Write That Book Already!: The Tough Love You Need To Get Published Now (26 page)

Elaine Petrocelli, owner of Book Passage in Corte Madera, California, shares her tips for getting on her good side.

"Get to know your local independent booksellers—and please, don’t wait until your book is published. Recently a publisher called to tell me about a book she was about to bring out. When she said, ‘By the way, the author wrote a large part of her book in your café,’ I couldn’t wait to read it.

Go to lots of author events at your local store and do buy the speakers’ books. As you are purchasing, be sure to let the staff know that you love the store and that you are working on a book. If the store offers writing classes or writing conferences, sign up. Don’t be pushy. Booksellers get pushed a lot, and they love people who are appreciative and understanding. A few years ago I was in my office working madly to meet our newsletter deadline. A colleague called me to say, ‘A woman named Linda is here and she says she needs to see you.’ As I came out to meet her, I wondered what the problem might be. What I found was a beaming woman with a bottle of champagne and several glasses. She said, ‘My husband, Sheldon Siegel, took a mystery writing class here. He attended your Mystery Writers’ Conference last summer, and now he’s in a critique group with several writers he met here. He just got a three-book contract. We want to celebrate with you and our friends at Book Passage.’ Believe me, this author’s books are always prominently displayed in both our stores. He’s now the co-chair of our Mystery Conference. We love having events for his books and the booksellers at Book Passage consider him our own” ‹«

Speaking of bookstore events, when you do get to do one, be a pro. Think of ways to make your presentation fun and interesting. An author we know named Lynne Hinton wrote a novel called
Friendship Cake
about a group of women writing a church cookbook
,
and her publisher sponsored bakeoffs in every bookstore at which she appeared by providing a gift-basket prize for the customer who brought in the best homemade cake. It may sound hokey, but these events drew crowds with the irresistible guarantee of yummy refreshments at all of Lynne’s readings. Now, if your book is a thriller about FBI agents chasing a serial killer or a nonfiction book about the role of insects in shaping life in North America, then the bakeoff idea won’t work, and you’re just going to have to come up with another idea (maybe a g-string for G-men or an “ants in your pants” dance?).

Whether or not gimmicks are your style, it’s important to be an engaging and professional reader—a true performer. Here are some essential tips:

• Choose your reading section wisely and run it by a trusted advisor. Print it out in large-point font so you don’t have to squint or fumble for your glasses.

• Don’t rely on using a copy of your book from the bookstore shelves; it can be hard to read in certain lighting—and if the worst happens and the bookstore order hasn’t arrived before your event, you’ll still be able to do your shtick. Also, it always looks a little silly when authors spend time stumbling around their own books, looking for the part they intend to read.

• Make it a short reading—twenty minutes will do. Rehearse several times over several days.

• Remember to show up on time, sober and looking good, unless you are Hunter Thompson or Dylan Thomas, both of whom are dead.

• Whatever you do, always be nice to people—both the public and the bookstore employees. As we said before, books are sold one person at a time. Every fan you make can introduce other fans to your work. If no one shows up, you can still forge a relationship with the bookstore employees— who, we noted earlier, are the people who hand-sell books to the public.

Enjoy The Ride

Finally—and we really really mean this—take care of yourself. Take care of the people you love. Eat right, pay the bills, and keep breathing. Maintain your sense of humor. See a movie. Take your aardvark for a walk. Remember, there’s more to life than your book.

Publishing, like much in life, is a crapshoot—you could have a great book that releases the same day as some epic news event, and there goes your media opportunity. Or you could have a quiet book that no one, even you, expects much from, but it captures the zeitgeist (whatever that is) and takes off. Stay balanced and keep the faith. ‹«

Always let your publicist know if you can get a piece published in a magazine, newspaper, or online, or if you arrange any media or bookstore events on your own. Communicating with your publicity and marketing team will help them to help you. If you arrange an important media appearance without letting them know it may actually cause problems—they may not be able to book you something better because that outlet will feel that the story has already been told. Timing is also important—even big-time authors can blow their publicity opportunities by appearing on air months before a book is released. If
Fresh Air
has you on in January, they’re not going to have you on again in September just because your book is hitting the stores. Remember—this is a marketing and publicity campaign, and it calls for strategic thinking and teamwork— not impulsive behavior and ego.

ROLLING INTO BACKLIST

When your book first comes out it is considered “frontlist,” which, as we said earlier, is a term that refers to the publisher’s list of new or current titles. Although the terminology and accounting practices may vary from publisher to publisher and book to book, a general rule of thumb is that a book is frontlist for a year. If it is released in hardcover, a common practice is to release it in a paperback edition a year later to reach a different group of readers. (Often the hardcover goes out of print at this point.) The paperback edition is also considered frontlist. A year after that release the book becomes a backlist title.

The reason for the designation is more than just a matter of accounting: a strong backlist is generally seen as the way for a publisher to be profitable. Frontlist titles cost the publisher money, and many never earn back what it cost to pay the author, produce, market, and publicize the book. The costs for backlist are much lower, being mostly a matter of printing, warehousing, and distributing stock. The money for publishers, then, is generally in books that have long lives in backlist.

The paperback may have a new jacket and may involve a new push by the publisher. Paperbacks reach a different market—perhaps younger and generally wider, since many readers’ budgets don’t allow for frequent purchases of hardcovers. The new push also may reflect the successes and failures of publishing the hardcover. The publisher may have learned that your book has appeal for a different audience than originally anticipated. If there has been critical acclaim, the evidence of that will likely appear on the paperback in the form of endorsements on the cover.

In the meantime, you may be sick of the whole thing. You may wish you had written an entirely different book. You may forget what it is you wrote. You may have come to hate aardvarks. Never mind all that—be a pro and stand behind your work and your publisher, at least in public. And keep smiling.

Why? Because even if you are angry at your editor and sick of the subject matter, you want your publisher to succeed with your book. This is not because you are a saint, though you may be—it is because publishers keep winners, even modest ones, in print. If your books are still available, there is more opportunity for people to learn about your work and look for other books you’ve written. And then there are royalties. These probably won’t be huge, but if your book stays in print long enough and “earns out”—that is, when the book has sold enough for the publisher to have made back 100 percent of the advance money paid to you—you will begin getting royalties. This never happens for the majority of books, so if it does for yours, be proud.

In the meantime you can help with this process. Continue to expand your platform (however silly that sounds) by speaking, writing, watching out for media opportunities, and developing your online presence. When you do go to speak somewhere, make sure your hosts have copies of your book ahead of time, and also keep a supply of your own books on hand, as you may need to bring and even sell your own books on occasion. Maintain and increase your e-mail list and contacts.

Another important thing you can do is start writing a new book. It’s possible, even likely, that the new book will be related in some way to the first book. But whatever you choose to write, this gives you a positive outlet for your energies. So go for it. That’s what authors do—write. Plus, it will give you something to talk about when people ask you what you are working on now.

ROYALTIES AND OTHER POST-PUBLICATION BIZ

The typical royalty statement is a mystifying document—don’t feel bad if you don’t understand yours. You can ask your agent or editor to explain it to you, as each publisher’s format is slightly different. Royalties are computed via a mathematical system devised by Martians, but the basic idea is that the publisher pays you an advance and then waits until that advance is recouped (and returns are computed, a process that can apparently take years) in book sales before forking over any additional payments. Once your advance is recouped, royalties reflect “sell through”—or how many copies of your book have actually sold to customers. This is not the same as how many were ordered by stores. You can expect an obtuse and mystifying royalty statement twice a year.

A

Acetate
A transparent plastic sheet with images, sometimes in layers showing different printing elements such as an embossed title, or placed over artwork to protect it and to allow the designer to write instructions

Acid-free paper
Paper that resists yellowing from age, made with pulp processed with little or no acid

Acknowledgments
Preliminary pages in which the author thanks the people who helped create the book or provided other kinds of support, and a good place for aspiring authors to research the names of agents; believe it or not, this isn’t the most important part of your book—try to avoid thanking “everyone who made this possible” (e.g., your second-grade teacher, the guy who sold you all those lattes, your cat)

Advance
Money paid to the writer before publication; this amount is offset against the royalties the book will earn—don’t spend it all in one place

Advance copies
Books the publisher or printer sends to reviewers, media, and other interested parties before the publication date

Agent, agency (also literary agent or agency)
A person or organization representing authors, selling their work for publication, negotiating contracts; there are many versions of a classic joke about agents, but we won’t tell them here because the Author Enablers is a family friendly operation, but the punch line is always, “My agent came to my
house?!
”(Because, well, that isn’t going to happen.)

Artwork
Photographs and illustrations

Author questionnaire
A document the author fills out to identify marketing and publicity opportunities for the publisher

Author’s copies
Complimentary copies given to an author on publication; you never get enough, so avoid the temptation to give them to everyone you listed in your acknowledgments

Author’s corrections (AC)
Author’s corrections at proofing stage

B

Backlist
Older books in the publisher’s catalogue that are not necessarily being actively promoted but are still in print and available

Bar code
The ugly machine-readable code printed on products, used for pricing and tracking inventory

Big-mouth list
A list of prominent figures who can help get the word out about your book. Often publishers send these people a galley or finished book

Binding
To join pages or signatures (set amount of pages derived from one larger sheet of paper) with stitching, glue, etc.

Bleed
Layout that extends beyond the trim marks on a page; printed images bleed if they go to the edge of the page; also, what your fingers do if you spend too much time at the keyboard; also, what your heart does every time your manuscript gets rejected