Posted by Mark Shaw on November 28, 2008
Hemingwaywantabes, I am hearing from many of you who are becoming discouraged about your publishing aspirations. Don’t be. If you have a unique book idea, don’t give up. There is inspiration everywhere as evidenced by these first-time published authors I have worked with over the past few years. They include:
Christine Montross – Body of Work: Meditations on Mortality from the Human Anatomy Lab, Nancy Spears – Buddha: 9 to 5: The Eightfold Path to Enlightening Your Workplace and Improving Your Bottom Line , Patti Lawson – The Dog Diet: What My Dog Taught Me About Shedding Pounds, Licking Stress, and Getting a New Leash on Life, Dawn Knight – Taliaferro, Breaking Barriers from the NFL Draft to the Ivory Tower , Frances Jewel Dickson – The DEW Line Years, Voices from the Coldest Cold War, Dr. Gordon Dragt – One Foot Planted in the Center, the Other Dangling off the Edge, Sam Drash – Reaching Paradise Through Intercourse: American Towns with Unique Names, Charles Pearson – The Last Expedition , Ron Lowry and Mary Walker – Chasing Lewis and Clark Across America: A 21st Century Aviation Adventure.
The key is the formula I purpose in How To Become a Published Author: Idea to Publication, free for the copying or downloading from the above text. Here it is:
Unique book idea+Great writing+Well-planned publishing strategy= optimization for your book to become published. If any of the parts of the equation are missing, try to fix them. Keep changing your book idea if you need to based on agent or publisher feedback. Keep revising your writing until it is the best it may be and get consulting help if you need it. And use proven strategies so as to prepare a professionally written book proposal and query letter. Self-help books are everywhere to assist you including the one above yours free for the taking.
Your book is important not only to you, but to those who will read it. Keep thinking of the day when you will hold that book in your hands, and remember, keep the faith because you never know when there is a miracle right around the corner.
Posted in Hemingway and First Time Authors | Tagged: Books, Bookstores, Editors, Ernest Hemingway, faith, Fiction, Hemingway, Inpiration, Keep the faith, Literary Agents, Never giving up, Non-Fiction, Novels, Publishers | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Mark Shaw on November 17, 2008
Hello hemingwaywantabes. Hope all is well.
Working on a new book, this one a biography of the famous spiritual guru Thomas Merton that will be published by Palgrave-MacMillan next fall, has once again reminded me of how important it is to keep revising week after week even though at some point all writers feel the book is “done.” This book is almost a year in the making and yet again today I was revising text, moving it around, paraphrasing where necessary, and clarifying where required. Perhaps it is this latter area that i believe needs the most attention since many books fail when the message, the theme, the ideas projected are simply not clear. One tip there – remember you know everything about your subject matter, but readers know nothing. With this in mind, you must be clear using words and phrases and sentences that clearly lay out what you are trying to say. This is the Achilles heel for most writers and I am certainly no exception. Revising is the author’s best friend since nearly every time there are revisions, the book is better for it.
Posted in Hemingway and Revisions | Tagged: Books, Editors, Ernest Hemingway, Fiction, Hemingway, Literary Agents, Non-Fiction, Novels, Pages, Poetry, Publishers, Publishing, Revisions | 4 Comments »
Posted by Mark Shaw on November 8, 2008
Why are some people so thickheaded that they will not listen? Why do they think they know more than ones who have experience and understand how success in the publishing arena is achieved? Why do they want to forge ahead on their own destroying any chance to become published.
Hemingwaywantabes, I am mystified by this but it occurs every day. This is especially true with those aspiring authors who decide, despite advice to the contrary from experts, either to send a manuscript to literary agents and/ or publishers or simply a query letter? With the former, the manuscript normally goes right in the dumpster because agents and publishers don’t have the capacity or the interest to read a manuscript.
Regarding query letters being sent alone to agents or publishers, this is quite risky since it is very difficult to completely describe a book concept in one page, and that is all permitted. Instead, a professionally written query letter should be accompanied by a professionally written book proposal. This despite some agent and publisher websites that request simply a query letter.
The book proposal permits an author to really detail the book concept her or she has in mind. You may look at samples for both fiction and non-fiction from the book presented above by either downloading it or simply copying the appropriate pages. Take a look – and then work to optimize your chances at publication by preparing first the book proposal, and then a query letter based on the text in the proposal. When you do so, then you have a complete sales package, one that clearly defines your book idea.
Don’t be stubborn. Don’t be stupid. To sell your book, you need the query letter and the book proposal. Now get to work
Posted in Hemingway and Selling Your Book | Tagged: Agents, Authors, Bestsellers, Books, Editors, Ernest Hemingway, Fiction, Hemingway, Literary Agents, Non-Fictions, Poets, Publishers, Writers, Writing | Leave a Comment »
