Author: LDS Publisher

Here is a new blog by an author* whose agent just sold her debut novel to Bantam. She posts two successful query letters.

And here is what her agent said about her query.

BTW, I read PubRants daily. You can get a lot of good info from this blog. I highly recommend it.

*Caution–If you go to Sherry Thomas’ website, be warned that she writes romance and there are some explicit scenes. I stopped reading as soon as I hit those. My endorsement here is of her sample query letters ONLY.

This is a test. Below is a query I actually received (with all the particulars changed). If you’ve been paying attention, you should be able to tell me what’s wrong with it.

Post your comments, telling me where this woman went wrong. Later on this week, I’ll post a follow-up.

What a flurry of pre-convention activity! I’ve received several phone calls from colleagues today. “What are you doing in your booth?” “Where can I get cheap carpet?” “What do you think about..?”

I love that I can call these people colleagues and friends, and not competitors, as most people would label us. Of course, there is some competitiveness in the industry–there are a few companies that have a very hard-nosed, business-minded, take no prisoners approach to things. Fortunately, I’ve never found myself on the short end of an interaction with them.

But there are a handful of fun, friendly and supportive publishers that I am pleased to call my friends. I suppose that on some level we compete for the same product, the same authors and titles. But we don’t fight. We don’t backstab. We just do our business with integrity, make our offers and let the best man (or woman) win.

Sometimes, I get the contract. I like it when that happens. Sometimes I don’t. When that happens, I get to re-evaluate my company, our policies and determine where changes need to be made so that I can better fill the needs of my authors and perhaps get the next contract I go after.

Back to convention preparations–

Received two pallets of new product today. That leaves only one more product shipment and then I’ll be done. Yea!

There were 12 items on my “Must Do Today” list. I got three of them done. Press proofs for our promo pieces were not ready. Hopefully they will be ready tomorrow. We need to get them put together.

Catching up on e-mails and other messages that came in over the weekend. (1 hour)

Finished the proposal and first draft of the contract for the cool project I’m still negotiating for. Even if we can’t work it out so that I am the #1 worldwide distributor for this product, I can still distribute it to the LDS market so it will be in the booth. I sent off an e-mail with all the contracts and spreadsheets attached. We are doing a conference call later this week. (3.25 hours)

Started on the catalog. (2.25 hours)

Took a break to do family things. One kid just got home from camp. One kid leaves for camp tomorrow. Do you know how hard it is to find a modest 1-piece swimsuit, that fits, in the “right” style and colors, this late in the season? Or at any time, for that matter. Ends up we’re borrowing a tankini and using a long thick t-shirt as a cover-up. So frustrating.

I still have about 4 hours of work I need to put in tonight. I have a product list spreadsheet that has to be done by tomorrow. And it would be really good if I could at least get the catalog sketched out.

Someone asked for a breakdown of my day, so here it is:

Paid bills; returned phone calls & e-mails. I’ve been trying to reach one of my authors for a week now. She isn’t returning my phone calls or e-mails. Wondering if she’s on vacation; wishing I was. (2 hours)

Went to the printer #1 and did a press check. They told me it was done yesterday (remember, I forgot to go). When I got there it wasn’t ready and she said it would be done in an hour. Like I have time to wait around for an hour. So I was grumpy and they got it together in 10 minutes. Looks pretty good. Should be ready by Monday. (1 hour)

Printer #2 called and said there was a problem with my files. Where was the booklet; they could only find the cover. Of course, I’m in the car, not at my office and can’t resend the files. They called back. They just looked at page one; didn’t realize it was a 24 page document. That was a wasted panic attack. Forced to self-medicate with a candy bar. (15 minutes)

More phone calls; more e-mails. Finally worked up the courage to tell my author the release date is delayed. He wasn’t too upset. Worked on promotional pieces for convention; sent them to the printer #1. (3 hours)

Went to printer #2 for the press check. They expect to have this piece done by Tuesday, so we can open packages, insert them and reseal the packages on Wednesday. I say “we” but I really mean the author. While I was there, checked on the progress of a book that I expected to be done last week. It’s printed and bound; just needs to be trimmed. (1 hour)

More phone calls; more e-mails. Negotiating for the cool new product; writing a proposal; adjusting the contract; trying to figure out how to make a seamless transition. (Impossible.) Wondering if it’s worth the trouble. (6.25 hours)

Total Workday: 13.5 hours.

We’re not counting the time spent to create this blog. That’s not work, it’s fun.

I will be so glad when the convention is over.

Either my count is off, or I was abducted by aliens and lost a day.

Today I created and sent 4 promo items to press. I created two more, but am waiting for two pieces of artwork and an author’s e-mail address before I can send those off. I still need to do my main catalog and order form. I have never been this far behind before. Still trying to figure out how that happened. The alien abduction theory is becoming more credible.

I was supposed to go do a press proof on a book this afternoon. I remembered it at 7:00 p.m. Ooops.

Trying to negotiate a last minute distribution deal for a really cool product. The publisher keeps sending me conflicting information. I would love to have this at the convention, but I don’t think we’re going to have all the details ironed out in time.

Visited with some colleagues, sharing ideas for new product. That was fun. One of them is passing an author over to me because they don’t publish in that genre. I don’t either, but I want to. I’ve recommended other publishers to authors when I am the wrong one for what they’re writing. While some companies are very competitive and won’t share leads, others are very open and friendly and care more about helping the author get published than preventing the competition from getting ahead.

Total hours worked: 15. One of those colleagues called me a workaholic today. Hah! Only when I have to be. Come September, I’m back to normal work days.

They’ve had it 9 months? You can grow a baby in that amount of time! No way should a submission review take that long. Yes, give them a couple of weeks to get through the convention, and then call and politely ask the status of your manuscript. You’ve been patient enough.

Unless their website says their normal submission process takes 9 months (and if it does, rethink submitting to them), anything more than 3 months on a basic query, or 6 months on a full, is a sign that something has gone wrong–either it never made it to them, or it’s lost on someone’s desk, or your rejection is lost in the mail. And I say rejection, because if they were going to accept, they would probably call you.

In the future, when you submit, make a note of what the publisher says is their usual response time. You can usually find this on their website. Then add 3 weeks. If you haven’t heard from them by that date, then by all means, you may call and inquire.

Today I made a huge wall chart where I listed everything I need to do before the convention, and then wrote in the number of hours each of the items would take. If I don’t eat or sleep for the next two weeks, I still can’t do it all.

I delegated some of it. I’d love to delegate even more of it, but the last job I delegated got messed up so bad that it took me longer to fix it then it would have taken had I done it myself.

There are days when I really don’t like my job. I have an associate who keeps telling me that she’d make more money being a greeter at Wal-Mart then she makes in publishing. Today, I’m thinking we should go be greeters together.

But you know, I refuse to end my day in a low note. So, good things that happened today:

1. Finally got the bid from the printer on the rush job. The author should have the proofs back to me tomorrow morning. Press tomorrow afternoon.

2. Got that stalled project out of typesetting. It goes to the press tomorrow too, I think.

3. Successfully avoided making that dissapointing phone call to my author. I keep hoping I’ll suddenly find myself cloned and one of me can still get the book ready while the other of me does everything else.

4. Added a new link under Writing Tips. Looks good. Go check it out.

5. Didn’t get hit by any of the gigantic hail that ravaged south west Provo today. Nothing big blew over onto my house or office. And I didn’t get hit by lighting.

6. One of my kids who is off at summer camp just texted me to say goodnight.

That makes it all better. Life is good.

This really varies between publishers; and also between books with the same publisher. When a book comes out, it’s ranked as frontlist (books expected to sell well), mid-list (moderate sellers) or backlist (lower sellers or older books). The amount of marketing done for your book depends upon which list it’s on, which is based on pre-sells, with frontlist getting the lion’s share of the publicity.

There’s usually an initial marketing budget. Minimum that you should expect is to be listed in all catalogs, put on their website, and some sort of introductory announcement to bookstores—a brochure, postcard or e-mail blast. A business card or bookmark for you to hand out at signings and other appearances (although you might be asked to chip in on these). Review copies and press releases sent to Utah newspapers (because that’s where the majority of the LDS buying public lives), to your local newspapers, and other reviewers. Presentation at LDSBA the first year it’s out. If they offer a discount on your book, that can come out of the marketing budget too. That’s bare minimum and it might be all you get if the pre-sells aren’t good.

From there it can go to posters, racks, ads in catalogs and newspapers, book signings (you may have to pay travel expenses), radio ads and/or interviews, billboards, and any other neat thing they can think of.

After the initial marketing budget, most publishers plan to spend a set percentage of profits on marketing. The more books sold, the more money in your marketing budget.

What you’re expected to do is be a willing and enthusiastic participant in any marketing ideas the publisher has. If you can come up with some suggestions, that’s great too. Some authors hire PR people and pay for marketing out of their own pocket. Talk to other authors, see what they’re doing and adapt the ideas to your book. Get a copy of Jump Start Your Books Sales by Tom and Marilyn Ross. It has lots of great ideas. Another one is Guerilla Marketing for Writers.

Get your own website (I’ve talked about this before). You can either sell your book from your site or link to your publisher’s site. Or you can link to Deseret Book through their affiliate program.

If your publisher doesn’t give you business cards, then invest in these yourself. Make them full color with your book cover, ISBN number and Publisher’s logo or name on one side. ISBN & publisher helps bookstores find it. Put your contact info on the back: name, website address, e-mail address. Mailing address & phone number is optional. Many authors choose to be contacted through their publisher.

These need to look really nice, so hire a graphic designer who knows what they’re doing. VistaPrint.com is a good place to have them printed. They’re fairly inexpensive, they do a good job, and once you’ve purchased from them they send you regular promotions with great discounts. Then don’t be stingy with those cards. Give them to everyone.

Over the weekend, we moved a bunch of stuff around in the warehouse to make room for new products. We got three shipments last week and expect two more this week and next. That was very hot, grueling work because when it’s 100 degrees outside, it’s about twice that in the warehouse!

I almost forgot to send in the list of name badges for the convention. Got those in at the last minute.

There was a problem with one of our new products. They all have to be unwrapped, an insert placed inside the box, and then re-shrink wrapped. Have to print the insert in time to have them ready for the convention. Printer won’t get back to me with a bid on a rush job.

Another book that was supposed to be done for the convention probably won’t be. It’s stalled out in typesetting. Someone didn’t know what they were doing and messed stuff up. Don’t know if I can fix it in time—and the author is flying in from out of state to do a signing.

Somehow I have to find the words to tell an author that I’m bumping his release date for another book. There is just no easy way to do that. But based on interest level of buyers, between now and the end of this year, I realistically could expect to sell 500 to 1,000 copies of his book; and about 6,000 copies of the other one. I only have time to get one of them ready in time for the convention. He is not going to be a happy camper. The fact that I can release his book by October 1 isn’t much consolation because he was all excited to have it at the convention. I just hope he doesn’t send someone to break my kneecaps.

If you are one of the lucky few who get a namebadge, plan to get there a little early or stay after your signing and stroll around and look at all the stuff. It’s really an amazing thing.

Here are some general etiquette rules for the convention:

1. Don’t go from booth to booth asking for free samples or catalogs. Those are to impress and entice the buyers. And they are expensive. Some vendors can’t afford to give freebies to everyone, but they’re too nice to say no. Other vendors believe that if they give everyone a freebie, it’s all good marketing because you’ll read the book and tell people about it. So if a vendor offers you a freebie, say, “I’m not a buyer; I’m an author.” If they still insist, then go ahead and take it if you want it. And if you do accept a freebie, express your thanks appropriately, by READING IT! Loaning it out. Giving it a good review on every blog and forum you have access to.

2. If you’re looking for a new publisher or distributor, this is probably not the best time to approach them. The focus is to sell product to the bookstores and that is the vendor’s priority. Please respect that.

3. If the vendor you really want to talk to happens to be sitting in their booth, staring into space because there’s been a lull in traffic, then you may gently and politely approach them and introduce yourself. But if they aren’t energetically and enthusiastically engaging you in conversation, take a hint. And the minute another person enters the booth, excuse yourself and leave. You won’t make a good impression if you cause the vendor to lose a sale.

4. If you have a previously established relationship with a vendor, by all means stop by their booth to say hi. I mean, we’re people too and we like to see old friends and make new ones. But again, respect their time and space. If the booth is crowded, come back later. Oh, and when you do get a chance to visit with them (briefly), make the appropriate ooohing and aaahing noises that indicate their new stuff is wonderful.

THE QUERY:

Dear Agent/Editor, [reminder to use real name of agent or editor you are querying]

I am seeking representation for my 68,500 word young adult novel, “The Bridge Beckons.” [Use italics for your title, not quotations. I realize this may have been a limitation of your e-mail software, but thought I’d mention it anyway.]

Seventeen year old Mark Wilkerson screwed up. He knows it. His dad is disappointed in him; his whole family knows he blew his solo [on what?] in their Christmas musical at the retirement home. So later, when another car clips the family car [another car/family car: too many cars; change one] in the dense fog on the Carquinez Bridge, Mark knows if his dad hadn’t been so upset with him [his dad is that ticked about a messed up solo at a retirement home???] he might have been ableto avoid the tangle with a gasoline truck in the next lane. Mark and his kid sister [does she have a name] are the only survivors of the fiery crash and Mark’s guilt is tearing him apart, and The Bridge Beckons. [too cheesy]

Mark and his sister move in with their grandmother in the town where the Carquinez Bridge dominates the skyline and constantly reminds him of his tragedy. He suffers from nightmares, paralyzing memories and fear resulting from the accident. A girl he meets, Genie Lombardi, [she needs a more significant introduction; something descriptive] promises to help him [do what?] , but her ex-boyfriend, Jeff Marino, wants her back and will do anything to get her, including killing Mark – or even Genie, if he must. Knowing of Mark’s phobia [what phobia? you need to describe it earlier] , Jeff kidnaps Genie to get to Mark, and Mark must overcome his fear of the bridge to rescue the girl he loves. But at the last moment everything goes wrong, and now Mark has two tragedies on the bridge to cope with. [to generic—need a little more idea of what the two tragedies are.] Ultimately, it’s thesecond tragedy that forces him to face his fear of the bridge that beckons.

The Bridge Beckons is a romantic/suspense novel where high schoolfriends and enemies clash in a 1960s tale of teenage deceit andintrigue, some of whom will survive and some will not. Set in the smallNorthern California town where I grew up, the Carquinez bridge, isknown for dense fog, multi-car pile-ups, and even suicides [need punctuation here] all of which inspired many of the elements of this story. I would be happy to send you a synopsis [include it with the query], sample chapters [send chapter 1 with the query], or the completed manuscript of The Bridge Beckons at your request. I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you for your consideration.

THE CRITIQUE:
This query is very much improved over the first one. Great work! There’s not a lot to change in the rewrite. I’ve made up stuff where I think more detail is needed.

Paragraph four is very good, although I’m not sure a 1960s novel is going to sell well. You might consider updating it to today.

Also, I can pretty much guarantee that the title won’t fly. Your target audience is 14 to 15 year old boys and girls. The girls might buy it, but the boys won’t. At this point, it’s not a big deal. Publishers change titles all the time. Just giving you a heads-up.

THE REWRITE:

Dear Ms. LDS Publisher,

I am seeking representation for my 68,500 word young adult novel, The Bridge Beckons.

Seventeen year old Mark Wilkerson screwed up. He knows it. His dad is disappointed in him; his whole family knows he blew his piano solo in their Christmas musical at the retirement home. Normally, that would not be a big deal, but his dad’s boss was in the audience and used the botched solo as an excuse to humiliate Mark’s entire family in public.

So later, when a drunk driver clips the family car in the dense fog on the Carquinez Bridge, Mark knows that if his dad hadn’t been so upset with him, he might have been able to avoid the tangle with a gasoline truck in the next lane. Mark and his kid sister, Trixie, are the only survivors of the fiery crash and Mark’s guilt is tearing him apart.

Mark and Trixie move in with their grandmother in Silver City, where the Carquinez Bridge dominates the skyline and constantly reminds Mark of his tragedy. Nightmares and paralyzing memories of the accident turn Mark’s fear into a full-blown phobia, making it impossible for him to cross the bridge.

Mark resigns himself to misery thinking he will never be normal again, until he meets kind and gentle Genie Lombardi, who promises to help him overcome his phobia. However, Genie’s ex-boyfriend, Jeff Marino, has other plans. He wants her back and will do anything to get her, including killing Mark – or even Genie, if he must.

Aware of Mark’s phobia, Jeff kidnaps Genie and Mark must overcome his fear of the bridge to rescue the girl he loves. But at the last moment everything goes wrong, and now Mark has two tragedies on the bridge to cope with. Ultimately, it’s the second tragedy that forces him to face his fear of the bridge that beckons.

The Bridge Beckons is a romantic/suspense novel where high school friends and enemies clash in a modern tale of teenage deceit and intrigue, some of whom will survive and some will not. Set in the small Northern California town where I grew up, the Carquinez bridge is known for dense fog, multi-car pile-ups, and suicides–all of which inspired many of the elements of this story.

I have included a synopsis and chapter 1. I would be happy to send you the completed manuscript of The Bridge Beckons at your request. I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you for your consideration.

Here’s something scary:

I had to call up a couple of my authors to let them know what a good job I was doing for them. 🙂

UPDATE–In response to a comment about whether this is referring to books published by reputable publishing houses:
Nielsen Bookscan tracks point of sale purchases made at the larger retailers–most of whom do not carry POD or vanity press books.

You’re right about how difficult it is to stay in business with this level of failure, but you’re wrong in your implication that reputable companies don’t have this problem. Editors and publishers do their best to pick books they think will sell well, but sometimes we guess wrong. Too many wrong guesses and we’re in big trouble. That is why a lot of small, but very reputable houses, have been swallowed up by a few power-house publishers. The good news is, one Harry Potter or Da Vinci Code can cover several years of failures.

I know there has been a temporary stay of execution in the Deseret Book/Seagull rift but do you have any idea of what this will actually do to manuscript purchases? Will Covenant and smaller LDS publishing houses reduce the amount of manuscripts they purchase for the next little while, adopting a wait-and-see attitude? Would an unpublished authors find it better to adopt that same attitude and hold off submitting until the financial concerns of all these smaller publishers have calmed? I would hate to submit and have it rejected because the timing was wrong and the companies weren’t buying.

Thanks for all your help. I hit your site frequently and find so much useful information! [Thank you.]

I don’t know what Covenant plans to do. I’ve heard that they’ve said the estimates putting DB products at 40-50% of their sales are incorrect–that they are not that high. And Covenant has been pretty aggressive in the past, so maybe they’ll be fine.

As to smaller companies, I can’t speak for other publishing houses, but I can tell you that this has not affected our publishing schedule. We haven’t postponed releases or rejected anything because of this.

Publishing is a high risk business and people with very conservative, fearful, “wait and see” attitudes usually do something else for a living–like accounting or massage therapy or greeting at Wal-Mart. If a publishing company plans to stay in business, they have to publish. No new titles = no sales.

I would guess that if a company received a submission they really liked, but they were in the “wait it out” mindset, they’d still accept it, but give it a later release date.

If your book is ready, send it out.

What I want to know is when the LDS publishers are going to start aggresively marketing toward national stores like Barnes and Noble, Borders, and the like.

Well, some of them do. I have a couple of titles in a few of the local big box stores. But I don’t aggressively market to them because, quite honestly, I can’t keep up. It’s too expensive.

Setting aside the fact that if they order a bunch of product and then decide not to pay their bill—or pay really late, I have little recourse and will probably go out of business [it has happened to others]…

Scenario: An LDS suspense novel has a limited audience. If I’m lucky, I might sell 10,000 copies. But since I may not be lucky, I only print 2,000 in trade paperback. My cost per book is $1.50-$2.00 per book. LDS bookstores take a 40% discount. To break even after expenses, I have to sell it for $14.95. Fortunately, it sits on the LDS bookstore shelf next to other LDS products similarly priced.

The bigger national stores and distributors want 55-60% discounts. I just can’t afford it. Books for a national market can risk a bigger print run and get their cost per book down to 40-50 cents. They can afford to offer the bigger discounts. And they can sell it for $9.99 and still break even. Assuming I could get the nationals to take a smaller discount, my book is still going to sit on their shelves next to a lower priced book. All things being equal, which book are you going to buy?

When you have a niche audience, you have to sell through a niche store where your customer is willing (however reluctantly) to pay niche prices.

My solution: Everyone go out right now and convert your neighbors so that LDS novels are no longer a niche, but mainstream. Then I’ll be able to afford to aggressively market to the national stores.

Questions and requests to critique query letters get first priority here on this blog. So if I’m blabbing on about other stuff (ie: there’s no italicized question with answer), it means there’s no question or query in my que.

I generally post a response to all e-mailed questions/queries within a couple of days. So, if you’ve sent something and a week has passed and I have not posted a response, assume I didn’t get it and resend.

If at some point I become totally inundated with questions and queries, and it’s taking me longer than a week to get to them, I will come up with some type of system to let you know your question/query was recieved and when you can expect a posted response.

Local readers will know this already, but for those in other states and countries, here is a positive update on the Deseret Book/Seagull situation.

From the Salt Lake Tribune:

Seagull gets a reprieve from Deseret Book

The LDS Church’s Deseret Book chain announced Wednesday that it will allow Seagull Book and Tape to continue purchasing its line of works through August while the companies work to bridge their differences.

The announcement was issued in a joint news release that stated “no additional details about the relationship between Deseret Book and Seagull Book will be forthcoming at this time.”

Earlier in July, Deseret Book said it would stop selling its popular line of works, written by nearly 140 influential LDS authors, in Seagull stores because of a difference of opinion in marketing, merchandising and promotional techniques.

The stoppage was expected to go into effect at the end of this month.

The 30-day extension postpones a decision by Deseret Book that could cripple the smaller, privately held competitor. Deseret Book is wholly owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Seagull Book spokesman David Politis declined to comment on the specifics of the talks while negotiations are still ongoing.

Deseret Book and Seagull Book each operate a chain of LDS-oriented bookstores, in addition to publishing their own titles by Mormon authors. Even though they compete in publishing and retailing, the two companies have carried each other’s line of books for years.

Deseret Book is expected to continue stocking books published by Seagull through its Covenant business unit.

— Jason Bergreen

And from The Provo Daily Herald

GRACE LEONG – Daily Herald

A temporary cease-fire has been declared between LDS Church-owned publisher and retailer Deseret Book and privately-owned Seagull Book & Tape.

Seagull Book, which last week was warned it could lose its nearly 20-year professional relationship with Deseret Book by the end of the month, said Wednesday it is given an extension to buy Deseret Book products through Aug. 31.

The reason: Both companies have begun discussions “to explore options for addressing long-standing differences” over how the Deseret Book brand and products are marketed, placed and promoted at Seagull’s 26 stores nationwide, said Jon Kofford, Seagull’s executive vice president, in a statement Wednesday. Seagull has 21 stores in Utah including seven in Utah County. Five others are in Mesa, Ariz.; Los Angeles and Oakland, Calif.; Boise and Idaho Falls, Idaho.

Seagull, which has between 200 and 300 employees companywide, declined to comment if any layoffs are planned.

Representatives of both companies declined to comment on details of the talks or the buyout speculation.

Seagull spokesman David Politis disputed earlier reports of the number of Deseret Book titles and audio products currently carried by Seagull but declined to provide estimates. He said Deseret Book isn’t the only source of LDS product for the company.

Seagull, which is owned by the Kofford family, has been marketing Deseret Book products since its inception in American Fork in 1987, while Deseret Book has been carrying books published by Seagull’s unit, Covenant Communications Inc. Founded in 1958, Covenant is owned by V. Lewis Kofford, who is also Seagull’s president and CEO and majority owner.

And for now, both companies are continuing to carry each others’ titles. For Jeffrey Lant, a BYU student who has been in Provo for four years, that’s a good thing.

Lant, who was shopping at Seagull’s store in Provo on Wednesday afternoon, said he would visit both Deseret Book and Seagull for different promotions and selections.

“We’re at Seagull today because they have a promotion on children’s books. They’re going for between $1 and $3. But we go to Deseret Book more often because their product selection is bigger. Ultimately, it’s nicer to have two options because different stores have different promotions,” Lant said.

Founded in 1866, Deseret Book operates 43 stores nationwide including 20 in Utah. Five of the Utah stores are in Utah County. Deseret Book’s line includes books by leaders of the LDS Church including church President Gordon B. Hinckley, and its products are available at Wal-Mart, Costco, Sam’s Club, Smith’s Food and Drug, Walgreens, Barnes and Noble, Borders, FYE Stores, Amazon.com, and hundreds of other retailers.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page B6.

There is a lot of power in prayer. Pray for peace and resolution between these two entities. And while you’re at it, pray for peace in Israel and Iraq; peace in our communities; peace in our home and in our hearts.

A non-fiction manuscript was submitted to me fully formatted with fancy fonts and several hundred images. Do NOT do this. It really is a waste of your time because:

1. I don’t need you to help me visualize your MS as a “real” book. I can do that on my own. It’s part of my job. Also, I’m used to visualizing from standard MS formatting. If you get too fancy, it throws off my calculations.

2. Chances are we won’t use those images you’ve spent hours searching for and placing into your document due to copyright and other restrictions.

3. Unless you’re a graphic designer, you have probably not chosen the best fonts for your book, nor correctly used white space. There is a science and a psychology to this.

4. On the rare chance that we do use those same fonts and/or images, you’ve probably used Word or WordPerfect to format your document. We don’t. All that stuff has to be redone in typesetting.

5. There are several more reasons, but I’ve gotten sidetracked. This post is about public domain.

So, back to this submission. I liked the premise of the book, and decided to overlook the fact that most of the author’s images were not print quality and would never work in a published book. A few of the images were okay, so I asked the author if he’d gotten all the necessary permissions to use the artwork in his book. He assured me they were all in public domain.

I did a quick flip through and found images by several popular, currently alive and recently published artists whose copyrights are fully active and enforce. Seems the author thought that if he found the images posted somewhere on the Internet, that meant they were public domain and could be used any way he wished.

NO!!!

Public domain does not mean it’s been posted in a public forum and therefore can be used indiscriminately by the public. Public domain means the copyright on a piece of work has expired. There are specific criteria to determine if a copyright has expired or not. It is the author’s job to find out what that criteria is, and to determine if it applies to the quotations and/or artwork they want to use. (Or if I’m picking the artwork, it’s my job to figure it out.)

If you are going to use quotes and artwork originally created by someone other than yourself, you MUST do the research to determine if the copyright is still valid. And if it is, you MUST get permission from the copyright holder to use those quotes and artwork. Failure to do so is against the law and will get all of us in big trouble.

I’m not certain if the copyrights for artwork are exactly the same as copyrights on written work, because I’ve never used old artwork in my projects. However, I would imagine they’re going to be similar. Here is a quick chart to help you determine if a published written work is in public domain or not.

For more details, I recommend The Copyright Permission and Libel Handbook: A Step-by-Step Guide for Writers, Editors, and Publishers by Lloyd J. Jassin and Steven C. Schechter

For complete information (assuming you speak governmentese), you can go straight to the source: the US Copyright Office

I got a submission not too long ago–a non-fiction manuscript. In the list of Suggested Readings at the end of the MS was a title I published–with the author’s name wrong. (I didn’t publish it with the name wrong; the name was wrong in the list.)

This was a pink flag–not fully red–because the title had originally been published under one name, but then the author married and all subsequent printings carried her new married name. So I could almost overlook that, even though the new name has been on the book for 10 years or so, and you’d think that in checking to make sure the list of Suggested Readings were still in print and available to the reader, the author of this MS would have stumbled upon this fact and updated it. But okay, whatever.

Upon a second look, however, I realize that the author’s last name is also misspelled. Hmmmm…so I start looking more closely. I find several other similar mistakes.

How much confidence do you think I have that all the other books and authors in this list are correct? And what about other facts and figures listed in the book? Now that this new author’s fact checking and proofreading skills are suspect, I cannot even think about publishing the book without double checking everything. And I can’t assign the author to do his/her own fact checking because obviously they either don’t care or they do not have the skill to do it. Either way, the cost of publishing this book just went up because I have to hire an independent fact checker to check every single thing in the book.

Uh-uh. I just sent the form rejection letter.

As a publisher, I will not check every single fact and name spelling in your book. That is YOUR job. I will do a spot check and assume the rest of your book is as carefully (or carelessly) researched and written as my random sampling. One mistake like this might not rule you out (or maybe it will, depending on how big it is), but two or three and your MS is toast! Not only will I reject this one, but I will also most likely reject anything else you send me in the future.

My editor was really good about going over content changes with me, so I was very surprised when I got the finished copy of my book and noticed some changes we hadn’t discussed. It looks like they’ve just pulled words and sentences out at random. In one place a whole paragraph got cut to one sentence and put with the paragraph before it. Some words were changed to synonyms that aren’t any better than the words I had chosen. Why did they do that? (Talk about things that don’t make any sense.)

Did you discuss changes before or after your book went to typesetting? If it was before, then those changes were probably made during typesetting to get it to fit the page better.

Books are printed in signatures–a very large piece of paper with 32 printed pages that when folded create a section of your book. The goal of the typesetter is to make your book fit into multiples of 32 pages. To do this, sometimes they have to cut a word or two out of a paragraph to save a line; or cut a full paragraph to save a page. A really good typesetter also has good editing skills so they can do this without disrupting the flow of your story or changing the intent of your words.

There are also things called widows and orphans. A widow is the last line of a paragraph that is all by itself at the top of a page. An orphan is the first line of a paragraph that is all by itself at the bottom of a page. These aren’t good. I also don’t like the aesthetics of having just one word as the last line of a paragraph. Sometimes typesetting can control that by smooshing the space between the words and/or the letters a little bit (called kerning and tracking), but if that doesn’t work, they have to pull out a word or a sentence to make it fit.

So look at the places where the changes were made. Is the last line of the paragraph nearly the full length of the page? Does the chapter end at the bottom of a page–or very close to it? If so, I’m betting that’s the reason.