Author! Author!
How to Get Your
Book Published
Presented by
David Webb
Executive Editor, Apologia Press
[email protected]
www.apologia.com
www.WhatWeBelieve.com
You’ve Written a Book—Now What?
A Simplified Explanation of the Traditional Publishing Model
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Write a book proposal.
Get an agent, if you choose to go that route.
Submit your proposal to publishing houses.
An interested editor takes your proposal to a publishing committee. A decision
may be made immediately or within a couple of weeks.
An offer is made and contracts are signed. You will likely receive some money as
an advance payment on royalties. This payment will be based in large part on how
many copies the publisher expects to sell based on past experience and your own
sales history as an author.
The book is given a tentative release date 9 to 12 months out.
An ISBN is assigned to the book.
A developmental editor works with you and your manuscript to bring out the best
in it and make it suitable for commercial release.
The book cover is designed.
The book begins to be marketed and sold to stores and other retailers.
The edited manuscript is copyedited for grammar, punctuation, spelling, and
consistency.
Advanced copies may be printed and distributed to reviewers to generate
endorsements and early reviews.
Advertising is purchased, and ads and promotional materials are designed.
A printer is contracted and a date is scheduled for printing.
The interior of the book is designed and formatted for print.
Final proofs are produced and reviewed by the editor and a proofreader.
The designed interior is specially formatted for digital platforms.
The book goes to the printer. Expect a four- to eight-week turnaround, depending
on the format of the book.
Marketing and publicity kick into high gear. Ads may appear in store catalogs and
magazines and on websites. Blog tours and radio interviews may be arranged.
The book is sent from the printer to a warehouse.
Copies are shipped to retailers who’ve agreed to carry the book.
Your book appears on store shelves!
Copyrights are filed, and the book is registered with the Library of Congress.
Retailers are invoiced and monies collected by the publisher, ideally within ninety
days.
After your book has sold enough copies to cover your advance, you will begin
receiving royalty checks from the publisher every three to six months based on
sales of your book.
Books to Help You Get Published
2013 Writer’s Market edited by Robert Lee Brewer
The Christian Writer’s Market Guide 2013 by Jerry Jenkins
2013 Children’s Writer’s & Illustrator’s Market (Writer’s Digest Books)
2013 Guide to Literary Agents (Writer’s Digest Books)
The First Five Pages: A Writer’s Guide to Staying Out of the Rejection Pile
by Noah Lukeman
78 Reasons Why Your Book May Never Be Published—and 14 Reasons Why It Just Might
by Pat Walsh
Formatting & Submitting Your Manuscript, 3rd Edition (Writer’s Digest Books)
Write the Perfect Book Proposal: 10 That Sold and Why
by Jeff Herman and Deborah Levine Herman (primarily for nonfiction books)
How to Write a Book Proposal by Michael Larsen (for nonfiction books)
Writing a Winning Non-Fiction Book Proposal by Michael Hyatt (PDF)
Writing a Winning Fiction Book Proposal by Michael Hyatt (PDF)
Books on Style and Grammar
The Chicago Manual of Style, 16th Edition by the University of Chicago Press
The Elements of Style, 4th Edition by William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White
The Christian Writer’s Manual of Style by Robert Hudson
Lapsing into a Comma by Bill Walsh
The Elephants of Style by Bill Walsh
Woe Is I by Patricia O’Conner
Sleeping Dogs Don’t Lay by Richard Lederer
Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss
A Dash of Style: The Art and Mastery of Punctuation by Noah Lukeman
Books on Writing
On Writing Well by William Zinsser
Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne and Dave King (NOTE: some language)
Write Great Fiction: Plot & Structure by James Scott Bell
Write Great Fiction: Revision & Self-Editing by James Scott Bell
The Emotion Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi
Writers on Writing: Top Christian Authors Share Their Secrets for Getting Published,
A Novel Idea: Best Advice on Writing Inspirational Fiction by ChiLibris
Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer by Roy Peter Clark
Writing Picture Books: A Hands-On Guide by Ann Whitford Paul
The Writer's Guide to Crafting Stories for Children by Nancy Lamb
Books on Self-Publishing and Vanity Presses
The Fine Print of Self-Publishing, 4th Edition by Mark Levine
Dan Poynter’s Self-Publishing Manual, Vol. 2 by Dan Poynter
Aiming at Amazon by Aaron Shepard
Top Self Publishing Firms by Stacie Vander Pol (overview of vanity presses)
Plug Your Book! Online Book Marketing for Authors by Steve Weber
Writers Conferences
Mount Hermon Christian Writers Conference
Santa Cruz Mountains, Northern California
mounthermon.org/event/212
Writing for the Soul Conference
Colorado Springs, CO
www.christianwritersguild.com/conference
Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference
Asheville, NC
BRMCWC.com
She Speaks Speakers & Writers Conference
Concord, NC
shespeaksconference.com
Greater Philly Christian Writers Conference
Philadelphia, PA
philadelphia.writehisanswer.com/
Writing and Publishing Blogs
Jane Friedman’s Writing, Reading, and Publishing in the Digital Age
janefriedman.com/blog
The Book Deal: An Inside View of Publishing
www.alanrinzler.com/blog
The Steve Laube Agency
stevelaube.com/blog
The Bookshelf Muse
thebookshelfmuse.blogspot.com
Books & Such
www.booksandsuch.biz/blog
There Are No Rules
www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/there-are-no-rules
Christian Writers’ Organizations and Websites
Christian Writers Guild
www.christianwritersguild.com
American Christian Fiction Writers
www.acfw.com
Christian Writing Today
www.christianwritingtoday.com
The Real Costs of Self-Publishing a Book
by Miral Sattar of BiblioCrunch
At every writers conference or self-publishing panel the question that almost always inevitably comes up
is: “How much will self-publishing really cost me?”
Because the book publishing industry is one of the last industries to go digital, it’s going through
a quick transition. As a result of this shift, authors no longer need to go through the traditional
gatekeepers to publish high-quality books and are instead moving toward self-publishing. Launching a
book is like launching a startup. Putting together a quality book involves not just writing it, but getting it
edited, then formatted, designing a cover, and having a marketing strategy around it.
Below, I break down the costs of how much professional services will cost you for a high-quality
book. (For the purposes of calculation we’ll assume you have a manuscript that is 70,000 words.)
1. Developmental editing
Once you’ve written your book, a developmental editor is important. Many authors think they don’t need
an editor. Everyone needs at least some type of editor. Not having an editor is like not QA’ing a software
product or not testing a drug before it goes out into the marketplace. An editor will evaluate and critique
your manuscript, suggest and provide revisions, and shape it into a smooth, workable piece. They’ll look
at the big picture and make sure everything flows and is consistent.
Costs:
1-5 manuscript pages/hour for a manuscript page of 250 words
$45-65/hour based on the experience of the editor
70,000/250 = 280 pages
280 pages/5 pages per hour = 56 hours
Low end is 56 x $45 = $2,520
High end is = $18,200
2. Copyediting
Once your manuscript is in good shape, the next thing you need to do is hire another editor called a copy
editor or line editor to go through and catch spelling mistakes and adjust for grammar, punctuation and
consistency.
2-10 manuscript pages/hour
$25-50/hour based on the experience of the editor
Low end: $840
High end: $7,000 (if it needs a lot of work)
3. Cover design. Yes, books are judged by their covers.
Readers judge how a book looks on a shelf and how it looks on an iPad or black-and-white Kindle. For
iPhone users, a thumbnail of the cover is probably the first thing a reader sees. It’s important that your
cover design be optimized for print, digital, thumbnail sizes, and how it looks on an e-reader or mobile
device. You might have your own images, or you might need to buy a license to use the images. Some
designers even sell premade cover designs for as low as $50. But if you want to hire someone to make a
custom cover design, you can expect to pay anywhere from $150 to $3,500. The higher end is for awardwinning designers who have done Random House- or HarperCollins-type covers, according to book
design maven Joel Friedlander.
Low end: $150
High end: $3,500
4. Formatting for print and digital conversion
If you’re tech-savvy, you can set up your book on your own for free using programs called Sigil, Calibre
or Pages. If you’re looking to hire an expert, you can find someone to do the print-on-demand
conversions for as little as $150 or as much as $2,500 to convert from Word or InDesign. The costs will
usually be $200 for a text book that’s less than 400 pages. The higher costs are if your original file is in
PDF, has a lot of pictures, or is highly illustrated. PDFs are much more complex to convert.
Low end: Free
High end: $2,500 or more based on interactivity and pages
5. Getting an ISBN
An ISBN (International Standard Book Number) is recommended if you’re doing a print book or want it
placed in a library. A lot of third parties sell ISBNs, but if you don’t purchase your own ISBN you may
not be listed as the publisher of your own work! Not everyone believes you need an ISBN. If you plan on
only selling your book in e-book form, then you do have the option of skipping the ISBN and using the
default numbering system for Amazon, iBooks or BN.
$125 for one ISBN
10 ISBNs for $250
Bowker is the authorized ISBN retailer in the U.S.
6. Distribution: FREE
You can do this yourself by following the instructions to get your books distributed into the various
retailers. However, if you use a third party they do take a percentage of each book sold.
7. Getting your book printed
You no longer have to pay upfront for printing costs because now there are so many print-on-demand
options. With print-on-demand services like CreateSpace or Lightning Source, the book only gets printed
when someone buys it. It’s also not recommended to print books if you don’t already have a distribution
deal in place. Otherwise, you might end up housing 1,000 books in your garage.
8. Getting reviews pre-publication
There are many resources for authors to get professional reviews. Sites like Kirkus, Blue Ink, and
Publishers Weekly all sell review packages for indie or self-published authors. There’s also a great list of
bloggers that you can reach out to for reviews for your book. Cost of review from Kirkus: $425. Cost of
review from BlueInk Reviews: $396. Cost of review from Publishers Weekly PW Select: $149
8. Marketing & PR
This is probably the toughest part after you’ve written the book. You can pay someone to help you
market and set up blog tours for $10 to $40 per hour on BiblioCrunch (my company). For $10 you can get
a college student, for $40 to $65 an hour you can get a professional marketer. We recommend you pay
someone at least 10 hours to market and on the high end 40 hours. If you have the time, you can do a lot
of the marketing yourself. Also, good book publicists can get you radio spots and press pickups for
anywhere from $1,000 to $5,000 per month.
Low end: $100
High end: $5,000 and up.
It’s a lot of information, but spending money on quality editorial services will set your book apart from
the sea of books in the marketplace.
Published May 15, 2013. Access the original article at www.pbs.org/mediashift/2013/05/the-real-costs-of-selfpublishing-book
A Proposal for
Snow Angel
A Novel by
Jamie Carie
Contact Information:
Address, phone number, e-mail, website
Represented by:
OVERVIEW
Title: Snow Angel
Author: Jamie Carie
Genre: Historical Romance, Inspirational
Author Bio: While growing up a preacher’s daughter,
Jamie Carie was immersed in theology and a rich spiritual
heritage. A voracious reader, she developed a love for
writing and has written poems, skits, short stories, novels,
website content, articles, and her other love—music—
while managing a band. Jamie lives in Indianapolis, Indiana, with her husband and
three sons.
Word Count: Approximately 80,000
Series Potential: Snow Angel can be a stand-alone but was created to be the first
book in a three-part series. The series focuses on three women—Elizabeth, Serena,
and Isabelle—who struggle with betrayal and identity in a world and time that
opposes their becoming the women they were created to be. Manuscripts for the first
two books are completed.
Brief Description: It’s 1897 and Alaskan gold fever is so thick in the air that
everyone is infected, especially Elizabeth. Striking it rich, she believes, would solve
all her problems. Always on the run—from men, from fear, from anyone who stands
in the way of her freedom, Elizabeth steals a grubstake from the worst kind of man.
Another man she took a chance on—and lost. They’ve betrayed her, they’ve
abandoned her, they’ve used her. They’ve made her who she is—a woman with
more survival tricks than a modern-day mercenary.
Until Noah.
Deep in the mountains of Juneau lives a man whom others admire. When he
walks by, the townspeople remove their hats, though they hesitate to stare into his
startling blue eyes for fear they’ll see who they really are. Noah understands the
land that is Alaska and his place in it. When a mysterious and beautiful snow angel
appears on his doorstep in the middle of a blizzard, his heart is captured. But this
woman is no angel. Headstrong and determined not to trust him, never to
surrender to his love, he must risk everything to make her his own.
THEMES
This historical romance calls to mind Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers, a timeless story
of sacrificial love. After 9/11, we idolized the heroes who went into the wreckage to
rescue complete strangers, but this kind of selfless love is all around us. It may appear
as a deed of great courage or a quiet, daily practice of putting others first. It may be as
famous as Mother Teresa or as unseen as the server in a soup kitchen. This kind of
sacrificial love is what makes a person beautiful and admirable and represents true
greatness in the eyes of God. The characters in Snow Angel demonstrate this quality—
the willingness to love someone beyond human capabilities and foibles and seize those
God-breathed moments. Snow Angel thrills the heart and offers hope that even the most
sinful among us are redeemable.
REVIEWS
Snow Angel was scheduled for publication in by Time Warner’s e-book division. Then it
was announced Time Warner was shutting down its e-book imprint, and Jamie was
released from her contract. Her editor, Rose Hilliard, wrote, “Your characters are
spirited, sympathetic and original. . . . I was drawn in immediately by your narrative
voice—your prose has a sweeping rhythm and an emotional charge that kept me
entranced from start to finish.”
SYNOPSIS
Alaska 1897. One payday from joining the homeless on Seattle’s shore, Elizabeth lets
down her guard and encourages the attentions of a sleek investigator, Joe Brandon. The
courtship takes a nasty turn when Elizabeth discovers Joe has been hired by her
adoptive parents to locate her, that he plans to hold her captive in his hotel room to
exploit his own evil desires until they arrive to fetch her. She escapes, stealing Joe’s
savings for passage to Alaska. Reaching that great land, with a vastness that can hardly
be grasped, she is awestruck. Nothing is impossible here. But winter’s deadly freeze has
set in, locking the would-be rich in the tributaries of the mighty Yukon River. She is
advised to wait out the winter in the quiet little town of Juneau.
Refusing to be thwarted by nature, Elizabeth searches for a guide. A sudden
blizzard dumps her on the doorstep of a man named Noah. He fights to save her life
and then astounds her with his kindness. After spending several days together,
Elizabeth realizes she must escape a new threat: In his presence, memories surface and
buried longings demand notice. In his earnest, gentle way, Noah befriends her. He
takes her to Juneau and the trading post to wait out the winter. Will and Cara Collins,
Noah’s good friends, look after her and give her a job. These kind people make it so
easy to use them.
At the first hint of spring, Elizabeth’s past comes calling in the form of Joe
Brandon—he has tracked her to Alaska. He threatens her, wanting revenge. Elizabeth
does the only things she knows to do: escape. If Joe truly is a private investigator and
hired by her adoptive parents, she wants nothing to do with him. Spring and the arrival
of Charlie McKay, a Yukon guide outfitting an expedition for the Klondike trail, appear
to be her salvation.
A priest, a half-breed native, a set of twins, and Charlie make up Elizabeth’s new
family. Her main concern, aside from keeping up through mud, mountainous hills, and
rough rapids, is staying two steps ahead of Joe, with plans to stake her claim. Noah, in
the meantime, has come to Juneau to fetch Elizabeth and, hopefully, make her his bride.
When he reaches Juneau, he finds she’s gone.
Now both Noah and Joe are tracking Elizabeth. Though it takes more strength
than she knew she possessed, Elizabeth makes it through Dyea Canyon toward Sheep
Camp. Noah struggles in her wake, up the dangerous Chilkoot Pass, ice-sails to Lake
Bennet, and rides the rapids to Lake Laberge. Joe is always just behind them.
On the banks of the glassy, blue waters of Lake Laberge, Elizabeth’s past collides
with her present. When she realizes Joe is in the same camp, Elizabeth abandons her
friends and throws in with a stranger, someone the kind priest has found to take her on
to Dawson City. She is shocked to discover it's Noah.
Noah asks her to come back and marry him, but Elizabeth lies and tells him she
cannot. She says she is married to Joe, that he’s the abusive husband she’s running from.
She thinks herself unworthy of Noah. There’s a darkness in her heart that convinces her
she will never be good enough for someone like him. Noah is devastated and
disillusioned. Though his dreams are shattered, he cannot abandon Elizabeth to a
heartless husband. He promises to see her safely to Dawson City.
Dawson City has a vibrancy that fuels Elizabeth’s gold fever. Noah, meanwhile,
is on an emotional rack. Yet he cannot bear to leave her to an unknown fate. Joe turns
up at their camp and demands Elizabeth come with him—she has a debt to pay, and he
has a reward to collect from the Dunnings. He laughs when Noah confronts him as an
abusive husband and derides Noah for believing Elizabeth’s lies. Doesn’t he see her for
what she really is? Noah demands Joe leave at gunpoint.
Noah doesn’t know what to believe anymore. In desperation he demands
answers from Elizabeth. She finally tells him everything—why he couldn’t possibly
love her. Noah wrestles with his ideals and her reality, but then tells her he still loves
her—the real her—and still wants to marry her. He asks Elizabeth to abandon her
dreams of gold and choose him.
Noah knows he must track Joe down, as his parting comments about knowing
Elizabeth’s real name will always haunt them. He finds Joe in a saloon and asks to talk
to him outside. Joe pulls a gun on Noah and directs him to a wooded area, intending to
kill him. Just as Noah is about to discover the truth from the talkative Joe—that the
Dunnings hired Joe to find Elizabeth because her real mother is offering a huge reward
for her—Noah sees what will probably be the only opportunity to knock the gun out of
Joe’s hands. They grapple for it, and Joe is accidentally shot.
Back in New York City, Elizabeth’s birth mother, Jane Greyson, is attending her
father’s funeral. For the first time she is able to feel some forgiveness toward him, or at
least the desire to let go of the pain he caused by taking her child from her—a child she
has never given up hope of finding. Arriving home, she finds a letter from the
Dunnings. Jane and her husband, Ben, must travel to Seattle to learn if they have finally
found Elizabeth.
Meanwhile, Noah and Elizabeth take a paddle-wheeler back to Juneau where
they are wedded at the trading post. Elizabeth fears she is making a mistake but knows
how worthy Noah is. She tells herself how lucky she should be feeling to have someone
like him love her. She wants to freely return that love, but the place in her heart that
loves is dead and cold. Noah will never make her cry.
Jane and Ben follow Elizabeth’s trail to Alaska, afraid to hope and yet desperate
to believe they have finally found her. After talking to Will at the trading post, Jane
knows she has found her daughter. Will takes them to Noah’s home, a mountainside
paradise. Jane is reunited with her daughter, now a beautiful grown woman, but so
contained, so hard to reach.
Noah steps back, knowing that Elizabeth needs time with her mother. The days
turn into weeks and slowly, with the grace of a flower unfolding, Noah watches
Elizabeth bloom. Safe in the love of Jane, he realizes that Elizabeth no longer needs him.
Jane asks if Elizabeth can come back to New York City with them—only for a little
while—to capture a small part of all they have missed together. Noah agrees but
believes he will never see Elizabeth again. They leave and night comes. Noah walks his
land searching for answers, crying out to God, “What was it all for?”
In a startling display of beauty, Noah sees the aurora borealis. He hears God’s
gentle voice telling him how much He loves him, revealing to Noah’s heart how much
He loves Elizabeth . . . how to Him they are the same.
And then Noah hears crying. It’s Elizabeth! She couldn’t leave him or their
Alaskan home. She belongs with him—to him and no other.