Frank Georgalis – Writer

Step by Step, Write, Promote and Market Your Book Part III

A farmer’s work is from sun to sun                                                                                                                                                                A writer’s work is never done

 

Having Your Book Edited

Here is another chapter and another battle or another river to cross. I shall talk and instruct you, thinking of you as an intelligent, creative and serious human being and not a DUMMY. This book that I have written resembles a seminar. I wanted it to be dissimilar to the other How to Books.

I will assume that you already have a book in your hands, which has been found marketable and you are 100% convinced that your book is fit for print. You are trying to guess which way to go to have it published and to sell it to make some money from it all. Now you must find an editor to edit your book. To give you an idea the good editors charge from about $4.00 to $7 per page reconstructing the book; a lot less for a simple line editing.  I suggest for you to find somebody who is good in English to sit with you and edit it. The cost will be way less.

Let us touch upon the editing subject. First you must do as much editing as you can by yourself. The reason I say this is if the construction of your sentences is not clear the editor may change it to what he believes, which may be different from what you are trying to say. A lot of editors are hurrying to the point but writers are lingering around before they get to the point. Evidently the editors don’t understand the writer’s reason for lingering around, because it isn’t spelled out, so they correct it their way and it sounds like textbook for high school students to the writer; that is when a battle between writer and editor is beginning to flourish. In a case such as this, the writer is right and the editor is right. The authors know their subject so well they are usually too close to judge. The professional editor can detect passages that ere not clear, poorly organized or overwritten. Overwritten is another case of an opinion. To the writer it seems natural to repeat certain words to emphasize the importance of the subject. For example I wrote in one of my books, “There I was walking around the big town, looking like a peasant, which I was, lost in the big city, not being able to adjust my eyes to the big buildings that stood before me, looking like monsters that they were prepared to fall on me on the first wrong turn, which I might have taken. Suddenly I saw a sign showing the direction, to Athens. Athens, I thought, there were very few things that I knew about the city of Athens  the only thing I knew about Athens was that it was the capital of Greece. The other thing I knew about Athens it was, according to the shepherds’ talk up in my hometown, the beginning of the Western Civilization. The other little thing I knew about Athens was the birthplace of many Ancient philosophers. Athens, I heard, was the city the critically sick who go there and never return home”. The editor tore the life out of what I had written and marked, “Athens is redundant, and overwritten. It should read. Athens from What I knew and heard was the birthplace of the Ancient Greek philosophers, the capitol of Greece and was the beginning of the Western Civilization,” That change he made burned me up. I told him that my writings sound like a song and his correction sound like an obituary. Was I right? Who knows? I told him that editors are not supposed to impose their style on it.

Paying attention to his criticism and respecting his corrections, I then knew that my passage was not clear, so I cleared it up a bit, but “Athens” stayed put in many places.

Editors are human just like you and I, and they are entitled to their opinion. Good editors with conscious read the book before they accept to edit it. One editor before he read my book accepted to edit it, but I had to send him $1,000 along with my manuscript with a promise that he was going to edit the book within 45 days.

I called him 30 days later to check up on his progress, he told me he only managed to edit one hundred pages out of 500. That did not greet my ear favorably, so I went ahead and quizzed him. Not liking my quizzing, he burst out into yelling. I told him I didn’t believe he had done any thing with my book yet, and I want my $1,000 back. He told me that he wasn’t going to return the money and he was not going to edit the book because he read 100 pages and it sounded like the book had been written by a foreigner. I told him Tolstoy was a foreigner so was Victor Hugo and Charles Dickens and there were all dead and if he didn’t like the idea of joining them, it would be best for him to send my money. He sent my money back in less than three hours. I evidently had made an offer to him that he couldn’t refuse. What a line that is. Talking about good writing, that single line, I would think, made the movie memorable. That’s what good writing is all about.  Writing is like making a movie in many ways. Willie Wilder a great director of many movies, including Some Like it Hot, said that every movie should have many good scenes but one should be memorable.

Obviously I didn’t pay much attention to that man who thought he was an editor, and I was a dummy foreigner; I kept on going with my project and dream.

A few days later, I spoke to another big name editor from Tampa Florida, I send him the book; three days later I received a response. He said in Email that he had one hundred clients and some of them are best seller authors and comparatively speaking they can’t hold a candle to me. “I love the way you write,” he added, “Your choice of words, construction of sentences and your paragraphs have traces of other cultures of variety worlds, which makes your book superb. Don’t let anybody change that as long as it is grammatically correct. Because I believe that your book has great potential, even though we have a lot of work, I shall give you a cut rate price to edit it.”

What was hiding in that short email message? The good marketability of the book was hiding.

Don’t forget what the other editor had said to me, that I sounded like a foreigner; that was his opinion.

Remember this, contrary to what your old English teacher taught you not to start a sentence, with and or but is acceptable today. Some slang words which tend to emphasize something, have also a place in your book. Carl Sandburg said in his book of poems The People, Yes, “slang is language that rolls up its sleeves, spits on its hands, and goes to work.” The first editor might have thought that I used slang language and he didn’t like it.

Obtaining Numbers

While the book is in the editing stages an ISBN number (International Standard Book Number.) it should be gotten through R.R Bowker Company, located in N.J. This can be done by on line and credit card.

Once the ISBN has been secured, let us explore a way of promoting the book and to generate orders before you have a finished product in your hands. It is difficult for an unknown author and a small publisher to generate business at this point; but it is not unheard. R.R. Bowker publishes, a bi-monthly print directory called Forthcoming Books in Print that is updated monthly and daily for on line BIP subscribers. When the book reaches the publication date and it is announced it will automatically proceed from FBIP to the bound version Books in Print, which is referred to by everybody who is anybody in the book business. Here like all through the promoting process the truth must be told. You cannot announce a publishing date and change it later on. It is like crying wolf. That is why the smart publishers give themselves 90 to 120 days from the day of announcement to put the books out.

At this point, you should send out post cards to reviewers, with the front cover of the book in the front of the post card and a brief message about the book. The amount of cards should not be less than 500.

The next number that should be gotten is the Library of Congress Card Number. This facilitates the 20,000 libraries to do business with the publisher. Some say the LCCN should be  obtained after publication.

The next number is CIP Cataloging in Publication Program. This is not available to Self-publishers but it can be obtained for a fee from Quality Books. This number is useful key, allows the libraries to shelve the book more speedily.

The next number to be obtained is the SAN, which is another arm of R.R, Bowker Company. This is an indicator that the firm is a full participant in the publisher-to-consumer business environment. Lack of SAN is a sign that the firm is either just starting out in publishing or just beginning to learn the ropes of the trade.

Now that all the necessary numbers have been obtained, we are looking for things to do for a Powerful Prepublication Attention Getters.

You, the reader should understand that I have read many books which are dealing with writing, promoting, publishing and marketing a book. I have taken the enzymes and the good nucleus out of those books and along with a lot of experience that I acquired through the years in selling, I fashioned this book.

About thirty days after you send the cards out to the different reviewers of mostly newspapers, an eight page synopsis of the book should follow to the same reviewers where the post cards went. One week later after the sending of the eight page synopsis you should make a call to the reviewer, first asking him or her if the synopsis was received, thoughts about it and a galley is on its way. Don’t ask just tell them that a galley is on its way to them. If they don’t want the galley they will tell you, don’t bother, because we are too busy to read it. Don’t say “thank you” and hang up you, speak back with confidence in your voice “I will also send you some reviews that I have received from other reviewers this may help you to write a report.” You see, dear reader, the reviewer’s job is to review. That is how and why he or she goes to the post office box and gets a pay check every Friday. The reviewers are not doing you a favor. That is their job, man, and you made it easy for them to write something when you mentioned that you are sending some other reviews and by you making it easier, chances are they will tell you to send it in. That is another river you have just crossed, without getting wet.

Later in this book you will learn what you are going to send. Now you are on your 45^th day from the date of publication. You should have galleys by now.

Endorsements of the Book

One of the first things that comes into the writers mind is endorsements by Who’s Who in the business of books including celebrities, who may be interested in the subject of the book, would be an excellent way to start. There are many subjects that the celebrities incline to endorse and one is a religious oriented book. Please understand that from the beginning of time man has been looking to locate God and Heaven. This has not been accomplished, but most people have not giving up trying to find a nail to  hang their hat on as far as God is concerned. If you are writing a religious oriented book. Therefore people are trying to find a nail to, some research has to be made to get the names of people who maybe interested in your subject. Their endorsements can be splashed in the front or the back of the book.

A lot of effort is applied by amateur authors to get famous people to endorse his or her book. Let’s face it, Regis Phelbin and Jay Leno or any of the big shots, who are rich and famous are not going to endorse your book unless your name as big as theirs, if not bigger. Don’t waste your time with them, they think that they are bigger than life and you are small, according to their beliefs. Find a college professor or a minister or an editor of a small weekly newspaper, or bookstore manager, or a local politician who loves to see his name in print and his picture on any wall, let them read it and let them tell the world the truth. Their endorsement can be valuable. Before your book is out of the editor’s desk, make a 20 page synopsis of the book, draw up a nice letter with some of your talents and approach them. Before you approach them, go to the library pick up some samples of endorsements, make up some mock endorsements and hand them to them. Chances are you will get an endorsement which you can be used in the endorsement page. Some big newspapers may not take the time to write an article, but will give you endorsements if you send them a galley and some made up endorsements.

Marcia Yudkin was thinking about identifying possible endorsers in Six Steps to Free Publicity, she took a novel approach to secure testimonials. Evidently one of your jobs will be to ask for endorsements in token for a blurb from their writings or opinions to insert in your articles. A politician would love to see his opinions in a published paper for people to read. Everybody likes to have his opinions or observations known to the world to read. Let us see what you have up till now. You have a well thought of  book, you have an editor who thinks the book is good enough to be printed and you have some endorsements from live people. Was that hard to do?

Get trade announcements.

There are four places where one may call important reviews can come; Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, Today’s Librarian and ForeW’ord, where good books are mentioned. It is wise to send them advance information about the book and author. It should include a brief blurb on the company letter head, the name of the publisher, publication date, price and binding information about the cover and publicity plans.

You noticed that I said the name of the publisher. You are self-publishing your book, but to avoid complications you should have you own company or your own corporation to front you. You can get a corporation for less than $75.00. If you do not know how, e-mail me at Writer@frankegeorgalis.com. And I will send you the information.

One must understand that if the publisher behaves professionally and does everything according to Hoyle, the people of authority and clout will take notice and will be willing to do business with the company.

It is easy and necessary to reach the above magazines. The first two are published by your ISBN company R.R. Bowker Company. Address your information to Spring (or Fall) Announcements Editor. Publishers Weekly comes out fifty times a year and serves the entire book publishing trade. Among its approximate 40,000 subscribers are the people you want to reach: wholesalers, subsidiary rights managers, booksellers, and media personnel

Library Journal is a full service publication for libraries and is published twenty times a year and has about 26,000 subscribers. Just remember your purpose for living now is to tell the people who you are what you have done and how you have done it. Your name and the name of your book will do it.

The next contact is important. It is the distributors: Baker and Taylor, the largest wholesalers in USA, is education oriented and concentrates on serving the library market plus many book stores. The first thing for any new publisher wanting to do business with B&T should send ABI information (Advanced Book Information). Just think there are 20,000 libraries in the USA and some sell books too. They are the clients of B&T, and some belong to Amazon, which I will discuss later on.

The next and not the least is the subsidiary rights; the book clubs, magazine rights, newspaper to run chapters of the book, screen play rights, stage rights and others. The names can be gotten from LMP. To approach the book clubs, magazine editors, and newspaper editors is through the ABI form (Advanced Book Information); and blurbs of the contents of the book to wet their appetite. (Blurbs are pieces of writing, which promotes or praises the contents of the book). As one may guess by now that promoting a book is like writing a novel. Everything must follow the plot. One may also guess that the information that is given out is prior to publishing, also wakes up the Big Publishers, chain stores and some agents.

Web Sites and Wisdom turns strangers into friends who will blurb the book.

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The next and very important is to protect your intellectual property online. This can be done easily by clicking on www.FirstUse.com. This service is used by 50 professions in 53 nations. This can be used to establish ownership before a copyright, trademark or patent is obtained. It is the best method for providing irrefutable proof of original creation.

The other thing that is needed is a UPC (uniform Code Council), for the book. It can be reached through the UCC in Ohio at 937-435-3870 or on line at www.uc-council.org. Ask about the “price point UPC with the ISBN add-on”. If you have any question up till now apply at the web site, frankegeorgalis.com.

Up till now we have fenced our corral so thieves and intruders cannot get in to bother us.

To continue with the promotion once everything has been done, the very first thing we will cover will be the first thing the browser looks at; it’s the cover of the book. There are many professionals out there who, for a price they design the book cover. The book cover should be able to show something about the author, the mood of the book and the topic. The professional book cover designers can be very expensive because they must read the book and get in touch with the author to do their best.

Ron Smith of Book World is very sensitive to book covers. “We loose more orders because of bad or weak cover design, by far, than from any other source. And we reject more publishers for this reason than any other,” he explains. Independent Publishers Group’s Cart Matthews cries when he must turn down many new publishers because they don’t work far enough in advance. The new publishers pay less attention to the book cover than any other part of the book.

I design my own book covers for my books, because I believe that nobody knows me and very few understand the book at first reading and of course let’s call it spade to spade, it’s the expense that I cannot stomach. Make  your cover capture the essence o the book. The title of your book should not be long and words that one should take out the dictionary to find out the meaning. Reading your title people should be able to relate to the book at the first glance. There are several types of writers, the two most common are; the writer who writes and tells a story for people to just read, the other is the writer who writes for people to read, enjoy the style, to think and once the book is closed and finished the reader should keep something with him. The cover should reflect the poetic side of the book and its simplicity. The title of your book should be large enough to be seen from across the aisle; the author’s name should also be visible from far away.  The use of metallic inks on covers is an accepted trend.

There is an option for your book covers and it is called Shrink-Wrapping. It is a clear plastic protecting cover. The covers can be scuffed during shipping if they are not film laminated or shrink-wrapped. I am not going to give you anymore information about printing unless you want to be a printer too. I recommend softcover (perfect bound).

The best thing to do is to go to a big book store to look at the well known books and steal some ideas and pass them onto the book printer.

Now that we have settled the bookcover question, the next item is the designing of the pages including chapter title pages.

Here before I get into the book designing I am going to repeat of something I stated before and that is the printing of cards. I mentioned before, once the  book goes into printing it will automatically appear in the Books in Print, magazine. At that time you should have  had post cards with the picture of the book in the front and something about the book in the back. In the back of the book you will find a roster of card printers who may have some ideas. These cards should be mailed to all the reviewers, bookstores and libraries. The cards will not only go to specific reviewers, but to syndicated columnists, newsletter editors, book club editors, book stores and libraries. Remember they read the name in the magazine, Books in Print. One month later you should follow up with a page of information of the book and indicate if they wish to see and hear more, and about eight page synopsis maybe send to them. Just remember your book has been seen in the Books in Print by the reviewers, you are only refreshing their memory and telling them that you are on top of things.