The Unpredictable Writing Life

By Terry Whalin @terrywhalin

For decades, I’ve been in the world of publishing and working with authors. Repeatedly I’ve seen the unpredictable nature of this work and life. For example, as I meet authors and acquire their books at Morgan James Publishing, I learn about authors who are eager to sell their books and reach their readers. I have one author who writes fiction and published two novels with us. She was actively selling these books at specialized trade shows which tied to her plot and characters. When she pitched her third novel, she told me that she had sold over 300 books during the last year which showed her activity as an author. 

As a part of the acquisitions process, I checked in with a colleague about her bookstore sales for her first two books. This number will give me an indicator of the enthusiasm (or lack of it) from my colleagues about the third novel. I was surprised to learn she had sold about a carton of books inside the bookstores. In general, a carton holds 25-35 books and depends on the size of the book. It was not an impressive sales record and showed me that my colleagues would not be inclined to publish a third novel from this author. I spoke with the author about these details and she decided to self-publish her third novel in this series. If the bookstore numbers improve, then it’s possible she could bring this third novel into her series, but not at the moment.

I could not have predicted these bookstore sales and believed the number would be much higher than a single carton. This example shows again one of the many unpredictable details and how a great deal of those details are outside of anything that I can know about or control.

Here’s another example: I wished a long-time publishing professional a happy birthday. It’s something I do on a regular basis and gives me a touch point with people. In her response, she told me she was no longer working at that publisher. I called this author to hear more detail. I learned the change happened because she didn’t hit the sales number for her authors books. This key number is outside of anything this editor could predict or control. She told me about one of her authors with a large Instagram platform has a daily gathering of thousands of participants. The book this group was using repeatedly wasn’t the author’s book but a book from another author. This simple choice gave huge exposure to a different book than the author’s book and contributed to the editor’s dismal sales numbers. 

These stories about publishing teach me lessons about the details of this business and how it works. Yet repeatedly I’ve discovered there are a myriad of details outside of anything that I can control or do anything about. There is one singular person who I can control: me. 

I’d love to have some predictions but the only prediction I can control is myself. I keep promoting my own work. I continue to pitch authors to my colleagues and writing different material. I work with various authors and various types of books. In addition, I listen to my colleagues, answering their questions and helping as many authors as I can. I can’t control others or much of anything--but I can control my own activities.

What about in your writing life? Is it predictable or what steps are you taking for your books and your writing? Let me know in the comments below. 

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The life of a writer is unpredictable and often outside of anything that can be controlled. This prolific author and editor gives some examples then his encouragement. Get the details here.  (ClickToTweet)

Much of the publishing process is outside of the writer’s control. 10 Publishing Myths helps writers have a realistic perspective and take action. Get 10 Publishing Myths for only $10 +FREE shipping + over $200 of free bonuses.

Unfulfilled Dreams (And How to Move Forward)

By Terry Whalin @terrywhalin

Do you have dreams and plans for your future which have not happened? It’s true in my life and work in the publishing community. I have books to write, places to speak, articles to write and pitch, authors that I want to get into print and much more. In this article, I want to give you some ideas about unfinished dreams, how to handle them and keep moving forward to achieve them. As I go through some of my unfulfilled dreams, I encourage you to think about your own writing life and the things you have not accomplished but still want to complete.

As an acquisitions editor:

--I have authors who have submitted their work to Morgan James and I need to process and move it forward. Working for a New York publisher as I’ve been doing for the last 12 years, there is an internal process to follow and I’m the person to drive these authors and get them a book contract.

--I have meetings to set up with these authors and move their submission ahead in the process.

--I have to make follow-up calls and emails to authors who have received a contract yet not made a decision about whether to sign it or not.

--I have many other unfulfilled tasks and dreams for the authors I’ve brought into the publishing house and need to encourage.

As a writer and author:

--I have several books that I’d like to write and publish. The stories are mostly in my mind and not on paper (not a good thing). 

--I have books that need need to get in front of more people to help them know about them and purchase them. 

--I have articles to pitch and write for various publications--in print and online.

--I have stories from others that I want to help get into print and into the world.

As an online marketing author:

--I have websites and products that I need to do more promotion and reach different audiences with them.

--I have some websites and online courses which are not working properly and need correction.

--I have online websites I’ve purchased and not built or launched the planned products on them.

--There are many more elements I could add here but you get the idea of the unfinished business.

As a learner:

--I have online training courses (some of them an expensive investment) which I have not heard or used.

--I have training that I have read or heard yet not applied the information to my marketing and writing life. I know getting the information is only the first step but the real work is in the implementation.

As an author:

--I have books from other authors and publishers that I have not read nor written reviews.

--I have books that I want to learn from but haven't read nor applied to my life. 

--I have audiobooks that I plan to hear and learn from the information.

As a person:

--I need to get outside and increase my movement or exercise for my health.

--I need to drink more water and better monitor my food intake.

--I need to become a better listener and increase my love and devotion to God and my family.

Even if you skim this lengthy list of unfulfilled dreams, you can see there are large numbers involved.

How to Move Forward

While I work hard on these different tasks and goals, I'm realistic and understand that I end each day with unfinished tasks. My method is to keep inching my various tasks forward. Some of them will be more rapid than others but every day I keep chipping away at the various unfulfilled dreams.

None of us can predict our future, our health, the lives of our family and much more. Each of us have the same 24 hours in a day and can’t go back and redo yesterday. Instead we have to seize each day with celebration and gratitude. What is your way forward for your unfulfilled dreams? Let me know in the comments below.

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As a writer, do you have unfulfilled dreams? This prolific writer and editor details some of his unfulfilled dreams and a game plan how to move forward. Get the details here. (ClickToTweet)

Much of the publishing process is outside of the writer’s control. 10 Publishing Myths helps writers have a realistic perspective and take action. Get 10 Publishing Myths for only $10 +FREE shipping + over $200 of free bonuses.

A Different Author Strategy

By Terry Whalin @terrywhalin

Some publishing experts estimate 1,000 new books are published every day. This estimate includes the self-published books and it can be overwhelming when you consider the volume of print material which is entering the world. 

How can an author standout, be different and sell books? In this article, I want to give some strategy ideas and action steps. Upfront, I will tell you each of these methods are not quick and easy. They require effort and work to sell books. 

As you read and study the path of other authors, you need to understand success leaves traces. If you study the details of the success of others, you can discover the path for your own success and sales of your book. First, you have to gather some basics. What type of book are you writing? In general the techniques and path for a children’s book will be different from a novel from a nonfiction self-help book. Each of these types will often follow a different strategy and path to sell their books.

Several years ago I interviewed an author friend who self-published a nonfiction book. In the creation process, he created a book which was well-written with an attractive cover. He crafted the back cover copy and made sure there was a publishing logo on the spine and the barcode on the back was perfect. This friend paid attention to the details as he self-published and produced a book which when placed along side any other book would be accepted. Many people self-publish but they slip on these production details. 

This author targeted book sales to libraries. The American Library Association says there are over 123,000 libraries in the United States. He located a list of these libraries with the phone numbers. For several hours every day, he called the libraries, introduced himself and had a brief pitch for his book. He got the librarian interested in his book, got their name and with their consent, mailed a book with an invoice. It took hours of work and the development of a plan and execution of that plan, but he sold thousands of books in this process.  If you want more of the details, I have this interview in the extra products when you purchase my 10 Publishing Myths book. This strategy to sell books worked for this author and you could learn from his success.

I follow the teaching and stories from book marketing expert John Kremer, author of 1001 Ways to MarketYour Book. Recently he made a bold claim encouraging authors to make up to $150,000 before your book is published! The strategy of pre-sales is one every author can learn about and practice.

If you have published or plan to publish a children’s book, then look at the information and actions in this section from John Kremer. As with the other strategies in this article, you can learn and then implement the practices for your books. 

Have you heard of bestselling novelist Terry McMillan who has several movies including Waiting to Exhale and How Stella Got Her Groove Back. As John Kremer said, “Her first novel was published by a large New York publisher, but they didn’t do much with it. This was in 1987. They sent out press releases. They sent out some review copies. But Terry was a first-time novelist, so media didn’t care. Nothing much happened.” How did Terry turn around this experience? John gives the details in the Rule of 3,000. McMillan handwrote personal letters to 3,000 bookstores. It was a huge commitment of time and energy but it got attention and paid off. Few authors would make this sort of effort but it launched a bestselling novelist. Maybe you want to follow this path for your book.

John wrote some additional details saying, “The response was so great that she ended up doing a 39-city book tour. Her efforts gained her plenty of rave reviews for her book as well as two reprintings in six weeks. That’s a major success for a first-time novelist. Her publisher got behind her once they saw that the book was selling, and it was worth reprinting again and again. The key point to this story is not who Terry sent letters to, but how many letters she sent. It’s a numbers game, and what happens with most authors, even though I’ve told them this story many times, is that they ignore this crucial advice. Write a lot of emails.”

One of my Morgan James Publishing authors published a personal story with a tie to the pro-life issue. She mailed 1,000 copies of her book to Crisis Pregnancy Centers around the United States. The effort was a financial and time investment in her book. One of the keys for her success will be the strategy behind it. Did she offer bulk sales to these places and how is she following up on the mailing? Each of these strategies have different details which are important for them to succeed. 

My encouragement is for you to learn about these different author strategies for selling and marketing your book. Try some of them and see if they work for you. If they work, then do it some more. If not, then press on to another one. There is not one path to success but many paths and as an author you have to select the one for you. If there was a single path, every book would be a bestseller. Instead we know some books have dismal sales and others succeed. 

My encouragement is to try a different author strategy to sell your book and keep doing it over and over until you find success. Is there another strategy that you have used to successfully sell books? Let me know in the comments.

 

Tweetable:

There are many different strategies to sell books. This prolific writer and editor gives several specific possibilities in this article. Read the details here. (ClickToTweet)

Much of the publishing process is outside of the writer’s control. 10 Publishing Myths helps writers have a realistic perspective and take action. Get 10 Publishing Myths for only $10 +FREE shipping + over $200 of free bonuses.

The Best Marketing Plan

By Terry Whalin @terrywhalin

Authors are on a continual search for the best marketing plan. After being in publishing for many years, I will tell you that you plan will be different than mine. A cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all plan does not exist. There is no formula and if a formula existed then every book would be a bestseller and successful. There are some great books which are not marketed and never get discovered. I've purchased other books which aren't that well-written yet because of excellent marketing, they become bestsellers.

 

To discover the best marketing plan is a process and takes continued effort to try a new tool, use it, then evaluate if the process helped you sell books and if not, try something else until it works. From my experience while there is no formula, there are continued practices such as having your own website, blog and email list. Some people sell many books on the radio and others through podcasts. Others sell books through live events or zooming into book clubs. There are many different ways to market your book. I have a shelf full of these books and each of them have valuable insights.

 

In these articles, I've written about how Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen followed the rule of five when they launched the Chicken Soup for the Soul books. You can read this old post to learn more about this practice. I encourage your perserverance in this area of marketing your books. It will pay off. Once a month I blog for Writers on the Move and several years ago I wrote the story of bestselling author Andy Andrews. Follow this link to learn the story and see the persistence and perserverance that Andy endured before he hit the bestseller list. 

I encourage you to read how-to write books and apply the material to your writing life. Each book will have insights for you. The updated edition of Jumpstart Your Publishing Dreams is available in bookstores across the country. Several years ago I got this image from a reader along with his appreciation. Notice all of the post-its stuck in this book and how he found insights in my book.

 

In 10 Publishing Myths, the conclusion of each chapter includes an MBA (Myth Buster Action). Many things in the publishing process are outside of our control as authors. This book emphasizes the aspects you can control and encourages you to take action in this area. If you haven't read my book, I encourage you to take advantage of this special offer (follow the link).

 

From my experience in publishing, the Best Marketing Plan is a plan that you as the author will execute—and not just once for over and over for the long haul. My biography of Billy Graham was published years ago but I continue to promote it every day. As the author, you have the greatest passion for your book and need to focus that passion into your regular marketing efforts to continually sell books.

 

Where have you found the best marketing plan? Let me know in the comments below.

 

Tweetable:

What is the best marketing plan? This prolific editor and author gives his perspective and resources in this area. Get the details here. (ClickToTweet)

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Continual Experimentation

While editors, agents and other publishing executives would like to proclaim they know what makes a successful book, the real story is the process involves continual experimentation. If there was one formula or path, then every book would be a bestseller—and that is certainly not the case.

No matter where you are in the writing process, every writer needs to be reaching their audience with their website, social media, email list, physical events and more. Some people fall into the “shiny object syndrome” where they are chasing the latest and greatest tool. Every week there is a new social network or a new tool or program. Each of us must find the right path for our writing and our audience.

In the last few years, one of the growing areas is video with the explosion of YouTube and other ways of adding video to your website. I've had limited participation with videos. I've watched other writer friends launch a YouTube channel and incorporate more video into their websites but I have not.

In the last few months, I was invited to attend the Ohio Christian Writers Conference and will be there in early November. You can see a short interview here with some tips for writers:

These writers have also launched Serious Writer Academy and invited me to be a part of their faculty. For my first class, I taught one of my most popular writer's workshops: Editors Read Proposals Not Manuscripts. This video format is available 24/7 and I broke my teaching into four sessions:

1. Five Questions Every Book Editor Asks
2. Six Reasons Book Ideas Are Rejected
3. Book Proposal Check List
4. Six Ways for Your Proposal to Stand Out

I've reviewed hundreds of book proposals and the teaching in this video session can be a game changer for your submissions. Because the session is on video, you can watch it multiple times and capture all of the details and information to build your submissions to editors.

This class is hopefully the first of several which I will be teaching ate the Serious Writer Academy. I look forward to your feedback as you take this workshop.

This class shows how I'm continuing to experiment and look for new audiences—as well as provide new products for people who have been in my audience for some time. I hope you are continually experimenting as a writer with new opportunities—testing to see which ones will work, then stopping those which do not work. Tell me about your experimentation in the comment section.

 Tweetable:

As a writer are you continuing to experiment? Learn more details here.  (ClickToTweet)
 

When Hitting a Roadblock, Experiment

For my social media efforts, I've written about using a tool called Refollow. Every day for the last several years, I've been increasing my followers using this tool. It takes me less than five minutes to follow 800 new followers.

It's significant that the people I'm following are not just anyone. They are followers in my target readers of publishing or writing. This targeting is a huge part (plus my continued valuable content in my tweets) as to why my followers continue to grow.

Sometimes when I use refollow, it will suddenly stop and I will get the message that I've reached the maximum followers which twitter allows and this will reset tomorrow.  Often in the past when I receive this rare message, I will close the window for refollow and use it again the next day.

I've learned through experimentation that if I wait for at least 30 minutes, I can return to refollow and select more people to follow and it will begin to work again. Just giving it this break from use, the tool will restart and I will be able to follow more people—so I can reach my selected limit of 800 new people a day.

Recently a reader wrote asking what to do because they had followed the maximum number of people which twitter allowed. My question in response: are these new people you have followed responding and following you back? If not, then you need to use a free tool like Manage Flitter to unfollow those people. Then you can replace the people you have unfollowed with new followers.  Manage Flitter is a valuable tool to remove people who are not responding. Then you can add new ones.

Some people wonder how I've written the volume of books or magazine articles or even these articles on The Writing Life (over 1200). The answer whether increasing your twitter followers, writing your next book or book proposal or magazine article, is simple: do it consistently every day. Many people want to write a bestseller or rocket to the top of some ranking yet they are not putting in this regular consistent effort.

I've been using Refollow for several years and I reap results from that effort all the time. Some people contact me about marketing their book or finding a literary agent or getting published or any number of other things. I faithfully respond to their questions, send them to valuable resources and help them. In response, they sign up for my email list, buy my products and books and publish their books with Morgan James or take my membership course on book proposals, receive these articles on the Writing Life, tell their friends about my work and much more.

The key point is to keep experimenting, trying new things and growing.  Each of us run into roadblocks—like Refollow hearing from twitter that I've followed the maximum people for today. Through experimenting, I found a way around the limit.

Each of us have challenges and roadblocks, do you accept the roadblock or find a creative solution around it?