THE Group for Authors! discussion

After recently reaching #6 in the overall Kindle Free store. #2 for Science Fiction & Fantasy and #1 for Fantasy, I've had some interest from a literary agent about representing my books.

The thing is he's asked me for a page each of:-

Author Profile
Plot Synopsis
Synopsis of each chapter in each book
Competing Books

His exact words were:-

Many thanks for this. You write well, and I've enjoyed everything I've read so far. May I see a brief proposal for one or both books, comprising a page each of Synopsis, Author Profile, Competing Books, and brief Chapter Summaries? Has anyone else in publishing seen it, and if so what was the response? Do let me know if you have any questions.

Now I'm not quite sure how to handle this, I've never done any of these things before and I really have no idea how to go about producing them!

What should really go into each of these things?

How do I know what books are 'competing' with mine?

Why the question about other publishers/agents?

I really want to get this sorted but I don't know where to start!

Thanks,

Martyn

It sort of does, but I was hoping for a link to how to write these things and what should go into them!

As for competing books, what is a competing book? My series is a fantasy series with a big dollop of atheism and questioning of faith in it. Are there famous comparable books?

Or is it more about current fantasy series which are simply targeted at the same demographic?

Good for you, Maryn, to get the interest of an agent!

An author's bio would include your writing experience, awards won or contest finals, publishing experience whether in fiction, short fiction, or non-fiction articles, plus why you are uniquely qualified to write what you write.

A synopsis is something creative people hate, and is best written with the help of a hyper-logical reader friend. It usually begins with describing the main characters and their goals and motivations: What do they want, why, and what stands in their way. it also includes the main story question. The synopsis continues with laying out the basic turning points of both the external and internal conflict: who does what to whom, why, and what are the consequences to the characters' main goals and the overall story question. It MUST include the resolution. The agent wants to see if you have enough plot to carry the story through X number of pages and if your plot doesn't have glaring holes. The hyper-logical reader friend can help you boil your beautiful words down to the most important ones that fit on 1-5 pages.

The chapter summaries are basically what you'd do if you were reading someone else's book and summarizing what happens to whom in each chapter and how it moves the plot forward.

This ought to get you started.
Helen C. Johannes

I'm gonna be the skunk at the garden party.

It takes no licensure, and no special training, to be a "literary agent." A grocery-store stocker has as much right to call himself an "agent" as did Swifty Lazar.

You've got a sales record that makes selling your books to an NYC publisher as easy as falling off a log. This agent only needs to make three phone calls, once you give him the legal authority, and the deal is done. In return, he would get 15 perent of the books' earnings, for your lifetime plus seventy years.

Ever heard the saying "Selling your birthright for a mess of porridge"? This is what the agent is asking you to do.

So what happens once a publisher wants to publish your book? The publisher would insist on mysterious royalty payments. Your agent would say "Go along." The publisher would insist on all ebook rights. Your agent would say "Go along." The publisher would want you to sign a "noncompete clause" that would be worded so that you couldn't write _anything_ without the publisher's permission. Your agent would say "Go along." At every juncture, with every clause in the contract, no matter what your objections, your agent would tell you, "Go along." Why? Because the agent is terrified that the publisher will blackball him; whereas the agent sees you as a chump he can flim-flam.

In short, you would lose your books, for all practical purposes. Your only compensation EVER would be your advance (minus fifteen percent to your agent).

Oh, and foreign royalties? Your agent could steal you blind -- and good luck proving it!

Go here (http://kriswrites.com/category/business/) and get a clue. This guy needs you a lot more than you need him.

Don't sign an agency contract with this guy; you'll weep with regret someday if you do.

First off, educate yourself.

1. Look the agent up on the internet, as well as the company he claims to work for. Also, inquire to him about what other authors he represents and what books he has placed with what publishers. This is a business relationship and you have every right to inquire of him the same things he is inquiring about you. If anything looks fishy, he declines, or has nothing to show you, those are red flags that this isn't someone you should be dealing with.

2. Rates. Anyone claiming to be a literary agent that wants any kind of payment beyond commission, you walk away from. Also, an agent does not have authority to accept an offer from a publisher on your behalf, he is just a middleman who knows the right people to get in touch with and as someone who can put a stamp on your work as being of a certain quality. (Note: that stamp isn't an assurance of quality, and means nothing to anyone outside of the traditional publishing model).

3. Be aware of what you can make. When you get an offer to publish, do the math. Figure out how long it would take you to earn out any advance and whether or not that advance is more or less than you could earn by having your work self-published in that same length of time.

It is true that a lot of agents are still beholden to the traditional publishing model and are struggling to hold onto their income as they are accustomed to it being. There are some though, that still remember they're supposed to represent the author, not the publisher, and there are a lot of pros to being represented as well as to being traditionally published. How many of us would be able to look at a contract for foreign/audio/film rights and be able to tell whether or not we would be getting a good deal?

:-P Can't rely on Goodreads forums for everything after all.

Thanks Helen! That's a great summary! It certainly gives me an idea of where to start.

Thomas, the agency in particular appears to my untrained eye to look respectable at least, they've been established 25 years and appear to have some track record. I think your advice is sensible though, to be completely honest I'd just like to see an offer of representation on the table, I feel it would give my writing a lot more credibility to say I turned down a publishing deal, than 'I never got offered representation'.

I really want to try to get an offer of representation first, if I can get that, then I can look into whether it's a good offer and whether it's right for me.

Thanks for the responses everyone, I will take everything on board. I'm skeptical of even being offered representation, I'm not really certain of the commercial value of my books, they won't appeal to some people, they are probably marmite books. Anyone who likes fantasy and is an atheist should like them, anyone else - I'm not too sure.

Martyn

A good strategy. Just remember that agents make money off of you, and therefore unless they can offer you a deal that's really worth it, there's no gain. You don't need an agent to get a traditional publishing deal if your numbers are good enough that the traditional publishing house wants you in the first place. And these days contracts are too complex for literary agents to decipher, so don't just go along because they say so. Last, they benefit from a bad contract. So if you reach that step, get a contract lawyer to help you figure out all the clauses.

Be *particularly* careful about the clauses allowing you the return of rights of your book and try to limit the rights you are selling as much as possible.

Kristine Kathryn Rusch's blog (link given above) is a really good starting place to learn about pitfalls of contracts and agents.

Thomas, your opinions about trade publishing is so full of holes that Noah's Ark would have sunk before he could get it off the beach...

For one, every trade publisher has reversion clauses. If the book does not sell a certain amount in a certain time frame, the author can ask to have his/her rights reverted. The agent who represented this deal should also revert the authors rights because if no books are selling, then the agent is not making any money. No agent has life time dibs + 70 years on any book they sell, unless it continues to sell. Period.

As to the original poster agents really don't pay attention to the free give away rankings on Amazon. Anyone can get into the top 10 if the free bees last long enough.

As to the agent in question, if the agent liked what he read, offer to send him the full manuscript for consideration. There really is no reason for the agent to request all of this stuff. A query and sample pages are generally enough for an agent to make a determination on if they want to read more, or not.

Not saying the agent is a huckster, but in 20 years of studying publishing and submitting to agents, I have never had one ask for everything this one is asking for. Of course, this one could be the exception, but I still don't see how this would help him evaluate the writing. WHY? Because even great authors can suck at synopsis and query writing. Thats that fact Jack...

What Judy said.

Get an IP lawyer to look at _everything_ -- both the agency contract and the publisher's contract. The IP lawyer is obligated by law to look out for _your_ best interests; the agent has no legal responsibility to you at all, and no law specifies any "agent's code of ethics."

These days, both agents and publishers are counting on the fact that you want so much to "be published" that you will sign the worst contract imaginable. And that's exactly what they'll present to you: The worst contract imaginable.

Well, Nick, I hope that the agents and publishers you deal with are worthy of your unquestioning trust.

Kristine Kathryn Rusch says that NYC agents and NYC publishers both are desperate now, and so are not to be trusted. Her husband, Dean Wesley Smith, also says this. And they each have published several hundred books apiece, going back decades -- but what do they know, hm?

I personally know several people who are selling books electronically (on Amazon, Smashwords, and Kobo) who are making enough to pay utilities and buy groceries each month, from their earnings. I don't personally know anyone who is a tradpub author who can make that claim. I've never even heard of any tradpub author being able to make that claim, EXCEPT FOR the bestsellers. Hm, you think maybe 70 percent of cover price v. 25 percent of "net profit" might be a reason that the electronic authors are prospering, but 99 percent of the tradpub authors are not?

BTW, you information about reversion contracts for published books, and termination clauses for agents, is about twenty years out of date. These days, once you sign, your agent owns you and your publisher owns your book. Ugh, no thanks!

As to known authors who made a name for themself before the economy tanked back in 2008, and before the self publishing craze exploded at about the same time, I never said agents and publishers were not desperate. This is not new news, Thomas. But the reasons are varied and mostly economic, not because well known writers are jumping ship.

I remember Stephen King SP one of his books many years ago, before SP really hit the big time. After that experience, he said never again. So, should a writer with no experience pay more or less attention to one known author over another? I find it generally falls to which writer is saying all the right things the inexperienced writer wants to hear. Shrugs...

As to being 20 years out of date, I do keep abreast of the latest happenings in both self publishing and trade publishing. I have seen recent contracts, and the reputable agent only take the 15 to 20% of what they sell. When a book goes out of print, it reverts to the author and the publisher will/should release the author as well. Unless the agent finds the author another home for that book, with the authors permission. If a writer is signing anything less, then they are at fault.

I am not against self publishing. But I am put off by self published writers who spout the latest self pubbing gurus mantra without understanding the publishing industry in all of its various forms.

New authors are published every year, contrary to what the self published gurus claim. New authors get agents every day, despite what the self publishing gurus claim. New authors succeed in trade publishing, and many don't.

Self publishing is no different. Some will succeed, but most will not, for a variety of factors. The one thing though that I keep noticing is that self published writers seem to keep lowering the standards for what they consider success.

Yes, I know about the Amanda Hocking story, and how FSOG went from fan fiction to a mega best seller with a trade publisher. But those writers are outliers, and there odds are 1 for every 100,000 SP novels out there. About the same as Trade publishing...

I guess what I am trying to say is that there is a form of publishing for everyone, without one side bashing the other side. There really are no sides. Both are viable forms of publishing. It really depends on what the writer wants with their writing.

If you are popular enough to hit that high with your free books, then you don't really need a publishing contract. You've already begun to build a reader following, and with rankings like that, you'll be exposed to many more potential readers (and think about Amazon's mysterious 'customers who bought this also bought...' thing that is pretty damn accurate).

The one thing you never, ever want to give up are your electronic/digital rights. Ever. Since digital files do not degrade, and never go 'out of print,' you will give up what is potentially your greatest income potential.

Publishing for print is fine, but as others have said, do not sign any contract until you've had a specialized lawyer look at it that you've paid out of your own pocket. Read Konrath's blog, read Hugh Howey's blog, other self-pubs and trad pubs who are now self-publishing. Be wary of what you are giving up by signing any contract.

But again, it sounds like you are a popular author, and you should seek to use that to your advantage. Your advantage is that you don't need an agent or a publisher unless they are talking print-only deals. Or if Hollywood comes calling (but again, a lawyer will serve you better than an agent).

And remember. Never, under any circumstances, give up your digital rights. Unless the internet and technology completely explode and become things of the past, digital is forever.

I've never had luck with agents--I've had 3 different ones at different points in my so-called kareer, and they didn't do much for me. Which doesn't mean no agent ever does or ever will help a writer; you could get lucky. But everyone here is very correct with their advice basically to educate yourself. You might also want to browse on the website of the National Writers Union.

One thing I would really balk at: if your books are already published and doing well, why should you have to write what sounds like a proposal for this person? Let her or him read the books! Okay if they want to know the competition and marketing info, but jeez, a synopsis of each chapter? As someone esle said, creative people hate doing them--which I did not know, I only know how much *I* hate doing them! I just went thru something similar with a publisher that I submitted to....anyhow, congratulations on being approached, it IS a compliment, and good luck!

Travis, I am going to have to disagree with you on the free give-aways and the rankings.

Free books that reach a top rated ranking does not equate to popularity, by itself. It may, but more than likely, it just means a lot of readers downloaded a free book.

It is a well known fact among agents and publishers that there are lots of readers who are downloading free books but not bothering to give reviews, blogging about the books, or more importantly, buying other books.

Why should an agent or publisher want to represent a writer just based on an Amazon ranking for a free book. Everybody likes free.

What matters to agents and publishers are the paid sales numbers, and if a SP writer is selling on average 2000 books a month, then the agents and publishers are going to pay attention to those sales numbers more so than free rankings...

What Nick says is very true. Normal 4/5 times a paid sale of book 2 follows a paid sale of book 1. People just download a free book and put on their to read pile. I have had a few sales of book 2 post promotion but nothing like the 15,000 I would be getting everyone who downloaded 1 bought 2. I'll have to see over the next few months whether people picking up the free copy of 1 they downloaded tempts them to buy 2, they don't read free downloads straight away, and I suspect in some cases never get around to downloading free ones.

Martyn, another thing to consider - I went direct with a publisher acting as my own agent & cut out the middle-man. Now, you can't do that with all publishers, but you can with more & more these days. So being represented by an agent is not a necessary step to publication with a publisher - but you do have to do the work yourself, including producing good hook lines, synopses, and queries. The publisher is going to provide you with the editor and cover art once you get in with them. I sold a trilogy, but the contracts went book-by-book, and anything outside that particular 'world' is mine to do with what I will - I didn't have to sell my soul for it. I've also put out some books through KDP/Createspace with very satisfactory results, and was not in any way restricted from doing that.

Interesting, I never seem shift any through createspace! I don't know if I'm pricing too high, for some reason it seems hard to get the price to a reasonable amount while still getting reasonable royalty - particularly once you have the extended disctirubtion open and need to take into account wholesale price.

I should think about maybe marketting my print on demand better. Which publisher did you go with?

i do think if I make these Book Proposals for this agent to look at - there's nothing stopping me using them to approach publishers direct is there? I could even highlight map areas covered in the chapters and state which days each chapter covers?

Nick wrote: "Travis, I am going to have to disagree with you on the free give-aways and the rankings.

Free books that reach a top rated ranking does not equate to popularity, by itself. It may, but more than ..."

That's fine that you disagree, but I disagree with your statement. Ask all of the authors who have hit that high in the ranking with their free works, and how it helped them achieve excellent sales results on the paid side.

The point of it wasn't that free books will make you a best selling author. The point was that Martyn should avoid, at all costs, signing with a publishing house based on how well his free books are doing.

To say that anyone can hit that high of a ranking with a crap book is foolish. It takes an author with talent and skill to write a story that people will be unable to put down, unable to stop recommending it to anyone who will listen.

The real rules of writing boil down to this:

Write a good book that readers want to read.

It's that simple. There are no magical marketing tricks. There are no magical promotional tricks. Write a good book that readers want to read. Once you do this, you don't need any other gimmicks.

Like having a publisher. Having a publisher is a gimmick, a trick, and it is the author that gets tricked.

However, if you don't want to believe in your ability, and think you need a crutch (publisher/agent), then you have to do what you think you have to do. If you don't turn your high free rankings into a good sales opportunity for the rest of your books, you've missed out, and a publisher/agent isn't going to do you any favors.

Or you could just think about giving up 70% of your potential earnings for the rest of your life in exchange for 12.5% - 20% royalties with wonky accounting, another 15% off the top for your agent, the inability to control what your covers look like, not to mention fighting with editors as to how YOUR story should sound (I mean, you hit the #1 rankings doing it YOUR way, you'd think they would understand you know what your readers want).

Once again, go read JA Konrath's blog. Then Barry Eisler's. Hell, even Lawrence Block has decided to self-publish now, and you know his #1 reason for it? Because he doesn't want to give up his 70% royalties. Then go read Hugh Howey. Amanda Hocking. All of the popular self-pubs. Read all that they have to say, then come back and say you still think it's a good idea for you to go with an agent and a traditional publisher.

Travis, I have already read those blogs and read more than those few. I also subscribe to Publishers Weekly and a few other trade journals that deal with publishing; SP, Trade, and Indie. I don't just talk the talk, I also walk the walk.

I am not going to get into a comparison of Konrath, Eisler, or even Howey and their biased beliefs. Lets just say that some of what they spout is dead wrong or personal opinion without facts and leave it at that...

As I said before, I am not against SP, only SP guru's who give the same old song and dance without checking facts or giving citations for their so called facts.

As a matter of fact after a lot of research and talking with editors, I will be self publishing a series by the end of 2014, or early 2015, depend on the production time. But that also does not mean I will not be shopping around other novels to agents and or trade publishers.

I think really, the sort of deal I'd be keenest on would be a print only deal. Getting books available on sale-or-return and bought by bookshops is not easy. 80% of book sales are still in print!

You have the nail on the head really, it has to be good and what people want to read. The first thing you have some control over, but what people want to read you have no control over. Then there's the issue of promoting your books and making people aware of them, as a Self Pub. There seems to be this unwritten rule of etiquette that you are NOT allowed to extol the virtues of your own books. Publishing and literature is the process of a big shake up. Self-pubbing is going to be a big part of the puzzle, but I can't help but feel traditional publishers are too, especially when it comes to bringing titles to print and marketing them through the traditional channels.

Just a word here, Martyn - you are going to be responsible for the lion's share of your promotion whether you are with a publisher or not, unless you hire someone specifically to do that job for you. There is no difference between what I do for my books that are under a traditional publisher, what I do for my books that are self-pubbed, and what I do for the anthologies of which I am a part, publicity-wise. Except that, of course, I can't use KDP Select for the ones that are under a traditional publisher.

Print availability is really the thing that traditional publishers are important for though isn't it? Plus traditionally published books have more credibility and are easier to give exposure in the main stream media, particularly for new authors.

This is going to sound off the wall...but do some reading on master p the rapper...i know it sounds crazy. He was in a very similar situation. When he started to get big a lot of labels tried to sign him but because he went to college and owned a business he forced the labels to give him the raw numbers and he quickly realized that he was going to make about 15 percent for every album sold vs 80 percent from every album he sold himself. So he decided not to sign because he already had a fan base....but he lost out on a mulit million dollar marketing strategy that would take him out of new orleans and make him a house hold name. Lucky for him he was also one hell of a marketer...and became a house holding name without him. He then went back to universal and told them he would pay them 15 percent for distribution...and they took it. According to forbes he is worth some thing like 350 million in cash because he was making about 10 dollars for every album he sold...vs 1.50 like everybody else. If you can market you can clean up....if you cant market sign with an agent.

Martyn, it's a give and take kind of thing. You're right that print is what publishers do best, but these days they tend to try to get all rights, because they know they can make a lot of money off e-publishing rights with very little expenditure, especially if you're already developing a fan base. You have to calculate what you think you would earn over a long period with or without their help in distribution. A contract should have a specified limit. It may be worth it, but just go in with your eyes open, and don't be suckered into giving away the farm for that "credibility".

Both good advice, but I don't actually have an offer on the table to turn down at the moment, and I still don't sell that many books. I seem to be shifting two to three books a day post promotion, now things have settled down. I'm hoping, if I can get a lot of readers to have read book 2 and finish and promote a release date for book 3, I can get a lot of people to buy it on the week it's released. It's a lot bigger than the first two books, so if I can shift a few copies of it it should weigh more heavily than the first two and perhaps get some exposure for being a 'hot new release' on Amazon, but I haven't actually researched how easy or hard this is to achieve yet. I think most people who read one and two will want to read three, but as of now I think probably only a couple of hundred people max has read book 2, I'd really like to see a big surge of sales for book 2 before I release book 3 - though book 3 is a long way of finished, my editor is going through the first half while I write the second half and prepare book proposals! I'll look up Master P the Rapper. It does occur to me that from a digital point of view there is nothing to be gained by signing rights away to a publisher, but from a print point of view it's little more blurry and probably depends a lot on the sort of deal that gets offered, if I can even get a deal offered!

R.E. wrote: "This is going to sound off the wall...but do some reading on master p the rapper...i know it sounds crazy. He was in a very similar situation. When he started to get big a lot of labels tried to s..."

That's a great story! Thanks for sharing it.

Martyn wrote: "Interesting, I never seem shift any through createspace! I don't know if I'm pricing too high, for some reason it seems hard to get the price to a reasonable amount while still getting reasonable r..."

It is madness to approach publishers without an agent. If you want to be in the world of traditional publishing, you definitely want an ally who knows the people and the ropes. There are LOTS of details and issues. You could use a lawyer instead (probably for more $$$) but you should definitely have somebody. And I believe it is still the case that most legitimate publishers will refuse to engage with authors directly.

I have never resented or regretted the percentage that my agent takes. No way could I do as good a job as she does for me.

Sue wrote: "Martyn wrote: "Interesting, I never seem shift any through createspace! I don't know if I'm pricing too high, for some reason it seems hard to get the price to a reasonable amount while still getti..."

I'm still actually working on this plot synopsis, author biography and chapter synopsis thing. I can only assume the person in question has a slight interest in the series and wants to run it by someone, someone who expects this kind of material; but that he doesn't want to spend any of his own time doing it - quite understandably. The trouble is, writing these things despite them being quite a bit smaller seems very hard, none of them are pieces which come naturally to me. I am getting somewhere, I'd really like to see examples of what might be considered good examples of these items.

Martyn

I empathize, Martyn. I can write bio' s okay--not sterling, but passable; but as for these synopses, I find them so excruciating, I'd rather write the whole book than these few pages. That's why I've rarely done proposals even for non-fiction, and, consequently, why some projects have slipped thru my fingers--and into someone else's!.

To get help, Martyn, put "synopsis writing" into a search engine. I just used Google and got at least 5 good hits on free articles with tips. I didn't look farther, but most likely some of these contain example synopses.
Writing synopses uses the opposite side of the brain from the creative side. It's a skill of analysis, so that's why it might seem out of your normal skill set.Helen C. Johannes

Martyn wrote: "Sue wrote: "Martyn wrote: "Interesting, I never seem shift any through createspace! I don't know if I'm pricing too high, for some reason it seems hard to get the price to a reasonable amount while..."

You have a right to ask why the agent wants these pieces. You could also ask the agent for samples. I would only do this much work for an agent I was sure I was interested in.

Helen wrote: "To get help, Martyn, put "synopsis writing" into a search engine. I just used Google and got at least 5 good hits on free articles with tips. I didn't look farther, but most likely some of these co..."

Thanks Helen. That makes sense, probably why it does feel kind of out of comfort - I think a good synopsis needs to have input from the creative side of the brain too though - it has to sound engaging. I've searched for synopsis on google before - when an editor asked me for a broad synopsis of the entire series, the trouble is google is very good at pulling out webpages on this stuff and one recommendation from a person who has used a resource is worth a hundred search engine results, at least in my opinion.

I've just looked over this site from Writer's Digest and it looks useful as a sample: http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-b...
This one is related and covers the general structure of a synopsis:
http://writerunboxed.com/2012/02/27/u...
From my perspective as having done these for selling fantasy romance titles, this is good advice.
Helen C. Johannes

Thanks Helen, those are great links!

I'm actually nearly done with it. At least the one for book 1, but I was going to do both, get my editor to glance over them and then send them.

A question though - on the competing books, is he asking for successful novels which are similar or recently released novels by well-known authors that are similar or something else?

Martyn, I'm glad you're looking into this. I was worried when I read the first few posts that those sour grapes would turn you off. It bugs me that people criticize traditional publishing when they have never gone down that path themselves. We're all afraid of rejection, but it's like saying romance sucks because you're afraid to ask someone out for a date. The reality is that being published by a traditional publisher can be a very rewarding experience.

I just published my first novel, and looked into self-publishing a Kindle e-book first, and I'm so grateful I didn't. Instead, I got a professional editor well-versed in my genre who took out all sorts of extraneous words and phrases, while leaving the integrity of my novel, and even suggesting small improvements I was only too happy to write. I got a copy editor to correct my commas. I got a professional artist who made an original cover, and a graphic designer to do layouts and select fonts and make it look like a real book. I'm getting doors opened to key guest blogs and reviewers to market my book. I have posters and bookmarks. I'll be featured on the front page on my publisher's web site for a couple of months. My book will be represented at book fairs across the US.

I can't help with first hand experience about agents, because in my case, I sent the info your agent is requesting directly to the publisher. But if it was me, I'd check to see what that person had sold, to which publisher, in your genre. If you're impressed, then it's well worth it to provide the info he's asking for. It will help him to pitch you to publishers. It's hard to find an agent for many writers, so you're way ahead of the game here.

It costs nothing to explore this path, yet it could lead to publishing of the free work, and who knows what else down the line. If you're as good as your ratings seem to show, for example, an advance might be in it for you. For those criticizing the royalties... these books have been free up to now. A publisher taking 35% of the profits on a $12 book for all the work they do, when you could make zero on it... do the math! Amazon takes 30% for a self-published Kindle and does practically nothing for that money.

There's tons of help on the Internet for this stuff. For example, when I got my contract, I researched what an author-friendly contract looked like.

Best of luck!

Suzan wrote: "Martyn, I'm glad you're looking into this. I was worried when I read the first few posts that those sour grapes would turn you off. It bugs me that people criticize traditional publishing when they..."

I completely agree with this. I don't have an agent either, and in my genre don't really feel that I need one, since most of the publishers in it take unsolicited submissions, but if I were a science fiction writer, I might feel differently about it, since I believe that it can be much more difficult to get an editor to look at your manuscripts. In your case, since you have a good track record with the freebies, and I assume have reviewed well, you might have better luck than most.

I self-publish as well (short stories and some overtly religious short novels) but I always knew I wanted to go the traditional publishing route if I could. I've been very, very pleased with my publisher so far. I've received all kinds of professional services that I would not have been able to pay for out of pocket, and I suspect that I'd have trouble finding ones of this quality on the open market. I know most of my sales will be e-books, and I'm still happy, since I know that the editing has taken my work to the next level, and I think I'll sell far more books through my publisher that I'd ever sell on my own.

I'm a writer. I'm not a copy editor, a proof reader, a graphic designer or a marketing director. I can pinch hit on a lot of these things, but I'm not a pro, and even if I was, it's hard to edit your own work. Having a traditional publisher (small specialty press) removes the headaches and frees me up to do what I do well.

I appreciate both of these comments. I'm having to be art director, editor, proof-reader, writer, marketing manager…

It's not easy. My plan is do the book proposal for the man in question. Try and get some feedback on it - then keep it and try using it with other agents and publishers down the line. I have a word with a busy local, independent bookshop today and they said they'll take a few copies of my book on sale or return. I also mean to finish book 3, then re-edit and cover the first three books and release them as a trilogy, even though the story is only really starting to get going in book 3. I know I can't compete with the marketing platform and distribution network of a traditional publisher, I think it's publishable material - I get positive feedback. I want to explore both routes simultaneously and see what offers get laid on the table.

I had a very good month last month hitting 6000th overall in the paid store and 1000th for my genre. Which sounds terrible, but it's not bad for a single guy on his own. Thanks for all the comments and advice!

As the moment I'm struggling to get the proposal 'right' I think it's something I need to take my time over and get as perfect as possible.

Thanks again,

Martyn

I've finally managed to get the proposal done as per spec for book 1!

I've sent it off but not had any feedback yet. It's an exciting time anyway; I've carefully tweaked book 1 and two to perfect the grammar and spelling and broaden the potential audience, and I've commissioned artist Isis Sousa to do covers for books 1, 2 and 3! (Book 3 is finished but not edited or released.)

What do you think of the new cover?

Seems a little scammy. You might want to get the name of the "agent" and check writer beware and agent query to make sure they are legit.
If they pass the check, then you should pass the book info to them.

I've since started negotiations with a new publisher. They want a manuscript of book 1, a book proposal for books 1 and 2 and a summary synopsis of the entire series!

I'm going to submit, because I think it seems like genuine interest.

Martyn

Oh, I just uploaded my new version of book 2!



I love the new cover and I think the book is a real improvement on the old one. I'm still working on book 3 though!

Martyn