Keep pushing!

 If you want to sell your books, you've got to keep pushing them!

Several friends who self-published books (one of poetry; one a novel) made some respectable sales because they took charge and kept pushing for sales of their books, doing their own public relations and publicity. Neither friend was getting rich on what they had written but each was finding an audience.

Recently I was reminded by MailChimp that it had been quite a while since I had sent out a mailing to promote my books on perfume makingtechnology. Somehow the books have continued to sell on Amazon and bring in money monthly. It was a reminder that if I wanted to keep that money coming in I had to keep pushing for sales.

With your book or books you'll find the same situation. If you want them to sell, you've got to push. And keep pushing, no matter how much help you might get from other sources.

What? You write longhand?

 I learned to type in high school. The class was equipped with State-of-the-art, office model, Royal typewriters. The Royal could type wonderfully well. It was not electric.

I've heard that some writers, journalists in particular, swear by their ancient mechanical typewriters. When I started writing for a living I was hungry for an electric. My first electric typewriter was an IBM accounting model with a wide carriage that was twice the width of the body of the machine. Later, when I had saved up some money, I acquired an IBM correcting Selectric. It was second hand. At the time, in the Flatiron Building where I had my office, new Selectrics were being stolen out of offices the first night after they were unpacked.

At the time, making copies involved carbon paper. There was a carbon paper that I used that was single use, with paper attached. As I recall, the paper was pretty thin and, of course, the image on it was in the carbon paper's ink. It didn't allow for corrections, even when I could make corrections on the original using the correcting Selectric's white correction tape.

I learned to type fast and accurately. I was being paid for production. Everything was a "first-draft special."

When I started writing advertising I switched to a ball point pen -- the Paper Mate Malibu. They cost about three dollars and refills were widely available. At some point Paper Mate discontinued the Malibu -- and the refills. A few years ago I found a source of new refills for the Malibu but they weren't from Paper Mate. Meanwhile I had switched to the Bic stick Cristal. It's even lighter than the Malibu.

Writing longhand for advertising worked fine. The ads were never that long. I could edit an make revisions quickly and when editing was done I could type up the text on, at first, my IBM correcting Selectric.

I was introduced to word processing in a backward way. The PC and the Macintosh were both on the market but I couldn't picture wring on a squinty ten inch (was it?) screen. I had seen word processors that had a full page screen. Lawyers were using them.

I acquired a Xerox word processor with it's accompanying Diablo printer. They were both close to obsolete at the time I acquired them but the Xerox did have a full page (letter format) screen. For memory storage it used 8" floppy disks. Even then that was a rare item. Now they've vanished into history.

As for the Diablo, it was a daisy wheel, strike-on printer, somewhat similar to the IBM Selectric but louder, much louder. And, when printing, it vibrated like crazy. I used it for a while. It followed me up to the country but when I called Xerox for service they quoted me something crazy because their technician would have to drive up to the middle of nowhere. They really didn't want to service it and I really didn't want to pay the price. The Xerox went into the local landfill and I went back to the IBM Selectric.

But that's all history. These days I have an ordinary desktop computer with a Brother monochrome and a Canon ink jet attached. The Brother prints out the stories and the Canon prints out photographs. All very up-to-date. Yet I continue to write longhand with the Bic stick. That may be a problem.

Writing ads by hand came naturally. Then typing them up for the art director was simple. But writing stories, especially novels, involves a lot of pages, hundreds of pages. And, ultimately, they have to be typed.

And, once again, like my early days, speed enters into it. I want the pages to keep up with my flow of thought. So I've tried using the computer to write. Damn! My fingers aren't responding as they once did.

Now I'm faced with a dilemma: if I continue to write longhand I may not be writing fast enough. Worse still, after writing out my stories longhand, I still have to type them up. So it becomes a double effort. But if I work directly on the computer I'll have to retrain my fingers and my brain to type fast and accurately.

Maybe I'll just try to ease into it gently.

Some truths about publishing your own book

 Self-publishing for Dummies. That's what you might call this short spiel. I've experience on both sides of the fence. I've self-published several books and, at present, I'm reading a self-published book. Here are some of the realities.

Not every book can find a traditional publisher. Not everyone who writes writes material that falls within the commercial needs of a traditional publisher. This is where self-publishing comes in.

There are people out there who have ideas -- messages -- they want to share with others through a book and have taken the trouble to put it all down on paper and just need someone, some company, to turn it into a book for them, and then some company or agency to give it some distribution and publicity. These are services that can be purchased, if you have money and are willing to pay.

The problem is that, for all of what you have done, and that now you have a published book, chances are nobody will buy and read it. This is what the traditional publishers are trying to tell you when agents refused to champion your work. If they can't see a way to get people to buy and read it -- "they" being the book industry with all its skills, resources, and experience -- odds that anyone will read your book are ... poor.

My own foray into self-publishing has been mildly rewarding, but I've gone at it with several advantages.

First, I had a following for the material I was writing (which happened to be about perfume making technology for people who wanted to make and sell their own perfume.)

Second, I had experience in desktop publishing -- taking the bare text and turning it into a formatted book: cover, table of contents, page numbers, illustrations. (After years with Quark XPress I've turned to Affinity Publisher which, while it has as many quirks as Quark, is affordable and, at the end of the day, can put out a good job.)

Third, I turned to Amazon KDP for printing and distribution. It costs nothing and royalties are distributed regularly.

Finally, to get sales I aimed my website visitors, email recipients, and blogviewers toward the specific Amazon pages that featured my books. The money earned wasn't enough to make a living but books were sold and money continues to come in monthly. But, as mentioned, I had these advantages.

For those who do not have my advantages, the self-publishing process will involve finding a company that will put your book together for you. There are quite a few out there that offer this service. Just be aware of the realities.

First, just getting a book between covers and having it "out there" doesn't guarantee anyone will buy it. Sales is a whole different game than production and your sales could amount to ... zero.

Second, not every company that offers to put your book out there will do a good job of producing the book. I don't mean the actual printing. Any decent printer can print and bind a book. The problem I've come across is in the graphic design of the book. I've come across a self-published book where, on certain pages, the font changes for no reason other than carelessness on the part of the designer. On the book I'm currently reading (which will remain unnamed) there are neither page numbers nor page headings which would show the title and author's name. Nor is there a table of contents, nor an inside title page -- sure signs that the author bought publishing services from a sloppy book maker.

There are self-publishing success stories, just as their are stories of people who have won a large lottery payout. The companies selling self-publishing services use these examples as proof that it can happen, just as the diet pill hawkers give examples of users who have experienced gratifying weight loss. But these results are not typical.

The "rule" for the writer who settles on self-publishing is "be prepared to market the book yourself." The only way it will sell and the only way people will buy and read it is if you go out and promote it ... vigorously! There are plenty of resources available online to help you with this but, for all the available resources, the only way it will happen is if you put the time and energy into it. Lots of time. Lots of energy.

Good luck.

Another gem from Frenchys

Among my original seven books from Frenchys this summer was The Problem With The Other Side, by Kwame Ivery. Reading the first dozen pages convinced me that it was a good, very good writer who had written this book and, today, as I finished it, I found myself stunned. Out of breath. I never had that experience from a book before, not even the greatest of the classics.

So again, credit to the book bin at Frenchys. My only regret is that the sales of books in the book bin at Frenchys don't earn royalties for the author, regardless how much the author may deserve them. But read it yourself. It's here on Amazon.

Oh yes, I read other stuff too

 I've written a bit about my summer (2025) reading list and why my reading doesn't provide comps for agent queries. Yesterday I got caught having to admit I was reading something more in line with current popular tastes.

I was sending a query to an agent who, I'll admit, seemed like a pretty hopeless choice for what I'm trying to sell but after a while, after you've sent out dozens of queries, you sense you're beginning to run out of possibilities -- so you grasp at straws.

The agent I was querying used Query Manager for submissions and I had all my materials ready to pop into the appropriate boxes -- bio, word count, genre, query letter, pages -- but then, this particular agent had added to the Query Manager form, a question of her own: "What book are you reading?"

It wasn't "what books have you read lately?" or "what books are your favorites?" or "what books do you want to read?" but "what book are you reading?" Of course I was reading a book but not one I would have liked to get caught reading. I was reading The Perfect Marriage, by Jeneva Rose and I had a history with this book.

A year or two ago I had set out to get a taste of what was currently popular in fiction. I was browsing through the fiction section of our local Barnes & Noble. The staff had tagged certain books which they had particularly enjoyed. I bought two of them. At home I found both unreadable.

I set them both aside and turned to some other books which I had wanted to read. I didn't quite forget them and I did think that "someday" (like Justin Bieber's perfume) I might get around to them, but I was in no rush. Then, as we were making plans to go to Canada, my wife spotted my copy of The Perfect Marriage and told me her book club had chosen it for their next book. I offered it to her and it came along with us. I still hadn't read it. My wife however dug into it.

Then she began to urge me to read it. If I wanted to be a "contemporary writer" (which I didn't!) I had to read this book. I continued to resist, plowing through the titles I had picked up at Frenchys. But she persisted and, without giving anyway anything, finally got me to promise to read it. Finally I did and, I'll admit, once I got into it -- it did take a while -- I wanted to keep reading ... until I had finished it.

So this was the book I had to name when, in that query, I was asked, "what book are you reading?" It wasn't a title anything close to what the agent was looking for. It was probably as far out of her specified preferences as it was out of mine. But, like it or not, I had to tell the truth regardless of how embarrassing it was.

But the real truth is that books fascinate me and teach me and add something to my vision of the world I live in, even books I never expected to be caught reading.

Factory fiction

When a publisher discovers they've got a hot title, they want more of the same. When their competitors discover that they have a hot title, they want similar titles. What you might have thought of as a creative art becomes a creation factory, a fiction factory.

You've got to remember that publishing is a business, a tough business, so the publishers are looking for opportunities to make money. Yes, the top publishers will, occasionally, put out a book that has intrinsic value, something special. But these few books aren't expected to make much money. They might even lose money. But they give the publisher prestige and prestige attracts books that will make money.

As a writer there are plentiful opportunities to get your work published if you can master the requirements -- the template -- of the fiction factory. If you can do it and do it well, your career can thrive and, if your career thrives, you can dare to write an occasional piece outside the fiction factory template and your publisher will humor you by publishing it.

If you want to be a writer you have to think a bit of what kind of writer you want to be. It's always going to be hard work -- your hard work -- but how you approach the industry will, to a large extent, determine your economic success.

Literature trends like real estate

Yesterday I was looking over an email I got from a real estate broker. I'm on his mailing list and, about every week or so, get a missive suggesting what our house would sell for in the current market and reporting sales and offerings in the neighborhood. He also includes a graph showing his suggested price for our house along a progression of dates. The numbers rise, fall, and rise again. Tomorrow? Who knows.

Now all this while, while our house had been rising and falling in value according to this agent, I've been hard at work peddling stories I've written -- novels -- with, thus far, no success. The rejection emails from agents generally say something like "it's not right for my list."

Thanks to Albert "Ricky" Stever, I'm encouraged by the realization that markets aren't fixed; they aren't set forever. Themes agents and publishers are looking for today won't be the same in a future tomorrow. So what I'm writing now might have to wait for a culture shift in readers' interest until they align with what I write and what I want to write.

But I can wait. That's not an option open to every writer. You have to live; you have to somehow make money. (I'd like some too!) But, from watching that real estate curve, the changing numbers, I'm confident that what I write will, at some point, align with what readers are looking for, publishers who want to give it to them, and agents who serve as the go-betweens.

 

Another gem from Frenchys

 Last Sunday after church my wife suggested we go to the farmers market in Shelburne. I wasn't sure there was a farmers market on Sunday afternoon but a check online confirmed that indeed there was, so we went.

After picking up some blueberries, carrots, and beets, we walked back to the Bean Dock for lunch, for me a scallop and bacon wrap. Then, rather than having our usual ice cream desert, we headed for the Shelburne Frenchys.

I was looking for a couple of long sleeve shirts and I found two which I liked. Then I came across a cotton sweater which caught my eye and I added that to my "shopping cart." This, I was thinking, was enough. I hadn't seen a book bin and assumed that there wasn't one. In the past the book bin at the Shelburne Frenchys had always been in the front of the store.

Heading for the restroom -- the "washroom" as they called it, I spotted two things that were different this year. The door to the washroom was unlocked, you didn't have to ask the cashier for the key suspended from a stick too big to put in your pocket, and, in the back of the store near the washroom, was a book bin. Of course I stopped to look.

It being a bit past mid-summer, the bin was nearly empty but, sorting through it, I found two books I decided to buy. One was Tom Clancy's "The Hunt For Red October." The other was a slightly battered but probably unread book by someone with a really weird name. The back cover reported some prize nominations for the author so I thought it could be interesting. I left Frenchys that day with my two shirts, one cotton sweater, two books, and my wife.

I had picked the Clancy book with the idea that breezing through it could give me some relief from the intensity of the books I had just finished. Unfortunately, when I started in on it, I found that the type, in this small, thick, paperback edition was a struggle for my eyes. I turned to the other book by the writer with the weird name.

At first I thought "Yaa Gyasi" was on of those made up names that creative people adopt to conceal their real backgrounds -- like "Elizabeth Arden" who started out in life as Florence Nightingale Graham. But, it turned out, Yaa Gyasi was real, and her writing inspired. "Transcendent Kingdom" was the book I had acquired. Thank you, Frenchys. The book is a gem.

Gyasi's writing is so good it humbled me. Could I ever write as well? But it also was a challenge, to do better with my next project, to work harder, to try to live up to a standard I'd discovered at Frenchys.

It's an amazing world out there.

Three reasons why I can't produce comps for literary agents

I've been busy trying to connect with a literary agent who can market a story I've written -- a novel. The often asked information I'm supposed to supply in my query is "titles of books similar to yours" -- the "comps."

I'm stumped for three reasons. Maybe you understand.

(1) Money

Reading costs nothing but acquiring current literature is expensive. Libraries can help but, underfunded and sometimes trimmed by local censorship, they don't fully solve the problem. Ultimately to get your hands on a trove of current books to sort through to find the matches, you have to spend money. Paperbacks start at about $20. If the book you want isn't in paperback yet, then it's $36.95 and up. And you'll need at least a dozen. That will set you back around $360. I'm not exactly a starving writer but $360 would be a big hit on my budget ... too big.

(2) Time

There are only so many hours in the day. Duh! I spend some of them reading; some of them writing. My reading is not from the (unknown) books that might be good comps for me. My reading is eclectic: books I hear about from some article I've just read, books listed in the back of other books I've just read, and books that I pick up by chance in a book bin. I'm currently backlogged by about eight tittles and my wife keeps making more suggestions from books she owns and has read. These titles are unlikely to provide me with comps.

(3) Theme

When I'm looking for a book to read I'm looking for something special, something that stimulates my own creative juices. I'm not looking for a book that is "like" something I'm writing or want to write. The books I'm picking to read are not comps.

So I strike out on comps.

Hey, literary agent! Are you looking for a knockoff or something original?

 Years ago at Canyon House, a long forgotten marketing company, Norman had a sharp eye for products we could knock off, products that were already proven winners. Knockoffs were low risk and they made money, not as much as the originals, but enough to keep things profitable.

Marketing a new and truly original product is risky. Most don't make it. They're dropped before too much money is lost. The big money goes to push the winners. When you just go for knockoffs you eliminate losses from those hopeless products that would never make it. Because your product is a knockoff of a product that's already proven to be winner, you can be relatively certain the it too will make money.

Marketing knockoffs is boring.

In submitting queries to literary agents (I'm still looking!) a common request is to name "comparable books." I laughed when one agent's wish list mentioned that he/she/they/them wanted submissions that "defied categorizations altogether" -- and then asked for comparable titles.

It's understandable. There are hundreds -- maybe thousands -- of agents out there trying to make a living, and it isn't easy for them. Wouldn't it be easier for an agent to make a deal with a publisher by offering a book that is "like" a current best seller? Norman wouldn't hesitate.

So "original" is going to be harder to sell; riskier. "Original" is not for every agent out there. It takes someone special.

Original stories do get published. Out there among the agenting universe there are players who do recognize these special books and champion them and bring them to the market.

But it's risky.

How I selected my summer reading this year

My wife carefully curates her summer reading before we head for Canada and our house on Nova Scotia's South Shore. My summer reading is selected using a different method, one that is risky but, some summers, immensely rewarding. It goes like this:

From Walden, New York, we drive to Bangor, Maine. Then, from Bangor, we drive to St. John, New Brunswick, where we get the ferry across the Bay of Fundy to Digby, Nova Scotia. From the ferry terminal at Digby it's about a three hour drive to our house and you might think that, after so many hours on the road, we'd head right for it, right from the ferry terminal. But actually we make a stop in Digby before heading for the house. We stop at Frenchys. It's a must.

My wife goes through the ladies clothes for her summer wardrobe. I've mostly gotten my fill of clothes from Frenchys but I'm eager to see what books they might have.

This year (2025) when I first looked into the book bin I was disappointed. It was almost empty. There was probably a reason for this. Usually we make it to Canada at the end of June, in time for the local Canada Day celebrations. This year we had some delays and didn't arrive until the last week of July. Others had grabbed up all the good books and this book bin is only stocked at the beginning of the summer.

But I did want some summer reading so I picked seven books out of the bin, all authors and titles unfamiliar to me. I had low expectations for my selections.

That changed when I started reading.

My first book was Berji Kristen: Tales from The Garbage Hills, by Latife Tekin, translated from the original Turkish by Ruth Christie and Saliha Paker. It's about low -- very low -- income people whose community -- their houses -- are all built on a garbage dump and, for those who work for wages, their workplaces -- the factories they work in -- aren't far from the garbage dump. Their environment is full of toxic waste -- chemicals from these local factories which infuse the air these people breath and the water they drink, the effects of which is just taken for granted. They have no options.

Tekin's tale is low key. No preaching; no shouting. She just lays it out for you and how you look at it is up to you.

With the Garbage Hills behind me, I picked up The Watsons Go To Birmingham -- 1963, by Christopher Paul Curtis. My wife noticed the Newberry Honor award on the cover and told me I probably wouldn't want to read a kid's book, but I thought I'd give it a try. I devoured it. Aside from the interest in the book, I was fascinated by the author's story of how the book got published and launched his literary career at a time when he was no longer a youngster.

It's a beautiful tale of a beautiful family and, through this book, I learned about the "conk" -- a hairstyle not favored by Mr. and Mrs. Watson (their oldest son gets one and, as a result, has his head shaved by his father!) but you may have seen prominent musicians who adapted this somewhat risky hair straightening style -- Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Little Richard, and others.

Then, from Mr. Curtis's tale, I learned that in 1963 a car could be fitted with a record player -- not an 8-track, not a tape player or CD player, but a real record player -- in the case of the Watsons, one that played 45s. (This so amazed me that I had to look it up on Wikipedia for verification!)

As the Watsons travel south from Flint, Michigan (where the author lived and grew up) to Birmingham, Alabama, we learn how America can be both beautiful and terrifying.

So the first two books were hits. Then I plunged into Wild Thorns by Sahar Khalifeh, translated from Arabic by Trevor LeGrassick and Elizabeth Fernea. Originally published in 1976, the story is timely -- a tale of Palestinians in the West Bank and their interactions with Israel.

When I finish reading this book I still have four more to go -- all seven for just twenty seven dollars (Canadian). Even if the next four are bombs, hey, I've gotten my money's worth. More than my money's worth.

So this is how I pick my summer reading. Unplanned. Uncertain. But often the overlooked books in Frenchys book bin turn out to be gems that widen my horizons and expose me to worlds I would never otherwise have lived. These are books I would never have discovered in my local book store or by following a reviewer's "Ten 'must reads' for Summer 2025." Now back to the books.

Pirates and Mermaids

While I continue my search for an agent for my current story, I'm also struggling to find an entry point for my next story and, until yesterday, this was baffling me. Let me put it this way -- if I want to be a writer of stories -- fictions -- I have to have stories to tell, one after another. At this point I've told three stories in writing, all "unpublished," but, as noted, while waiting for the right agent to call, I've got to march onward and start story number four. That's where I've been stumped.

Yesterday evening, lying in bed, an idea struck me: an entry point. For me, an entry point is a theme that can begin a story. It's not necessarily the beginning of the story but it's an idea for a story. So, having found the entry point for as story which I may or may not pursue, I was excited, especially because this entry point would lead to a story that would be difficult -- very difficult -- to write, but the task would, for me, be exciting.

Then, while I was contemplating how I might write this difficult story, my dear wife chimes in -- "Oh, I have an idea for your next story: pirates and mermaids."

Now I have no interest in pirates and only a passing interest in mermaids but I know where this was coming from. We had just arrived at our summer house which is on a cove off the ocean. An hour's drive north is a seaport which boasts that it was once "the home of the privateers," privateers being nothing more than pirates licensed by a letter of marque from the government, in our local case the King of England. So pirates were on her mind and, where there are pirates, there are sure to be mermaids. Doesn't it follow?

But, logical as all this might be, I don't think I'll pursue "pirates and mermaids" as my next story. I really have no experience with either pirates or mermaids. But maybe, in a few years, in the distant future when I've finished the story I (might) want to work on now ... who knows?

Writing your author's bio for a literary agent can give you three rewards

 Writing your bio for a literary agent is a necessity but doing it can give you three rewards.

First, you'll have that essential personal biography for the literary agents you're querying.

Then there are two other "rewards," if you take the time to dig and go over your life with all its highs and lows, all its joys and sufferings, and all its happy and unhappy surprises.

Reward number one: you'll come up with some great material to share with your kids, grandkids, and friends -- who may or may not be interested.

Reward number two -- and this is the really big one: you're likely to uncover incidents, events, and impressions that can launch you on your next literary project. The kernel of something remembered can grow into a luscious literary fruit. Just water it with a bit of imagination and think about how you might have liked that faint memory to have developed. Bingo! Story time! All from doing a job you had to do anyway.

Writing a synopsis can be therapeutic

When you've finished writing your novel you may be asked for a synopsis. This is another writing project and you might cringe at the request. Some say writing a synopsis is so onerous that it causes your mind to go blank and your eyes go blind. But writing a synopsis can be therapeutic.

Writing a synopsis forces you to look at your novel and see what you've really done -- not what you thought you had done. Writing a synopsis forces your eyes to see the gaps -- the left out parts that the reader will spot but you have overlooked. These gaps need to be filled, even though they may force you to go back to your story and write more -- to plug those gaps and give your readers the satisfaction of a story well told.

Where did the thoughts for this article come from? Where else but my own experience, the wake up jolt received when ... writing a synopsis. But thanks to the "whoops" moment the synopsis uncovered, the final revision of the novel is much improved, as will be yours.

New pistols vs. old pistols: a writer's problem

Can you write a novel where a major scene involves something you know nothing about?

I've been contemplating a plot for a third novel. (First two as yet unpublished) and part of the plot involves handguns. This is not about good guns or bad guns, good guys or bad guys. It's about two guys who bond over target shooting -- still an innocent sport.

The problem I'm encountering is the timeline. As a kid I was into guns, for target shooting and curiosity and for all the gun allure kids love.

So the story at one point involves target shooting with what might be called "the guns of my youth": the .22, the 9 millimeter, the .45 auto. A cheap revolver, a couple of German Lugers, and a couple of 1911 Army .45s. Fine.

But, as the story progresses, guns make their appearance a second time. But time has passed. The guns of my youth are now obsolete. Time had marched on and I haven't owned a gun for close to sixty years. (Gave them all away when I went on active duty. I figured if the Army wanted me to have a gun, they'd give me one. (They did.)

So here's the problem. I want to write an incident involving guns but it's not at the beginning of the story and the guns of this period are no longer the guns of my youth.

How should I handle this?

How would you handle it?

I'm not going out and acquire a new gun collection. I can read gun magazine but this isn't going to make it very real. Can I just skip the DETAILS on the modern guns? Can I just say, "he had a gun"? I have a story I want to tell but I'm fussed if I'm personally going to get back into guns.

I was talking to a friend recently who was going big game hunting with a British .303, a gun from my youth. Maybe I can just recall enough of the smells and the spirit of shooting -- target shooting -- to wing it.

What do you think?

-- Philip Goutell

How does it end? Who wins?

 A novel needs a climax, a point at which the story comes to a critical point and then something happens to steer it toward a resolution. Here there are three possibilities: the "good" side prevails; the "bad" side prevails... or no one prevails. Look at the consequences of each path.

When the "good" sided prevails we feel good about the story as long as the good wins out in a logical way.

If the "bad" side prevails, we are either left upset or left telling ourselves, "yes, life is really like that."

While I like the feeling of the good side winning, when writing I find myself favoring the ending where everything is set right, no matter how badly this disappoints our desire for retribution. Really don't we want to see harmony in the universe? There can be no harmony in a world where there are only winners and losers. Writing a win-win ending that pleased the reader can be a challenge, but one well worth the effort.

 -- Philip Goutell

Is self-publishing for you?

I've been hunting to find a suitable agent for my literary output and, for those agents who take submissions through Query Manager, one of the common questions asked relates to self-publishing. If you have published a book yourself, you might be asked how many copies you sold in the first year. Then, regardless of how many copies you might have sold, some agents won't touch you.

So what's the story on self-publishing? What does it mean and what is it all about?

To "publish" a book or story simply means to put it out there to the public. But usually when writers talk of publishing, they are talking about commercial publishers who take an author's work, make it into a book, and offer it for sale to the public, usually through bookstores.

When you self-publish, you skip the step of having your work "accepted" by a commercial publisher who would edit, manufacture, and distribute it to booksellers. Instead, all will be on you, from creating the book to marketing it. Once you're done it you'll see how much non-writing work is involved. You're also likely to see sales results considerably lower than what you were anticipating, and lower than they might have been if distribution and publicity had been handled by an established publisher.

I've self-published a number of books but they were technical books, intended for a special audience with which I'd developed a relationship. These books make sales, small sales perhaps, but the sales have continued, month after month, over a period of years. Overall, the results have been satisfying.

I know someone who published his own novel, a pretty good novel, worthy of publication by an established book publisher. But he did it himself. I don't have his sales figures but I'm guessing they were minimal. What stood out about his book, aside from a good story, were the terrible errors in formatting. At several points the typeface changed abruptly for a number of paragraphs and then went back to the original. Why? Because whoever was responsible for the graphics failed to hit the right format key for those paragraphs. A simple mistake but a glaring giveaway of an amateur job.

Sometimes you self-publish simply because you want your work to be out there, where it has the potential of being seen, and no major publisher wants to work with you. I've published some of my short stories on my website simply because I don't see a commercial future for them but I still want to share them with readers. Academics sometimes self-publish for the same reason.

In my (unpublished) novel, Two Writers, I have some scenes dealing with self-publishing.

Seeing your work in print can be exciting. Self-publishing can give you some of that thrill. But don't expect to make much money, or any money at all.

-- PhilipGoutell

Writing advertising for cash sales

My ad writing was in the mail order business. Picture this. A business with a product to sell but no store, only a small warehouse. Two methods were used to make sales: ads were run in publications ("print advertising") and fliers were mailed out ("junk mail"). Each ad carried a tracking code. When the orders came in, results for each individual code were measured. Either the ad made a profit or it didn't. There was no bluffing.

I started free lance. I had no connections. I had to hustle to get clients an then prove my worth. Most clients were the owners. They were decisive and knew their business. In time I was offered an opportunity to start my own company and take a share of the profits. For all the lighthearted moments, it was serious business.

-- Philip Goutell

Welcome to Writers' Teaparty

Welcome to Writers' Teaparty, a nook devoted to writers and writing.

Let me introduce myself. I am Philip Goutell and I've been writing most of my life. Until now I've kept a low profile, deliberately, as peace and quiet allow me to think and create.

The urge to transition from the commercial into the literary pushes me to lead a more "social" public existence. When I wrote advertising I had to please no one but the customers. Now that my pen (I write with a ball point pen) is turned toward novels, I have to please agents and editors before the reading public sees what I have written.

Thus I'm forced to turn myself into a brand, a brand that will attract readers, publishers, and agents. While I am reluctant to follow this path, my desire is to write my stories and see them published. If you are a writer, no doubt you understand.

Starting with this first message I'm setting out to make myself known and loved and a desirable commodity for the reading public. It will be a challenge but one I expect to be lots of fun and well worth the effort.

I invite you to join me.

Philip Goutell
weww.PhilipGoutell.com