Master the Possibilities

The now-famous phrase, “master the possibilities,” used by Mastercard in its promotional campaigns also applies to freelance writing. But with freelancing it’s less about whipping out your credit card than figuring out how to find markets for your work.

Before you go searching, however, you have to figure out exactly what type of writing you want to do. Are you planning to write articles for publication, either in print or online or both? Or are you more into business writing, preparing press releases, ghost-written articles for trade magazines, and such? While you can work in both directions, it’s better to chose one and stick with it. And while both require the same writing skills, each requires a different mind set.

It used to be that publication was more insular. As a freelancer, you’d send your pieces to publications that might print them and you’d get paid. Today, with the advance of technology, the publishing world has exploded with what seems an endless list of possibilities. Unfortunately, just as there are many more opportunities to get published, so are there many more, especially online,  that don’t pay anything. And you can’t live on those. With the ease of online publishing and self-publishing through e-books, many more would-be writers are finding it easier to get published, even if they have to do it themselves, thus by-passing the hurdles of the traditional route. So competition is fierce.

To begin with, you need to check one of the primary annual market guides—Writer’s Market or Literary Marketplace.

The first on the list, Writer’s Market, published by Writer’s Digest Books, has been around since 1921 and of the three is the least expensive with a list price of about $30. It features over 6,000 listings of newspaper and magazine markets, book publishers, including small presses, playwriting and screenwriting markets, and even those for greeting cards. Each listing gives you the information you need to see if your work will fit. And while there are many markets in which your work will be a good match, there are 10 times as many that it will not. And while the two-and-a-half-inch book has it’s good points, it offers a lot of markets that just don’t pay well or not at all.

Literary Marketplace claims it’s the “ultimate insider’s guide” to the publishing industry. For a whopping $339, it ought to be. It offers 54 sections in which it organizes publishers, agents, advertising agencies, associations, distributors, and events. It features twice the number of listings as Writer’s Market, but concentrates mostly on book publishing. Since its cost is prohibitive, you’ll have to use it at your local library.

Whether you use one or the other or both of these annuals will depend on how well you’re repeatedly tapping certain markets, how good you are at selling spin-off material, and where you wish to focus your publishing efforts each year.

As you progress in your freelancing career, you’ll find more markets that aren’t listed in the above annuals. Publishers of all kinds choose whether they want to be published in them. Many refuse because doing so opens them up to receiving tons of correspondence from too many wannabee writers who have neither the skill or talent to write well. They prefer to be more selective. Also, new technologies create new markets. In the last five years many opportunities have opened up for educational and recreational material for home and school computers.

Because editors play musical chairs and their requirements change regularly, it’s a good idea to use the latest version of each of the annuals. It’s important to know the exact name, spelling, title, etc., of a publication’s editor. If you’re going to impress editors, you must get their names right.

In the case of Writer’s Market, you can check out last year’s edition from the stacks at your library, find what publications look good, and make a list of them, then go back to the library and find those on your list in the latest edition in the reference section and note the changes. Because of the high cost of Literary Marketplace, you’ll have to do all your work on the reference edition at the library.

You can keep up with changes during the year by watching the market columns in Writer's Digest Magazine and The Writer, the only two magazines devoted exclusively to writing. You can also subscribe to the Writer’s Market online and catch up with changes there.

If you've decided on a specialty, you'll subscribe, I'm sure, to the best publications in your chosen field, or track them down regularly wherever you can. If you’re serious about book publishing and not just publishing a book, then reading Publishers Weekly regularly at your local library is a must.

Whether markets appear to be a broadening or a row of locked doors is entirely up to you, your energies, ambitions, and skills as a writer, promoter, and, most importantly, a salesperson.

Just How Much Can You Make on Book Royalties?

Many of you writing wannabees on the outside of publishing most likely entertain the idea that all authors get rich, based on the handsome advances and royalties paid to some of the top stars. Unfortunately, that is far from the truth. In fact, the average percentage of royalties hasn’t changed since before the 1980s! Can you think of anyone whose salary hasn’t gone up at least a little in all that time. Even those earning minimum wage get a hike every once in a while.

So what is this elusive thing called a royalty? Essentially, a royalty is a sum paid for the use of a patent or to an author or composer for each copy of a work sold or for each public performance. Sounds easy enough, but it’s far from it.

First, royalties are basically a percentage of the retail price of books actually sold by the publisher. And in today’s market where booksellers can return unsold books for a refund, the amount a writer actually gets can be quite puny. Currently, the author of an adult hardcover book can expect to receive a 10-12.5 percent royalty for the first 5,000-10,000 copies sold. Big name authors might receive 15 percent based on increased sales volume. If you're negotiating a deal for a paperback, you’ll most likely receive 5-10 percent, with 10 percent more common.

Traditionally, publishers computed royalty rates and the author's earnings from the list price of all copies sold. Thus, if they sold 2,500 copies of a book listed at $15, the author's royalty earnings would be $3,750.  However, some publishers sell books at less than list price through chains of bookstores, supermarkets, and other outlets. As a result, they compute royalties on net proceeds from book sales rather than the number of copies sold. Then again, the larger volume of wholesale sales may compensate for a smaller per copy earning.

Try this. Compute what you would earn if your publisher paid you a royalty based on the list price of your book. Compare that to your royalty earnings the net amount many publishers today use. Then decide if it’s worth negotiating for a higher royalty rate or a higher advance.

Publishers usually pay authors advances against future royalties. How do you figure how much money you might earn from your book? For this you need to study the market for it, rather than take out your calculator. If the subject of your book is a hot one and potentially lots of readers will buy it, then you should negotiate a higher royalty percentage against future sales. However, if the subject is one that may not attract lots of readers, then you should negotiate for a higher advance.

An advance is an up-front payment against which royalties are set. If you fulfill your part of the contact—that is write the book as ordered—then you don’t have to refund it. If your book sells poorly, you’re ahead. And if your book sells well, you ahead based on the amount you’ll get in royalties after you have earned enough to make up the advance. Most beginning authors get three or four-figure advances. So don’t think you’ve hit the big time just because a publisher says her or she will publish your book.

The Proof is in the Book

During my writing career, I have written quite a few books. Like most writers, I labored over the content and the words and phrases to bring it to light. When I finished writing my books, I sent them off to an editor at my publisher.

Recently, I took on the job of editing a cookbook for a Quaker Meeting of which I’m a member. While this seemed like an easy task at first, I soon realized that editing was much more than correcting spelling and punctuation and the occasional mistake in grammar. How difficult would it be to edit recipes? Boy, was I way off base.

Yes, there were spelling and punctuation errors to correct, but editing a book involves so much more as I soon found out.

One of the main jobs of a book editor is to make sure the content and style remains consistent throughout the book. A book is a large volume of work. When writing one, I try to keep the main idea in mind, but as I get deeper into it, I sometimes change how I express certain things which results in inconsistencies.

And so it was with this cookbook. The person who compiled the recipes is a cook, herself, so the recipes, themselves were okay, for the most part. However, different recipe donors had different ways of expressing the same procedure in similar recipes. For example, some donors used fractions while others used decimals to indicate parts of measurements. A few recipes weren’t at all clear. And while folksy and interesting to read, they left the cook wondering what to do next. So in this case, clarity became a major concern.

Another facet of editing this cookbook was focusing it to the reader. At first, it targeted only to people at our Meeting, but to make this a successful fundraising project, it had to be clear to those outside our Meeting who might purchase the book. The problem that surfaced while editing was how the descriptive anecdotes that accompanied the recipes related to the reader. Originally, the compiler had only the people at our Meeting in mind as readers. But to sell the book to a broader audience, that had to be changed so that other readers would understand the family relationships mentioned in the book.

Upon finishing this project after six or seven weeks of intensive editing, I now have a very healthy respect for my book editors. And as a writer, I plan to insure that I make their job a little easier by paying stricter attention to details when writing my books. I also learned a lot about the other side of publishing–getting the book ready for market–which I can now use to self-publish books.

Look Before You Leap

When writing a book, most writers begin by doing just that. They bury themselves in researching their topic or story and spend months, if not years, writing about it. Sounds logical, doesn’t it? But how many of them actually get their book published?

In general, most people feel they have something so important to say that every publisher will want to publish their book and every reader will run out to buy it. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

This attitude of self-importance originates way back in school—as far back as first grade. Most teachers don’t mean to instill this in their students, it sort of happens through a process of educational osmosis. The teachers had it instilled in them by their teachers in a never-ending educational process. So what is a book writer to do? Market research.

Whether you plan to write a non-fiction or fiction book, it pays to take a look at the market for your idea—not your book. Take a trip to a good bookstore and browse through the books on your topic. This will tell you what’s being sold. Remember, most of the books on the shop’s shelves originated at least two years prior to you seeing them. Now stroll over to the sale tables. The books on these tables are remainders—leftovers that didn’t sell during the book’s most recent run. Many may be terrific, but for some reason didn’t hit the mark. Take notes, being sure to nor publishers names.

Next surf on over to Amazon.com, the world’s greatest book depository. Search for books on your topic. Amazon has practically everything in print. Do the same at their competitor, Barnes and Noble’s Web site. Take more notes, again being careful to note the names of publishers.

After all this research, review your notes and draw some conclusions about how viable your topic really is. Generally, too many books on your topic means the market is overloaded. Too few often means not enough readers are interested or the topic hasn’t been explored to any great degree by writers.

Armed with your conclusions, you’re ready to proceed with your book, modifying the topic to reflect market trends. It’s important to note that you shouldn’t cater to your topic’s market but be driven by it. Doing so will greatly enhance your chance of publication.