As if writing wasn’t a lonely enough craft where you spend hours, months, years, perfecting your literary masterpiece. Or researching your report on the latest automobile glitches. Or transcribing your travel journal into a book worth publishing about your second home in Tuscany (lucky you!).

Hopefully, you have friends and colleagues who also write (books) and understand the parts of the process that are just plain stark and solitary. Maybe you’re lucky enough to have landed a place in a supportive and inspiring writer’s group and even enjoy a creating writing class or intensive from time to time with one of your mentors.

Then what? Do you have any idea what comes after the creative part of book writing when it’s time to offer up your piece of art to the world? Are you at all familiar with the publishing marketplace and what games are played there? Do you have any idea if what you’ve been writing will translate into a viable product that someone will want to read?

How would you know if you’ve been spending most of your time alone in your cozy little office with a cat curled around your feet noticing up close through your window the truth about the snow flake’s individuality. I’m sure some of these questions and others swim inside your head in between your spurts of creativity.

While you were day dreaming you might have watched a winter Olympics event or two on the telly and witnessed some athletic magnificence.  None of the Olympic athletes did it alone. With almost every winning photo-finish came a glimpse or an acknowledgment of that athlete’s coach. The analogy is a little extreme since their role is more constant in sports, but when a writer embarks on the territory of publishing their book, help from a coach is never a bad idea. Someone to educate you on what actually goes on in book publishing who can virtually hold your hand through the process.

It’s a big world out there. Scary big when it comes to the publishing industry. Which means you better come equipped with the best tools to attract attention. If you thought of yourself, your book, as a statistic, chances are you would bow out from the publishing game.

My advice: DON’T LOOK AT THE STATS!!  Too depressing. The numbers of books published each year are staggering.

And, if it wasn’t already hard enough to attract a publisher’s attention, you need to make a good impression when shopping for your literary agent. Once you accomplish that, you’ll have an advocate in your corner hired to do the heavy lifting of book deal making and protecting your interests along the way. Your agent will also act as your coach in the process of whipping your book and proposal into shape with professional help for the blessed day when you sign the contract with your publisher.

Or, you might even be thinking about going it on your own and publishing  your own book. (That’s a whole other kettle of fish!)

My point is, there are a lot of decisions to make, a lot more options to consider before you bring your product to market.  I suggest that you read all you can on the subject of writing book proposals, shopping for an agent,  identifying which publishers accept unsolicited manuscripts, and if your book is non-fiction, what subject matter is likely to land in the slush pile and which might not (accent on “might”).

There are many of us positioned to do the combination educating and hand holding that you might need on your publishing journey. Some of us work at publishers during regular business hours and bring real time experience to the consult, others work full time helping authors put their best book forward.

Writing to publish doesn’t have to be so lonely. In a lot of areas of our lives, we don’t think twice about getting help. The sports coach analogy is the most obvious but in many other ways we recruit experts. Most of us don’t prepare our own taxes without the help of a CPA, or make investment decisions without our stockbrokers (poor sods). Or color our hair or do our own pedicures without help.

The same goes for your book.  Analogies aside, I doubt if anything in  your life feels quite as precious as your book.

This is just an outstretched helping hand of compassion extended to you, brave author soul.

p.s. If you are writing a book (or have an unpublished manuscript or two in your files), then you need to know a few things before your writing will become a book, and your book becomes successful.  If you know those things, then you are one of the few who can get to the gold medal podium without a coach.  If you don’t know those things, then you, like 98% of the people in the world, need to ask for help.

“ETRE THE COW is one of the most extraordinary books I have ever read. Dr. Sean Kenniff describes, in a completely convincing way, the drab, sometimes terrifying world of a modern “farm” seen through the eyes of a bu…ll. To have created the personality of this story teller, Etre, is inspired. He is totally bovine. He is, in turn, curious, aggressive, obstinate, and profoundly tragic as he tries, and fails, to make sense of a situation created by humans. We are guided into dark and deeply disturbing places with the perfect mix of realism and fantasy. The characters of Etre, My Cow, Bull Calf and their inescapable fate will linger on in my mind for a very long time,  probably for ever. Please read it, and send copies to your friends, as shall I.”

Jane Goodall, PhD, DBE
Founder – the Jane Goodall Institute
UN Messenger of Peace
www.janegoodall.org

Our next bestseller!

p.s. the book hits stores in April but is available to pre-order online.

Great covers, great authors, great subject matter and a lot of fun to work on.

Here’s a preview of the next books coming off the conveyer belt in HCI’s bindery department in March and April (wait until you see May!)

p.s. sorry for the unsophisticated “click here” messages. I still haven’t mastered all the tricky graphic  nuances of my bloggy blog.

BEA means BookExpo America. You’ve read about it before on this blog. It happens every year, once a  year, and it’s the big deal trade show for everything books. Take all the components of book publishing and shake them up in a gigantic salad spinner, throw them on the floor of the Jacob Javitz Center in NY, and, voila, you’ve got BEA.

A massive publishing salad made of people, paper and lots of new, invisible (electronic) ingredients.

Since chain stores began sucking the life out of the mom and pop book business, nobody really knows what good BEA is anymore save for the few foreign deals made and the educational part of the pre-convention that is dedicated to  providing lectures and seminars. For a few days before the festivities begin the IBPA (Independent Book Publishers Association formerly known as PMA) sets up shop to teach. There are workshops about branding yourself and your book(s),  classes devoted to the new digital media in all of its perplexities, sessions where editors from publishers talk about what goes on in their department and sometimes media panels assemble to tell you what to and what not do when you pitch your book to them.

I spoke last year on what it’s like and how an in-house publicity department can successfully work in tandem with outside pr contractors. My conclusion: it’s possible. (In my shrinking department – vital)

Much buzzing around goes on at BEA. Everyone’s on the lookout for free books and lots of authors are on deck to sign and give away theirs. Some are first timers and others warrant paid tickets to see them because of their celebrity.

I’m forever cruising the area behind the autographing tables making bargains with fellow publicists for signed copies of their authors’ wares. It’s dizzying and it’s a lot of fun. The “star struck” part of me that runs in my family is especially ignited when I sniff out somebody famous.

A lot of the show’s novelty has worn off for me over the years but I still get a kick out of the frenetic ambiance of this gathering of publishers, booksellers, authors, journalists, agents, and just plain plain book lovers of the old booky wook. And, any reason I get to be in NY, an old friend of mine itself, is a good one.

Which leads me to my role in putting together the puzzle that is my group of HCI authors. Who to invite, what to do with them while they’re there and how to elevate my role as author babysitter into something respectable and satisfying.

We bring a combination of authors with books just recently brought to market and others with books on the way. Those with good sales numbers and those with attention grabbing titles and potential for sales. And, those with the perfect tri-state residential geography who don’t require lodging while attending the show.

I’m working on BEA now and have just gotten back my invitation letters from the authors. The next task is creating a schedule of autographing events so that everyone has their shot and most can be moved in and out of the show in a day.

I’ve  done this 15 times before and it still seems daunting at this stage of the game. And, the show is happening in the middle of the week instead of the long custom of weekends. What’s up with that?

I can’t decide if I like the idea or not but whatever I prefer, it really doesn’t much matter. I am the author tender from Tuesday through Thursday. With any luck, I’ll rendezvous with some producer and editor colleagues while there. Maybe some old friends who I see but once a year.

Everyone leaves a cloud of dust behind them as they circle the show again and again getting to the layers that they missed the first time around the aisles. We’re all in perpetual motion with darting eyes and aching arches. I offer a disclaimer that I really should put on a t-shirt or a button or something that exclaims: “don’t even try to have a normal conversation with me.”  You can hug me, tell me about your family, let me know what you’re up to in a few sound bytes, and that’ll be the most I can handle. If you need a discussion that goes deeper than that, call me after the show.

My ADD is happily inflamed for the entire three days at BEA. My attention span is abbreviated to an even scarier level than is normal for me. Keep that in mind if I bump into you. I offer  my apology now.

I wanted to set the seasonal mood for what’s coming in May and promise to give you more details about which authors will be with us, how things are panning out along the way,  and a great report from the show.

We’ve got the VOWS series to publicly launch, a Sarah Palin impersonator to support our Going Rouge book, a book about the “Tiger Woods syndrome” to show off, sex for grownups,  a crappy little kitchen book, and much more.

Until then…