The Unusual Publishing Battle

At least one news cycle this past week included the controversy over cover of The New Yorker magazine with Michelle and Barack Obama dressed in unusual garb. Maybe you saw it on your television news or some other means. It came across my desk in several different formats.

If you read these entries on The Writing Life, you will be aware that I read The New Yorker magazine and often call to your attention some of the great articles about the publishing world. Beyond the controversy about their July 21st cover, I wanted to make sure you read Jill Lepore's article, The Lion and The Mouse, The battle that reshaped children's literature. Thankfully the full version of this article is available online. Some times I locate articles that I would like to point out but they are not so easily accessible.

I encourage you to read this piece and you will learn about the battle between Anne Carroll Moore who yielded huge power in the area of children's literature because of her initiative setting up a children's library in New York City. As the article explains, "In the first half of the twentieth century, no one wielded more power in the field of children's literature than Moore, a librarian in a city of publishers. She never lacked for an opinion. "Dull in a new way," she labelled books that she despised. When, in 1938, William R. Scott brought her copies of his press's new books, tricked out with pop-ups and bells and buttons, Moore snapped, "Truck! Mr. Scott. They are truck!" Her verdict, not any editor's, not any bookseller's, sealed a book's fate. She kept a rubber stamp at her desk that she used, liberally, while paging through publishers' catalogues: "Not recommended for purchase by expert." The end. The end of Moore's influence came when, years later, she tried to block the publication of a book by E. B. White. Watching Moore stand in the way of "Stuart Little," White's editor, Ursula Nordstrom, remembered, was like watching a horse fall down, its spindly legs crumpling beneath its great weight."

Yes Stuart Little is the mouse in the title of the article. Through the movies and other reinventions, a new generation has come to love the stories about Stuart Little. Yet few people know the struggle that some of these ideas have to come into print. Notice in the last paragraph of the article there are more than four million copies of Stuart Little in print today.

What are the people around you or the editors or the literary agents telling you as a writer can't be done? Can you keep thinking about your idea and come up with a creative way through the obstacle? I hope you can draw some courage and strength from reading about Stuart Little.

Meet A Need--Build A Quick Audience

It's a rather frequent conversation that I have with authors about their visibility in the marketplace. Whether you write fiction or nonfiction, publishers and literary agents want to work with writers who have a direct personal relationship to their audience. In these entries on The Writing Life, I've encouraged you to build that relationship through regular communication, such as starting a blog or electronic newsletter.

One of the keys to building that connection to the audience will be finding a need and filling it. While this aspect is critical for nonfiction, it can work on the fiction side as well. In this entry, I want to tell you about Peter Shankman. He found a need, filled it and built a quick audience in the process. Also every author or publisher will be interested in what he has built because you can tap into this resource.

Peter has a number of reporter friends who were regularly calling him to tap into his large database for story sources. To meet this need of reporters to be connected to specific people, he launched Help A Report Out on Facebook. It quickly grew beyond the limit of 1,200 emails and launched it on the HARO website. If you visit this site, you will see that it is simple to subscribe--and free. You will receive three emails a day from Peter which contain the different reporter needs he has received. If you have a story or a product or something to help the journalist, then you contact that person directly.

Peter makes it clear that individuals should only contact the reporter if they have something to meet their particular need. It is not a way to collect reporters email addresses for more SPAM. If he gets complaints about you, then he can boot you off the list. He has built an impressive series of contacts with a number of high profile outlets in radio, print, television and the Internet.

HARO also makes the reverse service available. If you are writing a book or a magazine article and need a certain type of person, then you can use his other site to broadcast your need and locate a certain type of person.

In a short amount of time, Peter Shankman has built a list of almost 15,000 emails that he writes three times a day. Each one of those emails gives Peter a chance to talk about what he's doing in a paragraph or two before he gives the queries from the last few hours. I've been fascinated to see how he found a need, filled it and is using that need to build relationships--and a quick audience.

Can you do likewise with the topic that you are passionate about?

A Pay Off From Social Media

Several months ago, I wrote about LinkedIn and Book Reviews. Part of the concern with all these social media tools is to make them actually pay off in terms of growing your business. While it's is really nice to be connected to the world, how is that connection paying off for you in terms of increased income, increased business or some other tangible result?

Most of the social media tools are free so the trade off is an investment in personal time and energy. I've had some pay off from these tools but not to the degree that I'd like so I continue to learn and increase my skills and knowledge about social media.

Last night I attended a live workshop event called, "The Secret Behind Social Media--How to Grow Your Business Online." In a 60-day period, the organizers used social media to promote the event. Almost 100 people paid to attend this event which was packed with information and engaging speakers. I filled pages of my notebook as each presenter spoke. I've highlighted a number of elements which I'm going to apply to my own social media efforts.

The World Webinar Network organized this event. Here's how you can learn about this topic. First, join the World Webinar Network Ning (free). Each of the power points from last night's workshop have been turned into PDFs which are in the forum section. Yes, it's not like the live event but you can gain a great deal of insight and information from these presentations.

It's going to be good review for me as I apply my notes from the event.

Who Are The Top U.S. Publishers

You name the type of book but from my experience, most new authors want to be published with the top publishers. One of the things they don't understand is whether the publisher is large or small, the author is still the person on the planet with the greatest passion for their particular book. And this author will have to translate that passion into marketing action for their book to give it the best possible reception in the marketplace.

Also I've heard horror stories about marketing and publicity efforts from authors of all persuasions--whether they went with a major publisher or a relatively small house. Publishing is not an exact science because to a degree it is unpredictable which books will strike a chord with the buying public. For example, why did how-to books about canasta sweep the nation and land on the bestseller list during the 1950s? The card playing craze caught on and the public went to their local bookseller to get a how-to book on canasta. It's the same sort of unpredictable nature of publishing today.

In the paper issue of Publishers Weekly which I received in yesterday's mail, it included an article with publishing sales data from 2007 about the top publishers in the world. When it comes to the U.S. publishers, the magazine included this illustration with the data:Notice this data is about publishing of all types--textbook and trade publishing. Earlier this year, Mike Hyatt included some data about the market share of trade publishers. If you look at the Publishers Weekly information it was interesting that Thomas Nelson doesn't appear in the top 50 publishers of the world. While I don't understand the difference, I suspect it is from a different way of defining the data will be at the root cause.

As long as I'm writing about Publishers Weekly, another bit of information came out at The New York Observer about the PW reviewers. Traditionally there is no printed list of the reviewers in the magazine but in recent days they have changed this policy and The Observer pulled together an article about the background of some of the PW reviewers. I thought it was interesting and I hope it will help your knowledge of the publishing industry as well.

Finally whether you land a large publishing house or a smaller press, I continue to encourage you to take an active and consistent role in the marketing of your book. That passion will pay off in the long run.

Life & Amazon Reviews

As these entries on the Writing Life reflect, I read a wide range of print magazines and publications. Yesterday I was flipping through Rev. 7 which is a publication of the JAARS portion of Wycliffe Bible Translators. At their "newsworthy" section, I instantly spotted a photo of one of my long-term friends with these words, "David Ramsdale, former editor (1993-1998) for the JAARS magazine, Beyond, passed away April 19, 2008, after a short illness. He is survived by his wife, Nancy, and his two grown children."

While I understood the words in those sentences, they didn't make sense to me. What really happened to my friend and why was this notice the first time I've heard about it?

David Ramsdale was a trained pilot and over twenty-seven years ago, I had flown with him in the jungles of Peru in experiences so far back in my memory that they seemed like a lifetime ago. As David expressed interest in learning about writing, I had given him some encouragement and advice about getting started and encouraged his work as an editor. At Evangelical Press Association meetings, we sat around and laughed and enjoyed good conversation. Years ago I had even been entertained in his home in North Carolina.

Unsure what I would do or say, I picked up the phone and called Nancy to learn more details. He was ill for about three weeks and David suffered from endocarditis and multiple staph infections. She sent me an internal publication for pilots which included an article with this revealing paragraph about David, "Although he was an avid outdoorsman, David's passion was photography, which he incorporated into his work with Wycliffe. He was also a gifted writer and speaker. He loved to fly and sparked interest in aviation with the stories he shared about his years in the cockpit."

The experience reminded me about the brevity of life and how we need to celebrate today's opportunities and love the people who we touch.

As I talked a few minutes with Nancy, she mentioned that she had been looking at some books on Amazon and had read my review of Richard Mabry's book, The Tender Scar: Life After the Death of a Spouse. She was considering ordering this book and my review caught her attention.

If you look carefully at the permanent link, I wrote that review almost two years ago and it's one of a limited number of reviews for this book. I've written over 200 book reviews for a variety of books. It's one of the simple ways I can support good books. Customers are making buying decisions all the time related to these Amazon reviews because it's the largest online bookstore.

What can you do to add a few Amazon reviews to the pages of your books? You never know where it will have impact and influence.

Get A Fix On Grammar

Whatever your connection to the writing world, basic grammar skills are important to master. Many people have forgotten but I have a Masters degree in linguistics which means I've spent more hours than I'd like to recall in detailed study of grammar. I'm talking about way beyond simple English grammar but grammar patterns of other languages. For example, one of my courses for my Master's degree was called "The Sentence." Over an entire college semester, we studied various sentence patterns in a sweeping array of languages.

It's not that I am uninterested in grammar. Over the years since I've been in publishing, I've tried a variety of books geared to writers about grammar--and each one has landed in the boring category. Yes I read a few pages of each one then didn't complete them or use them. They sat on my shelf of writing books for a few years then were cleared off to make room for other books.

In my local newspaper, I found a great story about the wildly popular podcast, "Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing." It turns out Mignon Fogatry is starting her book tour here in Arizona this week for her first book--which naturally bears the same title as her well-known podcast.

I spent a few minutes looking around her podcast which includes transcripts. Also make sure you check out her other website called Behind the Grammar where she talks about other topics like marketing, business and writing.

One of Fogarty's most popular entries is about proofreading--which is an area that many writers can use some help. She's got some great tips that I recommend.

No matter what your skill level as a writer, it's a good idea to continually improve your grammar skills and these links might help you get a fix on grammar skill improvement.

Change With The Times

You can barely turn on the television, listen to the radio or read a newspaper or magazine when you begin the hear all of the dismal economic news. Many times it makes me want to shut it off and not fill my mind with such negative messages yet I don't want to live in isolation or with my head in the sand. Like many things in life, it is a matter of finding balance and changing what you can with the times where we live.

In recent weeks, I'm not driving every day to my mailbox where I pick up my work-related mail. While I haven't written about it often I do have a mailbox address. Some times I've received calls from writers who are in the area and have come to "drop" into my office. When they reach the address, they are confused since they see nothing from the outside of the building that indicates my name or office. They would not find this information since it is not my office but a local business with post office boxes. At that point, these people normally telephone my office because their plan of dropping into my office isn't working. It gives me a chance to ask them to physically mail whatever they want to send to me instead of dropping it by my office address. Some writers are overly persistent in such efforts to reach the editor or literary agent.

Because of the price of gas, I'm coordinating trips with my wife to run past the mailbox and pick up any mail or submissions. The mail tends to run in bunches so some days I get a great deal of it and other days there isn't much of anything. If you want to check out the cheapest location near you for gas, I recommend Gas Buddy. I've used it a number of times to check the price of local gasoline.

Until recently I've never been concerned that I find the most inexpensive gasoline station in my area. Yet with the rising price of gas and looking for ways to cut my expenses, Gas Buddy has become a useful resource. Are you constantly looking for ways to change and improve your writing routines? I am always on the look out for such innovative tools to broaden the reach of my writing and improve my own communication.

As another example, several weeks ago, I reworked my personal resume. I wanted my resume to reflect some of the skills which I've learned in the last few years. Yet my resume didn't match my LinkedIN profile--until last week. I reworked the data within LinkedIN so my printed resume and my profile are exactly the same and give a coordinated message. It took a bit of learning and effort to make these changes but the unified message is well worth the effort in my view.

Keep growing in your craft and business knowledge. It will pay off in the long run.