Writing for a Living: Survival Guide

1. Lecture 1: Introduction: Hey, I'm Stefan Paducah, adjunct professor at the University of Massachusetts and author of over 20 novels and hundreds of graphic novels. Having been a writer for a long, long time, I'm here to pass the blessing and the curse onto you. This time with writing for a living, the survival guide, bit of a departure from my other classes, queries and summaries, how to edit your own work and writing comics. This guy isn't about how to write at all. It's solely about the business side of things. From the mechanics of the industry to copyright laws, to how to deal with rejection. In short, the sort of things anyone planning to sell their writing should know. Knowledge after all, his power to be clear. Writing can be its own reward, a gift to the self that can last a lifetime. The only reason I've kept writing through lean financial periods is because I get so much out of it personally. Following your bliss won't necessarily make you rich, but it will make your blissful. But earning a living as a writer isn't about art or bliss. It's about commerce. Which means either finding an audience willing to pay for your work or creating art and its sibling quality have a place in that process, but they don't necessarily control or dominate it. There's some insist quality will always out that good writing sooner or later finds an audience. If it hasn't, they argue either the writing isn't good or its time has yet to come. I think is if you define good is something that will sell, then of course, if it doesn't sell, it can't be good. Which is anyone who has ever read a horribly written bestseller nose is nonsense. It's equally ridiculous to assume that every unpublished book is a hidden gem. Many books really are rejected because they lack equality. Quality though, whatever that may be does not always out. At the same time. Many myself among them believe the marketplaces driven by it. While a quality work may fail to find a substantial audience, it can still influence others that do. Some publishers believe that quality in and of itself has commercial value if only as an investment in the future. That may make it sound like the process of becoming a successful writers completely random, but it's not, it's worse. Getting a book sold to a major publisher is more like winning a lottery in which you have to have a certain level of scale just to buy a ticket. Once you achieve that skill level, then your chances become random. Importantly, writers that earn a steady living have something else going for their work regardless of its quality, its marketability. The book industry has two basic economic components. Readers and publishers, who spend their money for different but related reasons. Readers hope for entertainment and enlightenment. Publishers, of course, have personal tastes. And in the case of a small independent publisher, may work to promote those tastes. But if they operate for profit, they published books, they think readers will buy books they perceive as marketable. They can make some very educated guesses about that. But the bottom line is that no one can reliably predict how a given project will perform. Otherwise, harry Potter would've been picked up by the first editor who saw it, not the 13th book, that seems a sure thing may go nowhere. Just as the road to **** is paved with good intentions, the road to success is littered with projects that publishers thought would sell but flopped. In fact, the big players can publish lots of books to combat that randomness. Throwing whatever they can against the wall, hoping that something sticks. The flip side of that guessing game is that even work that is marketable won't always find a publisher. What this means is that some works with neither quality nor marketability do get published. While some works with both quality and marketability, don't. It also means that theoretically a publisher can be profitable by releasing marketable works with no quality at all. If people wanted to buy books with nothing but incoherent drivel on each page, publishers would produce them, and book outlets would offer them. In a capitalist economy, they would be foolish not to. Do. Publishers go about making intelligent guesses about what will sell. The best indicator of future performance being past performance. Basically, they look at what's sold in the past or what's trending, gaining substantial attention in the here and now. While quality in an artistic sense strives to be unique, marketability rests on consistency, creating an inherent tension. If a publisher offers works that are too similar to one another, one won't stand out from the others, and sales will dissipate at the same time. One crime thriller, for example, can't be completely different from another and still reasonably expect to appeal to the crime thriller market. At the very least, it should contain a thrilling crime. Publishers therefore tend to seek work that is close enough to existing successes to fulfill expectations, but different enough to attract attention and continue to entertain. This results in a seeming paradox. In order to have the best chance of being purchased by a publisher or work must be exactly the same. Only different art versus commerce, quality versus marketability, uniqueness versus consistency. What's a writer to do? Well, two strategies make sense. The first and more difficult is to try to create something completely different but also fascinating, compelling enough to attract attention despite current market trends. At an editorial group encounters a gripping submission they can't put down. It's not unreasonable for them to assume others will feel the same. Other factors aside. Which bookstore section doesn't belonging, how do you market it, etc. They're more likely to take a risk even in perhaps because they've never seen anything like it before. The second simpler path is to try to create something that intentionally appeals to an existing market. Study the trends, read the bestsellers, interact with genre followers and attempt to glean what makes that market tick. Once you do, replicate those elements with a modest yet intriguing variation. In any case, don't try to write for a market you don't enjoy yourself. Readers can smell a fake. Being a fan yourself, though not only gives you a built-in insight and makes the process easier and more fulfilling. While seemingly at odds, the two strategies really aren't mutually exclusive. Fascinating, intriguing writing can also fulfill genre criteria. The sweet spot would be convincing an editor that your work has at all quality and marketability. That it's art that can attract commerce. Exactly the same as what cells, but wildly different. Sound difficult. It is. If it also sounds fascinating, challenging and enjoyable. And you're looking for a nuts and bolts understanding of how to navigate the writing life. Great. These nine pithy lectures are just for you. Starting with this introduction, an informal history of publishing, copyright, queries, rejection, literary agents, self-publishing, promotion, and last but not least, the press release. I'll see you next lecture. Click my fingers escape make and that. There's no going back from making. Class. Got your hip, hop down, hunky-dory. And I had a client that just ain't no freaking background at all. As a matter of fact, the neighbors are complaining in my God. He's at the Arad, a tat tat on a dollar home. Manage slab, job-ready Charles Band and he had bought a day and got my little click, click, click. You know, you could be making love and click. And he just gave at our WACC. Make that clear. 2. Lecture 2 An Informal History of Publishing: Understanding how to survive as a rider requires contexts. And to that end, this lecture covers an informal history of the storytelling industry. By informal, I mean, it's an effort to condense a very complicated reality into an engaging, accessible form. In other words, it's a story same as all the others that surround us from books, e-books and articles to video film, video games, and the 24 hour news cycle. Other than the technology, it's nothing new. As human beings, we've always been surrounded by stories. Birds build nests, Humans tell stories. And thanks to a combination of available material and skills, both inherited and learned, yes, birds do learn. Some nests come out stronger and more attractive than others. Likewise, we all tell stories, but some attract more attention than others. And that's where specialization, aka the division of labor comes in. Among hunter-gatherers, the best hunters tended to hunt, the best gatherers gathered. In time. Those better at making weapons, weaving cloth, and so on, earn their keep that way. While the first storytellers lift off the scraps, toss their way. Eventually, somebody came honored as the vessels of the tribes news and culture. They also had a very direct relationship with their audience, storyteller, audience. That was it. If the audience liked what they had to say enough to give them food, they ate. If they didn't, they starved or had to find a real job. As specialization increased though, that wonderfully direct relationship became mitigated. First by sponsors in the form of chiefs who might want stories about them told a certain way. Then kings, queens, priests and priestesses, and in time, editors, Publishers, Distributors, publicists, and corporations. The first big mitigation occurred with the emergence of rioting, which is currently believed to have arisen independently in Mesopotamia, between thirty four hundred and thirty one hundred BCE. Egypt, around 3250 BCE, China, about 1200 BCE, and lowland areas of Southern Mexico and Guatemala by about 500 BCE. Unlike freewheeling campfire storytelling, writing allows standardization and control. Standardization in the sense that everyone gets to read the same thing. Control in the sense that one person or group gets to determine the final form of what that thing is. Initially reading and writing belonged to an elite, giving birth to a new and highly valued role. Describe their weird squiggles considered magic by the hoi polloi, even by uneducated rulers. But everyone's still understood the spoken word. So our original storytellers now more accurately dubbed oral storytellers, continued on their merry way, refining and formalizing their ability to engage audiences. Metered verse and simple plot structures being easier to memorize. That's what they used. Ascribes produced material understood in afforded mostly by an elite. Bards in town criers earned their bread and butter from titillating and tantalizing the masses. As such, scribes might consider the bards audience. Dimwitted. Bards might consider the scribes snooty attention that remains with us to this day, embodied in the difference in attitudes between say, James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake and Stephanie mayors Twilight, the proponents of one, often mystified by the tastes of the other. In time while buying a scroll remained expensive. Achieving basic literacy did not. Even in the ancient world, many families were able to send their children to tutors. In Europe by 1179, the church mandated free education for the poor. Big reason for that initial elitism was technological. Each and every copy of anything had to be handwritten by skilled professionals, making the written word expensive and only affordable by the wealthy. The major innovations to that process all occurred in China. Paper dating to the second century BCE. Woodblock printing appearing within a few 100 years and movable type around 1040 CE. The first steel excellent book created by that process is the jetty, an anthology of Zen teachings printed in Korea 1377. More famous in the West is the printing press invented by Yohana Spoonflower or Latin Gutenberg and the resulting Gutenberg Bible, 1455. Within 40 years, by one estimate, 8 million books had been produced by a 1000 printing presses throughout Europe and its colonies. Cheaper, more plentiful books not only enabled literacy to spread, they allowed for a greater variation in content. Newspapers appeared by the 17th century. The first general interest magazines by 1731. Crucially, the book buying audience was no longer solely a wealthy elite. While the writing and reading of erudite histories, philosophical terms, and epic poems remained an occupation of the learned and a past-time for the rich. Newspaper editors made their money from a much more general readership. These DIY pioneers own their own press and wrote all their own content. Success though, enabled expansion, which in turn created a need for workers. First in the form of apprentices, later hired staff. Now, a low-born individual with a knack for storytelling might actually earn a salary. As something else grew up alongside newspapers and magazines, the novel. While once upon a time long stories had to be easy to memorize, I'm asked printed book could preserve and disseminate more complex and less rhythmic compositions. Not only that, thanks to Books, for the first time in history, the masses could engage in a private activity, in public settings, reading novels and a coach on a train, or sitting in a coffee house or park, served much the same function as our so-called smartphones do today. Allowing people to ignore what might be a boring outer world and the boring people within it. I'm talking to your mom and dad in exchange for a more exciting inner one. During the Industrial Revolution, to more innovations made printing even cheaper and more plentiful. 1810 steam-powered press in 1843 is rotary press, which could produce millions of copies of a page in a single day. The one stunning 8 million bucks, it took 1000 printing presses, 40 years to produce, could now be created by a single press in less than a month. The floodgates open writers roles became more varied from literary authors devoted to the ages to socially conscious reporters exposing issues of the day to the hack writers of dime novels and penny dreadful, dedicated to delivering the base entertainment for the masses, once provided by bards in newspapers and magazines, since they had to be produced on a schedule, gave writers are more stable existence. Not so the life of the novelist, Edgar Allan Poe, the first well-known American to try to make living writing died in poverty. The other hand, Charles Dickens rose from a financially troubled background to great personal wealth. Technology that perky IMP continued to advance motion pictures than radio provided more forums for mass storytelling and more jobs for storytellers as the opportunities varied, so did the manner of payment. The major film studios like newspapers, relied on salaried staff. Both also sometimes used a freelance model. Purchasing the rights to individual pieces rather than hiring new employees. Novelist, however, are not never have been seen as employees or independent professionals working in partnership with publishers. As such, they receive a share of the profits based on sales called a royalty. Larger publishers give authors in advance against those profits, usually paid in thirds on signing a contract, on submitting a final draft. And when the book is published. Advances vary wildly, but to make things simple, say for instance, you'll receive a $10 thousand advance against the 5% royalty for a $10 book, 5% of $10.50, your share of every book sold. That means you have to sell 20 thousand copies to earn out or cover that $10 thousand advance. Every copy sold after that earns an additional $0.50, what the publisher usually making payments quarterly. Now unlike a chair built-in sold by a carpenter, the same story can be sold over and over and adapted into different media, making it what's called intellectual property. A category that includes video, radio plays, photographs, and other art forms. So alongside these various payment structures, complex laws evolved to regulate just what it is a storytellers cell, which is called a copyright. The legal right to make and sell copies of an intellectual property, which I'll talk more about in lecture three. Complicated copyright laws begat complicated author contracts. A couple that with the arrival of many more book publishers and around 1880, a new specialist appears, the literary agent, someone who markets an author's work to publishers and vets offers generally not for a flat fee, but in exchange for a percentage of the resulting income. I'll discuss agents more in lecture six. Has some writers cell content under a work for hire agreement in which the copyright remains with the publisher. For instance, in the 1980's, the stratum Meyerson to get produced book series such as Nancy Drew in the Hardy Boys. The characters were created in a very basic sense and own in every legal sense by the publisher for a flat fee as low as $125 and no royalties. Uncredited freelancers wrote the books which saw print under the house name's Frank Dixon and Carolyn King. Even today for a licensed work where the concepts in characters already exist and are owned by others, say a Star Wars or Star Trek novel, the author might well not receive a royalty. Some writers sign work for hire contracts in exchange for what they think will be a steady your income. Others don't always understand the legal implications. Flipping the payment model entirely, the status in romance of having a book published gave rise to the Vanity Press, Now usually considered a derogatory term. Or authors actually have to pay the publisher to have their book produced. Naturally, increasing specialization also made its way into distribution. Editors who once sold their own newspapers, gateway to news boys, often homeless youth living on pennies who stood on street corners shouting the latest headlines, echoing the old town crier in time, news boys gateway to newsstands that carried multiple periodicals in books, while publishers once owned their own stores independently on bookstores became the rule. All told the ones simple path from storyteller to audience now looked like this. Storytellers submit to literary agents who submit to editors. If the work is sold, the editor and author finalize the manuscript. Proofreader tries to eliminate errors. Then the manuscript goes to a book designer who handles things like the cover and page layout. Booksellers employed by publishers than present their upcoming titles to bookstores and later ie retailers. Based on those advanced orders, publishers guess how many copies will sell? Books are printed based on that guess. Then they're shipped to a distributor who fills the bookstores. Orders had lasted appears on a shelf surrounded by hundreds of other books where it's hopefully bought and enjoyed by the audience. As with any industry operating under corporate capitalism, growth lead to consolidation. Smaller businesses merged, larger businesses, purchased smaller ones. The largest were ultimately purchased by conglomerates. Family businesses founded at least partly on a love of books, became owned by corporations, which are legally obligated to focus on the bottom line, those scores of individual imprints still exist. The 2012 Random House penguin merger brought the number of major publishers down to five. If the deal for Penguin Random House to purchase Simon and Schuster goes through his expected by 2022. It'll be four. For the writer. There are advantages and disadvantages, while there are far fewer markets to sell your books, do individual businesses are subject to the tastes of their owners? Corporations for good or ill, serve the tastes of their buyers. Once a single letter there decided which title to buy. Now acquisitions by the big five or four are approved by editorial groups spreading out the credit and blame. Meanwhile, other media revolutions have created incredibly stiff competition for the limited leisure time previously spent reading like video games and yet the Internet. Since the mid 90s, pundits have warned of the death of the mid list books earning less than stellar amounts. Once a large publisher might nurse a beginning author as an investment. Today, lower sales coupled with that increased corporate focus on profits have left beginning and even career authors with fewer options and considerably less support, they also face smaller advances and an increased expectation that they bear the weight of promotion themselves. Many now are arranged in pay for their own book tours with publishers encouraging them to hire their own publicist. Speaking of publishers, newspapers and magazines have undergone similar consolidation with scores disappearing while circulations have dropped. Predictions about their demise have yet to come to pass in retail by the late 20th century, big chain stores like Barnes and Noble negotiated very low purchase prices from publishers based on volume, and then offered customers such steep discounts that smaller bookstores couldn't hope to compete. By 1994, the change not only outsold the independence, they were threatening their existence, these dominant players were now able to charge hefty sums for putting a title on a display table or in an endcap, the narrow end of an aisle where books are displayed face out, creating a visual advantage. This influence extended to content. Barnes and Noble didn't believe a book's cover or title would appeal to its customers. Publisher might wisely change both. Further technological advances brought both hope and chaos. By 1985, desktop publishing, the creation of printed materials using a person with computer drastically lowered production costs, leading to a boom in the small independent press, often owned and operated by a single person or a few friends. They'll culturally important and influential on the industry. Few small publishers earn enough to quit their day jobs, remains a labor of love and or masochism. Hand-in-hand with desktop publishing. Digital printing, readying material for print on computer rather than typesetting led to the creation of print on demand POD, a process by which a single book can be quickly produced at a reasonable price. Low of variable quality. Pod eliminates the need for small publishers to print thousands of books that they may not be able to sell, again, lowering investment costs. Meanwhile, in retail online outlets, notably Amazon.com, which debuted in 1995, offer a massive selection independent of shelf space, presented in a manner geared to individual tastes, along with scores of reader reviews. Early CRT and LCD monitors weren't only difficult to curl up with on a couch, they emit light, making reading long works like a novel, difficult for most, if only in terms of eye strain E ink, on the other hand, created in 1997 by the incorporation, works using ambient light. Meaning if you take it into the dark, you won't be able to see anything on the screen. This makes the experience easier on the eyes and arguably closer to reading a physical book. Paperback sized erasers can store over a 1000 bucks. Some also allow you to look up words and references by tapping on the screen. For a while, it seemed as if the electronic format was too fast, cheap, and out of control not to achieve dominance. In fact, on May 19th, 2011, amazon.com announced it was selling more e-books than physical books. September 18th, 2011, a bankrupt. Borders Books Close their last domestic store. Due to Amazon's quick delivery and infinite selection, retail itself has been hard hit, especially since the COVID pandemic. Brick-and-mortar stores struggled to compete by expanding their offerings to include music, which of course, you can't possibly get online and coffee. Perhaps surprisingly, they'll physical books delivered by Amazon or not have managed to hold their own. In the United States in 202751 million physical books sold versus 191 million ebooks. Still that a 191 million books is nothing to sneeze at. The format itself is revolutionary in more ways than one. When it comes to eBooks, half the players and their cost vanish. Printers, distributors, booksellers along with shippers and warehouses are no longer necessary. Publishers large and small no longer have to guess how many books to print. Promotion can no longer rely on table displays, risers or end caps. Ebooks at least seem to put large and small publishers on a more even playing field. But money, as they say Talks, the big players still have more capital to invest in promotion. At the same time, big ships have trouble turning quickly. The industry still shrinking is full of employees understandably struggling to retain their jobs. As a consequence of this pressure, many eBooks still costs more than $10. According to investopedia, Amazon was forced by the major book publishers to increase their e-book prices by an average of $5. New tab usually also brings new problems. E-books or more easily pirated than movies. And how can a library lending model work in a way that ensures access to books and a reasonable return to writers. The seismic shift isn't likely to settle anytime soon. As in any such revolution, great parallel, profound opportunities exist side-by-side. As we'll see in lecture seven, with pretty much all of the obstacles to publication removed, self-publishing has become a more viable choice for authors, accounting for 3234% of all e-book sales in 2020. All of which brings us pretty much back to the beginning. And therein lies the rub with far fewer mitigations between readers and storytellers than there have been for millennia. There are also far more storytellers making it, as we'll see, much more difficult to attract an audience. That much isn't likely to change after all, birds build nests, humans tell stories. Click my fingers, keep making that clinic. No, going back from here, got your hip hop. Hip hop down to clip. The offline. Hunky-dory and click Edit. Bad, just stay No freakin background. As a matter of fact, the neighbors are complaining about my client. You've got your watch everybody. Tat tat on a dollar home. Chomp, chomp band and your candy bar today and got my little click, click, click, deadline or a good thing. You know, you could be making love and click and he wanted to be a hack, just gave it a whack and may quit. 3. Lecture 3 Copyright Basics: I want to begin this lecture on copyright with a disclaimer. I'm not a lawyer, and none of this should be construed as anything remotely resembling legal advice. I have, on the other hand, red reviewed and signed dozens of publishing contracts based on that experience. Here's my understanding of some of the basics. Many beginning writers are legitimately concerned about protecting their work. Bottom line though, if you want to be a professional writer, you'll have to show it to someone while there are unscrupulous people out there. The good news is that most of humanity does play by the rules. But then naturally the issue becomes understanding what those rules are. Like. Any properties, say a chair, you can do whatever you like with it and sit on it, keep it, sell it, or whatever. As long as it's within the boundaries of the law. Only a story isn't like a chair. For one thing. You can't sell the exact same chair over and over The way you can't story. It's still considered a property. But what's known as an intellectual property, a category which includes film, photos, and other art forms. Copyright meaning literally the right to copy. It gives the creator of an intellectual property exclusive legal control over who can copy or adaptive. Also, unlike chair ownership, there's a limit as to how long that copyright lasts. In the United States for works created after January first 1978, copyright protection lasts for the life of the author plus an additional 70 years for works made for hire, which I explained back in lecture two. And anonymous or pseudonymous works. It's 95 years from publication or 120 years from creation, whichever is shorter. After that, the work falls into what's called the public domain, which I'll explain shortly. Meanwhile, to continue with our chair metaphor, violating a copyright isn't as cut and dry as stealing a chair. If you're caught with stolen merchandise, the state in some form brings charges against you with copyright infringement. The copyright holder has to sue the infringer and prove the theft. While a judge can order an infringer to cease and desist prior to retrial. The arguments can be very complicated. The winter far too often being the one who can afford the lawyers regardless of the merits of the case. That said to understand what's protected by a copyright, let's start by looking at two things that aren't titles and ideas. Type in hope as a book title search in Amazon. And you'll find several books with that name by different authors, some published in the same year. None as far as I know, lead to a lawsuit. On the other hand, call your next novel, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. You will be asked to stop. And if you don't, you will be sued and you will lose. There is of course, a world of difference between hope and Harry Potter. The first is a single word not particularly associated with a given work. On the other hand, someone picking up your Harry Potter might reasonably expect the other one, in which case you're robbing JK Rowling and her publisher of a cell. While titles can't be copyrighted, if consumers associated title with a certain book, using it can still create unfair and arguably illegal competition. H2, that end a title can be trademarked. As the word implies, a trademark is a mark, a recognizable sign designer expression used to identify products from a particular source and distinguish it from products that aren't from that source. You can't, for instance, trademark the word the and prevent others from using it. You can create a specific design of the word and use it, for instance, to sell the bread. Another company producing the bread would then be infringing on your trademark. Confused, just wait. Fact that ideas cannot be copyright protected. As a surprise to many, if you have a great idea, it seems common sense that you'd be entitled to protect it legally though it's only the tangible manifestation of an idea or it's fixed expression, meaning recording it in some form outside your head that can be copyrighted. Beyond that legal technicality, there's another issue here. Much as we like to think all our ideas are unique, they're most likely not. As we speak, lots of people out there are diligently working to come up with new ideas. With so many pumping out pitches and high concepts on a daily basis, it's inevitable that one or more will come up with the same basic notion and structured based on archetype story forms like the hero's journey for instance. The more basic the idea of the more likely someone else or even a computer program came up with it too. In other words, to stick with Harry Potter, if you wrote, boy discovers he's a wizard on a piece of paper in 1980, you really don't have a case where suing JK Rowling, the test your sense of uniqueness. Make two lists of ten famous movies then mix and match them at random. Adding the word meets between them. Odds are, you'll come up with a concept that's already been used for a film or book. The Godfather meets back to the future equals looper. Yeah, whenever an author sees their idea elsewhere, they're easily convinced it was stolen. For years. I tried to sell a comic series based on holiday characters like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, acting as superheroes. Then along came Rise of the Guardians, a major film with the same high concept. Did they somehow get the idea from me? Sure. It's possible. Anything is possible. I mailed the proposal to a lot of publishers and people talk, but it's ultimately irrelevant and far more likely that someone else was thinking along similar lines. This is not to say ideas can't be stolen, but to make a case, that concept has to be more than an idea. And the stealing has to be very explicit. As I said, while an idea can't be copyrighted, fixed original expression of that idea can be. But what the **** does that mean? Well, this video lecture for incidence is called copyright. If someone else posted a video lecture called copyright and cover the same topics in their own words. And someone probably has, I would not be able to bring a case against them. This basic copyright information is available in a lot of places, along with similar overviews, including appropriately from the Federal Copyright Bureau, had copyright.gov, which you should check out for further information. However, if someone took this video and just put their name on it, or cut and pasted the whole thing verbatim, using my words, my expression of the ideas, I could legally demand that they stop, insists they pay damages. And if I had the time and money, take them to court if they refused. Importantly, there's a big gray area. If someone changed a word or two, I'd still have a case if they revised it completely. I wouldn't. Basically, the more the copy resembles the original, the stronger the case. Yet even if you can bring an infringement case, it's not always considered worthwhile and that depends on the strength of the case, who's doing the infringing, and how much time and money you can devote to the process. Suing a blog writer who put their name on your story or article is very different from going against the legal team of a huge corporation because there are some parallels between your work and there's, for example, in 1987, Michael's Brzezinski was developing a TV series called Babylon Five about a space station in a diplomatically tough situation while shopping the idea, he claims to have given Paramount Studios a series bible and plot breakdowns for the first season. Then in 1993, both Babylon five and Paramount, Star Trek Deep Space nine, about a space station in a diplomatically tough situation, premiered with a host of similarities. Despite having a strong case, Minsky decided against investing the time and money in a lawsuit. Hello, rumor has it that paramount paid him an undisclosed sum. Acquiring a copyright is the easy part under the law in many countries, you don't have to do anything. The moment your work is put in a tangible form, it becomes your intellectual property is protected as such, the definition of tangible has become more plastic in the digital age, but the idea remains the same. The intellectual property can't simply be in your head and you can't simply tell someone about it. It has to be expressed in a medium. Others can see. As such, creating a computer file with your work gives you a defacto copyright. Just by popular belief, no registration is required. If push comes to shove though, and you wind up in court, the problem becomes proving not only that you created it, but when you created it, dated computer files, emails, and other such materials can go along way to providing that proof. Registering your work with one of the many online services provides an extra layer of protection for a fee. Importantly, though, registering your work with the Copyright Bureau, again for a fee, currently starting at forty-five dollars for paper registration, sixty-five dollars short electronic provides some key legal advantages. You can read about them in detail at copyright.gov. But to sum up, you don't have to register when the work is created to file an infringement suit in the United States, you first have to register your copyright with the Copyright Bureau. You can find whenever you are ready to bring suit, even if it's decades later. But if you do so up to five years after the creation of the work, the registration is considered prima facie evidence or accepted as correct into proven otherwise, and you can present it as such in court. You can also present other evidence such as emails, Mailing yourself a copy, webpage, or electronic versions of the book and so on. If your register up to three months after the creation of the work, you can also sue for attorney's fees and statutory damage, meaning damage to your brand and reputation. Otherwise, you can only sue for actual damages, loss of sales, and profits earned by the infringer for your work. Multiple registrations being expensive, especially if it's for a work you're not even sure you can sell. Rather than register, some authors male themselves a copy of their work in a sealed envelope. And the belief that the date on the cancel stamp constitutes a form of proof. This is known as the poor man's copyright, PMC for short. While some countries such as the United Kingdom consider PMC a valid form of registration. The United States does not. While a valid form of registration and proof overlap, they're not the same thing. You can prove in court that you created something by a particular date without registering it at all. In that sense, the HPMC may prove useful even in the United States depending on the circumstance and the judge. While some websites called PMC and myth, many of which then direct you to a service that offers to register your work for a fee, and no one seems able to locate an actual case where claim in the United States was won or lost based on it. If anyone can find one, please let me know. On the flip side, many don't consider the poor man's copyright a good bet, since it can be easily faked. After all, envelopes can be steamed, opened. According to the official copyright office FAQ. There is no provision in the copyright law regarding any such type of protection and it's not a substitute for registration. However, there are also no such provisions regarding outside services or any other form of proof which a court may or may not find valid. If you think about it, even registering with the Copyright Bureau doesn't provide proof that you created the work. If you send someone else's work to the Copyright Bureau, you'll receive a registration number for it just as easily as you can steam open an envelope. It simply provides external evidence of the date the work existed in that tangible form. Emailing your work to someone you trust. Since the timestamp can be checked on the e-mail server is considered more reliable. In my own experience, once I email something to my trusted agent, I consider it as a bad, as protected as need be. My publishers are contractually responsible for filing with the copyright office. Other than early in my career when I didn't have much experience, I haven't felt the need to take additional steps. That again, there's that movie, The Rise of the Guardians. Some of you may have noticed the billions and billions of memes and online videos that use copyrighted photos and film clips With create abandoned. The thing is, a lot of that is completely legal. Copyright law spells out certain circumstances under which protected work can be used under the heading of fair use, which again is detailed in copyright.gov. Reviewer or someone writing a critique, for instance, is free to publish a short quote from a novel or show a clip from a film as part of their review without permission. Fair use also allows for parity, imitative work, and tended to mock or comment on its source. As long as the parity can't reasonably be confused with the original, it falls under fair use, or they'll parity is often considered synonymous with satire. Parody specifically mocks the original work, making it basically a review in narrative form. A satire, on the other hand, uses a work to mock someone or something else, as in depicting a political candidate as the evil Darth Vader, which has such could be considered copyright infringement. Interestingly, and adaptation of someone else's work can also be copyrighted. If you created a graphic novel adaptation of a Stephen King book, for example, while you can't sell it or give it away without King's permission. He likewise can't technically use your specific adaptation in so far as it's unique without your permission. Not only do copyrights eventually expire, some work has never been protected by copyright in the first place. If it was created prior to the existence of copyright law, or it's copyright has expired, or was somehow forfeited, it falls into what's called the public domain, meaning it can be used by anyone for anything. How many independent publishers, for instance, sell e-book versions of public domain works for a decent profit. While something like the Mona Lisa is obviously in the public domain, specific photos of it may not be. In other instances, things can get even more complicated. When a clerical error lead to a failure to renew the copyright for It's a Wonderful Life. Various television stations considered a public domain, believing they could Eric for free. They did so repeatedly, leading to its rise in popularity. The studio argued, however, that although the films images were public domain, the story on which it was based still had a valid copyright, which the studio owned. The stations still had to pay royalties. In recognition of the massive cut and pasting being done in our digital age, some artists and photographers simply choose to allow anyone to use their work provided they receive credit under what's called a Creative Commons license. Massive collections of such work can be found online. Ultimately, it's natural and y's for writers to protect their work. After all, our creations are our products. If someone steals them, aside from losing control of what happens to them, at least part of any money earned is rightly ours. A quick Google will confirm that plagiarism does occur, particularly in the realm of independent publishers and online, where work can easily be reprinted without permission, sometimes even under a new byline. On the other hand, many writers, especially beginners, can be unduly worried. Having sold 20 novels, hundreds of comic book stories and pitch scores of projects and blah, blah, blah. Other than someone in a reading group describing their new novel in the same words I'd use to describe one of my own. This has never been an issue for me. To my experience, most people really are honest. In any case, no established editor or agent would be caught dead stealing someone else's work. It would mean the end of their career. Most importantly, as I said at the beginning, to selling your work, you'll have to show to someone, worry too much about stealing and you may never make that sale or build an audience. Worry too little, and you could be cheated. Click my fingers, escape making that clinic as you know, going back from Medicare. Got your hip hop, hip hop down, clip. The offline, hunky-dory and BOD clinic I had a bad just ain't no freaking backward o clinic. As a matter of fact, the neighbors are complaining about you got your job every time. There's a tat tat on a dollar home. Chomp, chomp band and your candy bar today and got my little click, click, click, deadline or any good thing? You know, you could be making love and click. And he just gave at our WACC. Make that clear. 4. Lecture 4 Queries: Unless you're planning to self-publish, which I'll discuss in lecture seven, you'll be pitching your work to editors and or agents, most likely through a written query. I devote an entire course to the subject entitled, and surprisingly, writing for living, creating summaries and queries. But here I'll run through the basics of whatever the rider needs to know. A Truly madly deeply massive volume of submissions from prose, semi-pro, and wannabes makes reviewing everyone's entire novel not just undesirable but impossible. At the same time, the publishing industry faces a grand dilemma. Who knows which among those billions will be the next great hit to better utilize limited time. Authors now first pitch their work in no more than a page. The e-mail equivalent of about 250 words as quickly gives the editor agents a sense of whether the idea is something they think they can sell. And if the author knows how to write, after all, if someone can't write a compelling couple of paragraphs, why I believe they can handle a novel. If they like what they see, they'll ask to see either the completed work for some sample chapters. Even so between queries and requested manuscripts, agents and editors are constantly reading. Some claim to receive 80 thousand queries a year. I don't know if I believe that number, but I'm sure it's a lot. While intended as a filtering mechanism, reading queries has become a full-time job. Some editors at the larger publishers supposedly only review queries submitted by established agents. Others only queries from writers who were already published. This, as you may notice, is a catch-22. You can't get an agent unless you're published and you can't get published unless you have an agent. Where are these rules universal? Once the current professional writers died out, there would be no new ones. But I say supposedly because gripping writing will always attract attention. And editor or agent would be a fool to turn down a potential hit because of a procedural rule. On the other hand, if a query is sent regardless of the rules, it had better really be amazing what just a few paragraphs to accomplish that every word counts wherever the query is sent. Its goal is to present enough information about a project to convince a harried, jaded, busy reader who may be having a bad day that seeing the entire work is worth they're extremely limited time. The goal of a great query then is to make that harried, jaded, busy reader excited about spending. They're extremely limited time reading your work. When reading a query, editors look for three basic things. What's the story, what market will it appeal to, and what experiences the author have that indicates that can produce this work in a compelling manner. As a matter of etiquette to additional bits of information are usually included. How much is a project is complete? And have you sent this query to other editors and agents? Let's look at each in more detail. Having spent years toiling over your story. Now you have to boil it down into a few stunning sentences that show the quality of your concept and the competence of your writing. And if he can't be brilliant for a couple of paragraphs, why be a writer? Be creative, be exciting, Go for it. A query is not the place to be coy. You're paranoid. If you're a story pivots on a unique concept or a shocking conclusion. Don't worry about spoiling things are giving the ending away. Editors and agents aren't the same as readers while they liked being entertained as much as anyone. They need the big picture if you're concerned about them stealing your story. First, checkout lecture three on copyrights. Second, stick to established editors and agents, people with reputations to uphold who are generally honest. But be aware that in the end, the only way to ensure someone won't be influenced by or even steal from your work is if you don't try to sell it. Above all else, never compliment yourself. Let your writing speak for itself. Don't say you're a good writer, present good writing. Don't say you've written something stunning, amazing or whatever superlative you prefer, writes something stunning, an amazing show. Don't tell past that while many writers struggle with creating summaries, the good news is that it's a skill that can be learned. Specifically in the course I mentioned earlier. Marketing your work begins with choosing where you send your query. There's no point in sending a non-fiction book query to a romance publisher or an agent specializing in science fiction, research what they're selling and submit only two suitable matches. Spell out why it'll appeal to the market that they serve. Editors and agents have their own ideas about what readers want, but drawing a line between your work and potential sales can give them not only ideas, but a better sense of your writing. One of the easiest ways to do that is to compare your story to work that's already successful and don't be embarrassed about it. We all have influences and nothing is completely original. Explain how, as I said in lecture one, it's exactly the same, only different. For example, I often describe my young adult novel Ripper as sort of like Harry Potter, but without magic and with a serial killer. If you're pitching a nonfiction or genre work, focus on how many people are interested in the subject, find related data and use it. For instance, according to the New York Times last year, 50 million parents spend more on rainbow paperclips than they did on childcare. My book about a rainbow paperclip that comes to life and cares for children, is sure to appeal to them and many others. Or 9 billion people watch The Walking Dead. If my zombie novel appeals to just 2% of them, it will sell a 180 million copies. While generally your focus should be on your content, selling yourself as part of selling your work. In terms of quality, What's your writing background? Do you write from personal experience? Is the subject to professional interests a lifelong love or both? If you're a beginner lacking and professional background, who are your influences? What did you fall in love with? Enough to write a whole book about it? In terms of marketing, do you already have a track record or better yet, a following? Who might be interested in this project? Will you do signings in support of your work? Are you willing to arrange them yourself or you wealthy enough to hire a publicist? Can you get a blurb from a famous author in the field? Some of my students will write things like, I realized this is my first book and I have no experience. But importantly, don't mention what you haven't done or can't do only what you have. And can agents and editors prefer the burden hand a finished manuscript. It removes not only concerns about whether a beginner can handle a long work, but when and if they'll get it done. Once you have a proven track record that can change a bit. Three years I sold books based on three chapters in a proposal called a partial. Importantly though, when I started writing novels, I'd been writing comic books professionally for years. And these days, I submit completed works. While a rare few stunning chapters from a beginner may still result in an advance not having the finished work ways the scales against you an exception. Screenplays can sometimes be sold on treatments, essentially extended summaries. But again, if that big Hollywood producer loves the treatment and wants to screen black, it's best at it ready. It's a common misconception that authors should only query one publisher or agent at a time, that it's somehow impolite or against the rules to do otherwise, it's not. So don't always send your queries to multiple editors are agents. While once upon a time, a few agents and publishers might have asked for an exclusive flooded by submissions. They can take as long as a year to respond to queries if they respond at all. A given that reality for the writer, exclusives don't make any sense. On the other hand, there's no downside to multiple submissions. They not only increase the odds of getting your work in front of the right person, they eliminate many and needless grueling weight during which your new idea can become old news. But nothing's perfect, including your query. So it is advisable to test the waters, see how it goes over with a small number of submissions. If you receive similar feedback, consider revising it once it's in final form. However, query as many appropriate potential buyers as you can. That said, it is a matter of courtesy to let the editor know if they're in competition for your work. Don't use valuable space naming where the query has been sent or spelling out how many there are. I just mentioned that you're sending this query to other sources. Strategically, it's a wash. If an editor is on the fence, they may not want to make an effort on a project they could lose. But if an editor has already excited about the idea, knowing that someone else might grab it can increase their eagerness. More importantly, having genuine interest from another source nearly always worked in the writer's favor. As I said, even the best editor can only make an educated guess about what will sell. Having that gets confirmed by other professionals, can raise their own interests and gives them ammunition to take to their editorial group. At best, it can lead to a bidding war amongst several publishers. As noted, your query will be one of many, giving its seconds at best to catch the reader's weary eyes. It can't be overstated that every word counts essential to a query success is a hook which About.com defines rather nebulously as something that captures the potential customer's attention and draws them in. While that can refer to a central concept in practice, the opening sentence has to hook the reader enough to drag them to the next sentence, which in turn must drag them to the third, and so on. In my experience, most writers encountered two major obstacles in writing pithy queries, redundancy and recitation. Redundancy. The use of words whose meaning has already been conveyed, eats up limited space, hampers clarity and rooms flow. Recitation is a variation on show. Don't tell when summarizing the temptation is to take a long view, creating emotional distance, as in, Joe discovers how precious life is. That distance can render the most wonderful story LDL. The goal of writing is to make the reader unaware that they're looking at words on a page to transport them somewhere else. So rather than recite, evoke, conjure scenes that put the reader in the story, as in Joe looked out at the field of dead, wondering if his fiance was among them. Beyond honing and improving the language, the specifics of your project and situation will dictate the arrangement of your query. Open with your strongest bid, whatever it is with fiction, it's usually the story. The content editors are already aware of the obvious markets. And if you are a beginning writer, your experiences unlikely to prove compelling. Here then is your chance to not only show off what's best about your work, but to prove you can put together great couple of sentences. Dive into the meat of your tail in an engaging fashion. On the other hand, if the market is your strongest card, begin with that. Recent surveys indicate that billions of people care deeply about why the sky is blue, but not one book has been written to serve that market. If you were the market or the stories start with that, as in. I am a serial killer working for the US government, or I am Stephen King. While there are probably wildly rare exceptions, no one purchases a project based on a query. Instead, a successful query results in a request to see either the entire book or a full proposal consisting of sample chapters in the synopsis and larger publishing houses. This proposal is then reviewed by an editorial group. So you have to waiting months to hear about your query. You will then wait months for them to read the work itself. If accepted by the group, the author then receives a formal offer. If you have an agent, this is usually a phone call between them. The general in terms of the dealer negotiated, including what rights you'll be selling, the advance royalties and due dates. Once these bullet points or agreed on with larger publishers, the details are submitted to the legal department one to two months later. Contract shows up about a year since you've got the query. And it's not over yet. The precise language in the contract will raise new issues and publishers tend to slip things in that weren't discussed during negotiations. 99% of the time you are, your aging will ask for changes. Once the changes are agreed upon, another one or two months will pass before you receive the final contract. Assuming the changes have been made to your satisfaction once that signed by all parties, the check for the advances process, which can take another one to two months. So from the moment your book is accepted, it can take an additional three to six months, usually longer than my experience before you see any money. But the process is so long it can actually extend beyond the manuscripts due date. I often wind up working on something before receiving a final contract. That may sound dicey. But if you're dealing with a big publisher, once the bullet points are agreed upon, There's usually a little to worry about, except maybe when you get paid. Once you send an unsolicited query, forget about it. Many agents and publishers will state on their webpage guidelines that if they're not interested, you won't be hearing from them. Once you are at a stage where someone has requested and is actually reading a project, you'll want to keep track. Unfortunately, many editors and agents respond to the question, when can I expect to hear from you with the word soon, which can mean hours, days, weeks, or months, making it essentially meaningless. Two to three months is usually a reasonable weight for a polite reminder. Asking If it's still under consideration for gotten lost in a huge pile. While some circumstances can be overcome by great writing, others are completely out of your control. And editor having a lousy morning, someone tasked with finding a specific type of project that your work doesn't fit, limited budget, etc, etc. Even so, because a general rule, your query should be the best thing you've ever written. Even better than the article, novel or screenplay. It's trying to sell that piece of advice. Whoever comes with a caveat, once you produce a query that's better than your work, you really should go back and revise your work until it's as good as your query. My fingers escape Mac and click Add. He has no going back from making collected. Got your hip, your hands, down to your clip? If I had a clot hunky-dory and I just didn't know freakin background. As a matter of fact, the neighbors are complaining about my God. Rather tat tat on a dollar home. Chomp, chomp band and Yacc and he had bought a day and got my little click, click, click Internet. Good thing. Clack. Clack. Know you could be making love in clinic and he just came out of whack and click and clack. 5. Lecture 5 Dealing with Rejection: Sunlight in the act of completing a creative piece to giving birth a metaphor, I find both presumptuous and bizarre. I sincerely doubt the physical pain as comparable. And my books, unlike my children, do not make cards for me on my birthday and Father's Day. That said B at an article that took a data complete or a novel that took a decade. Writing is an extension of the self with one's identity so deeply involved, it's natural that most beginning writers possessed the one thing that you are to work against them. Vulnerable ego, as we hold our craft, were often surrounded by supportive friends, fellow writers and paid teachers, all of whom at heart one hopes want to help us succeed. They can create a wonderfully safe place to nurture our talent. But they can also create an unrealistic bubble in terms of expectations. Outside the bubble, there were four perhaps uncomfortable, but no less important truths to keep in mind. Whenever you create something intended for public consumption, people have every right to dislike it and say so. If you don't like rule number one, that's too **** bad. If you want to avoid rule number one, never present your work in public. That said, when dealing with professionals, present yourself in a courteous, respectful manner and you're entitled to receive the same in response with one notable exception. If you send a publisher or agent and unsolicited query or other work, you may well never receive a response at all. Many publisher or an agent guidelines which you should always read before sending anything will tell you as much. That may seem rude, but it's not, it's simply a question of queries outnumbering editors by thousands to one. That doesn't make them bad people, that just makes them busy. And taking offense at that, to put it bluntly, is simply ignorance. If you do get a response, remember that politeness from an editor or agent is still doesn't mean that, that there to nurture you their job is and remains buying work they believe will sell. Unlike friends, family, and teachers, if an editor invest too much time and work that doesn't turn a profit, they get fired. Pass that rudeness also exists because so many people can on some level, right? Some consider writers or diamond dozen, unless and until a rider distinguishes themselves, they're often notoriously treated that way. The fact is that many, perhaps everyone in the industry want or want it to be a writer themselves, but aren't. Take those sour grapes and the desperation for success that so many writers feel you have the perfect mix for a sadomasochistic relationship. In the extreme, there's the angst filled author twisting and turmoil over whether to contact an editor and ask pretty pleased if they've read their novel yet. On the other side, you have the equally extreme smug editor who delights in mocking every spelling and grammar error in queries they received from beginners, sometimes in public. Seriously, I can't say how many panels, blog posts, and message boards I've seen where professionals giggle over poor submissions. The dance works both ways. For every rude pro, there's 1000 arrogant beginners reacting and absurdly insulting ways to hardworking editors who've taken the time to critique their work. This can easily make an editor gun shy, afraid to offer on his critiques to writers. They don't know why make the effort if it won't be appreciated. Dysfunctional relationships while common, aren't always the case. In fact, most people on both sides of the process are pretty nice or at least carry themselves in a professional manner. There are many grateful writers who tried to use any criticism to improve their work, as well as editors who when they see potential, are doggedly compassionate, helpful, and supportive. As a professional writer, strive to be the former. And if you're fortunate enough to find ladder, appreciate it. Once you're out of the bubble, helping kindness aren't given their gifts. As anyone who's ever had a relationship and knows no matter how kindly it's done. Being rejected hertz. While few of us are completely above an immediate knee-jerk response of pain and anger. Ultimately, how we express that pain is a choice. If you have to act out event to non industry friends and family, make voodoo dolls, palm, all non-living things of little value and do it in private. Never express anger at an editor for a rejection in any correspondence or public forum. And that means you, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Tiktok. Always be thankful, at least on paper. Now that's very different from reporting someone whose behavior objectively crosses ethical or legal lines. That case, if you're certain, yes. Let people know, but do it in a calm state of mind. If you're too angry to think straight, Hey, I understand in there, done that, put the evil rejection aside a day or so, then come back and scour it for something helpful. Things often don't look as bad in the morning. Karma and decency aside, humility has strategic advantages. Bad news travels fast. Even if you're righteous, rage is justified in the eyes of the universe. Editors talk. If your dream editors heard that you're a toxic jerk, they may not want to take a chance on working with you. And beyond the fact that life's too short to take on any unnecessary grief. Why trust someone to make revisions or meet a deadline? If they can't keep a civil tongue, equally important and appropriate response to a rejection gives you a second chance to make a good impression. While to be clear, there's no point in responding to a form letter and you will get form letters if you do receive personal feedback right back. Thank the editor for their time and insight. They really are busy. That response should be brief, just a few lines, avoid being snide, clever, or self-righteous. If there's a particular criticism you found helpful, say sir. If there's a note you want to hear more about, ask politely. On the other hand, if the editor completely missed the point you were trying to make, don't blame them or mention it at all. Consider it a failure of your writing to communicate and revise your query. Behaving like a safe person to talk to. It makes it easier for people to talk to you. Which not only makes it easier to sell something down the line, it can make the editor on the receiving end more interested in helping you. As with any relationship, there are bad matches and good ones. A single rejection, even several, may mean you haven't found the right editor yet. Responding appropriately increases the chances that you will. Being respectful of others doesn't mean allowing yourself to be abused. If an editor says they'll get to your work in a few weeks, but it doesn't read it for years without a word. While you're certainly don't want to call them rude, it wouldn't be out of line to politely remind them. Ask when they think they'll get to it. And if they don't respond, consider it a no and scratch them off your list. If they do respond with that amount of time plus a week or so before contacting them. Again, very, very few editors, mostly on the low end of independent publishing, can become downright nasty and insulting. In that case, it's best to simply move on and take what pleasure you can from being the better person. Again, if things extend to the realm of the illegal not making payments, printing your work without permission, and so on. Aside from contacting an attorney, as I said earlier, commonly warning other writers can be considered an obligation. Many forums and blogs discuss the business of publishing both good and bad. Post your story online. But stick to the facts and avoid insulting language. Beyond the necessity of a polite public response being offered criticism. It doesn't mean you have to accept it. You're a writer, your own judgment matters. Just not necessarily to a busy editor who's doing you a favor by responding at all. The case of a rejection letter, if you disagree with the critique, don't say, sir. If you have an established relationship with an editor and a contract though, a back-and-forth becomes part of the process until there's a contract offer when deciding whether or not to change something based on a particular note, I give myself two votes. In other words, if I hear the same thing for more than one editor or reader, even if I still disagree, I take a hard look at revising it. On the other hand, if an editor says they'll buy the project if I make certain changes, there's a much stronger motivation to make the change. As my grandmother used to say, don't bite off your nose to spite your face. High-pass that it can be handy to see any suggested change, whether in a rejection letter or manuscript being prepared for publication, as falling into one of three categories. Changes that improve or clarify the writer's intent. Changes that don't particularly altered the writer's intent, and changes that alter or damage to the writer's intent. Generally, you'll find that 90% of the suggested changes fall into the first two categories. The first type should be welcomed since, well, it'll improve your work once you're past a gut reaction that not a syllable of your genius should never be changed. The second should be accepted as well. If it's not hurting anything, there's no harm done. And there may be something your editor or reader sees that you don't. The third is the tricky one. If you're convinced to change will irrevocably alter or pervert your intent. The decision becomes personal weight against your individual situation and whatever reward there might be for making the change. For instance, your goal is to gain a position as a staff writer on a TV series. Sacrificing your initial intent on a single project maybe worth the possibility of long-term success. On the other hand, if you're being asked to cut the aesthetic heart from the masterpiece you've spent a decade composing or to alter the facts in your true crime novel to conceal crime. Well, you're the one who has to live with it. Ultimately try to be open, take what you can use and leave the rest behind. While you really can't expect common decency from the vast majority of editors and agents. In the wild and wacky world of reviews, the sky's the limit. Some are balanced and insightful, others insult to attract attention and some are just plain angry. Like any rejection, bad reviews hurt. Many writers prefer not to pay any attention to them. But to my mind, writing is half of a conversation and shielding myself from the way people react to my writing is ignoring the other half. Granted, the conversation isn't always intelligent, but a good review can be gratifying and a negative write-up is instructive as any editors critique. When reading reviews, it is of course, terribly important to remind yourself of the three rules for writers working outside the bubble, which I'll repeat here, inside a box. Sometimes fall short. That's my goal. Not all writers feel the same way. For example, GoodReads is a huge online community of readers and an opportunity for authors and publishers to interest people in their books and interact with readers. Like any such place the reader reviews are all over the map, some coherent and beautiful song drivel, some wild rans. And to prevent readers from feeling uncomfortable about posting their thoughts. If an author tries to send a note to someone who's given their work and negative review I noticed appears strongly suggesting that they not comment on the review at all. Nevertheless, some established pros, horrified to see their work or a friend's given a one-star review, blow a gasket. Who are these people? What right do they have to be? Little mine or my friends work for the answer. See rule number one. Way back in January 2012, a detailed scathing review of novel was posted by a good reads regular. The author's agent and fellow authors took a great offense and did so publically, going so far as to harass the reviewer and reveal their personal information. For your education and entertainment. A summation can be found here and that result, the author tried to stay above the fray while their friends and agents wound up looking like idiots and apologizing. Well, there's never any point in disagreeing with a matter of opinion. I can fast that if a reviewer mistakes facts that can create a negative impression at my work, I do occasionally send a note thanking them for their interest and politely correcting the mistake. But people can and do cross the line and become personally insulting such instances. Before responding, I carefully asked myself if it's worth the effort, the best answer being no. If I do decide to respond, I keep in mind that my answer will be just as public as the review presenting myself to potential readers who don't know me in any other context. Here's back. I wrote a parody of the popular diary of Olympia kids series called Diary of a stinky dead kid with art by the great Rick Parker. It appeared as part of the anthology harvest series tales from the crypt and was intended for slightly older readers ages ten and up who had a more ri, attitude toward the wimpy kids series on Amazon. Some parents not looking very closely at the book, wound up buying it for their little ones. Upon seeing the content, they express their understandable shop in a series of negative reviews that I understood and said nothing because there was nothing to say. One reviewer though decided to address their thoughts directly to the authors, took a personally insulting tone. For better or worse, I responded and engaged in a back-and-forth. On the one hand, we amused at least one reader on the other, his review and my response, in fact, all the negative reviews had no measurable impact on the sales. After that. While I was still inclined to respond occasionally, someone gave one of my novels a two-star review and GoodReads along with the comment that the book was pretty good and they enjoyed the ending. Since it was one of the first reviews of that novel, I sent a very polite note asking why if they thought it was pretty good, they gave it the low rating in response to the reviewer, remove their positive comments and lowered the books rating to one star. And really sometimes there's no point. I deleted my note and never looked back. I always remember rule one, click my fingers, escape making that clinic. No, going back from Medicare. Got your hip hop, hip hop down. Funky hunky-dory, IANA, bad, just ain't no freaking background. As a matter of fact, the neighbors are complaining about my client. You got your job every time. There's a tat tat on a dollar home chomp, chomp band. And he bought a day and got my little click, click, click, deadline. Really good thing. You know, you could be making a matter of love and click. And he just gave at our WACC and make the Clack. 6. Lecture 6 Literary Agents: Writers might imagine a single moment when they've arrived, breaking into publishing film, TV, or what have you. But really, careers tend to be more of an ongoing process. Along the way you can and should develop and maintain professional relationships that can further your career. Sympatric editors can provide guidance in the flow of work opportunities. Fellow writers can provide support community work leaves and market news, savvy PR people can suss the right formula for getting the word App. Last but certainly not least among these helpful figures is the subject of this lecture, the literary agent. As I said in lecture to literary agents first appeared around 1880. They earn a living. Marketing and authors work to editors and vetting offers in exchange for a percentage of the resulting income. Many have since branched out to other media like TV and film. Some work solo, others form groups. Large and small. Boutique agencies are relatively small outfits that promise more attention to individual clients. Huge agencies like William Morris have hundreds of employees and handle everything from books to films to actors. While the big players, most powerful media connections and an entire legal staff. Some writers feel it's easy for their work to get lost in a big machine. When they're doing their jobs, literary agents create a higher potential for sounds and add an additional layer of protection between yourself and the wildly changing publishing world. They also add yet another subjective filter between your work and your readers. Like any human being, they're not always right, as it is with most things. Consider the good and the bad. On the one hand and agent can guide and help fine tune your work. Open industry doors that may otherwise remain closed. Pitch your ideas with precision and enthusiasm to multiple markets. Pitch you to editors looking for writers for specific projects, decipher complex contracts and negotiate better terms based on their awareness of current rates. But they can also, it never or rarely respond to reasonable questions refused to represent a particular work that you absolutely believe in. Not send your workout beyond a few editors, blow deals, and abandoned your work to spend more time on something they think has a better chance of succeeding. Short, like editors, black people, agents can be a mixed bag. The right one can work wonders. The wrong one can set your career back years. The solution for starters, think carefully about whether you're at a point where having an agent makes sense. If your goal is to sell poems, articles, or short stories where the market is small and the pain negligible, The answer is no, nor would an agent likely be interested in representing you. That's no reflection on the literary or social value of short works. It's a reflection of economic reality. There just isn't enough money involved. Since agents make their living earning a commission usually around 15%, getting $3.75 for selling a twenty-five dollars poem isn't a wise fiscal use of their time. That's not to say an agent will never do something like that. Like many in the industry, they tend to appreciate good writing and may rarely try to play something simply because they think it should be seen. By the same token, it isn't worth it to the writer to lose a chunk of a twenty-five dollars or a $100 paycheck. Even with more substantial sums. If a rider has the skill to produce marketable work, knows the market, the going rates, how to communicate with editors, and really understands publishing contract. They can certainly make a goal that alone. There are, however, two key areas were experienced agents usually have a big edge over the writer, opening doors and negotiating contracts. It's an agent's job to study the current crop of editors and what they're looking for, making it far more likely they can find the right match for your work. The S there always remains some randomness in the process. But a good agent can level the playing field quite a bit. If an agent has made some sales to an editor, it's easier for that editor to trust the agents tastes over a query from an unknown writer. Similar to the way, as I said last lecture, that the interest of one editor can make another take notice. It assures the editor that the writing has a certain level of quality and marketability and will not be a waste of their time. Along those lines. As a rule, larger publishers generally won't even look at a submission unless there's an agent involved. Few editors stick to that ordinarily, but most bend it when they have reason. If you think about it, an editor who turns down a brilliantly written query where the concept that's clearly the best thing since sliced bread, simply because it's an agent ID isn't doing their job. On the other hand, ninety-nine point nine nine, nine, nine percent of all queries aren't brilliantly written and do not contain the best thing. Since sliced bread, those who do bend the rules tend not to admit it in public for fear of being flooded with emails. A reasonable fear that said, I see no downside in sending any editor a polite professional query. Whether you have an agent or not, Just don't expect an answer. If you decide to go the uneducated route in an editor does refuse to read your query. Not only are there more editors, thanks to a high turnaround and publishing every few years, there'll be new editors to deal with. Move on until you've exhausted potential publishers. If at that point you're convinced the query is solid and the project marketable. Reconsider getting an agent. Unless you're an intellectual property attorney. The other big advantage and working with an agent is having someone experienced negotiate your deals and review your contracts. I've signed contracts as short as a page and as long as 50. And trust me, they can have a lot of moving parts from the difference between paperback, hardcover, an e-book royalties to foreign markets, to your ancillary rights, which means everything from posters and toys to video and audio adaptations. A good agent can ensure you keep all or at least a lion share of those rights and place them with other companies potentially providing a big boost your income. They can also help ensure that if the publisher decides to take your work out-of-print, if you're publishing rights will revert to you. So you can try to sell them again elsewhere. Perhaps they should go without saying, in all cases, even if you do have an agent, be extremely careful when signing contracts. While blog posts, articles, short stories, and poems may not pay much, they can be sold to multiple markets or eventually collected into a book, provided you maintain control of the rights. Always take the time to scour your contract, asked for help deciphering anything you don't understand. There are many online communities where writers offer contract assistance to beginners. It can be exciting to have your first offer, but those giddy emotions make it more likely you'll miss something you may come to regret and don't let anyone rush you. If you feel pressured to sign something, take it as an indication that something's wrong. That's always true by the way, not just in publishing. That said, even in the higher realms of publishing, I know of at least one author who successfully represents himself. He works very hard keeping abreast of industry changes, contract clauses and the like. And has even organized book auctions among competing publisher. On the flip side, some field that financial negotiations can leave bad feelings sullying the writer editor relationship, maybe. But the above mentioned writer assured me that if everyone behaves professionally, that shouldn't be a problem. Again, though, he is extremely experienced. While I hardly recommend trying to sell a project on your own, if only for the experience. Once you get an offer, seriously consider contacting an agent. Speaking of which, how do you do that? Like exactly the same, only different than the more famous catch-22 of joseph Heller's novel. It feels like a paradox. To get published, you need an agent, but in order to get an agent, you have to be published. Fortunately, while yes, having an agent may help you get published and being published and help you get an agent. Neither is set in stone. In an ideal sense, editors and agents are the writers partners. In reality, the relationship is more uneven. The editor pays the writer. Unless the writer becomes extremely popular. That makes the editor of the boss. The rider by enlarge begins by having to prove themselves to the editor. Agents and their clients though, have to prove themselves to each other. Along those lines, you'll want to find an agent with a good reputation as an honest, hardworking advocate. A track record for selling work similar to yours. Connections to editors who published works similar to your own, faith in your work and a personality you can deal with. There are other factors to consider. A hungry agents. Someone just starting out can be incredibly energetic and enthusiastic. With fewer clients, they have more time to focus on your work. You can grow together. The downside is their lack of experience. A new agent may not have solid connections and in a year be looking for another career. On the other hand, while larger agency may have clout, they may not be able or willing to give your career nearly as much attention. Research is always key. To compose a list of potential agents based on the type of work you want to sell. And then Google their names. Dig around a bit and see what comes up. Do people speak highly of them or complain about never hearing from them? Once you've vetted five or ten potential agents, send them the same query you'd send an editor. Just make sure you don't say Dear Editor at the top. Where the editors are rare, few agents may ask for an exclusive look at your work. They feel it protects them from investing time in a project that may go to someone else. Only consider an exclusive, a vast never offer one, and only agree if you feel this may be the perfect match. If you do agree, make sure the term is two weeks to a month at most. If they haven't read your work in the agreed upon time, you're free to take it elsewhere. Once you have some positive responses, things become a bit like dating. There's only so much research will tell you. You'll often have to meet a few people before finding the right match. When speaking to an interested agent, be prepared to answer their questions, but also have your own questions, ready questions like, how many clients do they work with? What contexts that they have it? Which publishers are they willing and able to read outside the markets and contexts they already have? What plan do they have for selling your work? How many places will they send it? Are they a tough negotiator? Maybe they have a story about a favorite deal that they pulled off before THE right and don't be afraid to ask about money. Much as you both may love your work. It's still a business conversation. Honesty and a bit of fearlessness can help avoid a lot of bad decisions. I've worked with several agents as well as represented myself. Once I'd gotten past the idea that any agent was better than none. When meeting one potential agent for lunch, I came up with a little test to see if they were right for my work. I brought along three properties, one of which had been optioned as a film. I asked the potential agent if they could guess which had gotten the option. They immediately pointed to one and said, well, I know it's not that one. No one would buy it. Unfortunately, they pointed to the project that had the film option and we parted ways amicably. I don't relate the story to say that this person is a bad agent. They've done excellent work for other clients, but clearly, they weren't a good fit for my work. During your initial conversations. It's also a good idea to establish how communication will work. You don't want to annoy your agent with hourly emails, but you're also entitled to updates. So ask how often it'll be okay to check-in. If you're comfortable with criticism, ask them not to shield you from negative responses that could help improve your writing. Otherwise, they might simply tell you an editor passed on your work, but not tell you why. Generally contact with agents works in flurries. You'll hear from them a lot while they're ready in your project for submission. You should hear immediately as they receive responses from editors in-between while you're working on your next project. Not so much. They do have other clients speaking of which before signing, It's a good idea to speak to one of the agents, existing clients. It's always nice to meet another writer and they may have valuable insight, but be aware that they'll also have their biases. One thing that's always baffled me, especially with the intense attention paid to publishing contracts, is how many agents work on a handshake. I've never encountered an agent anything less than honest and financial terms though they do exist. But I haven't encountered a sort of resistance to a written Agent Client contract. I always get one when I asked and I urge you to do the same. While you should be careful in signing any agreement compared to a publishing contract, the terms are simple and should work roughly like this. The commission, a standard agent commission is 15% of your gross writing income, including deals you bring to the table and royalties. The agent may also ask for a larger commission, usually 20%. In situations where they worked with a second agent, such as film or foreign book writes, in which case they'll split that 20% between them. This is also industry standard. The agent may also ask to deduct expenses directly related to the sale of your work. That's used to refer to costs for mailing and copying your manuscript contracts or checks. But with everything now electronic, this shouldn't be an issue. The right are almost never pays or gets paid directly. Usually, the publishing contract states that any monies be sent directly to the agent. After receiving the payment, the agent deducts their commission and expenses and sends the balance to the rider. As a result, the writers tax forms usually come not from the publisher but from the agent. The contract should also specify a length of time, typically a year, during which the writer, an agent degree to work together. Afterward, either can cancel the agreement and do not sign any agreement. That doesn't give you the option of terminating the relationship. Be aware that if and when you do terminate the agreement, the agent is still entitled to collect a commission on works that they've already sold. As long as that work continues earning money through any contract they negotiated. If things don't work out with your agent. If you never hear back, if they fail to sell your work or haven't read your latest project after six months. Don't be afraid to terminate the relationship and either go it alone or find another agent. The dating metaphor continues to hold. The sooner you get out of a bad relationship, the sooner you can find a good one. Conclusion, it may seem uncomfortable to give up control and add that layer of distance between your work and your readers. The right agent is an incredibly valuable ally. My fingers escape make and that he had no going back from making collected. Got your hip. Hop your hands down. The hunky-dory Arianna. That adjust. I know freakin background. I'll click Add. And as a matter of fact, the neighbors are complaining about my God, you're off to everybody. It doesn't happen is that tat tat on a dollar home manage slab chomp, chomp band. And he had bought a day and got my little click, click click. In fact, you could be making love and click. And he gave at our WACC and make that clear. 7. Lecture 7 Self Publishing: In this lecture, for the more independently minded among us, I covered the pitfalls and possibilities of self-publishing briefly, rather than have a publisher edit, design, distributed, and promote their book. The self-published author either does all that on their own or pay someone else to do it. This greatly increases the time and financial risk involved in exchange for complete control and a higher share of the potential profit. If successful, self-publishing can provide satisfaction and income. If unsuccessful as it usually is, it can be heartbreaking and financially debilitating. The majority of professionally published books also fail. But there's a big difference. A publisher releasing hundreds of titles a year has a much better chance that some will succeed than an author self-publishing one or two. Add in the fact that most authors have little to no experience with the publishing process. And at first glance, doing it yourself seems a recipe for disaster. At second glance, it still does. However, as we'll see, the costs have decreased so dramatically, bringing with it more models of success. It can certainly be worth a shot. In the 19th and early 20th century, it wasn't at all unusual for authors to self-publish. Among them such notables as Lewis Carroll, Mark Twain, Zane Grey, Upton Sinclair, Carl Sandburg, egg or a Burroughs, George Bernard Shaw, Edgar Allan Poe, Rudyard Kipling, Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman, and a nice nim. Yet even for the rich and famous, it's seldom created financial rewards. The world-famous Mark Twain's publishing business went bankrupt. Edgar Allan Poe died a debt written pauper, and his publishing grew, so did its difficulty. As it fills a need for the DIY author, businesses arose devoted to designing, packaging and distributing their books for a fee. They became known as the Vanity Press, labeling any who used one as well. Vein. Late 20th century self-published books were usually looked on with disdain. They're low-quality typos and poor grammar, providing ample ammunition for that opinion. Success stories while they happened remain few and far between. Innovations in printing changed, if not the attitude than the number of players. As I said in Lecture two, books and periodicals were originally set with movable type, each letter assembled by hand. In the 1990's, this was replaced by a photographic process that used letters on a wheel exposed to light sensitive paper. Today, like most things, the process is done entirely on computer. When the price of computers dropped drastically, desktop publishing was born. Practically anyone could lay out a book or magazine on their personal computer and give the printer a digital file to create the hard copies. With the financial bar lowered and explosion of small presses successfully catered to smaller markets. Printing costs though, remain prohibitive, largely because the cost of printing a 100 books really wasn't much lower than the cost of printing 1000. That may seem counter-intuitive. But while computers eliminated physical typesetting, printing presses still used metal and later plastic plates, whose cost made the process subject to economies of scale. In other words, the cost of those plates added a hefty sum to the base price of printing, regardless of the number of copies printed. Say for instance, the plates were a book cost $3 thousand, not counting ink, paper and binding expenses, printing ten books would cost $300 a book. The same plates, however, it can produce tens of thousands of books. The more copies, the lower the per book price. In our example, printing 3 thousand books lowers that cost to a dollar each. You might think, if it costs a dollar to print a book and a publisher sells it for $10, they're making $9 a book? Yes. But mostly no, for two reasons. First, the distributor, who, as you'll recall, feels book orders and the bookstore take around 60% of their cover price, which here would be $6 a book. With seven of the $10 already accounted for, the publishers left with three until you take into account. The second reason, they only make that $3 per book if and only if they sell all 3 thousand bucks. Having invested $3 thousand for those plates, they don't even break-even until they sell 1000 books. Keep in mind, I haven't included any costs for paper, creating a cover, binding, advertising, or shipping. Those numbers work well enough or large publisher that prints and expects to sell thousands of bucks. But a self publisher, even with a good product, could easily be stuck with lots of books and a lot less money. Digital printing though, which is essentially what you do when you send your file to an anchor LaserJet a few feet from your computer and eliminates the use of plates entirely at a high-quality printer and a bookbinding machine. And you've got print on demand POD, which allows books to be printed in very small numbers, even a single copy at a relatively reasonable cost. Rather than trying to guess how many books will sell. A self publisher can have them printed quickly and easily in numbers that match incoming orders. Initially POD only produced paperbacks and their physical quality left much to be desired with pages often falling out. The technology has not only improved, some services now offer hardcovers. Many can be found online, and while most require a setup fee, these are typically a few, $100 rather than thousands. Even with POD, these economies of scale still exist. The more books you order at a time from POD, the less each costs and the cost to produce a single book, you can still be large enough to eliminate any profit, but it does deeply reduce the possible losses. And if you are among the lucky few and your orders go up into the thousands, the standard printing process still produces a lower cost per book. The range of a few 100 copies, though POD offers an important alternate for small, even tiny markets. As long as the book is physical, there's still the issue of getting it from the printer to the customer bookstore. On a small-scale self-publishing is simply mail copy's directly to consumers. If someone wanders into a bookstore looking for their title, however, while the store may be willing to special order it, they have to find it. And you, for that reason, most bookstores and libraries require that books have an International Standard Book Number, ISBN. And the United States, the private company are our broker assigns. Isbn is for a fee of a $125 a book with the ISBN bookstores, libraries and consumers all over the world can look up your book and contact information to help get their product on bookstore shelves and in front of consumers. Self publishers often work with distributors or fulfillment services, which basically fulfill orders. They list your title in their catalog warehouse, your books, and ship them. His orders come in in exchange for a small percentage of the cover price. The larger distributors also charges setup fee. Among them, the aforementioned RRR broker and Ingram. Typically they sell to bookstores at 40 to 60% of the cover price, take the low end and it looks something like this. A $10 book costs $3 to print and ship. The bookstore takes 40% of the cover price or $4, and the distributor $15.50%. Now to keep that extra $1.50 and essentially doubled the per book profit. Some self publishers up to self distribute. The one hand. This can limit a titles visibility. On the other while listening in the distributors catalog full of ads. By the way, it makes it easier for a bookstore to find you if they're looking for you, it won't make your book stand out. The much lighter side has also mentioned in lecture two, with the arrival of ebooks, the financial barriers to self-publishing were not merely lowered, they were demolished. In practical terms, for anyone with a computer, the basic cost of self-publishing an e-book and making it available through a major online retailer is now 0. You simply upload a properly formatted word, PDF, or HTML file, fill out an online form, agree to the terms. And within a day or so, your book is available for download. Amazon and Barnes and Noble don't even require ISBN for the potential profit. And author working with a publisher typically earns about 7% of the cover price. The E realm, amazon, for instance, offers up to ten times that 70%, but only if your book is available exclusively on the Kindle. Otherwise it's thirty-five percent, which breaks down as follows. For $10 paperback and author might get 7% of the cover price or $0.70 a book. For $10 a book, the author gets thirty-five percent of the cover price, or $3.50 of book. As it'd be clear of traditional publishers do offer higher royalties on their e-book sales. But these are often based not on the cover price, but on what the publisher receives. Most often seen 30% is the figure. So I'll use that. For $10 e-book, the publisher receives thirty-five percent of the cover price, or $3.50, and the author receives 30% of that for a $1.5. Keep in mind, though with many e-books selling for $2 or even given away free. $10 for a self-published e-book is pretty pricey. On the other hand, it has also mentioned in lecture two, the major publishers have forced Amazon to charge higher prices for their new ebooks, bringing them closer to the price of a physical book, with a number of self-published authors selling over 50 thousand copies of Amazon growing steadily, and some established Authors abandoning their publishers to go alone. Look question becomes, why not self-publish? Well, first and foremost, as I've already said, while most books don't succeed in the crowded market, this is true of a higher percentage of self-published books. Your chances of success remain greater when you work with an established publisher. There are also aspects of the process that the very best writer may not be equipped to handle, not only in terms of ability but in available time. A basic list includes vetting your work, book design, creating a cover, production, and promotion. Let's take a brief look at each. For readers, the biggest mark against buying a self-published book is that they're often amateurish affairs since the process is so easy and cheap, anyone can self-publish. And so anyone does. While it's easy to see that many self publishers lack the skill to tell a compelling, marketable story. Even gifted writers have trouble judging their work objectively. This makes it incredibly important to have someone else make a careful and critical examination of your work. Many turned to friends, family, or writing group. But while many of us know excellent readers, that's still not the same as working with a professional editor. More on money shortly. But if it's available, hiring a good freelance editor should be the first priority. But it isn't cheap. And the rates vary depending on what you're asking for. Checking on typos, also known as proofreading, can run from 20 to $40 an hour, or ¢1.2 per word. For an 80 thousand word novel, that'd be $960. Copy editing involves correcting things like spelling, grammar and consistency, like making sure that if a character has Red Hat on page ten, it doesn't suddenly become blue on page 50. That can run from 30 to 50 an hour, or ¢1.7 a word, $1360 for that 80 thousand word novel. To an extent, proofing and copy editing can be accomplished reasonably well by forcing the aforementioned friends and family to scour your pages. Professional copy editors, however, in addition to spotting errors casual readers might miss, can provide things like a glossary of terms and spelling specific to the book, a detailed timeline of your story to ensure accuracy and fact checking on data. That's a lot to ask someone to do as a favorite. Content or developmental editing gets into the meat of your style. Your characters and storytelling can be more like 40 to $60 an hour, ¢2.4 per word, or $1920 for 80 thousand words. Naturally, don't hire the first editor you happen to find online. Do the legwork to find one that's honest, experienced, and the right match for your work. The physical realm of fantastic font and enticing page layouts can help make the words leap off the page. E-readers though, have few fonts available and their sizes chosen by the individual reader. While book design is absolutely an art form for self publishers starting out with an e-book, as long as it's readable, There's little to worry about. Relying on the default settings found in most word processing programs is more than adequate. As long as it doesn't look bad, It's fine. We'd like to think we don't judge books by their covers only. We do. It's impossible to know the exact impact the cover has on sales. But I've had a few reviewers put off reading some of my books just because they didn't like the cover, even online. The first thing people see is that cover, if it's attractive and communicates an interesting concept, readers will feel compelled to take a closer look. Ugly, and many will never get to your first sentence. But even having a publisher handle the cover can be a mixed blessing. They usually work with a stable of artists, generally freelance and nor have designers on staff that put together cover images by combining and Photoshopping licensed images. Not only is that a big expense spared versus self-publishing, most authors aren't familiar enough with designed to manage the process successfully. A compelling visuals aesthetic takes years to develop AI, for instance, consider the cover of my book, Ripper stunning. I had absolutely no input on it and I'm grateful for the results. On the other hand, many writers complained that their book ends up stuck with a cover that sends the wrong message. And nor has little to do with the content. At least one popular author went back to self-publishing because of this very issue. While an author's opinion is often included when the publishers first brainstorming cover ideas. Only top authors have actual approval. Usually by the time an author sees the cover, the decision's already been made, the artists paid. No changes except for the text are possible. The flip side, hiring an artist or a designer is expensive. For the beginning self publisher, a minimalist approach may be best. In many book covers consist of a title presented in stark simple colors. If your title is gripping, a simple success is better than a complex failure. Adding an image can also be pretty easy if you have a working knowledge of something like Photoshop. And pixabay.com offers thousands of free photos and illustrations. Pod and the e-book make actual production of minimal concern. Since there's no cost. Starting a self-publishing effort with an e-book makes the most sense, at least to test the waters. Once the eBook file is created, it can be downloaded ad infinitum with no additional production effort. If it catches on and you see demand for physical books, POD can be added later. Many POD companies will ship your book directly to the buyer. And of course, as with the vanity presses of your many businesses have sprung up offering to help self-published authors. Some provide good services at a reasonable price from proofing to POD, to cover design. While others dangled the illusion of fame and success just to get your money. In all cases, the decrease potential profits and increase your potential loss. But unless you're technically an aesthetically savvy, they can make the process easier. As always, do your research. Look at their track record, find out what the experience has been like for other authors and in all cases, caveat emptor, let the buyer beware. Yes. A 100% of the profit from your self-published book is more than the 5% that you would have gotten from a standard publisher. But while 5% of a $100 thousand is $5,000.1, 100% of nothing is nothing. You may also have enough money to spend on an editor and a cover for your first book. But unless it sells, you won't have any money left for the second. While an editor and cover are important, unless you're well-off, start without them. If only to see how far you get. Only consider spending money after you've gone through the process. Long before the advent of e-books, I self-published my first novel, making God. I invested a few thousand and sold maybe 300 copies. I enjoyed the experience and even managed a favorable mentioned in Publishers Weekly. But I also lost most of that money as well as time I could've spent writing. If nothing else having had that experience, I may now know enough to make a better go of it, or at least enough not to make the same mistakes. If you decide to self-publish, realize it's a job that requires continuous effort. Work with others. Find that great unemployed editor. And if you can't afford to pay them, see if you can get them interested enough in your work to take a share of the potential profit. It never hurts to ask, first and foremost, don't bite off more than you can chew. Don't take out of $10 thousand loan to buy banner ads for your first novel. Start small. Build slowly. Not only decreases the financial risk, it allows you to adjust your plans based on the response you're getting. It's far easier emotionally and economically to recover from a modest failure than a large one. Beyond that, if you have the wherewithal, I say give it a shot. Writing a brilliant book is one thing. Getting people to realize it exists is something else entirely. Having a product page on Amazon puts your e-book alongside millions and millions of others without a following or an ad budget, there is literally nothing to distinguish it. Promotion is complex enough to warrant its own lecture. The next one, in fact, see you there. My fingers escape make and no going back from making collected. Got your hip, your head down. Do your clip, the hunky-dory and I just I know freakin background. As a matter of fact, the neighbors are complaining about my client. Got your watch every time that he had a tat tat on a dollar home. Chomp, chomp ban. And yet he had bought a day and God, on my little click, click, click. A good thing. Clack. Clack. You could be making love and click. Okay, and he just gave it away. 8. Lecture 8 Promotion: No matter how brilliant your work is, if no one knows about it, no one will buy it. How to go about letting them know is called promotion. And it's the subject of this lecture. Marketing and promotion are often used interchangeably. For promotion is actually part of marketing. Marketing involves identifying likely buyers, how the product is priced, where it'll be sold, and how it's promoted. The issue has been there from the beginning. For the first storytellers, promotion may have been as simple as screaming louder than the next guy. Just as big lungs might beat out a better story. A poorly written book with a huge ad campaign might sell millions, while a wonderful work lagging promotion languages in obscurity. Promotion like querying, is also subject to random factors, including timing, competing products, and public mood. As an extreme example of great novel about a domestic terror attack released on 9112001 might do poorly given the millions trying to deal with a real thing. While a mediocre non-fiction book on a similar subject might dwell, whole publishers promote their books to some extent, sending out review copies to major outlets. For instance, these days though the bulk of their ad budget is spent on books that are already selling, it is made writers argue that bestsellers need the least help, but corporate publishing isn't about helping. It's about making money. If you know, a book appeals to a million people, it's easier to believe. It can appeal to 2 million ergo authors whose numbers do not sell big numbers, meaning most deal with a lot of their own promotion. Some enjoy meeting and greeting potential readers virtually or in person, and they tend to be good at it. Unless a wordsmith with an act for salesmanship can easily find themselves out selling more talented writers. Then the flip side, some of us go into writing to avoid a career in advertising. It is after all, a second job that takes time and energy away from writing. Others hate what they perceive as selling themselves, but we're really not selling ourselves. We're selling a book, presumably a book about something that interests us, If not, why write it? Rather than fret over pitching yourself as an author, it can help to think of it as discussing content you enjoy with like minds. For better or worse, if you want to make a living writing, getting the word out is as important as the work itself. Fortunately, there are methods available that are either inexpensive or free. Money, as is often the case, helps. Internet and TV ads, websites and promotional videos done by top-notch designers and so on, may or may not affect sales, but they will improve the books visibility. Lots of money can even create a saturation campaign so that wherever a potential reader turns, they see the book on a billboard. Read about it in an article, see a Facebook ad here at being discussed on a talk show that can backfire, irritating people to the point where some will refuse to read the book on principle. But you don't have to get everyone to buy the book, just a lot of them. No matter the budget, the relationship between promotional costs and sales is seldom a reliable ratio. There are some books that for whatever reason people simply won't buy. Others that seem to take off on their own as if by magic. Along those lines, successful promotion is a question of scale. A $1 million advertising campaign that generates a $100 thousand in sales is a huge failure. $1000 book tour that brings the same results is a wild success. Whatever type of promotion May 1 attempt. The most powerful is still word of mouth or buzz. We've all heard of YouTube videos, tweets, TikToks and sundry memes that go viral, hurdling across the hearts and minds of the public. If people like something, they tell their friends, who tell their friends and so on, add the Internet and a snowball can turn into an avalanche. Back in 1999. And inexpensive website discussed the legend of the Blair Witch. People stumbling on it, thought it was real, and told their friends, creating a huge buzz for the film. A single blog entry created a similar result for snakes on a plane, a film that had yet to start production. The title alone inspired songs, posters, fanfiction, fake movie trailers, and more. Raising a wild interest. Bowing to the intense interest, the filmmakers who'd plan for the film to be PG13, actually accepted in our rating so that they could include a certain line that fans anticipated. I have had it. Unfortunately, it's extremely difficult, if not impossible, to intentionally create a viral campaign. They seem to come and go as a matter of whimsy and remain promotions, holy grail. Still promoters focus on priming the pump, hoping to raise awareness to a tipping point where the process continues on its own. To mix metaphors. It's like rolling the aforementioned snowball to the top of a hill. It picks up some sizes, you push it, but once you get it over the crust, it starts rolling and growing on its own. While few publishers, let alone authors can afford saturation campaigns, anyone can try to prime the pump if only by chatting up their work to friends. If you're promoting something you believe in, it's not unreasonable to assume that somewhere in the world there are others who feel the same way reach the right people and they'll spread the word, reach enough of them and the process becomes self-sustaining. Crucially, promotion isn't about putting your judgment of your work out there. It's about putting your work out there for others to judge. After all, when was the last time you believe someone who said, my book is the best thing ever? Instead, focus on aspects that will lead others to conclude that it's the best. By expounding on the reasons you found your subject exciting, like mine's can end up feeling the same way. Despite what I said earlier that we're really not selling ourselves well, really, we are just not the way you might think. As you build an audience in a career, the public persona present is in essence your brand, the voice and image people will associate with your work. If a reader finds something new that speaks to them, they're more likely to pick up your book. If they find the same connection there, they'll follow loyally from book to book in everything you do in promoting your work. Consider the public face and voice you want to create. It shouldn't be alive, but it also needs to be a complete bearing of your bleeding saw. It should reflect the best of what you want to put out into the world. Electronics and arguably metaphysics have divided the world into the physical and the virtual. Both offer a variety of opportunities for promotion. Looking at the physical world first, since well, it was here first. The basic possibilities include book tours, readings, conferences, conventions, and joining groups and organizations. Traditionally others promote their work by appearing in bookstores, libraries, schools, and other public venues to read and sign their work. In nearly all bookstores host and advertise these events hoping to bring in customers. Even if you're just starting out a local bookstore interested in connecting to the community will often set aside some time for you. But be aware, many refused to carry self-published books, despite being a big corporation. Barnes and Noble often has a table set aside for works by local authors and a staff person devoted to scheduling appearances to arrange your reading or assigning call and ask. Unfortunately, there's another catch-22 in effect. You're there to tell people about your work. But if people don't already know your work, they're unlikely to show up. Many writers myself included, sometimes sit all alone. It's signings with one or two people buying books more out of pity than interest. You have to start somewhere. But there are some very pragmatic things you can do to increase your chances for successful signing. The first is to call everyone you know, and insist they show up or you'll hate them forever. If you start with a small crowd around you, Others are more likely to join it. You can also try to find a hook for your event briefly, a popular topic of more general interest that you can tie to your book. And it's a love story. Try a Valentine's day signing or a presentation about relationship difficulties. If it's a fantasy novel, present a history of fantasy, or lead a discussion on the latest fantasy streaming on TV. Once you have that hook, write a press release which we'll discuss next lecture, and send it to local media in advance of your signing. Newspapers, TV, radio, colleges, and if appropriate, public schools. What's worked best for me and what I strongly recommend is to arrange your joined a group signing were a bunch of authors get together in a bookstore and other venue, read a bit, answer questions, and then sign their work. If one author can attract ten people, five can attract 50. While your friends and family already know your work, the friends and family of the other authors may not. When it comes to signings, especially for beginners, there's strength in numbers. Anyone might wander into a bookstore. But literary conferences and conventions not only concentrate fans of a particular genre, be it's science fiction, mystery, children's literature or whatever. They're also largely there to interact with authors and other creators. In addition to providing reading and signing spaces, sometimes for free, cons host panel discussions were several writers pontificate on genre related subjects. They all generally begin by holding up a copy of their latest book. Taking part is a great way to interact with potential readers, as well as meet editors and fellow writers. It's more difficult for beginners to gain a spot at the biggest gatherings. But there are a hundreds every year, large and small, local and international, all a Google search away. Do some research, make a list of appropriate for your book, then contact the organizers as early as possible, asking to take part in panels, even suggesting panel topics yourself. As resigning and readings, even at conventions as with bookstores, it's best for beginners to take part in group events, sharing the stage and the time, but increasing your numbers. Writers organizations often based on genre such as IT WE for thriller writers, the SWA for horror writers, and the SEB WE for children's writers, provide a variety of services to help members promote their books. Many more can be found online. While some groups require publication as a prerequisite for joining, and many charge an annual membership fee. Most have a tiered membership that allows beginners access to some extremely useful tools, including mentorship programs and special events. The IT WAS big thrill, for instance, once held a mass signing in Grand Central Station for over a 100 authors. The online forums for these groups are a great place to swap tips and seek advice from prose. Pass that between Reddit and Facebook, there are thousands of farms for writers of all Elk's and experience levels just a few clicks away. Which brings us to, there's something to be said for the personal touch. Many of my connections have been made face-to-face and it's always nice to speak to someone who's enjoyed my work in person. That said, the Internet offers three key advantages. The first is sheer volume. The second, but you can edit your posts before you put them online. And the third, the fact that you don't even have to get dressed. On the downside, when you read or speak to a group IRL, most are paying attention. Online. You may have access to millions of people, but you're also just one voice among those millions. While most people on the planet have a Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or TikTok account. For the working writer, social media is an important way to build an audience. Personally, way back when I never would have joined any of these if my publishers hadn't asked me to. The intricacies of each are worth their own lecture series and there are plenty out there. But here's a cursory look in size order based on number of users as of December 2021. Keep in mind that while basic use of the services seems free, they are making money, usually by selling your time and interests to advertiser. Facebook with 2.89 billion users, remains the godlike monster in the room, believed responsible for everything from the rise of democracy in the Middle East, It's fall in the United States. They offer everything from blogposts to business pages, to discussion groups, to low cost targeted advertising, along with access to over a third of the world's population, who in turn, happily provide tons of personal information, including what they like to read. Rather than the written word. Instagram at 1.4 billion users and Tiktok at 1 billion are devoted to visuals. A video or photo series about your work can be useful, but I tend to think of them as part of a promotional campaign rather than a focus. Linkedin with 740 million users was originally devoted to Career Connections. They've since expanded with discussion groups, making them a worthwhile service to consider for increasing your readership. Read it has more than 430 million monthly active users and over a 100 thousand active communities. It's built not so much for socializing as sharing information and opinions, making it a great option for authors to connect with both readers and other authors. Twitter at a 192 million is renowned for their hyper efficient posts of 280 characters or less, allowing anyone and everyone to promote anything as well as post their random thoughts. All these platforms provide ways to aggregate people with similar interests. Interests that can include your work with regular effort. You can build a group of friends and followers on that basis it or you can contact quickly and easily. Programs such as TweetDeck and HootSuite allow you to monitor and post to several social sites at once. With a single mouse click, you can send a quota day from your new book along with a link to a free sample chapter to Twitter, Instagram, facebook, LinkedIn, and your webpage. Once you have a book out, Amazon and the hugely popular side, good reads with 90 million plus members, all readers provide free author pages where you can post information about yourself and your work. Goodreads also allows authors to run giveaways where you can offer a limited number of free copies to interested readers. While giveaways an author pages are useful, they have the same basic problem is bookstore readings. People have to know they exist in order to visit. A better way to build followers. And the primary means of communication at all these sites are the aforementioned discussion forums which require a slightly different strategy. While discussion groups exist within social networks, they also exist all over the web in numbers as countless as the stars themselves. One, I found detailed instructions with photos about how to re-install the soap dish cover in my 1970s Whirlpool dishwasher. It is truly a golden age. While authors are expected to promote their work on their Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn pages. Those posts are only received by people who've already elected to follow them. Discussion groups require more of a commitment and more etiquette. More often than not, the members aren't necessarily there to hear about your, your work. Joining a discussion group on pregnancy with a post that begins, I have a new baby book To Sell. Is it kinda standing up in the middle of a conversation on the meaning of life and reciting a commercial and will likely be received as such. Again, whenever you present yourself in public. Remember that the Internet is a public space. And keep your brand in mind, joined threads that interest you and express your opinion. As people become interested in what you have to say, there'll become interested in your work by association. And if your signature contains a small image of your cover with a link to a sample chapter. That's usually fair play. The options here being massive, shop around, find some groups you'd like and sign up if one form is not working for you. There's always more out there. Like a writing career itself. It's a long game, starts small, be consistent, and build followers slowly. There are three kinds of website useful in promotion. New sites, subjects sites and your own author website, like conferences and discussion groups. Websites devoted to every conceivable topic, including the subject of your book or a mouse click away. News and subjects sites should be treated the same as newspapers, TV and radio. Well worth researching via Google and making part of a mailing list, which I'll talk about shortly. While other websites or perhaps less necessary these days due to the dominance of social media, most still maintain a site of their own with updates, cover images, reviews, and sample chapters, providing a central place to send folks interested in your work. Some are elaborate design by expensive experts, others created by the authors themselves using one of many free programs and templates available. Creating a website can be as easy as producing a Word document. In fact, though it's not the best option, word can be used to create websites. If you decide to create a site yourself, keep in mind the same advice I gave on designing a book cover. Avoid overdoing things. A simple success is better than an overwrought failure. Companies that provide internet access also often provide website hosting. Rather than have a lengthy address for the site. For about $20 annually, you can purchase and maintain your own domain name as www.com. While some consider blogs a combo of women log by the way, a thing of the past with 600 million blogs worldwide according to overload, there nothing to sneeze at. Unlike tweets, posts, and even discussion groups, blogging requires the consistent production Of what are essentially short essays. They are, in a sense, a regular letter from the author covering all sorts of topics from their writing process to their feelings about life, the universe, and everything. Over time, blog entries can even be collected into a book. The reward if successful, as a direct connection with your readers. Facebook and LinkedIn provide blogging capability. But there were also many other free services like Blogger or WordPress, that allow you to easily create either a standalone blog or one that can be integrated into your website. In addition to or instead of writing their own blog, some authors take part in blog tours, usually during the first week or so of their books release. They'll write guest entries for notable blocks, advanced scheduling in order to time your blog with your books released. His key, finding the right blogs for a tour, the right sites for a press release, which I'll discuss in detail next lecture. And the right reviewers for a new book mean not only researching, but regularly maintaining a mailing or contact list. And its simplest form, it consists of a name, title, area of interest, e-mail address, and a space for individual notes. And it can easily be stored in something like a Word table or Excel spreadsheet. But having that table format is crucial since it allows you to copy just the email entries and paste them into your email program for bulk mailings. The easiest potential contexts defined the countless news sites, blogs and book review sites. A search for young adult book blogs, for instance, yields about 644 million results. Blogs with like interests share links, making others easier to find with numbers like that, separating the chaff from the wheat can be tough. So be sure to take a good look at each blog before adding them to your list. See if you can find out how many readers they have and whether their audience is the one you want. In dealing with news and review sites. Don't just find an e-mail address. Find the right person, the editor or writer in charge of features and reviews. For instance, Amazon keeps a list of their top 100 reviewers with an expressed interest in your subject is worth approaching for a possible review from air expand you're listening to the print world. A young adult author might want the contact. High-school newspapers, a horror writer, horror magazines and so on. Local media is always interested in local stories. So be sure to include local newspapers, radio and television. University campuses are another good source with their associated student newspapers and radio stations. If your subject is related to their work, professors may invite you to speak to their class from their include any regional and national outlets that regularly cover books like The New York Times book review because, why not? As I said, all this takes consistent effort, but it doesn't have to be done all at once. Like your readership, your mailing list will grow and evolve over time. The two most basic uses of a mailing list are one to solicit reviews and to promote the release of your book. We'll take a look at press releases next lecture. For now, let's stick with the reviews. Months before a books official release. Publisher's print arcs, advanced reader copies or galleys to provide bigger outlets and print media with enough time to produce reviews that roughly coincide with the books official release. Typically at this stage, the book has yet to be fully proofed and a disclaimer to that effect appears on the cover. Self publishers can and should also produce arcs. Fortunately these days, electronic files, known as EEG alleys are widely accepted for review. Big publishers distributed an enormous number of arcs easily lost among scores of upcoming books. So rather than simply mail or email copies of the book, I found it more effective to email reviewer's asking if they're interested. Outlets that request a book are more likely to cover it. If you're working with a publisher, coordinate with their publicist. Often they'll send the review copies for you. Even if they don't. If a legit reviewer has requested a copy, it's worth the effort to send the book yourself. A tad manipulative. But reviewers who receive a book directly from the author are more likely to review it and less likely to produce a bad review. Unlike a query or review, solicitation focuses on what's most interesting to readers. It consists of a cover image, a few short and grossing paragraphs describing the book, the offer of a review copy. And I mentioned that the author is available for interviews and guest blogs. This solicitation should be sent to every reviewer on your list with the following caveat. When sending any bulk e-mail, always place the mailing list in the blind carbon copy field and BCC. Not the two are carbon copy field CC only put your own email address in the To field. Otherwise, anyone who replies will reply to your entire mailing list. Deeply aggravating all the people you're trying to win over. Since email addresses change all the time, some will bounce back as an deliverable update or delete them from your list. Others may request to be removed from your list. Do so immediately. No questions asked. Send the requested copies quickly tracking where and when they were sent. After a reasonable period, say six weeks, follow up with an e-mail, making sure they received the book and asking if there's any other information they need. Here again, the personal touch adds goodwill for those on the fence about reviewing a book, a touch of unspoken guilt. As mentioned, some publishers recommend that authors hire a publicist. Professional handles promoting your book by writing and sending press releases, arranging interviews, signings, blog tours, and so on. To be clear, I've never worked with a publicist. Take my advice here with a grain of salt. It sounds great to let someone else deal with all this. But I suggest that you consider three issues. First and foremost is the cost of proven publicist who really knows the market and can build your audience is expensive. While some like agents work on commission, those only tend to work with proven authors. On low-end, a bad publishes, like a bad agent, can do more harm than good. Of course, it's possible to run into a talented publishes, just getting started. Your careers can grow together. As with agents and publishers, do your research before hiring anyone. Second, a lot of what a low-end publishes does. Sending out press releases for incidence and involves writing. If you're a writer, why not do it yourself? Third, while publicists may have great mailing lists, they've been developed for general use. The mailing list you develop over time will be geared very specifically to your work. Ultimately, unless you have both the money and the capacity to distinguish a good publishes from a bad one. At least at first, don't hire one. Engaging in the process yourself. If nothing else, we'll give you a better idea of exactly what sort of help you need. To sum up, promotion is an ongoing process intended to reach like-minded people interested in the work you've produced. Even without the advantage of big money, the goal is to reach a tipping point. We're worried about your work is spread by others. Social sites give authors access to people based on their interests, allowing authors to build followers. Discussion groups are also useful for building followers, but shouldn't be used to directly sell your work. Writers should create and maintain a mailing list of reviewers, bloggers, and other people potentially interested in promoting their work. In the end, the possibilities for reaching out to potential readers are enormous. Again, start small, build slowly. If something's working, keep doing it. If it's not, change it or drop it. Next up, our final lecture, the press release. Click. My fingers escape make and that has no going back from Medicare. Got your hip, hop your head down. Do your clip, clop, clop. Hunky-dory piano. I had a client that just ain't no freaking background oh, clinic. As a matter of fact, the neighbors are complaining about in regards to everybody. There's tat tat on a dollar home. Chomp, chomp band and your candy bar today and God, my little click, click, click, deadline or a good thing. You know, you could be making a matter of love and click and he wanted to be a hack at our WACC and may quit. 9. Lecture 9 The Press Release: In 247 data-dependent world, scores of media outlets constantly scour the landscape for information that they believe will be of interest to their audience. Even more people out there are seeking media coverage, hobby for some, a profession, for others. Their motives range from raising the awareness of a social cause, advancing their career, selling products, or even simply because they really liked the attention they achieved mode of communication is the subject of our final lecture, the press release. For the working writer. The right press release submitted to the right outlet can lead to everything from a brief mention to a review, positive or negative, to an interview, or even a feature piece. It's far easier to get mentioned in one of the billions of blogs and websites. But keep in mind that television, radio, and print are also on the lookout for content. If enough smaller outlets pick up a release the bus can build to that previously mentioned tipping point, attracting interest from the big guns. The query, as we covered in lectured for the press release, both being geared towards selling share some important factors. There are about a page long. There's lots of competition, both from amateurs and savvy professionals. And the quality of the writing can be second to the marketable nature of the content. But there are also key differences. Publisher is looking for projects worth a considerable investment in time and money. The media is need for new data is constant. News reviews, features and interviews come and go quickly. Central to the success of both is the aforementioned hook. Something that captures the potential customer's attention and draws them in, like a fish on a hook. The same hook can usually be used for the query and the press release with some important exceptions. In a query, you might want to reveal a surprise ending since it could be a selling point, but mentioning it in a press release would spoil things for readers. Press releases should be spoiler free. Also, a year or more usually passes from the query to the published book. Time and tastes change, the price really should focus on what's popular now, optimally find a hook for your release that ties your book to a current fad. For example, a press release for a vampire novel that came out the same week as the premier of one of the Twilight films might begin like this. Twilight has shown us how millions feel about sparkly vampires. But how did the vampires feel about us? Not a completely current topic. Find one that relates to a more general interest. A release for young adult novel about video games might begin. Every team plays video games, but in the new book GameOver, the games play the teams. Another key difference is the structure. Rather than the five query basics, the press release has three distinct parts, headline, body and additional info. The headline appears in the subject line of the email. The first line of the release should read for immediate release, followed again by the headline centered on the second line. Often it's the only part of the release, a busy media editor we'll look at. Try to include your hook in it and in any case, make it as interesting as possible. New book from unknown writer that very interesting. Can sugar make you immortal? More interesting? Have fun, be creative, but keep it tied to the subject of the book. The body, which should be the largest section of the release, includes a brief, incredibly compelling description of the book as it relates to the hook. Images, including the cover and possibly a photo of yourself and the symbols hashtag, hashtag, hashtag or some other visual indication that the body has ended. That additional info is basically a laundry list. The book's release date, ISBN, links to further information such as sample chapters, the availability of review copies, the authors availability for interviews, contact information including the author, enter a publisher's website, additional biographical data on the author, directions for being removed from the authors mailing list. And a humble apology. If the release was received in error. Nobody likes spam. Be careful to write your press release exactly as you'd like to see it appear before a large audience. This is for two reasons. First, some online outlets, particularly smaller news sites, post press releases as is with any typos intact. This can lead not only to a very unprofessional look, but book review requests from people who simply like receiving things for free rather than genuine reviewers. The second reason is the key to success. The easier you make it for another writer to turn your release into an article or news item, the more likely there'll be willing to do so. Unlike a publisher investing time and money in a book, the transient nature of news media makes it far more likely that someone will post your release simply because it's easy. Yes, you're up against some great press releases. But again, you're a writer. If you can compose an entire book, you can certainly come up with a single compelling page, considered a challenge, and at the very least, an exercise that can improve your writing. The basic book announcement can attract attention. But if you have the time and energy, There's another option, right? A full-blown article on a topic related to your book's content. Cnn or The New Yorker wouldn't necessarily jump on it. But there are a lot of players out there who love free content. The same articles are used over and over in various forms, increasing the odds of having your piece used. While the ultimate purpose is promotion. Free content should never read like an ad. It should, of course mentioned your book, but always in the context of the article subject. Getting your writing out there this way can increase your followers. The published pieces, especially for beginners, will add to your resume and your experience. Free content can be factual, a short history of your subject, for instance, or an opinion piece with slice of life observations. The key is to find something interesting on its own and unrelated to your book. That shouldn't be too hard if a subject or genre interested you enough for you to write a book about it, you'll likely have some knowledge of it, and certainly some opinions. Finding a subject can be a bit easier for a non fiction author though. A book on opioid addiction can easily yield an article on the same topic. And abbreviated version of a chapter from the book could even be used. As I mentioned, the best subjects are those currently in the news. And there are often some big coattails out there to ride. For example, during the release of the first Hunger Games film, an author wrote an opinion piece for our local paper about how violence can desensitize children. Mentioning his book on the subject. Friction, on the other hand, offers the possibility of both real-world and genre topics. If you've written a mystery, a piece on real-world detectives or an article on your favorite mystery writers can work equally well, targeting it towards your potential readers. For the release of my historic vampire novel, blood prophecy, I can post the history of vampires and offered it to a series of websites and blogs devoted to vampires. It was picked up by multiple sites and lead to an offer to do a regular column at a site that received over a million hits a month. There's also the top ten or five list bite-sized info nuggets that are related to the subject of your book that are particularly popular, easy to write and fun to read. As part of the promotion for my zombie novel, dead man walking, I wrote up a list of zombie themed pop songs. On the one hand, the sky is the limit. On the other, keep your desired audience in mind. Some authors compose pieces on their writing process. The writing community is huge and certainly worth approaching for a variety of reasons. But are they the core audience for your work? The format for free content is pretty much the same as the pressure release, but it should begin with a statement offering the content free of charge provided that your byline and the mention of your book remains intact. Request that if the recipient does use the article, they send you a link or a hardcopy. Free content can also be longer than the standard release, typically running 500 to 1500 words. Again, try to tie this object into current events. For example, while writing my new book, the end of the world out this month from random penguin, I found myself wondering just how long people have been worried about the real end of the world. While today, many perhaps realistically feared that climate change will bring about the end times. It turns out the fear of apocalypse is as old as mankind itself. Here's a look at some of my favorite arm again, scenarios from ancient history to modern time. Past that, as with any press releases, publishers or agents, always make sure you're sending it to the right place. And Engineering magazine wouldn't be interested in an article in Victorian fashion, even if you're a novel encompasses both. When you send a requested review copy, it's important to follow up in a few weeks once you've sent a press release or free content. However, there is no need. The recipients will either use the information or not. While some may notify you of the fact, some may not. To see if your release is being used. Setup a simple Google Alerts to let you know and key phrases such as your name and the name of your book appear on the Internet. That as they say, is that bringing us to the end of this lecture and the course. By way of conclusion, these lectures can be seen as a map when I've developed over many years. Like any map, if it seems to lead somewhere, you'd like to be, give it a shot. As an author, I hope you found it engaging as a teacher. I hope you found it informative. Someone with a mortgage, I hope you'll recommend it to everyone you know. Please feel free to post any questions and thanks for listening. My fingers escape make and that Kodak had no going back from making, collected. Got your hip, hop down, your clip. Hunky-dory, Briana. I had a client just ain't no freaking background Eau Claire. As a matter of fact, the neighbors are complaining about my God, you got to everybody. Is that tat tat on a flat, sharp ready child fan. And he had bought a day and got my little click, click, click. Okay, and he clapped. Good thing. No, you could be making that ever love and click and he just gave at our WACC and may quit. My fingers keep getting better.