A Worthy Read In An Election Year

As a young journalist in college, I wondered what would make a good second major for my studies. Political Science was a natural fit since my emphasis was in new editorial (newspaper journalism). Many newspaper reporters spend at least a stint of their time in city hall and writing about politics. Ironically one of my classes was African Political Systems where we looked in-depth at the politics of Africa. Because I went to college in the 1970s, almost every single African nation has changed names and politics since I took that course. I double majored in journalism and political science.

When I learned about The Faith of Barack Obama by Stephen Mansfield, I wanted to read the book and I recently reviewed the book on Amazon (follow this link to reach the permanent link of the review).

No matter where you stand in the political spectrum, each of us need to be as informed as possible about the candidates so we can make a thoughtful decision. It's an exercise in our freedom to vote in an election year and I always encourage people to vote.

Some things that I did not include in my review relate to the promotion of this book and will interest readers of these entries about The Writing Life. Some publishers offer a sample chapter of the book for readers to try out the book and often that is a few pages. Thomas Nelson is offering a 60-page sample of The Faith of Barack Obama. Click this link to download the PDF sample. Why is that significant? The printed book before the acknowledgments and footnotes is only 144 pages so the sample is a significant portion of the overall book.

I recommend this book as a worthy read during this election season in our country.

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.

An Intimate Look Inside

Throughout this week, I've been giving you a glimpse of my recent time in New York City. Besides giving you some information, my hope is that it is spurred you to consider the value of organizations like the American Society of Journalists and Authors as well as attending writer's conferences in general. It's a solid way to grow as a writer and in your craft.

The largest Christian publisher, Thomas Nelson, announced they are not going to be exhibiting at the Book Expo (for the general market) nor the International Christian Retail Show (for the Christian market). This company has a large presence at these events and you can follow this link and read the details. Coordinated with this announcement, Thomas Nelson hosted a two day, open house with 100 of their top accounts which represented about 1,400 store fronts.

Late last night I watched Michael Hyatt's 40 minute presentation called Why I Am (Still) Excited About Christian Retail. If you care at all about Christian publishing, I encourage you to watch this presentation. It is an incredible intimate look inside at this leader of the sixth largest book publisher. Mike tells about how he came to know Christ and the importance of books in his personal life. I hope you will find it encouraging and strengthen your own resolve in this business. It certainly did for me. I would challenge you to find any other publisher -- general market or Christian -- whose leadership provides such a peek inside. It's rare.

Toward the end of his presentation, Mike talks about the proliferation of product in the marketplace and uses the statistic that 250,000 new books were introduced in the marketplace last year. I'm sure he's got his documentation for such a statistic but it is higher than I've seen before. And he said that Thomas Nelson brought out 500 new books last year. Then he told how 23% of these new titles accounted for 90% of their revenue.

What does this last statistic tell you? I'm admittedly a words person but I believe if you look at what is not said, 76% of these new books accounted for only 10% of their revenue. It affirms the general statistic that I've read in other places that 90% of nonfiction books never earn back their advance. Thomas Nelson finished their fiscal year on March 31st and Mike also said they are taking a hard look at their own product creation and going to cut their new titles for this coming year "in half." So instead of 500 new books, they will make about 250 new titles. It means fewer books will be given book contracts at Thomas Nelson, the largest Christian publisher.

How do you react to such news? From my perspective, you have two choices. You can throw in the towel, leave book publishing and go into another business. I've seen a number of people make such a choice during my years in this business. Or you can see this information as an encouragement to improve your writing craft and improve your own visibility in the marketplace--whether you write fiction or nonfiction. The great manuscripts will always rise to the top and get published. Yes, you need a champion such as a literary agent and an editor inside the publishing house but it is possible.

I want to close this entry with an example of this type of writing. Many people want to write fiction--yet the opportunity for fiction is less each year with a growing number of writers competing for those few spots. Nonfiction out sells fiction year after year. In other entries, I've mentioned Joel C. Rosenberg and his political thriller fiction. I've been a fan since Forge Press published his first book, The Last Jihad. I just completed reading Dead Heat which is the fifth and final installment in this series.According to the March 31st issue of Publishers Weekly, "Tyndale's initial printing for Dead Heat...was 100,000 copies; two additional printings bring the total to 145,000...In May, he'll do a 10-city book tour to promote Dead Heat and to discuss his nonfiction bestseller, Eipcenter (more than 248,000 copies in print)." See the wisdom of a fiction author having a nonfiction angle to talk about with the media? Also Rosenberg's writing is brilliant and page-turning.

I hope you see this entry as a clarion call to excellence in your writing and storytelling. Whether you write fiction or nonfiction, you need to be working on and constantly practicing the craft of writing. Also you need to continually work at building your audience and presence in the marketplace. It doesn't happen overnight (for anyone as even someone like Joel Rosenberg can attest if you look closely at his background) but it can happen.

The Necessity: Ask The Right Question

I've watched writers over the years and know they are a creative bunch. The majority of them have some idea for a magazine article or a novel or a book, sit down and crank it out. Often they invest hours in the writing process and when it's completed, they turn and try to sell that manuscript to a magazine editor or a book publisher.

Because there are literally millions of these ideas, queries, book proposals and manuscripts in the jammed pipeline, the writer waits forever for a response from some editor or literary agent. They burn a path to their mailbox or their email box looking for some response. And often when that response comes, it's a rejection. That's when the self-doubts set in for the writer.

It's like the old chicken joke which has been around forever. What came first the chicken or the egg? Where in the creation process of the writing do you begin and write something that fills a need in the market? There are three large elements with this process: Messenger, Delivery System and Market. The majority of people believe they are the messenger, the book is the delivery system and they are trying to reach the market. It's a long-shot way of touching that market in my view because not enough research has been put into discovering the need of the market.

Yesterday I was fascinated with this transparent post from Thomas Nelson President and CEO Mike Hyatt. While the writer invests vast amounts of time and creative energy in their idea, the publisher has the real "skin in the game" (as some people would say) or financial investment. The publisher has created a product and most of that creation is based on their experience and some "gut" reaction. Mike makes a case for the publisher to do more research before they produce the product. I want to take this idea a bit further and encourage the writer to survey the marketplace before they write another book proposal or another query letter.

How do you survey your market? I'd suggest you use a tool called the Ask Database. Behind the scenes, I'm using this Ask Database to compile the questions and data for my free teleseminar next week (and other teleseminars that are in the planning stages). I hope you’ve asked your question about book proposals or the publishing process because I'm eager to gather your input. Each writer should be building a list of people they can survey. It's their market and they should be connecting with their readers to find out what they want--then write something that fills a need in that audience. You communicate to your audience on a regular basis through a newsletter like my FREE Right Writing News.

This process of asking the right question and meeting a market need is more important than ever for every writer. Why? We’ve been saying there were 170,000 new books published last year--and a very small percentage (something like less than 500 book titles sold over 5,000 copies--I've heard this statistic but can't lay my hands on it--so I'm hedging) actually sold. Here's the frightening detail: R. R. Bowker who compiles the statistics have reworked their method to compile the numbers. Now they estimate that over 290,000 books were published last year--a 120,000 jump from their previously published number of 170,000.

Whether the number was 170,000 or over 290,000, it's a huge number of new books--and many of those titles are entering the market but not selling. I return to my key point in this entry: Are you asking the right question and what are you doing to get your answers?