narrowing the book down to one subject rather than three or four. Whittling down rather than trying to stretch it out.

When you want to read recreationally, what genre do you gravitate to? What are some of your most recent recreational reading book purchases?

Oh, fiction, definitely. I love chick lit. Give me a book with well-drawn characters that makes me both laugh and cry and I can stay up half the night three or four nights in a row (I’m a slow reader). And if there’s a bookstore in the story—bonus!

Right now, though, I am on the sixth book of the Circle of Ceridwen series by Octavia Porter Randolph. The historical detail is so well researched and recreated, I feel like I’m half living in the ninth century right now. As if I really get what it’s like to fight Danes onboard a merchant ship, play dice games behind a tent at a ninth century trading post, cook a tasty browis or make offerings to Freyja.

I like reading about nature and picked up A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson at the library for my son. He didn’t read it, but I did. I enjoyed the vicarious thrill of the journey and Bryson’s honesty. It’s not a book about perfection! His sense of humor, though, was a little too snarky and cynical for me. I preferred Wild by Cheryl Strayed.

I also enjoy a good travel memoir. Karin Esterhammer’s So Happiness to Meet You: Foolishly, Blissfully Stranded in Vietnam came out in July. Full disclosure: I worked with Karin on her book proposal, but I had only seen the sample chapter. So it was quite a treat to be transported to a destitute neighborhood in Vietnam and experience the country through the eyes of Karin and her family, who had no idea what they were getting themselves into when they sold their house and possessions and moved across the globe for a job that didn’t pan out.

I do enjoy self-help and how to, but because I edit those genres, they rarely offer the guilty pleasure of fiction.

5 on Publishing

Is there a subject or perspective self-help writers tend to think will be more attractive to publishers and readers than it actually is, something that simply doesn’t sell as well as they believe it will?

Because I’m on the faculty of Harvard Medical School’s CME publishing course, I hear a lot of pitches about books to change the healthcare system. Healthcare is a huge problem, but it’s not that easy to sell a book about fixing the broken system. There are books that break through, like Elisabeth Rosenthal’s An American Sickness. But the majority of books on the subject are not going to garner many readers, and are not as likely to interest publishers. Having said that, I am working with an author now whose book is fresh enough that I think it has that breakthrough potential.

In terms of self-help, I hear from a handful of people every month who are writing general books on how to be happy. Now, everyone wants to be happy and live a joyful life, but how is your book going to stand out on a crowded bookshelf? You either have to find an interesting niche audience for that book, an unusual way of looking at the issue, or a very fresh way to express yourself. Mark Manson did that with The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life.

If someone who has a sound idea isn’t a very good writer, doesn’t have a writer network, and can’t afford professional editing—but really wants their idea, a good one, to be a book—how much does that matter when it comes to helping them place their manuscript with a publisher once they’ve finished their best draft?

There are certainly many excellent books on writing, so if someone can’t afford an editor, I would recommend reading good books on writing and also reading great books in their genre. However, if a writer has a budget for quality editing, I strongly recommend it.

There are also some writer tools, I think of autocrit, that are cheaper than an editor and could certainly improve the writing and teach the writer a few things. Can that replace an editor completely? I don’t believe so. How can you replace the intuition and creativity a human brings to the job? Still, if there’s no budget for an editor, this would be second best. Or it could help save some money in cutting down the number of revisions needed to be seen by an editor.

It’s going to be near impossible to place a poorly written book with a traditional publishing house. The best thing that person can do is maybe find a talented co-writer who’s willing to write on spec. Even a skilled and experienced writer usually needs an editor. Maybe beg the ex-stepson of your second cousin-once-removed who happens to work in publishing to give you feedback in exchange for a month’s work of home-cooked organic dinners, or whatever special skills you can barter for their expertise. Get creative!

One of your services is to help a writer complete a how-to manuscript in 8 to 12 weeks. How long will that manuscript typically be, and is a shorter or longer self-help book more appealing to publishers?

Yes, the idea is to complete a first draft or a first draft with holes. My program is designed for a book that doesn’t require much research or interviewing, or where the author has already done all the research and knows her stuff. I’d say the majority of those books are somewhere around 150-200 pages.  But Vicky Dunckley wrote the first draft of Reset Your Child’s Brain in that class and her book is over 300 pages. So it varies.

Self-help books are getting shorter, in general. I tend to recommend writers think about what length works for their audience—working moms with young kids may need a shorter book than retired boomers. Also look to your material and what feels organic to you. Don’t try to pad a book just to make it longer.

If a writer comes to you with a book idea but no existing platform, what is the first thing you advise they do?

It depends on their particular audience (where do those readers hang out online and offline?), their skills and interests (what will the author enjoy doing—and keep doing over time—and still have fun with it?)—and the subject (what platforms are most appropriate?).

One thing every author needs is a website. So if they don’t have a website, that’s where we start. And that site should have a very visible call to action that gets visitors to share their email address and first name—an enticing free gift such as an ebook, tip list, audio or how-to video.

I also usually recommend blogging because it’s so effective in a variety of ways. They can start with a personal blog on their website and then pitch a column to Psychology Today, the Huffington Post or Entrepreneur, for example. However, blogging is not for everyone and I hesitate to offer a cookie cutter approach.

Sometimes we focus more on building on a foundation they already have, like public speaking, training or a particular social media platform.

How important is timing when writing self-help or how-to books? They say not to follow trends in fiction, but is it different for the self-help genre?

Timing is everything. I had an author with a great dating/relationship book. It was a really special book—applying cutting edge research from a different field to relationships. He had inspiring case studies from his clients, with dramatic results. I especially loved his voice—nurturing and witty and kind and generous—and the quirkiest of his true life stories.

He worked hard on  developing a platform, pretty much from scratch.  He wrote a compelling book proposal and got a top agent. But it was bad timing for a book like that. Several publishers liked his writing but either had recently bought a dating book or just didn’t want a dating book at all.

Fortunately, despite his disappointment, he kept blogging. A publisher who’d seen the earlier proposal liked a blog post of his that went viral and thought it could be a hot book subject. The publisher asked him to write a proposal and he got a six-figure deal.  So it worked out for him but not with the dating book.

Parenting books can be a hard sell, too. Sometimes it makes sense to get creative about how you pitch a book. Maybe find a different audience or angle. On the other hand, if you know you’re here to serve parents, don’t try to write for a different audience just because you heard parenting books are hard to sell. Follow your bliss.

Thank you, Lisa.

Join me in Charlottesville for a 6-week course on social media

This fall, I’m delighted to be teaching a 6-week course on social media for beginners in partnership with WriterHouse.

Many authors have a love-hate relationship with social media, especially when it’s seen as a distraction from the writing work, with nothing but the noise of what people had for lunch (or worse).

My course focuses on how to find a place for social media in your writing life, and create a personalized foundation that’s truly yours—that adds energy and creativity to your life, rather than draining it.

Over six weeks, our goal will be to eliminate as much guesswork as possible in setting up and using your social media accounts, and how to retain your authentic author’s voice regardless of your strategy or level of engagement.

Date: Tuesdays nights in October and November, starting Oct. 10

Time: 6–8 p.m.

Place: Indoor Biotechnologies (near WriterHouse)

Cost: $325 members / $400 non-members
Register directly with WriterHouse

Technical requirements: Students will get the most out of this course if they have a laptop they can bring to class, so they can do hands-on work with the instructor. Most weeks will incorporate specific technical instruction and assistance to help get your accounts in order, and to teach you how to post effectively. It’s best if you’ve already created basic, personal accounts at Facebook and Twitter, and know how to login before you come to class.

This class will cover:

Best practices and principles of social media use, and how to approach social media in a productive and healthy way, as part of a larger career
How to effectively and happily use Facebook personal profiles, official business pages, and/or groups
The Twitter ecosystem: how to understand its unique language and manage the information firehouse, whether you plan to participate or just lurk and learn
How to become savvy at visual and multimedia forms of social media, such as Instagram, Pinterest, and YouTube
How to effectively integrate social media into your website and blog, if you have them
Examples and case studies of authors who use social media effectively

Students will have the opportunity to request guidance on specific social media sites they want to use; sessions will also incorporate constructive critiques and discussion of students’ existing social media use.

While marketing and promotion strategies will be touched on, the primary goal of this course is to provide an introduction to the tools for those with little or no experience with social media. By the end of the six weeks, students should have less anxiety or confusion about social media, plus have a strong handle on the basics of “showing up” consistently and meaningfully—while keeping any needed boundaries in place.

Learn more and register at WriterHouse.

Don’t Know How to Market Your Book? Start in Your Own Backyard

The No. 1 question I receive from writers is “How do I get published?” The most common question after that is: “How do I market my book?”

That first question is far more straightforward to answer, and an easier task for most people. Getting a book published remains a fairly consistent process regardless of who you are, where you live, how much money you have, or what type of book you’ve written.

Marketing, on the other hand, has an incredible number of variables that depend on knowing your reader (your target market) and what resources you have to reach them.

In my latest column for Publishers Weekly, I discuss how to begin formulating a marketing plan that is not only effective, but doable, based on where you’re at today. Here’s how it begins:

When I hear professional publicists and PR people offer advice to authors, one theme that comes up again and again is: start where you are. Use the power of your community—and the people you know—to gain momentum.

This is a strategy that does not receive enough serious consideration by traditionally published and self-published authors in their pursuit of bestselling books. Traditional authors can become overly focused on national media attention or industry reviews; indie authors can become obsessed with Amazon rankings and optimization. It’s not that those things don’t have a role to play, but national attention and great rankings are sometimes the result of doing a great marketing and promotion job within a community that knows you. It’s often easier to gain traction that way, and encourage word of mouth to ripple further out as a stepping-stone to the more difficult PR wins.

Read the entire column, Go Local: Marketing Books to Targeted Communities.

When You Shouldn’t Hire and Pay For a Professional Editor

Photo credit: Unhindered by Talent via VisualHunt.com / CC BY-SA

Today’s guest post is by Sarah Moore (@newleafwriter), a professional copywriter and the owner of New Leaf Writing.

At certain times in a writer’s life, professional editing is a very good idea: when you’re trying to make an excellent impression with a query letter; before you hit “publish” on an independent book; when you’re breaking up with someone via email and want to get it right.

… Just kidding. You don’t need to edit your breakup emails that carefully. (Also, what are you doing ending things via email? Text is definitely easier.)

But while it’s lovely to be an established—or even aspiring—writer who can afford editing, that doesn’t mean you should turn to it every time you need to make a piece sparkle. Such an approach amounts to wasted money, as well as wasted opportunity to practice a valuable skill. Yet you might be surprised how many people do it, and how many others advise it.

Many good reasons exist to hire a professional editor, but there are also valid arguments to hold off until later, if not forever. Even if the editing seems like a good idea, here are some times to skip the expense and go it solo.

When the Situation Does Not Call for It

It can be harder than you think to identify situations that don’t call for professional editing—and will most likely lead to wasted money. Some of the most common include:

When you finish the first draft of a book and really need to revise it yourself
When you want to clean up a novel or nonfiction book for beta readers
Any time you guest post on someone else’s blog
When it’s just for school or work (yes, people do pay others to edit for this)
When you have just finished anything and have not yet reviewed it yourself several times
When you’re only using an editor to sound fancy, impress an agent or give your work an extra push—usually, this doesn’t help much unless the work can stand on its own

Moreover, “professional” editors don’t always make your work better. Perhaps you hire a friend who edits for free (a sure sign of a novice), someone from a budget work-for-hire site or an unvetted freelancer. These folks, while usually well-meaning, often bring your work down conceptually, and may even do so even technically. In situations like these, rely on yourself and save the money.

When Your Work Isn’t Close to Final

A few months ago, I got a pitch accepted on a big blog. A big-big-big blog, in my very specific niche. I was thrilled and nervous all at the same time, determined to make the best possible impression. So I paid an editor to look over the 3,000-word post and polish it to a high sheen. She did an amazing job, I was happy with the results and the price was very reasonable. The more so when compared to how much the post would pay and the enormous exposure it would have brought me.

Only problem: The full piece didn’t get accepted, which shocked me. I thought I’d had it in the bag, but I didn’t. Sure, I can shop it around now, but I’m a freelancer who works on tight margins. I can’t afford to pay for less-than-sure bets, a fact I was blinded to at the time. I lost money.

Plus, if the piece does get accepted by another publication, that editor is likely to want changes. In my excitement I hadn’t stopped to think about the fact that even if the original editor had wanted the full piece, she would have made adjustments too.

So any time you’re submitting a piece that is likely to change quite a bit, don’t pay for services. The exception to this is a book manuscript. If it gets picked up, it will assuredly be edited, probably beyond current recognition. Nevertheless, making a good impression is critical in this situation and may warrant the expense.

When You Haven’t Yet Given Your Work Room to Breathe

Right when you finish drafting a novel or pounding out a 2,000-word piece is not the time to send it off to an editor. You’re tired; you’re too attached to the prose; your objectivity is shot.

In other words, the work probably isn’t as good as you think it is. If you pay an editor now, you’re wasting money—it’s probably not even halfway there yet. Don’t commit the Writing 101 blunder of submitting something the moment you bang it out; wait.

Neither should you make the mistake, however, of waiting a certain amount of time before you dive back in. A fresh eye is not guaranteed after the recommended 2-week resting period, nor do you have to wait that long to get one. In fact, I prefer to do several rounds of edits only a few days apart. For me, waiting too long severely diminishes my interest in a piece. Delay, and an article I was really, really excited to submit can become about as interesting as brushing my kid’s hair. That lost passion costs us writers even more than professional editing does, so when you feel ready and eager, dive back in.

When You Can Do It Yourself

Again, this might sound obvious … we’re all, like, awesome writers, right? We know when we need a pro to step in, or else we wouldn’t use one. Right? Right?!

Thing is, many writers, especially newbies, feel uncertain about their own skills and want the reassurance of a “real” editor. Usually that’s unnecessary. For instance, you have the ability to check for the following:

Repeated words (and phrases): No matter how cool a new piece of vocabulary is, don’t use it more than once. Anything unusual sticks out, and triply so when you use it twice.

Words you “mostly” understand: If you aren’t 100-percent sure you know what a word means, either look it up or give it a pass. Probably the latter.

Words that tax your reader: Even if it’s appropriate, it could still be exhausting. The concept of antidisestablishmentarianism can be expressed in eight short words or less; do that.

Insider words you haven’t explained: If you’re going to use lingo, make sure your audience knows what you mean … even a highly educated, niche audience can quickly get lost with too much shop talk.

You’re more than capable of scanning your work for verbal tics as well. For instance, I am terribly, horribly, predictably prone to overusing adverbs, especially of the –ly persuasion. If you see this suffix in a word, it’s safe to take another look at that word. Do you really need it? Most verbs don’t need to be modified. If someone is running, you can assume they’re doing it quickly. Crying? Probably miserably. Readers can fill in these blanks, so you can save your word count for what really matters.

Same goes for editing suggestions such as “use more precise adjectives.” You can do this easily on your own: “Elfin” may be more descriptive than “little.” “Captivating” might be better than “pretty.”

And instead of paying someone, spend time deliberately improving the editing craft. Learn all the little tricks that increase the readability and punch of your writing, such as removing “really” and a number of other unnecessary phrases.

But … Know When to Pay for a Good Editor

All that said, a professional editor is, eventually, necessary for books headed to publication. This means you should hire an editor for a manuscript prior to self-publishing, and you may want a professional to help smarten up a query letter. When it’s do-or-die time, call in the big guns and don’t cheap out. Your work will be so much better for it—yet another reason to save your bucks for when they matter.

In the meantime, don’t fear the editing beast. The more you increase your revision skills, the more confident you will become and the happier your bank account will be. Godspeed.

Oh, and feel free to send me your breakup emails so I can edit them for you. Let me just find the popcorn … okay, go.

Publishing Industry Status Report: Important Stories for Authors in 2017

photo by Annick Press

If you enjoy this post on the latest news and stories in the publishing industry, I recommend subscribing to The Hot Sheet, an email newsletter for professional authors that I write and edit with journalist Porter Anderson. On Friday, Sept. 15, we’re offering 30% off our annual rate for new subscribers in honor of our two-year anniversary. Use code 2YR when checking out.

Traditional Publishers in 2017: Holding Steady with Print Backlist and Audio

BookScan, which tracks US book sales, recently released a report showing that print sales are still increasing this year—up by 2.6 percent compared to the first half of 2016. More specifically, retail book sales (dominated by Amazon and chain bookstores) are up 4 percent, while mass merchandising book sales (such as Walmart and Target) are down 8 percent.

Ebook sales figures are not yet available for the first half of 2017, but early reports show a decline once again. Ebooks overall have lost about $1 billion of their value as a format for traditional publishers since 2013, when they peaked at $3.24 billion. In 2016, they declined to $2.26 billion, a 16.9 percent drop from 2015.

A few of the top print books for the first half of 2017 include the poetry book Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur (notable because it was first self-published), Hillbilly Elegy by JD Vance, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, and Camino Island by John Grisham.

Of particular note: Traditional publishers are experiencing strong backlist sales and soft frontlist sales as compared to last year. Frontlist sales are new titles, so publishers are experiencing some trouble getting new titles to break out (politics may be a distraction—see this AP trend article). BookScan’s list of top 10 print books for the year includes only one title published in 2017: Camino Island by John Grisham. Half of the list was published prior to 2015. (However, the folks at Publishers Marketplace noted on Twitter that this is not atypical. Last year it was two at this time; in 2015 it was three; in 2014 it was one.) Publishing industry vet and book marketer Pete McCarthy also noted on Twitter, “Marketing backlist is the ‘Moneyball’ equivalent of trading for a veteran you know can hit. Frontlist is drafting a high school pitcher.”

Audio continues to be the darling of the industry, jumping 18.8 percent in 2016 over 2015. And in the first quarter of this year, preliminary figures indicate almost a 30 percent increase over the same quarter last year; the Association of American Publishers says this is the third year in which audio has seen double-digit growth. But it’s still a low overall percentage of the market: in 2016, downloaded audio represented 1.2 percent of the market, according to the AAP.

Barnes & Noble Does Fine on Profits, But Not Sales in Fiscal 2017

Barnes & Noble’s outlook hasn’t been a rosy one over the last couple years, and their revolving door for CEOs hasn’t helped. (The latest CEO, Demos Parneros, took his position at the helm after a 30-year run at Staples.)

The good news is that B&N met their profit goals; the bad news is that full-year sales were down 6.5 percent from the prior year. Since B&N sales encompass many media, not just books, it’s helpful to look at earnings in the book category alone. Unfortunately, the decline is about the same—6 percent—partly due to lower sales of coloring books and juvenile titles. And they expect the sales decline to continue in 2018.

In Publishers Lunch (paywall), Michael Cader summarizes how B&N management, in an investor’s call, said they would address the challenges: launch a series of tests. Cader writes, “A lot of those tests focus on store layouts, ‘starting with space productivity,’ adjusting categories that are in decline and those that are growing.” That means: look for reduced space in areas of underperformance, including the Nook and music DVDs.

Always remember that B&N’s performance is not necessarily indicative of overall book retail health. As noted above, print book sales as tracked by BookScan show that the industry is not suffering the same rate of decline as B&N. Therefore, B&N is losing share to its competitors (Amazon).

In an article worth every author’s attention as B&N struggles, Nathan Bransford interviews Mike Shatzkin, who spells out the grave impact the loss of B&N could have on trade publishing, which was built on the ability of big publishing houses to put books on shelves. “That’s what they can do that authors can’t do for themselves and, up until now, Amazon couldn’t do for them either,” comments Shatzkin.

Starting with the premise that B&N sells two-thirds of the books sold through bookstores in the US, Shatzkin’s points include:

Smaller publishers would be hurt worse by a B&N collapse, since they have fewer mass-merchant outlets (such as big-box stores, which trade mostly in bestsellers) for their books.
Big publishers would find it less efficient but doable to launch trade books only through the disparate network of indie bookshops; smaller presses would have a harder time.
Should Amazon Books (Amazon’s physical stores) keep ramping up quickly, then all publishing roads would, finally, lead to Seattle.

Amazon Probably Has About 70 Percent of the Ebook Market

Earlier this year, Michael Cader of Publishers Marketplace published a four-part series on the state of the publishing industry as told through various statistics. In that analysis, he offered the following market share analysis for ebook retailers:

Amazon: 71 percent
iBooks: 14 percent
Nook: 9 percent
Google: 2 percent
Other: 4 percent

If you look only at the universe of Amazon ebook sales, Cader believes that self-published work constitutes about 40 percent of unit sales. However, he also estimates that publishers capture about 80 percent of the ebook dollars because of their higher pricing.

Cader also shows that self-published work accounts for about 60 percent of Kindle Unlimited reads and other borrows. The remainder is made up of titles from Amazon Publishing and the Kindle First promotional program (which offers Amazon Publishing titles only). Cader writes of Amazon’s proprietary e-reading programs, “[They] could be moving more units than all of the competitive stores together. It also means that Amazon Publishing … is on its own close to the size of the entire non-Amazon market.”

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