The Publishing Profits Podcast Show | Writing | Marketing | Books | eBooks | Audiobooks | Authors | Entrepreneurs cover art

The Publishing Profits Podcast Show | Writing | Marketing | Books | eBooks | Audiobooks | Authors | Entrepreneurs

The Publishing Profits Podcast Show | Writing | Marketing | Books | eBooks | Audiobooks | Authors | Entrepreneurs

By: The Publishing Profits Podcast Show | Writing | Marketing | Books | eBooks | Audiobooks | Authors | Entrepreneurs
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 Non-Traditional Book Publishing for Independent AuthorsCopyright 2017 by The Publishing Profits Podcast Career Success Economics Personal Development Personal Success
Episodes
  • 179: Write a Bestselling Memoir: The True Story that Became a New York Times Bestseller with Regina Calcaterra

    179: Write a Bestselling Memoir: The True Story that Became a New York Times Bestseller with Regina Calcaterra
    Mar 9 2018
    Regina Calcaterra is the New York Times best-selling author of Etched in Sand. It’s a true story memoir about five siblings who survived an unspeakable childhood on Long Island. Why She Wrote a Memoir Regina was inspired to write her own memoir in part because she read The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls when it was published in 2005. It was the first memoir Regina had read about someone wrote about a horrible tragedy without being a victim. Etched in Sand is Jeannette’s memoir about growing up in poverty with parents who are mentally ill. It tells the story of how she and her siblings coped and grew up in that environment. Jeannette’s memoir can be difficult to read because of what happens to her and her family. It struck Regina that Jeanette’s memoir was written without pity or victimization. How She Got a Memoir Published Once Regina had the idea to write her memoir it always stayed with her. She decided to take the plunge years later, and she signed up for a workshop put on by The Gotham Writers in New York. She took three classes on how to write a memoir. Over those three classes, she wrote the first four chapters of her book Etched in Sand. During the classes, she bonded with a group of writers who decided to meet every week at whole foods in Manhattan, keep writing and critique each other’s work. Critiquing the writing of her peers and getting critiques from them was the most important part of Regina’s learning process. Regina worked on the first four chapters of her book for years. In July 2011 a friend of hers set up a breakfast for her and three other women at Michael’s, a place in New York City where a lot of people in the world of traditional publishing go to eat. One of the women at that breakfast was Lisa Sharkey, the VP of strategic development for HarperCollins. Another lady at that breakfast was a book agent. During that breakfast, they went around the table and each woman told a little bit of her life story. The book agent told Regina that she wouldn’t be able to sell her story because she didn’t have a platform. The book agent didn’t believe Regina’s story would go anywhere. Lisa Sharkey told Regina to ignore the advice of the book agent. Lisa said that Regina had an important story that needed to be told. They set up a meeting to review Regina’s materials. Regina asked Lisa if it was okay if they meet in September of that year. The weeks from July to September to research the publishing industry and make the best first impression she could. In her research, Regina discovered the book How to Write a Book Proposal: The Insider’s Step-By-Step Guide to Proposals That Get You Published by Jody Rein and Michael Larsen. She read the book and spent two months of writing the best book proposal she could. How to Sell Your Author Platform Regina crafted a book proposal based on Michael Larsen’s book. She spent a lot of time describing her platform in her book proposal. Regina was well known in the New York area, and she’s done a number of cable news shows as a commentator. She really spent a lot of time thinking about every single constituency she could put into her book proposal. To describe your author platform in detail you have to know three things: The different groups of people who might be interested in your book.The size of the different groups of people who might be interested in your book.Why different groups of people might be interested in your book. When you can clearly and concisely describe those three elements, you’ll have a good handle on your platform. Marketing Tip: Find Comparable Books Another area Regina focused on when putting together her book proposal was her comparable books. Traditional publishers want a list of comparable books that did well, and they want to know why your book is going to do as well or better. “There are so many people out there who have a good story they want to write, but it really has to do with the marketability of the book. These are publicly traded companies. They’re responsible to their shareholders. So, if they’re going to put out any money, whether it’s to give you an advance or to have their staff spend time editing this and publishing your book. They want to make sure they get a return on the investment” – Regina Calcaterra Regina sees selling a book to a traditional publisher like being a contestant on Shark Tank. You have to be able to prove the value of the product you want to put on the market. You have to be able to show traditional publishers why they should give you money. After Regina detailed out her platform in her book proposal, she included the four chapters in the book she’d already written and an outline of the rest of the book. Lisa Sharkey was impressed with Regina’s book proposal but she was unable to win over the HarperCollins publishing committee at first. Lisa invited Regina to a meeting at HarperCollins offices to meet with one of their top publicists. When Regina told...
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    32 mins
  • 178: How to Build a Team for Your Self-Published Book with Ricardo Fayet

    178: How to Build a Team for Your Self-Published Book with Ricardo Fayet
    Mar 2 2018
    Ricardo Fayet is a cofounder of Reedsy, an online marketplace that connects authors with everything you need to succeed, from free educational courses, to a platform to help you find the best cover artists, book designers, and publishing support. Ricardo and a friend got the idea for Reedsy in business school. They approached developing Reedsy from a reader perspective. The Birth of Reedsy Ricardo and his friend were among the first early adopters of the Kindle device. They began thinking about how the device was changing the publishing industry for publishers and authors. They asked themselves several questions: What does it change for authors and publishers?How does it change how readers read books?Will there be more ebooks produced than paper books? After asking these questions, Ricardo began learning about self-publishing. At first, self-publishing was a fascinating market space. As Ricardo looked into self-publishing more deeply, he realized that there’s a lot that goes into publishing a book beyond simply hitting publish. You have to: Edit the book.Do cover design for the book.Market the book. That’s when Ricardo and his partners decided to create a marketplace for authors who were self-publishing, as well as the people who were leaving traditional publishing companies. When self-publishing started to take off, in the period from 2010 to 2011, a lot of people who had worked for traditional publishers decided to do freelance work instead. They like the freedom and flexibility of working as a freelance provider, and they also like the access to self-published authors. “It’s really a misnomer to call it self-publishing. No one does it by themselves. You have to have cover designers, book designers to do the layout, and usually marketing support and help. So there’s a big team that any self-published author needs to create in order to make a project really successful.” – Tom Corson Knowles How to Create the Best Team to Support Your Book “The most common advice out there is to ask your peers and other authors in your genre. On the one hand, I think it’s great advice, because obviously what worked for one author might work for you. But on the other hand, it depends a lot on your genre, for both cover design and editing. Editing depends a lot on your personality and writing style.” – Ricardo Fayet The most important factor that affects cover design is your genre or category. If you ask authors in your specific genre or category for advice on cover designers, that advice will probably work for you. The most important factor that affects your relationship with your editor is your personality and writing style. Because every writer is different, it’s less likely that one author’s advice about a good editor will translate into a good working experience for another author. When looking for an editor, it’s best to look for an editor who specializes in your genre. On Reedsy, the editors in the marketplace specialize in certain genres. As an editor: It’s simple to specialize in a genre. Simply choose to edit the books you like to read. Once you get some clients and do good work for them, they will recommend you to other authors who write in their genre. Then you can begin to build a portfolio as an editor. As an author: When you’re looking for an editor, reach out to three or four and see how they work. Send them a small sample of your work, about 3,000 words. This allows you to get a feel for the relationship before you commit to working together on the larger project. When you’re looking for a developmental editor, you definitely want someone who specializes in editing your genre. Ricardo recommends asking for a sample feedback letter that they wrote for another author. You can’t really ask them to look at a sample of your work because they need to see the whole book in order to give you good feedback. But by asking for a sample letter, you can get an idea of how they give feedback to authors. Some editors are very blunt. Some editors like to sugarcoat their feedback. By looking at an editor’s sample feedback letter, you can get a sense of the type of feedback you’re likely to receive from that editor, and you can decide whether or not that feedback will help you write a better book. When you hire an editor, it’s all about developing the right kind of relationship. That’s why it is important to reach out to several people, get several quotes, and get an idea of what type of feedback each editor will give you. Reedsy only accepts 3% of the freelancers who apply to be listed in the marketplace. They are very selective about the professionals they choose to offer to authors. Reedsy has never seen any freelancer abuse their access to the creative work of authors. A lot of the freelancers on Reedsy come from traditional publishing. They’re not going to compromise their good working relationship on Reedsy in order to publish some author’s idea under their own name. ...
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    26 mins
  • 177: Streamline and Clarify Your Writing to Make It More Powerful with Josh Bernoff

    177: Streamline and Clarify Your Writing to Make It More Powerful with Josh Bernoff
    Feb 23 2018
    Josh is the author of four books, including Writing Without Bullshit. He is frequently quoted in major publications like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. He’s also given keynote speeches at major conferences on television, music, marketing, and technology all over the world. Josh spent his whole life focusing on his two talents, math and writing. He wanted to make good money, so he put most of his emphasis on his math talents. But he was always interested in writing. When he became an analyst at Forrester Research about 20 years ago, he was able to combine his two talents. Then, 10 years ago, he convinced the CEO of Forrester Research to allow him to write a book on social media, Groundswell. Following the success of that book, Josh has defined himself as an author. For the last two and a half years, he has worked with indie authors and corporations on how to communicate clearly and powerfully. Clear Writing Principles After Josh washed out of the PhD program at MIT, he learned some critical skills that helped him become a successful and powerful communicator and writer. Write in the active voice. Avoid the passive voice whenever possible.Write as directly as possible.Use bulleted lists to break up the flow of your copy so that it’s easier to digest.State your arguments clearly.Break up your text with headings and subheadings.Be brief. Josh’s Top Communication Principles “You must treat the reader’s time as more important than your own. That sounds like something everyone would agree with, but every time we write an email, a memo, or a book chapter, people tend to do what’s easiest for them instead of thinking about what’s easiest for the reader.” – Josh Bernoff The #1 thing you can do to improve your writing is to be brief. Don’t spend a lot of time warming up. Just say what you need to say as clearly as possible. Eliminate any duplication. Next, you want to frontload your writing with the things your readers need to know. Often, people will warm up before they get to their point. They write emails with the idea that people will keep reading past the first two paragraphs. That’s not how it works. When you write an email, your subject line and the first two paragraphs you write need to be about what the reader needs to know. People will often give up on reading a longer email. 3 Elements of Toxic Prose 1. The Passive Voice When you write in the passive voice it hides what’s going on from the reader. 2. Weasel Words These are intensifiers and qualifiers that don’t mean anything. Some popular examples that Josh sees appearing everywhere right now include: huge, incredible, and insane. 3. Jargon Using jargon creates writing that only you can understand and no one else can make sense of. If you avoid these toxic prose elements, write as briefly as you can, and frontload your information so people are getting what they need to know at the beginning of your writing, you will communicate far more clearly and powerfully in a world where everyone reads on a screen all the time. How Josh Edits for Clients When Josh works with a client, he helps them organize their thoughts so that they can present them more clearly and usefully. Here’s how: Do an Idea Audit The first thing Josh does is an idea audit. He’ll ask the client to tell him their idea. He’ll usually say something like, “That’s boring,” or “that’s complicated,” or “I don’t understand.” By pushing on the idea like this, you have to explain it more and think more deeply about it. It’s difficult to defend your idea and go deeper, but when you do, you finally get to something that’s big, new and powerful. Something that people will read and take notice of. Once you have the idea right, you can structure the material that comes after that. Make Sure Your Ideas Flow Logically When Josh edits a particular passage for a client, the first thing he’ll do is look at the structure of the chapter that the passage is in. He wants to make sure that he has a clear idea of the beginning, middle, and end of the thought he’s currently reading. Do the ideas flow logically and make sense to readers? Cut Weasel Words and Repeated Ideas After the flow of ideas make sense, the next step is to delete things that don’t matter. People will often take one or two paragraphs to get warmed up to their subject. You’ll often find that the first paragraph of actual content is a perfect way to start your writing. Delete weasel words. Those words don’t matter and they don’t add to the knowledge of the reader. Delete repeated sentences or ideas, too. Make your point clearly the first time and you don’t need to repeat it again and again. The Benefits of Editing The benefits of this type of editing is that it goes beyond the qualitative. You’re not just deleting words—you are making your written communication clear and easy to understand. 3 Qualities of a Good Idea 1. The idea has to be new. You can’t ...
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    29 mins
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