Christian Writer's Seminar, Good Lutheran Church, Fresno, Ca. Saturday, February 10th, my talk, by Gina Meyers (Publishing)

"When I grow up, I want to be an author." "When I grow up I want to be a publisher." Sound familar? Both of those dreams were on the career list and in the daiary back in the day. Actually college. I was recently reading over my journal/diary from back in the day at Fresno State and both of those dreams have been realized. The funny thing is both of those "professions" or "careers" have no actual road map. Each author as well as each publisher has kind of traveled their own road to success. I'm going to try to provide an easy road map to publishing success. Here are some tips to presenting your book to a publisher.

Tips on presenting your book to a publisher:

#1 Enjoy the process
#2 Take time to research, do your homework.
#3 Access your strengths and weaknesses. 
#4 Learn something of value from your favorite author, your dream publisher, your competition.
#5 Decide if you want to self-publish.
#6 Decide if you want to hire a literary agent.
#7 Learn publishing lingo, every industry and profession has a language.
#8 Do your market research. The Writer's Market is an excellent guide to publishers in the US.
#9 Once you've indentified your target market, work on niche marketing. (a limited area of demand for your book).
#10 Draft a proposal
#11 Get to the point.
#12 Send out your proposals.

When I taught my Publishing 101 Class in the Spring of 2014, I asked my students what they hoped to gain/goal from taking the class.

TM Gardea said, "I believe it would be fun to change people's lives for the better."
D. Yee said, "to initiate the process of writing my memoir of my life experiences growing up as an Asian-American in Arkansas." Another student took a more practical approach and said, "to acquire better knowledge of publishing and marketing a book, to learn something new." This individual also said, "to learn the difference between self-publishing and hiring an agent." The truth is the process of writing is quite different than the process of publishing, but according to Bookstat, the way we purchase books has changed.

1) Amazon sells nearly half the books sold in the US. Barnes & Noble is shrinking quickly as are other outlets.
2) E Books account for more than half of all books sold in the US.
3) self-published and small press books at low prices dominate unit sales.
4) As always, books are being purchased and read. The best-selling book of the year will be read by fewer than 1% of the people in the US. Bust as long as you have about 10,000 devoted readers, you can make a living.

What I mean is technology has changed and myself as a publisher, I have had to adapt to new and emerging technologies to stay on top of my game. People still have stories to tell, it's the way we communicate this that has changed. For instance, books and book stores have been around for 500 years.

For publishers and authors, we still need each other for moral and organizational support. It's hard work, writers need to write, and publishers have become promoters and still need to research permissions, etc. Shelf-space is no longer king, niche marketing is queen. We can't cater to bookstores, it must be our fans.

Serendipity Media Group

The business of book writing and publishing.

I just came across some notes from students when I taught my Publishing 101 Class back in the Spring of 2014. I asked my students what they hoped to gain from taking the class. The answers were not surprising, they were astonishing.

One individual D. Yee said, "I want to initiate the process of writing my memoir of my life experiences growing up as an Asian-American in Arkansas." Another individual by the initials of TM Gardea said, "I believe it would be fun to change people's lives for the better through the written word." Another student said, "to acquire better knowledge of publishing and marketing a book. To learn more or something new." "To learn the difference between self-publishing verses an agent, which is a better option if given a choice."

The process of writing is quite different than the process of publishing and though both of those "dreams" were written in my journal by the time I was nineteen years of age, and both of those dreams have manifested themselves in my life--neither came with a clear career road map to success.

What I mean is technology has changed, and neither of my dream jobs actually fit in a corporate ideology of an actual paying gig. I've made both of those pipe dreams into a reality and have been paid pretty decently as a result. Though neither have been my full-time job and people still look at me funny when I say I am an author and a publisher.

Truth be told, while technology may have changed and I have had to adapt to the new and emerging technologies to stay on top of my game, stories and people and sharing their experiences and communicating hasn't.

People are still people and want to share their stories. I am still a person that has the ability to connect individuals with their audience/their readers.

Just like in school, we learn the material differently, take the tests on our own and either graduate or retake the class, the information that we learn is the information that we gain.

So whereas the stories need to be told, the way they are shared and communicated has changed. As a publisher, marketer, an author I wear many different hats. Each person who writes a book realizes that it is their book to share, their baby. Some people trust their baby with me, others shy away and think they can do it by themselves. My late grandmother used to use an expression, "not their cup of tea."
We can't be everyone's cup of tea and we can't be everyone's first choice either. Options are endless, but we still need to trust that others may be able to help us achieve our goals.

I recently received a great compliment from a client who initially had his book published by a traditional publisher 40 years ago. The compliment wasn't about the new technology or how quickly the book was turned around, it was about the spirit of which I give to my clients babies. The sincere care and concern in sharing the information in a timely way to the right audience.

He will have great success because he knows his audience and knows what he is good at and what he isn't great at.

Getting back to the business of writing. I am sure everyone that is reading this blog thought there would be free information in this blog, I wanted to share my publishing tips which I will be doing at the upcoming Christian Writer's Conference. In a way there is information if you read between the lines. You need to believe in your project, but not to the point where you tune everyone out. Recently, I had an unpleasant experience with a referral, this individual after I spent two or so hours of my time assisting him in formulating a plan/providing information via an Authors Survival Guide and creation of a very specific contract of which he said we needed, I got the run around. Why would you charge me $40 per hour? You don't know anything! You aren't an attorney. I'm going to make my book a great success, I already have a marketing consultant, why the heck would I need you? You get the picture, I wished this individual the best of luck.

It isn't for me to judge how people go about the business of writing, publishing, or living. I merely have been given a gift for communicating. I'm not the only individual in the universe who has this gift and it isn't about me anyhow.

Get back to the business of writing and everything will be just fine.