Writers Are Readers

By Terry Whalin @terrywhalin

I’ve been making regular trips to my local library since I was a young reader. As a child, I read stacks of biographies from the local library on different well-known people. My bent toward reading such stories, has influenced my own writing and partially explains how I’ve written a number of biographies on people like Billy Graham, Luis Palau, Chuck Colson, Billy Sunday, Samuel Morris, John Perkins, Sojourner Truth and others. Throughout the US, there are thousands of libraries. Do you use them on a regular basis?

When I speak with writers about their manuscripts, I will often ask if they read books in their particular area of expertise. Years ago I met an older author who had written a romance novel. Romance is the largest genre of fiction and a popular area. When I asked if he read romance novels. He said, “No, but I write romance.” His weak response did not help his pitch for his romance manuscript.

As a general rule, writers are readers. To support other writers, as I read a book or even hear an audio book, I will write a short review and post it on Goodreads (almost 900 reviews) and Amazon (over 1,000 reviews). No one pays me for these reviews and I do them outside of my work time and in my free time. Publicity expert Brian Feinblum has written about how to support books and authors. Some people estimate over 11,000 new books are published every day (including the self-published books). Each of these authors need people to read their books and write a review. To help people in this area, I created a free teleseminar (follow the link). 

Do you have a To Be Read (TBR) pile of books? I know some people have several stacks of TBR books. On a regular basis, authors and publishers will send books to me. Here’s a couple of books which arrived last week. Bob Tiede offered to mail six books and knowing my volume of books TBR, I encouraged him to only send a couple. One of the books he sent was Leading With Questions. He asked me to take a photo of myself with the book and send it to him (which I did). Then he also asked me to post my photo on social media (which I also did). At this point, I’m still working on whether I’m going to read and review this book or not. Even if I were reading full-time and getting paid for it, I would not be able to read and review all of the books which come into my home. It is simply impossible. 

I opened a package of books and it included a hardcover copy of The Dragon’s Prophecy: Israel, the Dark Resurrection, and the End of Days wrapped in this package. Notice this book does not release in the bookstores until September 3rd. I’m unsure if I will read it or not since in general I do not read or write about books on Biblical prophecy. I do applaud the creativity of the publicity people sending this package. It definitely caught my attention. 

Sometimes a publisher will send me an Advanced Reading Copy (ARC) of a forthcoming book. Scholastic Press sent me an ARC of When We Flew Away, A Novel of Anne Frank Before the Diary by Alice Hoffman which releases September 17th. This 8 to 12 year old book from a bestselling novelist looks intriguing and like something I “might” read. As of this writing, I’m uncertain. These books are just a few of the ones which came into my mailbox this past week and show the variety of books.

Do you read in the area where you are writing? What is on your To Be Read pile? Do you support other authors and write reviews? In the comments, let me know and I look forward to reading your experiences.

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This prolific author and editor explains how writers are readers. He gives the details about why this simple habit is important for every writer.  (ClickToTweet)

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Try Something New

By Terry Whalin @terrywhalin

Within the world of publishing, people fill many different roles such as writer, editor, agent, publicist and many others. Recently one of my writing friends released a new book from a major Christian publisher. As I've mentioned in these articles, this release event happens with about 4,500 books every week.  

 

The Advanced Reading Copies (ARC) for this new book arrived at the author's home the day before the release date (late to be of much use since the book is out). I have not seen this particular ARC but typically these books are created in advance of the book release, have different information about the book and release date on the back cover and printed in small numbers for book reviewers, the press and a few other categories. These books are costly to create because of the small printing numbers. With over 4500 new books published every day, ARCs are reserved for a few titles the publisher believes is important and worthy of the limited marketing dollars to create these specialized books. My friend told me about the late arrival of his ARCs and on my own I offered to ask some writers if they would read and review, then compile a list of addresses to send to this friend. It's something I've never done before and I have no financial gain from promoting this book. I was simply willing to help.

 

I turned to a couple of Facebook groups with Christian writers. I wrote a short post about the author, the book. I asked the writer to email their mailing address and willingness to post the review on at least Amazon but hopefully some other places as well. These groups had many members and I had no idea the response. 16 people responded. These people get a free copy of the book and the opportunity to make a new relationship with the author (who will be grateful for their help). I encourage you to look for these opportunities and take advantage of them because they can be the start of something else in your writing life.

 

I've been reading ARCs from publishers for decades. My first time was at an American Bookseller convention in Los Angeles in 1987.  At the Doubleday booth, I picked up an ARC for a new book called Covenant House. The meeting was in May and the book released in the fall or at least six months before the release. I was interested in reading the book (always the first step because not always the case). I thought, “I can write about this new book.”  I wrote a query letter to a Christian magazine (no longer in print) and asked if I could review Covenant House. As I look back on my query, it was not in perfect alignment with this evangelical magazine. Covenant House was from a Catholic priest who was rescuing homeless children. Yet my pitch to the editor worked. He said yes (probably on speculation) and gave me a deadline and a word count. I read the book, crafted my review and sent it to the magazine. It was accepted and published for my first published book review. I began to write more book reviews. For years, I reviewed each month for a Christian trade publication. I've also written book review columns for a couple of magazines (no longer in print). I selected the books for these magazines (which reached thousands of readers). Publishers added my name and address to their list for new releases and the books poured into my mailbox. 

 

Back to my friend and the late ARCs on his new book. I emailed him the addresses from those who volunteered to read his book and review it—something I had never done before but I was trying something new. Notice I've left out some details in my story—the author, the title of the book and the publisher. I tell the story so you will see there are many missed opportunties in this business. I don't want to do anything to hurt my own relationship with the publisher or author—who will be around hopefully for many years in the future. As I've mentioned in the past, you never want to publish anything to hurt your relationship. While it may seem big on the surface, the publishing community is small and interconnected.

 

What are you going to try that is new? There are many opportunities in publishing but you have to pitch and take action for them to actually happen. You could publish in a newspaper, a magazine, be on a podcast or radio station or any number of other possible things. You have to reach out to that editor or the person running the radio station or podcast and make a compelling pitch.

 

Throughout publishing, there are many opportunities but you have to take the first step. This prolific editor and aiuthor details trying something new. What new things are you trying? Let me know in the comments below.

 

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