Publishing Facts

As you know, Friday was QueryDay on Twitter. I think it went exceptionally well. Lots of great questions from authors, lots of agents and editors chiming in with answers. An incredible wealth of information was passed around! Several people asked me to compile my tweets from the day. So here they are. Just a whole…

by Greg JohnsonPresident, WordServe Literary People ask me all the time if today’s tough publishing climate is a good time for newcomers to get noticed and get published. Let’s start with some obvious negatives: → Publishers are cutting their lists and delaying books until the economy turns (and they may stay lean thereafter… this may…

I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.Charles Swindoll The biggest news in our world today is the economy, and many are suffering the effects. Last week we were bombarded with news of difficult realities in the publishing industry. What should our response be? I…

STATS It’s been awhile since I added up any stats. I didn’t do them for October, so here they are, along with November’s numbers. Total queries received in the two months combined: about 720 Pass letters sent: 358 Request for partials sent: 7 Queries unanswered in my query box: 262 Hard copy queries/proposals sent via…

ANNOUNCEMENT: I will only be blogging FOUR days a week until further notice. I plan to blog Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Wednesdays and weekends are off. Thanks for being here! We’ve had a lot of talk on this blog about publishers and bookstores wanting “more of the same” rather than unique and original books.…

I’m going to address some of the comments that came in last Friday on what was surprising to you about the publishing industry.So I want to start with this one simple truth: If you are an unpublished fiction writer, trying to get published, then the writing matters more than anything.The first comment on Friday’s post…

The question of “how long your manuscript should be” is sometimes hard to answer because different publishers have different guidelines. I’m going to give you some information here, but first I want you to know WHY this is important. It’s pretty simple: If your book falls within the standard preferred word-count range, it’s one less…

For any of you hoping for an update on the CCWC, here it is: I went, I taught, I met with writers (including some of my blog regulars which was really fun), found some potential clients, said hi to my industry friends, was forced to eat really bad food, had a fanastic dinner with a…

I hope you all have read the posts and comments from the last several days over at Michael Hyatt’s blog, From Where I Sit. I can’t possibly summarize it all, but there are a couple of really important thoughts I want to share with you. It seems the biggest worry of the unpublished author is…

Awhile back I received a query from a gentleman who told me a drawn-out tale of his personal tragedy, culminating in the fact that if he didn’t come up with a very large sum of money very soon, he was going to be imprisoned. The point of his query, if I got the gist correctly,…

I’ve noticed there’s a perception among writers that if you want a bigger advance, you need to go ABA (as opposed to CBA).* Sometimes when I’m talking to possible clients, they ask me if I think maybe their book should be shopped with the NY publishers. When I ask for their reasoning, it’s usually to…

Do authors ever have to pay back their advance? I mean, what if the advance is $5,000 but I only sell 2,000 books? Do I have to pay that back, or is that just the gamble that the publisher takes? No, you don’t have to pay back your advance for lack of sales, or at…

Last week I told you how book royalties work, and your comments brought up some important issues. One of them was the idea that the publisher makes a significant financial investment in each writer, with no guarantee that the book will sell. This is important to recognize and understand, because it’s one of the reasons…