Books Sold: 0 (currently unpublished)
eBooks Sold: 1
Pages in Jumble: 107
I have spent time learning to find the chart to direct my passage into the new realm with the sleek Author-Ship beneath my feet and the steady wind of optimism at my back. And, alas, there are two early lessons from the experience. One, Jumble makes no progress in a week when time is spent muddling around with the locating of navigation charts. And two, while imaginary visions of coursing out into the open sea fill my head, I turn and look, and the shore is a stone's throw away.
But it doesn't matter, the time can grow long or short. We'll reach our destination. And there is fresh wind in the my sails to churn a fresh wake. So I hug the coast for awhile, researching my role, developing my authoring skills in the less-choppy water near shore, I'll be the better for it.
And I am already the better for it because of the influence from a nearby source. A gracious book reviewer, church leader to a daughter, and friend of the family, H.P., was kind enough to share in her experience in the publishing business to teach me. Please read her blog, Bookscoops. Her key advice:
- Read, read, read
- Sign up for writer's conferences
- Already missed the one in April at Boise State
- Great one coming up is the Writing and Illustrating for Young Readers, June 18-22, 2012 in Sandy, Utah.
- Use the writer's conferences
- For networking opportunities with editors and agents
- To learn about the market
- Everyone says the market is changing
- But no one is sure where it is heading
- Getting published these days has a lot to do with networking. Use conferences for networking possibilities
- Some people are trying to self-publish (like me and Kindle Direct Publishing)
- Learn to use a drawer manuscript. (I have been, and didn't even know I had been or what it was called)
- Get your book out there:
- Ask friends and neighbors to read and provide feedback
- Decide what is worth keeping and changing by listening
- Publishing Houses no longer accept unsolicited manuscripts. Need to have an agent. The Internet has made the dream of being an author explode. (I mentioned the documentary that I believe is called Cut, Copy, Paste which discusses the "democratization" of design in Graphic Arts)
- Editors are looking for authors that already have a Blog and already have a market (I have the blog, but not the market, but you, dear reader, about to change that for me. Thank You!)
- Publishers / Agents want plans for how your book fits into the market, especially in a query letter
- A good resource for this is the 2012 Writer's Market
- Look into:
- Society for Children's Bookwriters
- kidlit (Blog on advice on how to YA books)
- recommends books as well
- her information is invaluable
- amazing information on her blog to be able to see things differently to improve writing
- Word count is important for economic reasons. Need to keep the book to whatever the word count is that is about 200 pages
- Then there was this great advice from H.P.:
- since I have a background in chemistry, develop online tutorials for didactic books
- publish non-fiction first, publish fiction later, others have followed this route
- get a name and demand out first in their specialty
- work books and things like that
- then publish fiction
- Example of someone that started with didactic, then moved to YA, The Black Death by Diane Zahler
- Must be willing to accept feedback and make changes, especially from experts
I have included this advice because typing it up reinforces the information. And a second benefit is that this blog provides a repository so I'll be able to access this information anywhere at any time.
Though my sails be trim, full of fresh wind, let 'em slack and coast to shore. The time will be well spent. One of them that I will be spending time on is Smart Self-Publishing: Becoming an Indie Author. I'll be sure to tell you about it once I've read it. I can tell you now, the butler didna do it. But the coxswain is missing and the paymaster's body is in the dodger. Oh, wait! The fantasy is in the book, not the blog. Only the sailing metaphors are in play here. The bilge needs emptied and the captain's head needs filled.
Rest, for tomorrow: AHEAD!
Shore! Ahoy!
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