Patricia Fry - Publish Your Book: Proven Strategies and Resources for the Enterprising Author

Copyright 2012 by Patricia Fry

All rights reserved. Copyright under Berne Copyright Convention, Universal Copyright Convention, and Pan American Copyright Convention. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Allworth Press, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

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Published by Allworth Press, an imprint of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc. 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

Allworth Press is a registered trademark of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc., a Delaware corporation.

www.allworth.com

Cover design by Grillo Group, Chicago

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file. ISBN: 978-1-58115-884-7

Printed in the United States of America.

Dedicated to
hopeful authors everywhere.

How to Meet a Publisher Face-to-Face

Sample Marketing SectionYour Target Audience

How Long Does It Take to Write a Book?

Hone Your Speaking Skills

Patricia Fry has been writing for publication since 1973 and earning a living as a freelance writer, author, publisher, and editorial consultant for nearly twenty-five years. Hundreds of her articles have appeared in about 300 different magazines including Writer's Digest, Authorship, Canadian Author, Freelance Writer's Report, Spannet, SPAWNews, PMA (IBPA) Independent, Writer's Connection, Entrepreneur, Woman's Own, Country Journal, Catholic Digest, The Artist's Magazine, Pages, The World and I, The Toastmaster, Executive Update, Cat Fancy, Los Angeles Times, Kiwanis, Your Health and many, many others.

She is the author of thirty-five published books and counting. She established her publishing company in 1983, before it was fashionable, affordable or even convenient to self-publish. Around two dozen books have been produced through Matilija Press to date. She has also worked with traditional royalty publishers and co-publishers. This author has contributed to several other published books including, Confessions of Shameless Self Promoters by Debbie Allen, The Obvious Expert by Elsom and Mark L. Eldridge, Book Marketing from A-Z by Francine Silverman, Feminine Writes produced by the National Association of Women Writers, and Entrepreneur Media's Start Your Own Self-Publishing Business.

Patricia is the executive director of SPAWN (Small Publishers, Artists and Writers Network) http://www.spawn.org .

In 1998, she was chosen as a local Living Treasure in the literary category. She fulfilled her obligation by developing a program to take into the schools called, Write for Life. A few years later, she carried this theme into a highly successful workshop which she presented for a group of homeschooled children. By the end of their eight weeks together, the students had designed and published a book of their works.

Patricia writes the monthly SPAWN Market Update for the SPAWN website. She speaks at conferences and workshops throughout the U.S. and teaches publishing/book promotion-related classes both face-to-face and online. She also works with clients on their writing/publishing projects.

It is with pleasure that Patricia shares, through this book, her passion for writing and her knowledge of the publishing industry. For, in order to survive in this business, you must have a good measure of both.

Visit Patricia's informative blog often: http://www.matilijapress.com/publishingblog .

My driving forcemy motivationfor writing this book is you: the hopeful author, the inexperienced author, and even the fairly savvy author. You email me through the SPAWN website or my own website. You contact me in response to some of my articles and books. You stop by my booths at book festivals. You come to my workshops at conferences. And many of you ask me one of three questions:

1. I'd like to become a writer. How do I get started?
2. I've written a book, how do I go about getting it published?
3. What's the best way to promote a book?

Or you come to me complaining:

1. Publishers keep rejecting my manuscript.
2. I can't get my books into major bookstores.
3. My publisher is doing nothing to promote my book.

Herein, I've responded to these questions/comments and hundreds more. While this book provides nearly a thousand information bites, resources, lessons, and examples, it is not designed to take the place of hard work. This is an educational guide for authors, but it is not going to get you publishednot unless you USE what you learn here to move your career forward.

Throughout these pages, you will bathe in the wisdom of publishing experts. If you heed the warnings, study the instructions, apply the tools, and pursue the resources, you have a definite chance of reaching your professional publishing goals.

More people today than ever before are becoming authors. Unfortunately, most of them fail in their quest for success.

According to a Jenkins Group survey, seventy-six percent of books published in this country each year do not make a profit. Why?

Uninformed authors approach the publishing process all wrong.

Even excellent, worthy books go unnoticed when the author isn't industry-savvy.

Inexperienced authors tend to quit promoting their books when the going gets tough.

It used to be that authors wrote books and publishers produced, promoted, and distributed them. After participating in a few book signings, the author was free to go back to his home office and write his next bestseller. In order to be a successful author today, however, you must have a significant understanding of the publishing industry and be willing to establish a sense of intimacy with your book even beyond the writing process. It's imperative that you become involved in the promotion of your book and, in some cases, the production.

Technology has fueled dramatic changes in the publishing industryand the news isn't all bad. Hopeful authors are faced with greater challenges today, it's true; but there are also more options and opportunities.

According to self-publishing guru, Dan Poynter, in 1970, there were only about 3,000 publishing companies. Today, there are somewhere around 85,000many of them small/independent publishers who have established companies through which to produce their own books. However, hundreds of them are traditional royalty publishers seeking worthwhile projects. Yes, there are a lot of publishers out theremore than just the big six. So why is it so difficult to land a publishing contract? In a word, competition.

Some years ago, I heard it said that eighty-one percent of the public believe they have a book in them. With expanded publishing options, more and more of these people are actually writing their books. And millions of them are currently seeking publishers. Is there room in this industry for all hopeful authors? Probably not. But, according to R. R. Bowker, a whopping 1,052,803 books were published in 2009over 750,000 of them coming from pay-to-publish and independent publishers.