2 of 3 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
30 Steps To
Becoming A
Writer

3 of 3 12-Lincoln’s Birthday 13 14-St. Valentine’s Day 15-President’s Day 16 17-Ash Wednesday 18 19 20 21 22-Washington’s Birthday 23
100 Things Every Writer Needs to Know

1 of 3 24 25
Money Matters for Writers 26 27
Selling and Publishing Your Book 28

But some things, such as writers’ professional standards and ethics, don’t change over time. Professionalism and integrity look very much the same today as they did 50 years ago—and as they will look in the year 2059. Our tools, media, and language will continue to morph, but we must not alter our commitment to earning the trust and respect of readers, editors, and one another. Here are some expressions of these timeless standards and ethics:

* Be straightforward and honest in all your business dealings.

* Be civil and businesslike at all times—in person, on the phone, and in letters, faxes, and emails—even if the person you’re dealing with is not.

* Be clear about what you want, need, and expect.

* Don’t expect editors and other publishing people to be perfect. Do expect them to treat you fairly, honestly, and with respect. (If someone doesn’t, your best course of action is usually to stop working with them.)

* Ask for, expect, and, if necessary, insist on reasonable fees, terms, and deadlines.

* Never agree to anything you find unacceptable. If a publisher isn’t willing to negotiate a reasonable deal, it’s better to have no deal at all.

* Live up to whatever commitments you make—and expect editors and publishers to do the same. Meet or beat all deadlines.

* Don’t promise what you can’t deliver.

* If you see in advance that you’re not going to be able to deliver what you promised by your deadline, let the appropriate person know immediately.

* When you make a mistake, miss a deadline, or cause a problem, apologize promptly and do what you can to make amends.

* Be willing to make reasonable compromises—but refuse to make unreasonable ones.

* Accompany all submissions with well-written cover letters.

* Properly cite your source whenever you use someone else’s words or ideas.

* Quote all sources as accurately as possible.

* When doing research for a piece of writing, be as thorough, careful, and detailed as necessary.

* Present your credentials truthfully and accurately, but in the most positive light.

* Keep at least one backup copy of everything you write. Ideally, keep three copies—one on your hard drive, a backup on an external hard drive or flash drive, and a paper copy in a file.

* Send a manuscript to editors only when you feel it’s genuinely worthy of publication.

* Do proper market research for each piece you plan to submit for publication.

* Read every publication contract thoroughly, negotiate it carefully (if necessary), and save it in a location that’s easy to access and remember.

* Always make clear, unambiguous agreements—preferably written ones—to cover the publication of your work. If you do make an oral agreement, jot down the terms as you talk; then promptly send your editor a letter, fax, or email that details those terms. Add something like this: “This is my understanding of what we’ve agreed to; if your understanding is different, please let me know.”

* Keep accurate records of all of your submissions, acceptances, and publications.

* Keep an accurate, ongoing account of all your business expenses. (These are normally tax-deductible on your Schedule C. If you have little or no writing income, these deductions can usually be used to reduce your total income from other sources.)

* Don’t be afraid to try new topics, genres, forms, approaches, or markets. If a new or unusual (but worthwhile) opportunity presents itself, go for it.

* Be patient and persistent. The people who succeed in the writing business are those who keep at it for years—often in the face of setbacks and rejection.

* Never threaten a lawsuit except as a next-to-last resort. (The final resort, of course, is actually suing.)

* Never throw away anything you write.

* Write as well as you can.

* When offered advice on a website for writers, consider it seriously—but don’t take it as absolute, unwavering truth.

This list was adapted from my book 30 Steps to Becoming a Writer, which is part of The Complete Writer’s Kit, published by Running Press and copyright 2005 by Scott Edelstein.

A complete list of publishing scams and schemes would fill a small book. Here, however, are the six most common ones:

Vanity presses masquerading as royalty (i.e., real) publishers. Vanity publishers make money not by selling books, but by taking money from writers. There’s nothing wrong with selling writers services such as editing, book design, printing, binding, warehousing, publicity, etc. But when a company misleads writers—or lets them mislead themselves—into thinking they’re being published by an outfit that’s selective in what it publishes, has a sales force, and is capable of selling thousands of copies of each book, it’s a form of slight-of-hand. If someone tells you any of the following lies (and they are indeed lies, though the speaker may actually believe them), they work for a vanity press:
• It’s normal to pay to publish your first book.
• This is how publishing works in the 21st century.
• Without a track record, you can’t get published by a royalty press.
• The big publishers aren’t interested in you unless you’re already famous. (Actually, there’s some truth to this. But what’s wrong with dealing with small or midsize royalty presses?)
• Once you publish your first book—even if you foot the bill for it—it will be much easier to publish your next.

Manuscript critics posing as agents. Anyone can declare themselves a literary agent by setting up a website and printing stationery. However, legitimate book agents make their money by selling books and earning commissions of 15% (TV and film agents earn 10%). A handful of so-called agents make their money otherwise: they require you to buy a critique of your manuscript, for which you will also get the “privilege” of being considered for representation. These ostensible agents rarely make any actual publishing (or film or TV) deals.

Literary agents who charge fees. Any agent who wants money from you to read or submit your manuscript is very likely a scammer. The one exception is an agent who asks you to reimburse them for small, reasonable business expenses, such as the cost of photocopying manuscripts.

Agent/editor scams. The scam goes like this: Wanda declares herself an agent, creates a website and some stationery, and gets listed in some writers’ reference books and/or online agent databases. Her friend Bill, who has some minor editing skills, sets up shop as a freelance editor or “book doctor.” Wanda then encourages new writers to send her their work. She responds with great enthusiasm to each manuscript she receives, telling its author that the book might be a bestseller—and, perhaps, a blockbuster movie starring George Clooney and Julia Roberts. All it needs is some editing, Wanda explains, and she knows just the person: Bill. Wanda urges the writer to get the book edited as quickly as possible, so she can get it swiftly into the hands of editors and film producers. Hopeful and excited, the writer contacts Bill, who offers to do the editing for the special bargain price of $3000 (or $4000 or $5000). Bill does a minor editing job on the book—what a more principled editor might do for about $500. Giddy with dreams of fortune and fame, the writer rushes the book back to Wanda. Wanda responds with a brief, sad email explaining that she won’t be able to represent the book after all; during the few weeks that the editor was at work on the book, the market completely changed. In an even cheesier version of this scam, Wanda doesn’t even bother to do this, but simply refuses delivery of the edited book.

Writing contests with entry fees. Many of these contests are little or nothing more than sponsors’ way of lining their own pockets. Entering a particular contest may be worth your while, IF: entry fees go to partially subsidize the full-fledged publication, promotion, and publicizing of a book; and you’ve got a project that’s a perfect fit for the contest; and the entry fee isn’t exorbitant. But many writing contests offer winners nothing more than small cash prizes—and the losers get only condolence emails. You’re almost always far better off simply submitting your work for publication; this costs you nothing, and puts you in a situation where there are many winners (i.e., everyone whose work is published), not just one or two.

Anthologies of short poems. Dozens of legitimate poetry anthologies are published each year. So are dozens that are built around the following scheme: someone (we’ll call him Hubert) creates a company with a name like The American Society of Poetic Excellence. Hubert places some ads in writers’ websites and magazines that announce the upcoming publication of an anthology with a title such as America’s Finest Poets. The ad encourages writers to submit their work. Hubert responds to every poem (except those that are highly pornographic or violent) with a congratulatory letter or email, explaining that the writer’s poem will be included; that they will not receive any payment or free copies; but they can purchase copies of the anthology at the special pre-publication price of $45 (or $50 or $60) each. Hubert does in fact print and bind this anthology, which contains 3400 short poems printed in tiny type. Most of these poems are terrible. Typically, the anthology isn’t available in any bookstore or other retail outlet, and it doesn’t even have an ISBN or a bar code. Its only purchasers are the contributors themselves.

How can you identify such a scheme? The dead giveaway is that your poem must be no longer than 20 (or 30 or 40) lines. (After all, in order to maximize Hubert’s profits, each poem must take up as little space as possible.) If the call for submissions appears in a display ad rather than in the “Manuscripts Wanted” section of a publication or website, that’s also a sign that this scheme is probably at work.

Caveat scriptor. (Let the writer beware.)

We Americans are obsessive optimists. We think we can achieve anything, if only we learn the right technique, study the right role models, get to know the right people, wear the right clothes, and maintain the right attitude. We imagine there’s a recipe, formula, or step-by-step process for achieving everything.

But it’s a delusion. Were there a simple formula for writing a bestseller, I’d have used it long ago. Ditto for getting on Oprah.

Sure, being an energetic, persistent, and convincing marketer (a la Walt Whitman) will help. But sometimes a book becomes a bestseller in spite of itself. Herman Melville never told anyone about his book Billy Budd, and in fact hid it in a tin breadbox. It was discovered and published only after his death. Then it sold hundreds of thousands of copies, and was made into a movie, three television productions, and a very popular opera. (Melville died before finishing the book, and it reads that way: in my opinion, it needs work.)

There is a tried-and-true system for making a book a bestseller on amazon.com. I learned it myself in a popular class, and I’ve seen it work. But it requires hundreds of hours of planning and labor; it usually drives your book to the top of its category on amazon.com, not to the top of the entire list; it typically does so for only 1-4 days; it normally yields a total of $500-$2000 in added income; and it usually has little or no effect on sales outside of amazon.com.

Is there a reliable method for making the national bestseller lists? Actually, there is: marry a celebrity and then write a book. Of course, this method is simpler to explain than it is to execute.

The closest thing to a formula for creating a book that makes the New York Times or Publishers Weekly bestseller list was developed by Wendy Stehling in the early 1980s. Stehling wasn’t a writer; she was a marketer who decided to apply the principles of marketing household products to book publishing. Stehling knew that the people who bought the most books were middle-class women in their 20s through 50s. So she put together a focus group of these women and asked them, What do you most want in your life? Their most common answer: thin thighs. She also asked, How much time are you willing to spend in pursuit of this goal? The most common answer: 30 days.

Stehling then set to work creating a book (actually a 64-page pamphlet) called Thin Thighs in 30 Days, which Bantam published in 1982. It was a huge and immediate bestseller, selling hundreds of thousands of copies.

Three years later, Stehling published another book, How to Find a Husband in 30 Days. I don’t know if she used the same formula to create it, but it certainly seems as if she did. Unfortunately, Stehling’s second book didn’t do as well as her first. Her own proven, tried-and-true formula wasn’t especially effective the second time around.

As an agent, I’ve represented two bestsellers. Neither book was an attempt to write a bestseller; in fact, in both cases the authors envisioned relatively modest sales in niche markets. Publishers had the same view: all the big houses turned down both books. Each book was ultimately published by a specialty press (i.e., one that publishes books on one or two specific topics) in a small print run. But soon both books took off, selling hundreds of thousands of copies. Today both continue to sell very strongly; ultimately, each will do far better than Thin Thighs in 30 Days. As people in the industry say, both these books have legs.

“Why do I need business cards?” some writers ask. “I do almost all of my business via email, phone, and occasionally snail mail. If someone wants my contact information, I can email it to them. It’s not like there’s something magic about business cards.”

Wrong. There is something magic about business cards. It works like this: if you give someone your contact information in an email, or in a voice mail, or on a piece of paper, most of the time they’ll lose or misplace it. But if you give them a business card, most of the time they’ll save it. This isn’t logical or fair, but it’s how things work: people keep business cards and lose everything else.

Some folks even have special filing systems just for keeping other people’s business cards. Others, like me, file them in old-style rolodexes.

So if someone asks you for detailed contact information, don’t just give it to them. Also mail them three copies of your business card. This is one of a few ways in which snail mail is actually superior to electronic communication.

I’ve gotten at least $50,000 worth of additional business just because I have simple business cards and give them out when the situation warrants it.

Do you have a story of how your business card increased your income or advanced your writing career? Or do you have a story of how not having a business card hurt you professionally?