An Insider's Look at Book Publishing

At 92 years young, Sterling Lord is a living legend among the publishing community for his work as a New York literary agent. LORD OF PUBLISHING provides an intimate look at his work with some bestselling authors like children’s writers Stan and Jan Berenstain or novelist Dick Francis.

Early in the book, he details his decision to become a literary agent saying, “The agent has to know good writing and what is a good, interesting-to-the-publisher idea not only in order to judge what he can sell and what he can’t, but also because often writers tried and untried will seek his advice. And he must know what to tell them. An agent is successful if he can attract and hold effective writers; these are two different talents. You have to know and understand the lives and problems of writer and devise how to help them with their lives.” (Page 40-41)

I appreciated Lord’s honesty and transparency when he writes in some of the final pages, “Although I’m immersed in literature and the art of the book, and enjoyed the personal and professional rewards that came with being an agent, I recognized that the literary agency, like other businesses, has to its peaks and its valleys. Perseverance helps. While I am better known by the bestsellers I helped launch, I did not always have an easy time convincing publishers of the value of the manuscripts I was selling.” (Page 288)

There are many valuable insights and lessons for writers, editors and other literary agents in the book business. I enjoyed reading LORD OF PUBLISHING.

Use Twitter Without Wasting Time

One of my writer friends emailed me this week about his twitter account. He was concerned about losing followers and not increasing his followers without spending lots of time on twitter. I reached out to help him and recommended Tweet Adder. 

Another friend and literary agent, Wendy Lawton wrote her end of the year report card. When it came to twitter, she wrote, “SOCIAL NETWORK: D I have to admit to Twitter fail. I just can’t find the time to do it all. Aaarrrgggh! And I tried Pinterest and Goodreads—so I’d know how they worked—but I had to cry “uncle.” I can’t do my job and keep up with all these opportunities.”

I empathize with this busy literary agent. Each of us have our own daily challenges. Maybe you are trying to create daily time to write and can't seem to find moments to move forward. Maybe you are sending out your latest nonfiction or fiction book and getting regularly rejected. Or maybe you have crafted your materials but can't seem to get them into the hands of agents or editors because of constraints on your time. 

I'm several months into a new job as an acquisitions editor. I'm enjoying it and appreciate the work with authors but it leaves little time for writing—or social media. Yet I must be doing something in this area. If you look at my twitter account, my followers continue to grow and I regularly send out information on twitter and Facebook and LinkedIn. In fact, I'm about to go over 42,000 twitter followers.

I'm going to show you how to use twitter without wasting lots of time on it. First, let's cover some basics about twitter. Do you have your profile set up properly with your photo and your profile? Do you have a background on your twitter page to make an attractive place for others to visit? These steps are simple and something you accomplish one time—yet important. Please look at some of the details that I give in this area through this free handout on social media (on page 2).

For several years I've been using a program called Tweet Adder 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. It is constantly turned on and working. Tweet Adder is designed around the rules of Twitter and will slowly follow people that you have selected to follow (using keywords geared to your particular target audience). If the new follower does not follow you in return, then the program will unfollow these people. This simple process keeps your numbers increasing on twitter.

Also I like that Tweet Adder is not a monthly fee program but has a one-time fee with lifetime updates. On a regular basis, Twitter changes how they operate and Tweet Adder will make the adjustment to their program and issue a new version of it. Then the next time you start the program, it will notice you don't have the latest version and ask if you want to download and update your program (which I do).

You can get a 20% discount on the fee for Tweet Adder if you use this discount code disCouNt20 (yes it is case sensitive) when you check out. 

Other than a tiny bit of time to set up the program and regularly use it, Tweet Adder allows you to use twitter and increase your followers and does not require much of your precious time. I highly recommend this program to everyone who wants to build a presence on twitter.3

Also there are some other tools that you need to use on a consistent basis. It does you little good to be using Tweet Adder on twitter if you aren't posting tweets on a regular basis. I post tweets at least three to seven times scattered throughout the day. You can use a free program like Hootsuite to set up these tweets and they can post during the day. You take 10 to 15 minutes (or less) and set up these posts.

In addition, I recommend you keep a running list of different programs you want to promote on twitter. I have a number of free teleseminars and resources that I've created. I have a little file with these resources and various tweets that I use on a regular basis. I don't have to recreate them but can simply cut and paste and post the tweets. It allows me to use the tools but not spend a great deal of time in the process.

Consistently using twitter doesn't have to consume your life—but like your writing, if you want to grow your presence on twitter, you need to use it on a regular basis.

I hope I've helped you see the value of such tools like Tweet Adder. If you have doubts, I recommend you download the trial version and use it for a few days to see if it will work for your needs.

The Book Proposal Hot Seat

It is always a good opportunity with the tables turn and you are interviewed instead of always being the one to ask the questions. Last night Rosey Dow from Experts in Focus interviewed me about a topic that I'm passionate about--book proposals. During this hour-long teleseminar, I answered questions which listeners had submitted to her about book proposals.

Why do I continue to go out and encourage people about these proposals?

First, I'm passionate for writers to achieve their dreams and be more successful in their submissions to editors and agents. During the teleseminar, I quoted a statistic from Dan Poynter's Self-Publishing Manual that there are an estimated two million manuscripts in circulation around at different publishing houses and agencies. That is no typographical error but two million. Will you be able to catch that editor or agent's attention in the few seconds they will consider your idea? Can you make it rejection-proof? I gave some ideas in the teleseminar.

As I exposed last night, I'm constantly learning new things about book publishing and in particular the submission process. My experience comes from my own work as a literary agent and my years in this business as an editor and writer. Just as the business is constantly changing and evolving, I continue to grow in my experience and perspective.

My perspective about book proposals takes a "snapshot" in my Book Proposals That Sell yet constantly improves and I gave some of this information during the teleseminar.

Second, as people improve their proposals, I hope my editor and agent colleagues start to receive better targeted and better crafted book proposals. From the feedback that I get from readers, I know to a small degree several of my efforts are making a difference and I'm grateful.

Finally in a selfish way, I'm looking for better book proposals that will come into my literary agency. If they are the right project for my agency, then I can work with the author and push it to a new level of excellence then turn and get it into the marketplace for them.

At several different points in the teleseminar, Rosey Dow told the listeners about Proposal Secrets as a resource to learn more about book proposal creation. If you haven't been to the page in a while, check it out. I've added a couple of additional bonus gifts but the change that happened yesterday was an additional order button. Now you can choose to make three payments for the course. I hope this flexibility will help more people take advantage of this resource.

The Merit of Consistency

While it's not often recognized, there is great merit to consistently working at the craft of your writing. Which part of that craft you select to work on will vary for each of us. For some people, they need to develop the basic skill of writing a magazine article. It's a good place to start whether you are writing for a large magazine or a small newsletter. You need to learn how to craft a single story with an engaging opening paragraph, a solid section in the middle, then wrap it up with a take-away or single point for the reader. If you learn this skill, then you can apply it to other area of storytelling and writing--whether you are putting together a newsletter or a single letter or a chapter of a forthcoming book.

For the last couple of years, I've been putting together the Right Writing News. Now the back issues have built up to over 400 pages of how-to-write information. It is free but to access this information, you have to subscribe to the publication. I'm constantly looking for additional material that I can use in future issues of this publication. There is a wealth of material in these back issues. It didn't suddenly appear but came one issue at a time.

I continue to regularly work at these entries on The Writing Life. This piece marks the 700th entry which means another wealth of material and resources for anyone who will take the time to search and examine them. I've tried to simplify this process of locating older material with a search tool in the right-hand column.

Today another issue of The Foster Letter, Religious Market Update arrived in my mailbox. Gary Foster compiles a rich publication every two weeks and it comes like clockwork. If you want to know more, I'd encourage you to look at some of the excerpts from his archived issues. You can find a lot of valuable information here.

Yesterday I was interviewed during a teleseminar about Book Proposals That Sell and I was asked about when my first book was published. The common misconception is that it was many decades ago. It was 1992 and now over 60 books later they wonder how such a body of work was created. It's not difficult to understand when you consider the merits of consistency. I'm constantly working to develop new projects and knock on doors for new books--not just for myself but also for my clients at the literary agency. I write my work like everyone else--one page at a time then one chapter at a time and one book at a time. Over a period of time, it ends up being something substantial. It’s not magic but consistency counts.