A Friend in the Book Business:
Writing and Publishing Tips from Bill O’Hanlon
by
Bill O’Hanlon
* * * * *
Smashwords Edition
* * * * *
Published by Bill O’Hanlon at Smashwords
A Friend in the Book Business: Writing and Publishing Tips from Bill O’Hanlon
Copyright (c) 2011 by Bill O’Hanlon
* * * * *
A Friend in the Book Business
Writing and Publishing Tips from Bill O’Hanlon
Author of 34+ books
Hi, this is Bill O’Hanlon. I have had a lot of books published by traditional print publishers (places like W.W. Norton, John Wiley and Sons, HarperCollins, Penguin, Pearson and others). One of my books, Do One Thing Different, even got me featured on Oprah. That sold a few books.
Since I have written so many books, people I meet often tell me they have wanted to or intended to write a book. The problem is they usually don’t have a clue. So I decided to sit down and answer some common questions and give a few tips that might help you if you are in that boat. It’ll be like having a friend in the business.
Getting your book(s) written and published
Should you self-publish or get a publisher?
That question used to be easier to answer. Having someone else publish you book gave you credibility and prestige. There was someone else who had vetted your book idea and the quality of the writing and decided it was worth publishing. Self-published books typically looked cheap or were badly edited or laid out. In addition, creating, distributing, marketing and selling your book was a full-time job, with little likelihood of earning back the investment you made in time or money. (The average self-published print book used to sell about 100 copies, according to the Print-on-Demand publishers).
All that changed with the advent of the Internet. Suddenly, distribution and sales became a lot easier (can you say Amazon.com?). Marketing was still a challenge, but again email, websites and the Internet made it easier and more doable. And outsourcing editing, cover design, book layout and publicity is much easier because you can easily find competent, affordable help for each of these functions.
Still, unless you are the kind of person who would be a good general contractor if you were building a house or remodeling your existing home, self-publishing (at least the print variety) may not be for you. It still takes a lot of work (and a substantial investment of money) to make print self-publishing happen and the odds of success are not good. Having said that, some people do beat the odds and create a self-published print book that is of good quality and sells well enough to make back their investment. Having a book out might also help increase your speaking career and fees or bring in more clients to buy your services. So it may be worth it even if you don't break even on your initial investment with book sales.
Much easier to do is to publish an e-book. I self-published a few print books some years ago and, to get a good price, I had to buy about 4,000 copies. Even though I can sell my books at workshops and online, it took me a year or two to sell all those books. Meanwhile, they sat in my garage. Some got damaged in shipping and distribution. I did make money on them (more money than I would have if someone else had published them). All in all though, it was a hassle.
See CreateSpace for Amazon.com’s version of print on demand publishing. They can make it pretty easy for not too much money.
But in recent years, I have e-published. This is much easier. You still have to have a quality product and do marketing, but you save the hassle of printing lots of books and putting out lots of money up front. You don't have the physical damage of print books. Customers can get your product instantly and you don't have to pack or ship a thing. If you set it up right, the whole thing is automated. I make good money with my e-books. Not as good as some of my print books, but better than some. And I can control the pricing and other elements of my book. (Not that I have control issues, mind you.)
See Smashwords for the service I use to e-publish and get distributed in many ebook channels. Kindle Desktop Publishing is the other major option, although more appear all the time.
When do you need an agent?
Do you need an agent for your book?
Not always. And agents can be challenging to obtain, sometimes almost as challenging as selling your book to a publisher.
You need an agent when you have a book for the general public that you want published by a mainstream publisher.
The agent will have established relationships with the editors who obtain books for these big publishers. They will know which publishers are likely to be in the market for your kind of book. And they will know how much royalty advance your book will be likely to get.
They will also negotiate the complex terms of your book contract for you. This alone will be worth the 15% commission most charge.
You don't need an agent for a book that is for professional audiences or that will be published by smaller presses. These presses will not give you much of an advance and the contracts they offer will be pretty standard and boilerplate (and since there is not that much money involved in the book ultimately, negotiating that contract is less crucial).
How do you get an agent?
Someone recently wrote and asked me: How do I find an agent?
The simplest answers are:
1. Ask everyone you know if they know of any agents or have any personal connections to an agent;
2. Look in the acknowledgment sections of books you like that are similar to yours; Google the names of any agents you find there and mention the similar book;
3. Buy (or go the library and find) the several good books with lists of literary agents.
The more complicated answer is that while these are ways to find agents, they will rarely guarantee that those agents will respond or be interested. That is a longer question and one that I teach people about in some of my written material and online.
Once you find an agent, you must convince him or her to take you on. This is an achievable goal for most people, but most people fail to get agents once they find some names? Why? They approach them in the wrong way with the wrong information.
If you are contacting agents and not getting positive responses or interest, the problem with your project is almost certainly with the query letter or the proposal. If they haven't asked for a proposal, it is probably the query letter.