Don’t Believe The Internet Lies

As a part of my job as an acquisitions editor at Morgan James Publishing, I interact with a number of authors. Occasionally a literary agent will pass or reject a submission and in the process of sending that email, recommend the author reach out to me and will copy me on the email.

When I get one of these emails, I reach out to the author, give them my background and encourage them to send their submission to me. I need the full proposal or manuscript, their mailing address and phone.

Recently one of these authors and I corresponded. He was looking for an agent (and I used to be an agent—no longer and clear on my website). I told this author that Morgan James published a limited number of novels and that we had a novel on the New York Times list last January (broad distribution to achieve that success).

The author sent the manuscript and synopsis but not the mailing address. Morgan James acknowledges every submission with a letter in the mail—and we receive over 5,000 submissions a year. If we get to issue a contract, we use the same mailing address (one of the reasons we collect this data from authors). I wrote this author asking for the missing address information.

A day or two later, I got an email withdrawing the submission. No explanation just a withdrawal.

Why the strange interaction? I suspect this author used “google” to learn more about Morgan James. You can learn a lot looking at the publisher website—but it does not give all of the details – especially about novels.

With a simple search, you can find other sites that will give you objections and complaints about Morgan James. Yet I’ve also searched for these sites and have several observations:

1. Not everything you read is true. Even false material is on the Internet forever.

  2. Much of these complaints are years old and inaccurate from my investigation. 

 3. As an author you deserve to learn the true story—something I do with authors all the time, send them a real sample contract after our call, etc. The exploration process costs nothing (FREE) and gives me an opportunity to talk and interact with the author.

 4. Publishing is constantly changing and there is no one way to succeed in this business. The Morgan James model isn’t right for every author—but it is right for many authors. Unless you explore it with me, you will never know.

I suspect this author who withdrew the submission is still looking for a literary agent and the path to publication. There is not one path but many paths.I tried to encourage this author to explore the open door.

Morgan James is not a self-publisher and we have a publication board and a consideration process. As an editor, I do champion my authors to my colleagues but I also attempt to set realistic expectations. I can’t outright promise that Morgan James will publish a book because I get rejected too in the process of championing authors.

The reality is until I get the news of a contract from my publication board, I don’t know that a contract will be issued. Yes I have been in publishing for years and attempt each time to mount a strong case for my authors with my colleagues—but those attempts sometimes fail.

Recently I worked with an author who proposed a 400 page devotional book. I learned we have published a couple of those books and they have “crashed and burned” (the term from my colleague). I assume this means the actual bookstore sales for those 400 page books have been dismal or poor. It makes our team reluctant to take on another one—unless the author has a huge sales potential or platform. My author did not have a huge platform. You can follow this link to get my free Ebook (Platform Building Ideas for Every Author).

The good news is I returned to this author with this information and she was willing to do a smaller and better sales potential book. This type of interaction and adjustment is from my experience how good books get created and enter the market. Often they do not come in isolation from a solo author but are through the interaction with another professional.

The first author who withdrew her submission will never know or experience this interaction from the Morgan James Publishing team—unless they return in the months ahead (which does happen but rarely from my experience).

As an author you have a responsibility to learn the truth—which is much more involved than a simple search on the internet. Don’t believe the Internet Lies but move beyond the surface information. It’s the responsible way to work in my view. 

Tweetable:

Are you following Internet Lies or using other means (like talking with editors) to learn the real story. Learn more here. (ClickToTweet)
 

Why Authors Need A Web Presence

One of my writer friends does not have a website or a blog or any presence online. I've talked with her several times and encouraged her to start something but she's not interested. If you google her name, you will learn in the first entry that she has written over 90 books with over three million books in print among other things. Yes, her publishers display her books online but you will be challenged to find anything personal about this author.

Times Have Changed

Several years ago, it was OK for an author not to have a website. In fact, there was a great deal of skepticism about anything online and whether it was true or not. There were many examples of people who built complete false identities online through websites which stretched the truth. The pendulum has swung the other direction. While it's a good idea to have some degree of skepticism about the information you find online, in today's publishing climate, the Internet is often the first place that people turn for information about anything and anyone.

When I call an editor or literary agent and talk about an author, I can often hear them clicking their keyboard and searching for information as we speak. Normally they use Google or another common search tool to locate information about an author or would-be author.

As literary agent Richard Curtis explains, "When I pitch authors to editors over the phone, I can actually hear them typing on the keyboard as we speak. I know that while we're talking, they are going on Google or Amazon and checking out the author. They'll say, 'I see, oh yeah, I see the author's picture or the cover of his last five books.'" BTW, Curtis has a fascinating blog well worth reading.

What do you find?

Open a new tab or window in your Internet browser and go to Google.com. Type your own name into the search window and see what you find. From time to time, it's a good habit for anyone in publishing to check this information. This exercise will give you some idea of your level of presence online.

At a recent writers' conference, I heard Rick Frishman, founder of Planned Television Arts, tell the audience about the importance of every would-be author knowing their own reputation online. He described a situation where a major book was canceled over something that an editorial assistant found about the author on the 25th or 26th page of Google. You may not think that a publisher will go to that level of vetting for an author. Be aware some publishers will invest this level of checking your public information online because when you become one of their authors, their reputation is hooked to your background.

Because of the ease of accessibility and many other factors, every writer needs to have visibility on the Internet. In my post tomorrow, I'm going to provide some specific ideas about how to begin and resources to use in that process.

Apply The Lessons

Each of us have some things we do very well and others--well, we simply don't do them at all. Maybe that's OK not to do them but maybe you simply aren't applying the lessons that you've been taught. It's always good from my view to continue to grow, change and learn. It's the mode that I'm in these days--and I'm determined to stay in this mode.

I've come to the understanding that I've not been as effective with my teaching for writers as I could be in the future. For many years, I've traveled the United States and Canada teaching at various writers' conferences. It's a rich experience for me and the opportunity to give back as well as learn from other writers. If you look at my schedule, you will see I'm continuing to travel and teach. In fact, I need to get over to the schedule page and add another conference from the last couple of weeks.

Many of these conferences are set up to record the sessions and sell workshop CDs (and it used to be cassette tapes). It's a normal practice for the speakers to sign a release then receive a complementary copy of their workshop if they pick it up on the spot after the session. After my workshop, I'll drop by and get my CD and carry it home. Then I stick it in a drawer and don't think about it again--until I return from another conference. I haven't been irresponsible with this material. I have not been proactive and sharing this wealth of information with others. I'm changing and applying some of what I've been learning.

At the Mega Book Marketing University in Los Angeles, I acquired some equipment to make some changes. I picked up an Edirol R-09 MP3 recorder, a telephone bridge and Sound Forge Audio Studio. I learned about this material from Mike Stewart, who is known as the Internet Audio Guy. You can follow his link to learn more about creating audio products and watch his demonstration videos.

I've been learning how to use the Edirol R-09--which is a complex professional digital recorder with loads of features. In the last couple of days, I managed to record a new introduction to one of my workshops about book proposal creation. Yesterday I used Sound Forge for the first time to make some simple edits to the workshop, then pasted in the new introduction. To my surprise, editing sound was like Mike Stewart had told me--very similar to editing a text file with the same sort of cut and paste functions. With a bit of a learning curve, it worked like the instructions and I managed to edit the audio of my workshop and send it into production. In the coming days, I'll be telling you (and others) more about Editor Reveals Book Proposal Secrets.

One of the challenges with this project was getting the audio files sent to the production company. They told me about a site called Yousendit.com. This site was easy to use and accomplished the task to get the large file sent to someone else. It's a good resource to know about if you need it. I learned the bulk of the techniques to produce audio product from Bob Bly's Internet Marketing Retirement Plan. This four CD package is loaded with insight. I like the simplicity of the program. Bob out sources the majority of his production. I'm learning to apply the lessons from this material.

Each of us are on this journey to learn more information and apply it to our writing life. If you don't have an online e-newsletter, I'd suggest you subscribe to my free newsletter and read the free ebook about it. Also read these articles about producing a newsletter. There are many articles to teach you about different aspects of writing through Right-Writing.com and these entries about the Writing Life. If you are looking for information about a particular publishing topic, use the search engine in the right-hand column of these entries. Then apply the lessons to your own writing life. It's the course I'm taking and you can do the same.