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When people ask me about writing, I tell them, "Any damn fool can write a book. It's finding a publisher that's difficult." And that's the truth of the matter.

These are among the things every writer needs to know when considering getting his or her finished work published:

1. AGENTS - If a recognized and reputable agent is willing to represent you, be aware that this will greatly improve your chances of getting your book published. The major publishers have merged and conglomerated and, at the same time, have reduced their editorial staffs. If you have a chance to talk to their editors, ask about their workload and you'll get an earful. Editors have little time to consider unsolicited manuscripts. These publishing houses increasingly rely on agents to find manuscripts and more and more of them refuse unsolicited or unagented work. An agent can also save you a great deal of time, as you'll discover if you undertake a publisher search of your own. (Many of today's agents are laid-off editors who, in a sense, are now working for the publishers as consultants.) There are agents who require a reading fee to even consider your manuscript and I thoroughly agree with the standard advice that dealing with them is a waste of your time and money. Having twice paid such fees (which were not trivial) I can assure you that I wasted my time and money. In both cases, they reported that my book was not publishable. One of those books was Thirsty and the other was The Green Flame. The Catch 22 in all of this is that the best agents have a booming business and are very selective. To find an agent, you need a good directory such as the "Guide To Literary Agents," published yearly by Writer's Digest Magazine. Many of the agents listed therein have a web page you should also check. In my own efforts to find an agent for a completed manuscript, I've sent out several different chapters and chapter combinations and settled on the two that result in the longest response time, assuming (perhaps falsely) that these were the hardest to reject. Well, it's only a game, isn't it? In any event, I recommend that you send out about five inquiries, send a new one for each one rejected, and assume that no response in 3 months is a rejection. Also, don't query agents and publishers at the same time. If you're going to seek an agent, go through that search first and don't seek a publisher unless no agent seems to want you. Of course, if all the agents turn you down and then you find a publisher, you can then consider an agent or not, as seems best for you.

2. BOOKSTORE SURVEYS - Visit several bookstores and see what books match your subject and who is publishing them. These publishers should be on your short list of best prospects provided they haven't set up impenetrable walls against unsolicited or unagented submissions. Note also that "no unagented submissions" doesn't necessarily preclude unagented proposals. Just keep your proposal brief, address it to an editor who likes your subject, and know that you're still bucking long odds. You can get a clue as to which editor likes your subject by finding a published book similar to what you're offering, then phoning the publisher to ask who edited that one. For a longer list of prospects, go through the current Writer's Market (published yearly by Writer's Digest magazine) and list every publisher who publishes books on your subject and hasn't specified, "no unagented, no unsolicited," etc. And don't forget to check their web sites.

3. CONTRACT - Read any contract very carefully before signing. One sort of contract I don't believe I would ever agree to is the sort that offers a relatively small fixed amount for all rights to the manuscript involved. In many cases, that small fixed amount is less than minimum wage for the time involved and it removes even the hope of anything more. Everybody lives on hope to some degree, and writers more than most. Keep in mind that book contracts involve some negotiating leeway. Discuss with the publisher any points that you believe should be improved in your favor.

4. CONTROL - One thing I've learned over a great many years is that, in business, control can be everything. This is something to keep in mind when considering contracts. Anything the contract does not expressly put under your control, is apt to be under the control of the other party. It was a basic mistake on my part to place six books with one POD publisher, and probably an even more basic mistake to publish more than one book at a time. Making your mistakes one at a time gives you a better chance to correct them.

5. COVER DESIGN - When experienced people speak at writer's conventions, they always agree that cover design is extremely important. They emphasize that when books are being sold to wholesalers or bookstores, there's only about ten seconds available to present each title, and an attractive cover is often what makes the sale. If you are working with a conventional publisher, the publisher normally designs a good cover for you. If you are self-publishing, most or all of the choice is yours. A glance at the covers of my Xlibris books will reveal that I'm too knot-headed to have followed the advice to put a jazzy picture on the cover. I concede that an attractive cover is a definite asset, but, at Xlibris, cover art adds to the publishing cost and I chose to settle for two cover requirements; (1) the title had to be clearly and easily readable on the front cover and the spine, and (2) the covers of the six books had to match so as to give the appearance of a set. In general, I buy books for their content, without regard to the cover art. And with any book, new or used, I appreciate a title that's easy to read. The next time you're in a bookstore, pay attention to titles that are difficult to read and you may agree that that's the worst mistake the designer could have made.

6. E-BOOKS - It's too soon to say whether or not it's to the author's advantage to have his or her books available as e-books. The risk is that it may make them too easy to copy. I suspect that the success of e-books will depend on availability of affordable and compact e-book readers. This is happening. There are e-book readers that can hold hundreds of e-books and that have enough battery life. Price is a bit high, but given time to come down a bit, e-books can go main stream. Shipping and printing costs would disappear, allowing for very competitive prices if nobody gets greedy. In any event, I chose to allow my Xlibris books to be available as e-books. And the February, 2003 issue of The Writer magazine contains an article entitled, "How e-books Made My Career", a title that means what it says.

7. END GAME - Some day your published book will go out of print. If it has been published by a conventional publisher, be prompt in requesting a "reversion of rights" so that you can have it published again if you choose. If you are self-publishing, the book won't really go out of print until you make that choice yourself. If you are self-publishing through a POD (Print On Demand) publisher, it theoretically costs you nothing to let your book stay in print indefinitely. However, that theory is less than perfect; you may still find a reason or two to cancel the contract.
   What then? The thing I didn't consider when my book, The Green Flame, went out of print was the after-market. I bought just enough spare copies for the kids and grandkids. Now that book is sometimes listed in used condition at "from $100." That price doesn't require a horde of people seeking it. It only requires that the number of people who want it exceeds the supply. The book is unique, containing info available nowhere else. I should have bought at least a hundred extra copies when it went out of print. To a lesser certainty, my book, Thirsty, has now survived 24 years as an original, a large-print reprint, and a recorded book. There is a chance that it will become a minor classic and I probably should have bought a hundred of the Walker originals when it went out of print. Woulda, coulda, shoulda.
   The world of collectors and collectibles can be strange. A "collectible" must be scarce and desireable. Desireablity can be impossible to predict. As a kid, I probably threw away a major fortune in baseball cards I never much wanted and comic books I only wanted to read once. All that's required of a "collectible" is that the collector feels that the combination of scarcity and desireability assures that someone else will be willing to exceed the price he paid. Today, I'd guess that the odds on any of my Xlibris books becoming collectors items are on a par with the state lotteries, but I know I'll keep at least 50 of each if I ever take them out of print. And I'm a guy who will probably never buy a state lottery ticket.

8. INFORMATION - If you are going to seek a publisher or agent for your book, you will need the names and addresses of publishers who publish your kind of book, and you need that information to be up-to-date. Some sources for that information are:
   (a) Writer's Digest Mag., Box 2123, Harlan, IA, 51593, (800)333-0133
   (b) The Writer Mag., P.O.Box 986, Waukesha, WI 53187, (800)533-6644
   (c) Poet's & Writers Mag., 72 Spring St., NY, NY, 10012, (212)226-3586
   (d) Writer's Market - Book available from bookstore or library.
   (e) Guide To Literary Agents - Book available from bookstores.
   (f) Literary Market Place ("LMP") - Book available at library.
   (g) Publishers Weekly - Available at library.

9. MARKETS - If a conventional publisher accepts your work, be aware that some publishers focus on particular markets to the exclusion of others. For instance, Walker And Company, which published the original edition of Thirsty, depended primarily on library sales. Likewise, The American Chemical Society, which published The Green Flame, depended primarily on sales to the chemical and engineering community. Neither of those two publishers made any great effort to sell to bookstores.

10. MEDIA - Our world is changing very rapidly. E-books are relatively new today. Who knows what format our books may appear in next? It's a serious question to consider when reading any book publishing contract. You might also consider audio books. These sell or rent to truck drivers and other high-mileage drivers as interesting company on the road. There are at least two problems special to this media, (1) getting someone with the right voice to do the reading, and (2) the possibility that the players in the trucks and autos will evolve from tapes to CDs to something else. Such as a storage chip containing multiple books? Ideally, your contract should include the phrase, "all other media rights reserved", or words to that effect.

11. MULTIPLE SUBMISSIONS - Many conventional publishers listed in Writer's Market will ask that you have no other submissions out when you submit to them. Given the slim chance that they will accept your submission and the high probability that three to twelve months will elapse before they reject it, I think this is a very unreasonable request except when it applies to a complete manuscript. The sad truth is that you can submit proposals simultaneously to ten publishers or agents with little risk that two of them will accept. Still,it's best to keep your number of active submissions low, sending out new ones as rejections come in, and doing a lot of re-reading to see if you couldn't do a better job. Keep these submissions to query length, consisting of a one-page letter, a copy of the first 10 to 15 pages or one or two chapters of your book, and a brief bio or list of your credits. This limits the chance that the editor will feel you've abused his or her time and it saves you postage. Then, if you encounter some interest or a request for the full manuscript, hold off on further submissions. (And while you're waiting, read Andrew Zack's article, "Training For The Big Race", in the Sept. '05 issue of The Writer. It gives good advice on boosting the chances of success for your new book.) Some authors complain of getting no response at all to their submissions, but I'm under the impression that I've gotten a response 90 to 95 percent of the time. (Though a few replies have arrived long after I considered them kaput.) Of course, nearly all of those responses are rejections, but a few of them are pleasant and signed by an editor. Be thankful for those, and send a thank-you note for the especially nice ones. This advice is second only to the oft-repeated advice that you include a SASE (Self-Addressed Stamped Envelope) with every submission. It is a minimum requirement of you that you make it easy and cost-free for the publisher to answer or return your submission.

12. PEN NAME - Mark Twain was the pen name of my favorite author, Samuel Clemens. He may have chosen it as a more easily remembered name, but he adopted it shortly after its original user, a steamboat captain he respected, died. It also held pleasant memories of his steamboat pilot days when a call of, "Mark twain!" by the man checking the river depth meant, "Two fathoms!", a safe depth for steamers. Mary Ann Evans used the pen name, George Eliot, for Silas Marner and The Mill On The Floss, because female authors weren't accepted in the early 1800s. I use my real name, partly because it forces me to be true to what I believe in. However, in the improbable event of my writing a romance novel, I would surely adopt a sexy female nom de plume. One must be practical. Selling your stuff is difficult enough without bucking time-honored customs & prejudices.

13. POLITE PERSISTENCE - If you find a publisher or editor who seems interested in your work, follow up on it now and then without getting pushy about it. If you submit your work to a publisher and get no reply in three or four months, send a follow-up, giving the date of your submission and repeating some of the strong points of your work. It was a follow-up letter that got the first edition of Thirsty unstuck, and a few annual reminders were needed to get the large print Thirsty edition launched, and a couple of annual reminders resulted in the audio tape edition of Thirsty, "Sundown In Thirsty". In all of this, you must have a genuine regard for the publisher's or editor's work load and maintain a friendly atmosphere. If your current project doesn't work out, you will at least get a friendly hearing for the next one.

14. REJECTIONS - Need consolation in a sea of rejections or proof that they can be overcome? Read Earnest Hemingway's "A Moveable Feast" and know that he had the same troubles. For those who survive the battle, rejections become something like war wounds; a source of pride after the miseries of battle are forgotten.

15. REPRINTS - If your work has been published by a conventional publisher, it will go out of print eventually. Some publishers will allow a book to go out of print in a year or less if the sales aren't promising. Others pride themselves on keeping a book in print as long as some sales continue. Whichever the case may be, the author should ask for a "Reversion of Rights" when the out-of-print status is confirmed. If you find a publisher interested in doing a reprint at some later time, the reversion of rights letter is your proof that you are free to contract for those publication rights again.

16. SELF-PUBLISHING - There are many sharks in the literary waters, offering to publish or "cooperatively publish" your work for a price. Often, the price is way too high and the shark will do little to help you sell the book. To add insult to injury, self-published books are often assumed to be of inferior quality. (Unfortunately, some of them truly are inferior, and we ourselves are the poorest judges of whether our own books are of that sort.) However, given that the barriers to conventional publishing are so forbidding, more authors are trying the self-publishing route and the stigma is fading. There are at least two self-publishing routes that allow an author to keep costs low enough to provide a reasonable chance of break-even or better financial results; (1) do everything yourself, from contracting for book printing, through cover design, binding, registrations (ISBN, bar code, & copyright), stocking, advertising, selling, and shipping, or (2) work with a POD (print-on-demand) business that will produce the book, do all the registrations, get it listed with the internet booksellers, and fill orders from all sources, but probably rely upon the author to promote sales. I think it's also true that for most of the books they publish, the POD publishers earn most of their profits from the authors, just as the previous "vanity publishers" usually did.
    I know one author who is going the do-everything-yourself route and succeeding at it. He is highly talented, has a great sales personality, and a very supportive wife, and they work very hard at it. The do-everything-yourself route is more work, but it provides more control and price flexibility for the author. However, that route does require appreciable up-front cash to purchase that initial stock of books that you are going to have to store somewhere. The print-on-demand route can allow you a lower up-front cost and leave you more time to promote sales or write the next book. Essentially, that's why I chose to self-publish via Xlibris. If you choose to self-publish and elect to go the print-on-demand route, be aware that the list of print-on-demand outfits is increasing and compare their prices and contracts. I'll include some web addresses you can find by clicking on "other" on my home page. And bear in mind that new companies tend to have a high failure rate. If your print-on-demand company goes out of business, you may be back to square one. (Note that businesses rarely give explicit warning that their business is in financial trouble. To do so would scare away customers, kill loan opportunities, and cause suppliers to demand cash on delivery.) Publishing may seem to be an easy business when viewed from a safe distance, but, up close and personal, you may find it difficult and uncertain.
    

    Before you decide to self-publish, ask yourself which will make you happier: (a) Putting your unsold manuscript on a shelf and diving into writing something better, or (b) Going into self-publishing and having little or no time for writing until you're done with that?

    And how will my own next book be published? First I'll try to find an agent. Failing that, I'll try to place it with a conventional publisher. Failing that, I might, after much soul-searching, try either the do-everything-yourself route or the POD route.

    If you decide to go the self-publishing route, you need to immediately start planning ahead for promotional things you can have under way as soon as the book comes out or shortly before. Which newspapers might take note of your work? Are there reviewers who should get advance info or hot-off-the-press copies? Are there contests it might win if entered soon enough? When a conventional publisher takes 12 to 18 months to get your book out, part of that time is spent in laying the promotional groundwork. (Disney strikes me as the top promotional choreographer. When they have a new movie ready for release, their promotional stuff hits you from everywhere.) You're likely to have less resources and 'clout' than any professional, but you need to do all you can and not miss anything obvious.

17. SELF-PUBLISHING PRICES - If you are going the self-publishing route, you need to be aware of retail, bookstore, and wholesale prices. Bookstores normally get books at 60 % of the retail price, while wholesalers get them at 50 % of retail. Among other things, if you are going the do-everything-yourself route, it means that you still have to make a profit at 50 % of the retail price. Also, bookstores and wholesalers expect to be able to return unsold books to the publisher. (To minimize shipping expenses, publishers will often, if not always, accept torn-off covers of low-cost paperbacks to qualify for refunds.) That also has to be factored into your price. On the other hand, if you are working with a Print-On-Demand company which sets these prices for you, note that they probably will not accept returns. This no-return policy has very little effect on individuals who place orders on the internet, but it has a very chilling effect on bookstores and wholesalers. Neither bookstores nor wholesalers are eager to order books they can't return, so they place minimal orders, if any. (NOTE: INFINITY PUBLISHING ACCEPTS RETURNS. This is a very big plus for this POD publisher. One can only hope that other POD publishers follow suit.) With Xlibris, the Xlibris author's price is such that, if I were selling them through a bookstore, the bookstore would get 40% and I would get 26% if I could sell paperbacks at the $21 to $23 retail price. (Of course, those prices may seem cheap in the inflationary future, and there are people who can sell diamonds at diamond prices when zircons are freely available, but I'm not that kind of salesman. If I set my ego aside, I have to believe that my books have to compete with $14 paperbacks, except when I am there to personally promote and sign them.) Of course, as a prospective self-publisher you need to pay very close attention to the quality of the books produced (which is quite good at Xlibris) as well as these cost factors when choosing how or where you are going to publish.
    

18. SHELF LIFE - I mentioned this under "reprints." I believe that many books are taken out of print too soon to allow much chance to be noticed. I had a short story in a collection called "New Frontiers, Volume II" and wanted to buy a copy of "New Frontiers, Volume I". I found it in an Albany, NY, bookstore, but decided to buy it at a store closer to home so as to help promote it in a small way. Ordering it near home that week, I found that it was already out of print. I mention this as one of the things in favor of self-publishing; it allows you to keep your book in print.

19. TIME - Every author published by a conventional publisher spends some time in working with editors and proof-reading. The author about to self-publish had best be aware that it's going to take a great deal more of his or her time than conventional publishing does. Self-publishing gobbles time and money most authors would rather spend on writing. That classic writing monkey the author may have had on his back for years will be joined by the publishing monkey and these two monkeys will be in competition for the author/publisher's time. That's why I've quit sinking time into my 6 Xlibris books; I need all the time I can coax out of myself to get my hot new book, "WNS", off the ground and into the wild blue yonder and also to get my next book beyond the third draft stage.

20. WRITER'S GROUPS - In addition to moral support and good advice, writer's groups will often provide a chance to meet with publishers, editors, and agents that you would meet in no other way. Of course, those publishers, editors, and agents are on their guard against the predatory instincts of writers, and warm friendships are unlikely, but the great friendships that can form between yourself and other writers is an added bonus. Aside from groups that cover a geographical area, each major genre has groups that specialize in the genre. I am a member of the Western Writers of America and can vouch for it as a very friendly and informative experience, as well as an annual booksigning opportunity.

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