This is assimilated from my knowledge of the publishing industry, as well as from the wonderfully successful Bay Area Women's Sports and Entertainment seminar held March 31 at the Hotel Kabuki in San Francisco. It ws hosted by Zennie Abraham, co-founder and CEO of Sports Business Simulations (www.sportsbusinesssims.com).
On books:
You need a really solid, explosive or compelling opening "hook" or anyone of note won't read past the first three paragraphs. Below is a cut and paste of some more general information I posted from an earlier thread in mid-February. They were also interested in how the money, marketing and formatting worked.
>>A very general overvew and some of this could well be outdated or obsolete:
The wholesale distributors are the real pigs (for example, Ingram). They get 35% of the cover price and more if you are not published by a major house and endorsed by Barnes & Nobles. Barnes & Nobles, Borders Books, etc., has a lot of say-so over what gets published and what doesn't, in particular fiction.
An independent bookstore pays around 56% of the cover price, but a wholesale distributor won't deal with many of those unless it's well-known, i.e., The Strand in NYC, Powell's in Portland, City Lights in SF, etc. There are about 4,000 independent bookstores clinging to life in the US. They centralize at a huge event called Book Expo America held annually in Chicago in June. It's well worth a look-see if you are a serious new author, and all of the major publishing houses are well-represented.
Do not waste money on getting a booth there, just buy a ticket and walk around and network. Do not leave copies of your manuscript off with acquisitions editors and literary agents, their take-home bags will already be loaded down. Bring an extra duffle bag for tons of book schwag.
Onward: A major book store chain pays closer to 45% of the cover price, but the wholesaler gets their giant cut.
The publishing house gets the rest and leaves you with 6-8% royalties of the cover price. Hot damn! Also, your literary agent gets 15% of what you take, so you are fortunate to make $1.00/book = 100,000 books for $100K.
If a major house takes your book on, they will put together a 90-day marketing blitz. You will have to drop everything and do book signings everywhere. They will likely concentrate on 1. your birth state; 2. your current state and 3. the areas of geography described in the book. Note that the areas of geography should be desireable. You'll do well to set some things in NYC, LA, Chicago vs. outposts like Buttonwillow, CA, Bristol, VA, Pierre, S.D. if you get my drift.
Also note that 100,000 books sold (or used to be) qualified/s you for the NY Times esteemed bestseller list, which is an unwritten line of demarcation for success.
I've edited several published books and am working on mine as I type this.
Other manuscript rules:
*Start new chapters 1/3 way down page
*Double-spaced
*Single-sided
*1.25" margins sides
*1.5" margins top and bottom
*first initial, last name (slash) title upper lefthand of each page (in case reader at publishing house loses it)
*pg. # upper righthand side
ragged righthand margin
tab indent paragraphs
Cover page
Middle: Block Title, full name below it, centered
Lower Left: first line - full name, next line - address, phone number, next line - last 4 digits of your social security number, next line birthdate (optional), in case their are 2 John Williams, etc.
Lower Right: first line # words (to nearest thousand is OK); next line - number of chapters, next line - year copyrighted
Very informal copyright (file on your computer), or print out and snail mail registered mail to yourself and don't open it. Cancellation date and unopened box = proof.
Formal copyright, register with the Library of Congress ($40 or so).>>
More on books and blogs too:
>>Grossing $1.00 per sold book is a reasonable expectation if you can get to that point.
Note that a typical acquisitions editor at a major publishing house receives upward of 600 manuscripts per week (this is an old figure from 2000 or so). A literary agent is inundated with thousands of queries per week and shoots down most of them. So acquisitions editors are bombarded with manuscripts which primarily derive from reputable and hopeful sources, and tend to delegate it to their "staff" (interns) unless it's "personal."
If you are serious about this endeavor, I would recommend circumventing this lengthy, imprecise and impersonal process with such long odds (and if you have few or zero direct contacts) if I were you. Go to Book Expo America--Chicago June 2008 and schmooze with literary agents, acquisitions editors and even sociable authors, it's a more purposeful way for newer writers to network. Your best bet is to connect directly and sincerely with some of these movers and shakers. Get a lot of cards and follow-up persistently.
Offer to take them to lunch or even meet them the next time you are in NYC and buy them lunch/coffee there (the literary/publishing industry is highly concentrated in NYC). Ask them if it would be possible to make an appointment to briefly meet them the next time you're in town, so you can assess exactly what it is they are looking for (so you don't waste their time) as well as establish a tangible physical presence with them. Some of them are warm and engaging, others are gruff and off-putting, still others are very reserved and highbrow. Many will give you a copy of someone's book they represented and liked.
Wear a suit.
It is a very tough business...highly "incestuous/inbred" as well. One in ten authors signed by agents (fiction) even manage to become published with decent literary agents, and then only one in three books (fiction) nets a profit of any sort. That's one in thirty for authors who actually think they have a shot.
Research names/tendancies/topical preferences in the following annual publications:
1. Writer's Guide;
2. Writer's Market (both available in major stores for approx. $25-35);
3. The Literary Marketplace (only in libraries), which is thousands of pages long and published by R.R. Bowker, which also distributes ISBN numbers.
Lastly you may want to create a presence or devlop a personal "brand" and establish a following with regard to your subject matter on some of the noted blogger networks: www.blogger.com (hello!), www.mixx.com, www.digg.com, www.technorati.com, www.reddit.com, www.twitter.com (for texters--140 characters or less but you can steer traffic your way), etc.
Zennie Abraham noted that creating your own www.youtube.com television station is very effective for self-promotion as well. He also pointed out that there are 77 different avenues for this sort of resource. Amazing.
You may also want to take note of www.keotag.com which is a combination of 14 search engines, including Google. It also highlights key words and phrases that generate the most "hits" and this is something that publishers are now looking at. For example, instead of just calling someone "fat" you might be surprised how much traffic you might get if you somehow phrased it "how to get rid of your muffintop."
I could go on longer but I am out of time. This should get you rolling. Good luck.>>
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