Your Book - Creation or Commodity

So…

You’re an author, and you’ve finally finished your book, the project you’ve slaved over to make as perfect as you can. It’s your personal tome, a part of you, your baby, your creation.

Now what?

Now that you’ve finished the thing that’s taken over your life for (insert number of years you worked slavishly on your book), what are you going to do next? Are you going to stuff it away somewhere, never to be seen again, or are you going to tout it to the world? The next logical step for most authors serious about writing is to seek publication. A good many will not take this next step due to personal fears or other obstacles, but one thing’s for sure … the motivation for writing will drive what you do next.

So, why’d you write the darn thing in the first place?

Every author has a reason for writing, and not all authors’ reasons are the same. Some dream of instant fame and fortune so they can quit their despised ‘day job’ and not have to worry about money or anything else ever again. (A fantasy that rarely comes true for the typical author.) Others have something to prove to someone, the world, or themselves – usually that they can finish something they set out to do. Still others have a story inside them that’s bursting to be told. The reasons are probably as numerous as the authors who harbor them, but one thing’s for sure, very few people will have spent years of their life losing sleep and missing the growing up of their children just to write a bunch of words that will sit forever in a dusty box under the bed. Writing is a legacy, a thing left behind to remind the world that the author lived and had something he or she felt was worthwhile to say. And that is why most authors want to see their work published and read by others – as a testament and sharing of their thoughts, their lives.
Which brings us back to the question … creation or commodity?

While the story remains in the sole possession of the author, it remains his baby, his creation. However, as soon as the author relinquishes control of the story for publishing, it ceases to be the author’s possession. It ceases to be one of a kind, an oddity or curiosity for contemplation and appreciation. It ceases to be a creation.

When the story is published, it becomes a thing to be replicated and packaged and marketed and sold to consumers. It becomes a commodity.

And why is this distinction important?

One word: marketing. The publisher wants to sell books to make money. The reader wants to buy books to read. These two groups therefore look at the book as a commodity to be bought and sold and used (or consumed) for a practical purpose. A creation on the other hand, while it might be purchased, does not usually serve a practical, consumable purpose. So once the author’s work is handed over for publishing, it becomes a commodity that must be marketed if it is to be sold.

Mind-shift…

While no author wants to imagine reducing all his hard work and thoughts – his soul – to a pricetagged item for sale, that’s exactly what the author’s book becomes in the hands of those who will use or consume it – his readers. But this shift in thinking is absolutely necessary for the author to realize that sales of his book may very well depend on his own salesmanship.
The author may have spent years honing his writing skills to perfect his book without ever realizing he’d have to equally hone his sales skills to get his book into the hands of interested readers. But that’s exactly what has to happen.

We’ll talk more about marketing in a later post. For now, let it be enough to burst the bubble of the fantasy that sets the author apart as a creative genius with no responsibility for the future success of his creation. The author must sponsor and promote his creation so that it thrives in the commercial world of commodities for sale and consumption.

A note for all the authors trying to get published

Hello fellow authors...

If you thought finishing your first novel was the hardest thing you would ever do, think again. If you thought editing your finished novel to make it publish-ready was the hardest thing you'd ever do, think again. If you thought getting your publish-ready novel accepted by a big agent or publisher was the hardest thing you'd ever do ... maybe you're right.

Getting only rejections? News flash - All the rejections you've been getting may be due NOT to the fact that your book sucks, but due to some small nuances of marketing you may not even be aware of. Here are some tips from the BEEN THERE, DONE THAT file.

1. You have to present yourself as a professional. Keep your query letter short and sweet and to the point. Add a lot of humor if your book style warrants it. Be a real person but don't be real annoying. Don't send candy, don't write your letter on scented or colored stationery. Keep it clean and professional, and for heaven's sake, spellcheck and grammar-check and address it to the right person whose name you have spelled correctly. Believe it or not, if you don't do the necessary legwork to find out who to write your query letter to, it will be thrown into the slush pile, perhaps never to be heard from again.

2. Follow all the little niggling details of submission set forth by your target recipients, no matter how senseless they may seem. Don't give your recipients any excuse to deep-six your query submission. Don't skimp on this.

3. Don't mail-merge your letters and send out a bunch of shotgun queries that all sound alike, because chances are you will send the letter addressed to one place to the wrong place, or you might send the same letter to two divisions of the same publishing company and actually get your two letters compared side-by-side (with a snicker added for insult) - assuming of course anyone actually reads it. If rumor is to be believed, all queries are logged, so that a record is kept for future reference.

4. Personalize your letters and put your heart and soul into them. And make sure your sample chapters and synopsis are as error free and engaging as possible. Engaging as in INTERESTING. If the opening line of your first chapter does not GRAB the person reading it, your query packet will be deep-sixed. Why? Because, as harsh as it sounds, if your very first sentence doesn't grab the agent or editor or assistant or first reader (whoever), then that person will assume that the real readers out there in Consumerland won't be HOOKED by your story either. One actual real-live reader who buys and reads lots and lots of books in different genres admitted that if the first sentence doesn't grab him, he puts the book back on the shelf. So by golly, make your book INTERESTING enough that the reader doesn't feel like setting it aside and moving on. (And of course, it naturally follows that the second sentence, and the third, and so on, will be just as engaging to keep the reader reading. In short, your book has to be interesting to your target audience.)

5. TARGET AUDIENCE???? What, pray tell, is that? Oh, here is where we must repeat aloud that dreaded M-word ... MARKETING. Yes, you MUST know who would want to buy and read your book. It is YOUR job, as the author, to tell the prospective publisher or agent where your book fits in the greater scheme of all things literary. If you do not have a handle on this, if you do not know a book like yours that is already popular, (but of course yours has a completely different twist that will make it unique!!!), then how can you possibly convince the reader of your query letter that you have indeed done your research to make sure there is an existing market for your book. Without an existing market, you have to demonstrate that one does exist but has not been tapped yet. Think how many thousands of FICTION books are published each year (the number is staggering) and you get some ghost of an idea how dang difficult it is to market a book and reach your target readership.

6. Which brings me to the final point of this long drawn out message... It doesn't matter whether you can write well. All that matters is whether you can sell well. That, my author friends, is called THE BOTTOM LINE, something every one of us is terribly guilty of ignoring. Agents are in business to sell books to publishers so they can earn a commission off those sales. That is their primary, perhaps only purpose for existing. Publishers are in business to sell books and turn a profit from those sales. That is the ONLY reason they are in business. If they do not make money, they do not stay in business.

So THAT is what really matters. Whether your book is great and all your friends love it means absolutley nothing. If your query letter doesn't convince the business entity you are trying to get to publish your book, then you won't get published. Writing is the easy part. Selling yourself as a marketable commodity - and yes, YOU are the commodity, not just your book - should be your one goal in life if you want to be published. Your book is just window dressing. YOU are the investment that will produce the writing that sells, and then go on to produce more writing that sells more books.

Put your business hat on, and rewrite your query letter with that in mind. Oh, and don't forget to make your writing interesting and error free and a joy to read. Because that's what readers want - assuming they ever get to the point to be able to look over your book with a buying eye. They don't give a flip about the business of writing, because that's your job. And the job rarely if ever pays well. Sometimes it doesn't pay at all.

Now, why was it again that you thought you wanted to be an author????

:-)

-Penumbra Publishing