Pitching Your Book

Writing your book is one thing. However, getting it published is quite another. It's all well and good to say that you want to write for the sake of writing--you need to love this career if you want to make any money, however, it is still nice to....actually make money. And if you want your book to be picked up by a publishing company, you're going to have to find a way to make it stand out.

Here are two main pieces of advice.

1) Elevator Pitch.
Imagine you're traveling in the elevator with someone and suddenly the lift freezes and you are both stuck there. Now normally that's horrible, but let's pretend that the one other person you are stuck with just happens to be working for a major editing company. And since they're trapped with you, they HAVE to listen to your idea for your book! There is no escape for them! (laughs manically)

...Ahem.
However, because you also want to make sure that your friendly book editor does in fact, become interested in your book and not just feign interest, you want to work on your pitch. Find a way to summarize your story in 30 seconds or less. The first part of these 30 seconds should be based on summarizing the exact plot, and in that short time you need to mention three things--the conflict, your character, and what makes it unique.

Remember these three tips--short, sleek and sexy.

Then the next part of your thirty seconds should be based on emphasizing your tagline. What would that be? Well you know how everyone likes to say, "It's the next Hunger Games!" or "It's Star Wars meets Harry Potter!" As eye roll inducing as these can be, they say a lot about your story and what makes it unique.

After that, the only thing that matters is combining the two and trimming them down. After all, you're going to be trapped in that elevator for likely only a short time, and you want to make sure that you leave the editor with something.

And that's how an elevator pitch works. Now you'll be ready for when you meet with your potential publisher. Even if that exact circumstance will probably never happen. Unless you.....arrange it yourself.

Go Where the Pain & Pleasure Is

I found this video today and I think she gives good advice.

Go to the Pain - think back to the painful experiences you've had, and write from there.

Go to the Pleasure - she says to write what YOU enjoy, write what you want.

She talks about publishing and it's a bit more encouraging than talks on publishing are sometimes. I'm not a hundred percent sure about self-publishing - that's a choice for us all individually - but check out her video and see what you think.

Welcome Zina Petersen to YPublish!

Zina Petersen is our new faculty advisor for the club! We are so happy to have her, and excited to learn from her experience. She shared some websites that might be interesting to take a look at - including blogs from authors and editors.

http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/

http://jscottsavage.blogspot.com/

http://www.ulfelder.com/category/blog/

http://www.garycorby.com/

http://jeffreysomers.com/blather/

http://misssnark.blogspot.com/

http://absolutewrite.com/

We also discussed possible connections with Gibbs Smith publishing, and we hope you all will consider querying Gibbs Smith in the future. :)

http://www.gibbs-smith.com/

The Dream Press - spread the word!

"Stories are the most powerful way to share what's most important to us." - Ben Ehlert

*If you're interested in learning more about publishing, the English language and Linguistics Department teaches a class on it.

You can submit stories and artwork, and then people vote for their favorites. Those that get voted up - and ones that get voted up will get viewed by publishers. The website's still in development (it's a beta website) but this is a cool new opportunity! Let's all spread the word about it!

Cover photos for your stories you submit on there:
1. Can upload your own cover image,
2. You can pay illustrators to do work - $20 b&w - $25 color - you describe what you want.

3. Drop cap - takes the first letter of the story and makes it that way.

Novels:
Submit just the first chapter, and see how people take to it.



Goal is 3 books in production - cover illustrated, edited, illustrated, designed, formatted, promoted & sold - they're trying to get the first books ready by APRIL. Usually publishing can take up to 2 years for that entire process.

Publishing Panel - Great Info on Publishing!

Publishing Panel February 26, 2013

Here are some notes, thanks to Deirdre Paulsen...

Chris Crowe BYU English Department, has published over 100 articles and 15 books:  “Editors don’t publish what editors don’t publish.”  Be familiar with Writers Market so can find out what publishers publish.  Amazed that writers submit pornographic material to Deseret Book!

Learn to cut. . .the editor should never be the first one to see your work (and your mother doesn’t count as a critical reader!).

 “I’ve written one children’s book and doubt that I’ll do another.”

Steve Cantwell vp “Writers-at-Work”:  “Have fun with failure.”  Have a thick skin – eventually you’ll start getting nice notes rather than nasty ones from editors.

Highly recommends Poets and Writers – “pulls together all deadlines.”  Also recommends all the “Best” books series. . .like Best American Spiritual Writing.  These books give the sites where the stories were published.

Glimmer Train is looking for new writers (a lot wind up in anthologies).  Great place to submit if just starting out.

Kent Minson BYU Academic Press: Talked about some of the dangers of self-publishing.  Usually when you self-publish it will cost you $10,000 for 1,000 to 2,000 books – then you still need to find a distributor and do your own marketing.  Most people wind up with a garage full of undistributed books.

BYU Academic Press on the other hand offers a la carte publishing:  cover design and editing for example.  And there is no minimum on how many books you have printed (you could submit a printed and bound copy of your work to a publisher to impress them).  You can also purchase a Press Package for $75 to have your book on the BYU Bookstore list.

Deseret Book publishes only 3% non-solicited manuscripts – they are looking for known names.  If  your work is fiction, try Covenant or Cedar Fort.  The better you know a publisher, it helps you get published and to understand why when they don’t publish.  They want return on their investment. 

Self-publishing a children’s book is very expensive since they have so much color plus they’re hard back.  It’s a very difficult market to break into – parents are very careful when purchasing childrens’ books. . .much more careful than when they buy a paperback for themselves in an airport. 

Marissa Widdison, Church Magazines, Friend magazine: Read the magazines you want to submit to first so that you know what stories they publish and how the topics are treated. (This seems simple, but there are lots of people who obviously don’t do this before they send things to us!) The Friend accepts the most freelance.  The other magazines accept articles from non-commissioned authors, but as donations only. Commissioned authors are usually experts in their respective fields (like the dean of a department at BYU).

For guidelines specific to each magazine, visit that magazine’s website and look for a link called “submit material” or “writer guidelines.” For the Friend, go to lds.org/friend and the link is at the bottom of the page.  If you send a message to friend@ldschurch.org, we will send you a list of topics that we are currently looking for.  If your work needs a lot of editing, or if you don’t have prior experience, we will often ask for the work to be donated rather than purchased.

I see success in this field as a combination of ingredients pulled from two wells. First, the well of life experience. Get out there and enjoy adventures, big and small! Look for stories in the world around you. Second, the well of knowing how to write well. Increase your knowledge of styles, treatments, literary devices, etc. Keep a journal where you practice sharing the stories you see each day. If both of these wells are kept full, the time will come when you will find a magic combination that someone will be thirsty for.

Come to fairs and conferences whenever possible—like the upcoming Publishers Fair. It makes a difference for editors if they have met with the authors. 

Colleen Whitley author and editor, established the BYU Publishing Lab in 1997:  Read your rejection slips and learn from them.  Become familiar with all the books like Writers Market so that you know where to submit certain genres.

Among the many opportunities facing new authors are some pitfalls, and as in every other area, the digital age has expanded both. Among the resources to help writers navigate these difficult waters is the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America website:  sfwa.org.  It is not limited to Sci Fi and Fantasy, but is open to the public, frequently updated, and offers a range of good sites for writers at no cost.  Their For Authors page, sfwa.org/for-authors/information-center has information on preparing and submitting manuscripts, contracts, and writing techniques. The Writer Beware section sfwa.org/for-authors/writer-beware alerts authors to publishers, editors, agents, and outright scams that have a track record of abusing writers. 

 When you are looking for places to publish, consider short non-fiction works such as travel articles in Travel magazines.

Literary Agents & Publishing

Tip - find a literary agent stationed (or who was stationed) in New York

Why is getting an agent important? EPublishing & Independent Publishers make it seem like agents aren't important, but...they are important.

Self Publishing / Independent Publishers
- don't need an agent

5 Big Publishers: Harper Collins, Penguin, etc.
- will only take manuscripts from literary agencies - no slushpile even there.
- to get published with them you HAVE to have an agent..

Agents
- if you get an agent, you don't have to know all the stuff in writer's market
- at the end of the Writer's Market it lists conferences - this is the BEST way to meet agents. then you can email them and say that you met that at this ___ conference.
- you can find someone looking for the specific kind of book you write - but they might have seen too many books like yours
- query far and wide!

Writer's Market tells you:
- how to write a query letter
- how to pitch your work
- lists all agencies in the United States, the genres they represent, how to contact them, what they want (hard copy, email, with or without a synopsis), instructions
- lists conferences - this is the BEST way to meet agents

Writing Query Letters!

All of us who want to get our writing published need to know about querying. It can be kindof a scary step in writing & publishing, but there are a lot of resources out there to help us along the way.

Writer's Market is great for finding who to send the letters to, and it's always a good idea to find out what the SPECIFIC publisher/agent wants. Sometimes you can find information like that in the entries in Writer's Market, or visiting their website.

Here are some good quick tips for writing query letters:
- You ALWAYS want to know about who you are submitting to. It's a little embarrassing to send them fantasy if they only publish historical fiction or romance.
- Know who to address the query letter to (it's better to have a name rather than "To Whom it May Concern" (it'll show that you took the effort of five extra minutes to figure out who the person is. Even if it isn't listed, you can probably find it on their website)
- be formal, and without grammatical errors. Some places toss letters with a mistake without a second look.
- new/different/original idea, present it soon in the letter (they read a lot of letters, don't want to take a lot of time)
- SHORT - only one page for the query letter.

Also, here is a great blog for learning about query letters:
http://queryshark.blogspot.com/

3 BOOK PUBLISHERS OPEN TO NOVELS

WritersMarket.com lists hundreds of book publishers for writers of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, writing for children, and more. Here are three looking for novel submissions:  DAW Books, Inc. is one of the rare imprints of Penguin that does not require an agent to make submissions on behalf of writers. The editorial focus at DAW is science fiction and fantasy novels. The editors caution that nearly all their novels are more than 80,000 words long. Milkweed Editions is a literary press based in Minnesota. In addition to novels, this press also publishes nonfiction and poetry. They're currently open to submissions through the end of September. After that, they'll re-open to submissions in January. Grey Gecko Press is a small publisher that accepts about everything—except extreme horror, erotica, and religious fiction. If you're writing in those genres, this isn't the press for you. For everyone else, it might be a good fit. Prospective authors should submit a synopsis and the first three chapters. (NOTE: If you're unable to access the listing, it means you either need to log in or sign up for WritersMarket.com first.) WritersMarket.com lists more than 8,000 publishing opportunities, including listings for contests, magazines, book publishers, literary agents, conferences, and more. Log in or sign up today to start submitting your work.