Information
resources
Professional
organizations
Our
favorite screenwriters
Do you need an
ISBN (International Standard Book Number)?
Do
you need to register your book with the Copyright
Office?
Do
you need a Library of Congress number?
Do
you need help finding a literary agent?
Do you need a
lawyer (or at least some legal advice) regarding
writing, publishing, etc.?
Do you need an
index for your book?
Do
you need a book manufacturer to print your book?
Do
you need a publicist?
Do
you need some creative marketing ideas?
General
information for authors and publishers
Writing-World.com:
Moira Allen's supremely informative website has
loads of useful information about the business of
writing. And yes, if you have written, or are
writing, a book — and you intend to make money
from it — you are in
the business of writing. Ms. Allen's site is
particularly valuable for self-published authors or
freelance writers, but it also has links to great
info about finding an agent or publisher, avoiding
scams, and the like. There's also information about
keeping records for taxes, including what you can and
cannot write off. Additionally, this site has a good
"writer's bookshelf" listing many excellent
how-to books on various aspects of the writing biz.
You just may find yourself returning to
Writing-World.com again and again.
Writers
Help Desk: Mack E. and Sara
Freeman Smith are dedicated to helping aspiring
authors publish their own books. No, they're not a
publisher or book manufacturer, but they are two very
experienced and successful self-published authors
who, among many activities, conduct free teleseminars
on self-publishing topics. Their writers' resource
site, Writers Help Desk, consists of more than 500
pages of information. They've also written a book, How To
Self-Publish and Market Your Own Book.
Publish-L.com
Discussion List: This is not
just any online community. Publish-L offers a
wealth of information about everything of importance
to authors and independent publishers, as well as
editors, designers, marketing / publicity people, and
others who provide services to authors and
publishers. According to list owner Pat Gundry,
"The purpose of PUBLISH-L is to provide a forum
for the exchange of ideas and information about
publishing and marketing books and related
materials." You'll find invaluable tips about
book design and production, marketing, legal issues
and much, much more, from some of the top experts in
their respective fields. If you only join one e-mail
discussion list, this should be the one.
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Professional
organizations
SPAN: Small
Publishers Association of North America. An
excellent resource for independent publishers and
authors. Their purpose is to "bring success to
small publishers, self-publishers, and authors...We
work to advance the image and profits of self
publishers and independent publishers through
education and marketing opportunities." Visit
them at http://www.spannet.org.
Authors and
Publishers Association (APA) Networking group for
professionals: Founded in 1996, this organization
is dedicated to the art and science of creating a
book. It is far more than just a support group; it's
a network of professional authors, publishers,
printers and marketers. Though the organization is
Houston-based, the web site contains information of
interest to authors everywhere, including links to
important national authors' / publishers'
associations. Check them out at http://www.authorsandpublishers.org. (Be sure to visit
their "Links" page too,
where you'll find links to several very useful and
informative websites for authors and publishers.)
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Screenwriters
/ script writers
Karen Mitura: Playwright,
screenwriter, novelist, ghostwriter, collaborator...At
this time, we do not do screenplays. But we know
someone who does! Karen Mitura is an internationally
known writer who brings the flair of an award-winning
dramatist, the sensibilities of a poet, and a solid
knowledge of the literary marketplace to her work.
Karen makes her home in Hawaii (tough work, but
somebody's gotta do it), but she'll travel anywhere.
One industry insider described her screenwriting
skills thusly: "That woman is so good, it's
scary." Visit her web site at http://www.KarenMitura.com.
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ISBN
application:
The RR Bowker
Company's ISBN registration site: The
ISBN, or International Standard Book Number, is a
worldwide identification system for books and certain
other publications. An ISBN is a unique
machine-readable ID number which marks any book
unmistakably. The RR Bowker Company administers the
ISBN program, and, according to their website, 159
countries and territories are officially ISBN
members. Most book stores and online sources will not
accept a book without an ISBN.
If someone else is publishing
your book, you don't need to be concerned with
getting an ISBN; the publisher will do that for you.
However, if you are self-publishing, you will need to
get your own ISBN, particularly if you want to sell
your book in bookstores, or have it listed in Books
In Print, or really have it on the radar screen at
all. (You will also need to decide on a name for your
publishing company -- but that's the fun part!)
ISBNs are sold in blocks, with
the minimum number being ten. The current price for
ten numbers is US $225.00, although
this is always subject to change (translation:
"increase"). The price for expedited
processing is $350.00. If you are
thinking of saving money by borrowing or purchasing a
single ISBN from a friend or colleague who will never
use all ten of his or her numbers, you might want to
reconsider. Not that there's anything illegal or
unethical about it, but consider this: Each block of
ISBNs is assigned a unique publisher's prefix, which
means that all of the numbers in that block are
permanently linked to that particular publisher. So
let's say your friend Mary wrote a couple of books
about her area of expertise, raising children in a
Christian environment. When she purchased her ten
numbers, she listed her publishing company as
Christian Parenting Publications, Inc. Now let's say
you've written a book about 101 foolproof ways to
pick up women in bars, and have named your publishing
company One Night Stand Press. Chances are, neither
you nor Mary will want your book identified with her
company. Even if the subject matters aren't
horrendously incompatible, Mary's publishing company
could go out of business, and her books could go out
of print, meaning that her titles will get dropped
from all of the publishing and retailers' databases,
or at least they'll be listed as out of print. More
than likely yours will suffer the same fate.
It's far better to establish
your own identity at the outset. In our opinion, it
is definitely worth the investment, particularly
since you may want to make a few changes to the book
somewhere down the road, and any subsequent edition
will require a new ISBN. Of course, there's also the
chance you'll want to write more books, or create
workbooks or other supplemental material requiring an
ISBN.
Check out the ISBN site at http://www.isbn.org. If
you need more information, here is the direct link to
the ISBN FAQ page:
http://www.isbn.org/standards/home/isbn/us/isbnqa.asp.
Copyright
registration: Many authors are
confused about whether or not they need to
"officially" copyright their books. One of
the most common questions authors ask is this:
"If copyright is automatic — and if I have
all of my copyright information in the front matter
of my book anyway — why do I need to register my
work?" Some authors do go so far as securing
what is known as the "poor man's
copyright," which consists of mailing themselves
a copy of their work. They retain the postmarked
package, unopened, as proof that the work existed as
of that date. We are not suggesting that this is a
waste of time and postage — at the very least,
it does prove that the work was in your possession as
of a certain date — but it probably will not be
adequate if there is a legal battle somewhere down
the road. As the official website of the US Copyright
Office sternly explains, "There is no provision
in the copyright law regarding any such type of
protection, and it is not a substitute for
registration." The Copyright Office's
well-organized website will either clear up your
confusion, or get you even more confused! Either way,
it's a good idea to check it out. Go to http://www.copyright.gov/.
A copyright may be registered
before your book is published, but most publishers
wait for the books to come off the press. You do need
to register within three months of publication. To do
this, fill out the TX form (see links below), and
send two copies of the book, plus the copyright fee,
to the Copyright office.
Here are quick links to PDFs
of the form required to register a nondramatic
literary work. There is a regular version and a
"short form," and we must warn you now that
they look disturbingly like tax return forms. But
seeing as how they are issued by the US government,
that's no big surprise.
Form
TX is the regular form.
Form
TX Short is the short form.
NOTE that although the
Copyright Office is part of the Library of Congress,
registering your copyright is not the same as getting
a Library of Congress number for your book. For that,
see the next item...
Library
of Congress number(s): Does
your book need a Library of Congress Control Number
(LCCN), and a Cataloging in Publication (CIP) number?
Well, that depends. If you want to sell to libraries,
you probably will at least need to get the LCCN.
However, many authors don't bother with them at all.
If you do want to register your book with the Library
of Congress, this is the direct link to their
publishers' services page: http://www.loc.gov/loc/infopub/.
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Help
with finding a literary agent
Many major publishers won't accept unagented authors,
but finding a good literary agent can be tricky. Some
agents are scam artists, and some are simply
ineffective. Many of the good ones are difficult to
reach — not because they're being coy, but
because they feel they just could not handle the
flood of unsolicited manuscripts or proposals they
would receive if they were "easy." On the
other hand, some perfectly wonderful agents have
their own websites and have contact information for
sending queries.
While
we are experts on making books
"agent-worthy," shopping books to agents is
not one of the services we normally provide. Some
service providers will do this, but generally for a
fee. Some offer agent "matchmaking"
services as part of a package deal with ghostwriting
or other services, and some offer it as a separate
service. Either way, you are probably not going to
get a lot of hands-on professional assistance in
finding an agent unless you pay for it. (If you do
decide to pay for it, be careful of anyone whose
usual m.o. is to send out queries in bulk to every
agent in their database, with no effort to target
only the agents who are interested in your type of
book.)
If
you would rather try some research on your own before
paying someone to do it for you, the two sites listed
below might provide some useful information. If you
do find an agent who looks promising, carefully read
their submission requirements, and comply with them.
For example, if they request that your initial
contact be a brief query letter only, don't send them
a proposal or your entire manuscript. And if you are
sending queries or anything else to more than one
agent, make sure that simultaneous queries or
submissions are okay with all of them. Also, remember
that the publishing industry is always changing, and
even on the Web it is impossible to keep every piece
of information completely current.
How
To Find A Literary Agent ~ eHow.com : This is a
step-by-step guide to finding a likely agent and
approaching him or her. It includes warnings on what
to avoid.
Writers.Net
Directory of Literary Agents: Browse (by location
or by topic) or search through their directory of
agents to find the right agent for you. There are
also links to posts and articles about finding an
agent, and other matters of interest to writers.
In
the future we may have some direct links to selected
literary agents on this page, so do keep coming back.
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Legal
advice
Ivan Hoffman, B.A., J.D., Intellectual
properties attorney: Okay, we admit it: we like
attorney jokes just as much as the next person. But Ivan
Hoffman is proof that you can
use the words "lawyer" and
"integrity" in the same sentence. If you're
a writer or you're thinking of hiring a writer -- in
fact, if you're engaged in the selling or buying of
any sort of intellectual property, whether it's ad
copy, artwork, a song, or a website design -- there
are scads of legal issues to be considered. Ivan's
extraordinarily informative site covers everything
from work-for-hire agreements to copyright issues to
publishing contracts. For a real learning experience,
visit Ivan at http://www.ivanhoffman.com.
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Indexing
Judy King Editorial
Services: A good index is a
comprehensive guide to the contents of your book. As
Judy explains, "Professional indexes are more
than lists of words generated by a word processing
'indexing' program. They are a synthesis of the major
ideas and names in a book, which are organized and
interrelated using an industry-recognized
format." Judy does excellent work, and she's
fast. She's the one we turn to when the clients whose
books we've designed and laid out need a detailed
index. Visit Judy's web site at http://www.judykingedit.com.
Book
manufacturers / printers
Central
Plains Book Manufacturing, Book
printer: If you're self-publishing,
eventually you are going to have to get your book
printed, one way or another. One of the first things
you need to know is that not every
printer is a book manufacturer. You
can't just take a disk down to your local copy shop
and expect them to shoot out a trade-quality finished
product. Now, you might find that your city has some
fine local printers who could print the book and have
it bound, and they could do a beautiful job...but at
a cost that would make you wonder why you ever
thought about writing a book. You really do need a
company that specializes in book manufacturing —
a book manufacturer.
A
book manufacturer not only has the necessary
equipment, but, due to volume purchases of paper and
other supplies specifically for books, they can offer
a much more economical price than a regular printer.
However, there aren't nearly as many book
manufacturers in the US as there are other types of
printers. Many cities and even many states don't have
any book manufacturers at all. So don't be surprised
if you have to have your book printed out of state
(or even out of the country, if you're producing an
artsy coffee-table book). Even with shipping costs,
in most cases you will still save significantly over
getting your book printed closer to home. There are
several good book manufacturers in the USA, and we
will add names to this list as we continue to expand
and update our web site. But the manufacturer we have
used most frequently in recent years is Central
Plains in Wheatfield, Kansas. In our experience they
have consistently produced quality hard cover books
and paperbacks, and they have always met or beat our
deadlines. Check out their web site at http://www.centralplainsbook.com.
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Publicists
Rod Mitchell, Publicist: It's
been said that writing a book is the easy part, while
promoting it is the real work. Well, you're probably
not going to be convinced that authoring is easy
while you're in the process of penning your own
immortal work — indeed, "easy" is the
last word that comes to our minds. But let's face it:
if you write it, they won't
come…unless they know it's there! Getting the
word out about your book is a full-time job in
itself, especially with all the competition out
there. That's why a good publicist is worth his or
her weight in gold. Rod Mitchell, president of
Adventures in Media (A.I.M.), and
TalkGuests.com, has years of experience in
grabbing the eyes and ears of the media, and he's a
heck of a nice guy to boot. Visit his website at http://www.AIMPress.com.
Cate Cummings Publicity
Group, Publicists specializing
in books on spirituality, alternative health and
healing: Sometimes you really need a specialist.
This is particularly true if your book happens to
fall into a category such as
"metaphysical," "spiritual,"
"new age," "new thought," or
"alternative health." And although Cate
Cummings has a broad-based expertise in the
publishing industry, and could probably help turn the
Minot, North Dakota phone book into the next
blockbuster, she has chosen to specialize in the
burgeoning spirituality / metaphysical / alternative
healing genres. Whether you've written the next Celestine
Prophecy…or you're a Deepak
Chopra in training…or your book defies all
comparisons but you feel it's
nothing short of visionary…you're going to need
the help of experts who know this very special market
through and through. Find out more at http://www.bookpublicity.com.
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Marketing
& promotion ideas
Cathy Stucker, Marketing
specialist: Need some truly bright ideas to
promote your book or business? Cathy Stucker,
aka "The Idea Lady," has more
tips, tricks and clever strategies than just about
anyone we know. Cathy herself is a successful
self-publisher who has learned what works and what
doesn't in the fine art of self-promotion. Even if
you don't have a huge budget for advertising and
marketing — and let's face it, few indie
publishers do — Cathy can teach you how to make
the most of the resources you have. She can show you
how to grab media attention, get tons of free
publicity, exploit unconventional markets, and much
more. (And if shopping really turns you on, she can
even teach you how to be a mystery shopper. After
all, she wrote the book...literally!) Visit Cathy's
website at http://www.idealady.com.
