Skyway Books – Short Stories – Poems – Books
Stay With Me, You’re Almost There
Author: admin, Category: Quick stories
Welcome back to the Skywaybooks.com weekly blog. In case this is your first visit with us, let me bring you up to speed on what we have been talking about over the last several weeks.
I have been explaining, the best I could, the steps necessary for writing a book for the first timers who always wanted to, but never knew how to get started. When I left you all last week I mentioned something about ISBN numbers and copyrights. I want to take a step back though and talk about the different options available to writers who decide to go the POD or Print On Demand route for publishing their first book. There are hundreds of companies out there who offer this service. Most are reputable and do a great job of providing you with a book that looks professionally done.
The services they offer are usually divided into packages offering different services with each one. Let’s use a system of ratings for example of bronze, silver and gold to keep things simple. A bronze package may offer you the printing of your book, 2 copies for yourself called author copies and maybe 5 different front cover options. Any other options are totally at your cost. Now silver, a little more expensive will offer you more cover choices, the printing of your book and say 5 author copies. When you get into a gold package, you pretty much have to spend double the cost of the silver package, but get a lot more for your money.
I had my second book “You’re It” published by Outskirts Press and I was very pleased with the results. I chose their Ruby package which is one package below Diamond, the top package that they offer. When it comes to the front cover, you can choose to go with some pre designed covers that the publisher is offering or you can have one designed by a graphic artist. Just be careful because publishing houses are very strict about the technical specs of the art work involved. It has to meet standards for size, DPI(dots per square inch) and other technical specs that I don’t fully understand myself because I am not a graphic artist. It’s best to check with the publisher you are using to make sure you understand their requirements.
One service that they usually offer is obtaining for you an ISBN Number and Copyrights. These are two very important aspects of your book. The ISBN Number or International Standard Book Number, is located on the barcode of every book published and is unique to that particular book. It is the industry standard number used for finding a particular book when searching through online retailers such as Amazon, Borders ect… and for wholesalers who buy for schools, libraries and other distribution outlets. Only your book will have that ISBN number. This number will cover you if someone is trying to find your book, but maybe spelled your name wrong or can’t find it by the title. Even doing a Google search with the correct ISBN number will locate the book it is assigned to.
As for copyrights, I cannot stress enough the importance of making sure your book is copyrighted. It protects you so that no one else can steal your book idea and use it for their own net gain. Both of my first two books were published by American publishing outfits so along with my copyright certificates, I also received a Library of Congress Number which is important if you want your book to be distributed to libraries for schools and your local public library. Copyrights and ISBN numbers are not free and are offered by most publishing companies as part of the services and can vary in price depending on who the publisher is.
I know this blog ran long, but I just had so much important information that I wanted to cover. Next time we’ll start to discuss marketing your book and how to tell as many people as possible about it.
Until then have a great day and happy reading to everyone!
We’d Love To Read Your Manuscript… But It’s Gonna Cost Ya.
Author: admin, Category: Quick stories
Welcome back to the weekly Skwaybooks.com blog. Over the last few blogs we have been discussing writing a book for the first time, or a manuscript and what to do with it.
So let’s say you purchased or went to the local library and perused the section of books that shows you where to send your finished manuscript or where to send your query letter. The “Writers Market” is a good resource and is published annually. It will, by genre for fiction and non fiction, tell you publishing house addresses, websites, and contact names of who is accepting manuscripts and query letters.
After sending in your manuscript, you’ll usually have to wait about 6-8 weeks before receiving a favourable response or rejection letter. I am using 6-8 weeks just as an example. Sometimes it takes months or no reply at all. After accumulating 20 or so rejection letters because you have decided to blanket the publishing world with your masterpiece, you start to become a little discouraged and wonder if you will ever get published.
I was in the same place you are about 10 years ago. One day everything changed when I did a search online for getting my book published and was amazed at the results. It was literally hundreds of websites saying, “We’ll publish your book, guaranteed.” Now of course I was excited and cautious at the same time. I’m thinking that you haven’t even read my manuscript yet. How can I be guaranteed publication? Well that’s when I discovered a little thing called POD or Print on Demand publishing. It means exactly how it sounds. They, the publishing company you choose, only prints your books when you sell one.
This is a very different concept from traditional Vanity Publishing houses. These companies will publish your books as well, however it’s up to you to buy your own books first, and then sell them on your own. Most first time authors are stuck with a garage filled with boxes of books they will take years to sell. This is where I need to caution first time writers. There are unscrupulous companies who take advantage of the naïve first timer. They will send you a glowing email about how they loved your letter and would love to read your manuscript for a small administrative fee. Whoop! Whoop! Code red! Never send your manuscript to a company who is going to charge you to read it. This should be an immediate red flag. Also stay away from companies who say they will print your book in a week to ten days. It should in reality and if done properly take anywhere from 4 to 6 weeks to have your book printed cover to cover.
Well that’s it for now. In the next blog I will talk about things like ISBN numbers and copyrights. Until then have a great day and happy reading to all!
If You Write It, They Will Publish It
Author: admin, Category: Quick stories
Welcome back to Skywaybooks.com. Well here we are in September. Kids are back in school and the summer is all but over.
On the last blog we discussed covers for your book and how to have the right one put on it. Before we get too far ahead of ourselves though, let’s talk about getting the manuscript published first, then we’ll look at the front and back cover.
Years ago there was really only one option for getting a manuscript turned into a book. You would write a letter to a publisher, it’s called a query letter. Basically it is one page that you have to sell yourself and your story. Writing an excellent, well thought out letter is key to actually getting your manuscript opened and read. Where do you send these letters and who accepts manuscripts? Every year there are several reference books published that will tell you who is accepting what for either fiction or non fiction. A lot of publishers won’t accept unsolicited manuscripts. This is referring to a manuscript that they didn’t give you permission to send. If you send just a query letter and it peaks their interest, they’ll send you a letter saying that they want to know more so send us your manuscript for us to read. Now you have a foot in the door, so to speak.
Honestly though, the chances of you having a book published through traditional publishing houses is rare. They receive thousands of query letters and manuscripts, solicited and unsolicited every year. Most won’t take you seriously unless you are previously published and have a literary agent. Most literary agents won’t represent you unless you have been published. You see where I am going with this? It is a vicious circle. So how do you get into the club, the restricted club of the published author? Well I am going to tell you.
There are two others ways to do it. You have self publishing where you do everything on your own. From writing the manuscript to having the book printed with cover and all as well as marketing. This method gives you the most control over the book, but can also be very expensive. The other way to do it is POD or print on demand publishing. POD publishing is becoming very popular among first time authors because of it’s flexibility with pricing, printing and cover options.
I know this is a lot to take in so we will finish up here for this week. On the next blog, I will go into more detail about different publishing options and how to get the most for your money.
Until then, have a great day and happy reading to everyone!