Swimming with SharksWritten by Lisa Hood
Swimming with SharksI just finished my first novel, “Shades of Betrayal”, and felt a rush of giddy excitement at prospect of being a REAL writer. I had a vague idea that I would need an agent, so I went to a search engine and typed: “Literary Agents”. My search returned thousands upon thousands of results, and as I surfed from page to page, I quickly realized getting an agent was not going to be an easy undertaking. Most would not accept unsolicited queries, or queries from previously unpublished authors. I wondered if it would just be easier to contact publishers directly, in essence acting as my own agent. My bubble quickly burst when I found very few publishers willing to accept unagented queries. I was disappointed but not deterred. In retrospect, I wish I had begun my search for information with these words: “Writer Beware”. These words would have saved me from surfing in shark infested waters. The sharks got me, but thankfully it was just a little nibble, they didn’t tear off my entire leg. Here are just a few tips to keep you safe from sharks posing as agents and/or publishers: Regardless of what they call them: Reading Fees, Evaluation Fees, Handling Fees, Sliding Fees, Publishing Fees, Marketing Fees, or Adjunct Services, FEES = money leaving your pocket and going into theirs. I paid an agent to set up a web site where my book would be promoted in junction with submissions to various publishers. I wanted to believe my dream was coming true, so I gagged my inner critic and stuck her in a dark corner. Paying up front fees just doesn’t pass common sense test. “Fee-charging violates basic premise of author-agent relationship: a shared financial interest in sale of author's manuscript.” (Writers Beware, p.2)
| | Publishing Trends: Traditional vs ePublishingWritten by Lisa Hood
Publishing Trends: Traditional vs ePublishingYou’ve done what most people only talk about. You’ve written a book, spent countless hours agonizing for just right words only to delete many of them in painful editing process. After many months, or perhaps, many years, you have a manuscript ready for submission. You’ve heard all about struggles for new authors: slush piles, solicited queries only, scam artists and cons, but you know luck or fate or sheer talent will eventually deliver your precious manuscript into right hands at right time. I can’t say that isn’t so. After all, JK Rowling, Stephen King, Danielle Steel, Nora Roberts, Tom Clancy and every other bestselling author were once unpublished and unknown. I can tell you that odds of receiving a lucrative contract with a traditional publisher as an unpublished author are not in your favor. According to Associations of American Publishers (Press Release, 2003) “ U.S. book sales totaled $26,874,100,000 in 2002, a 5.5 percent increase over 2001…” While these numbers are encouraging, it is important to note that 75% (Curtis, 1995, p. 5) of books on bestsellers lists, were written by authors with proven bestselling titles. Why is this? Well, as a reader, you are more likely to invest $15, $20, or $30 if you have some familiarity with author’s work. Not only are readers more likely to choose known authors, so are publishers, motivated by bottom line, dollars and cents. Considering a small publisher will receive 5000 unsolicited queries a month, a junior editor earning $25,000 a year may be able to read four or five a day. You can see that cost to evaluate some 60,000 queries can be $125,000 a year. (Curtis, 1995) If only 1% of unsolicited queries are sent to senior editors, who in turn accept 1%, publisher has invested nearly $50,000, before any contracts are signed, any printing is done, or any marketing undertaken.
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