PaperBox Books

This might be the 500,000,000th or more posting on this subject. When submitting your work to an agent or publisher, you want to make the best impression.

That doesn’t mean your book needs to be publishing ready. There are people in the process who will help you take your best work and make it excellent, fabulous, and readworthy.

It doesn’t seem to matter whether the economy is booming or busting, there are always more books written than can possibly fit on a book shelf. That’s why it’s so hard to break into publishing. Well, e-publishing is no different. No matter how easy it is to get your book out there, you need to think of your reader – they want the best stories presented to them in the most professional way possible.

So, when you submit to a publisher or agent you need to start with your best. Your best includes making sure you’ve run the spell, grammar, and style checker on your word processor. It includes making sure your characters come alive and your story has a beginning, middle and end.

How do you get there? I’ve found the best way to get from first draft to publishable work is revise the first draft a couple of times and then get a critique. Critique groups give you two important things.

First, your critique group is made of writers, they know what the process is. They know what structure is, they know when the passion is on the page. A good critique group will challenge you on everything about your story – and they’ll find thing you can’t see. My experience with critique groups has been great – I see my mistakes in other people’s books. After reviewing another writer’s work, I go and look for the same things in my own.

Second, and perhaps more important, a critique group will get you used to critiques. You’ll hear things you don’t agree with and you’ll get great ideas. The feedback from your critique group is not intended to be gospel. You can decide what you want to do with the comments. But, I bet you’ll find that when you don’t agree, it’s not because your writing was so great and the reader didn’t ‘get’ it, it will be because you weren’t clear enough in the first place.

When you’ve worked with a critique group and thoughtfully revised your manuscript, it’s time to check submission requirements. And check them carefully, they aren’t there to create a barrier, they are there to make it easy for the editor/agent to access your work. Keep in mind the person reading your submission is reading multiple works, make it easy for them.

Wow,is the rant over? Yep, only one thing left. When you think you’ve sent in your best work, don’t be surprised if you get back a long list of suggestions. If the person reading your submission has gone to the trouble of giving you feedback, it means they read the work and they care enough to help.

Write well and prosper.

Perry

2 Comments | In: Submissions | tags: How to Submit, opinion, Process, Writing Tips. | #

I did make a decision about buying an e-reader – I wanted to wait until the platforms had stabilized and DRM had been worked out. Trying to keep out of the war about who’s toy is best. And I’m happy to read on my BlackBerry for now.

I am standing firm – okay, maybe not firm but still haven’t bought one. My strong inclination – like if I suddenly broke down and got one, is to go with the Sony E-book. It really comes down to the wireless thing. I kind of like knowing that when I buy a book it’s mine and no one will pull it off my bookshelf. Take that Amazon.

As a publisher and an author, I want books to be available in all the locations, and a reasonable income flow. As it stands right now, Amazon takes the biggest cut, and they are the largest retailer so good for them. But they only sell kindle ebooks.

Where do I buy my books. Fictionwise, why? because they sell multiple formats and they have lots of books.

Oh, and if Santa is reading this blog, if you got me a Kindle, it’s okay, I’ll settle for it.

Perry

No Comments | In: Industry, e-Reader Competition | tags: e-readers, Kindle, opinion, Sony Reader. | #

Hi, well it’s December and NaNo is over (I won!! yay). I’m having  a little problem engaging in the world where word counts don’t matter so I poked around some postings about e-publishing. I found a request on LinkedIn for a recommendation for the best DRM available.

Yikes, my eyes did the cartoon pop out on springs – boing. DRM is a hotly contested issue these days. I have to say I’m on the side of as little as possible – I hate the fact that Apple tries to control where and how I’ll play the music I bought from them.

I fall on the side of the argument that thinks of e-books as similar to paper books. If I pay you for it, I should be able to lend it to whoever I want and read it on whatever reader I have.  A paper book gets shared and donated, just because you can put rules around a digital copy doesn’t mean you should.

It came home to me when I looked into downloading a Kindle book from Amazon.com. They use mobi format which I can read on my Blackberry from any other etailer. Surprisingly Amazon.com mobi is only readable on the Kindle or my PC. Hmmm, I don’t get the link between selling books and confining people to a proprietary software.

We’ll see these things change over the next while. I think we’re in the eight track v cassette or VHS v Beta stage of the hardware development and the end result will be common format and competition back to how many books get sold. I don’t know if Kindle will continue to be the reader of choice or not, I’ll just wait a few months before buying a reader.

What are your thoughts on DRM and the future.

Perry

1 Comment | In: Industry, Opinions | tags: DRM, opinion. | #