WRWA Newsletter.pub - Wisconsin Writers Association

Page 31
Patricia Fry—The Right Way by Dorothy Lund
Patricia Fry has contributed articles to
two hundred magazines and written
twenty-five books. She is an editor, ghost
writer, promoter, and self-publisher. The
president of Small Publishers Artists and
Writers' Network (SPAWN), she is the
author of The Right Way to Write Publish
and Sell Your Book.
Patricia began her presentation by informing
us that if we wanted to write a
book, we should look upon the actual writing as our last step.
She eased our puzzled minds by outlining the steps that should
come first.
•Study the publishing industry; know which publishers deal
with the type of book you plan to write and how friendly
they are to your subject. Know your options.
•Write a book proposal, keeping in mind why you want to
write this book and what needs it might satisfy for readers.
Focus your work on today's market and reader's demand.
Identify your target audience.
•Ask yourself, “What is your platform or ways of reaching
your audience” Possibilities could be joining or creating
organizations dealing with your subject or doing writeups
for newsletters, magazines and the Internet. Always
look for promotional opportunities you can build into
your book. For instance, a character in your novel may
have a secondary dimension involving an infirmity, such
as diabetes, or a special interest, such as horse training,
bird watching, or collecting antique cars. These are mar-
kets to pursue.
•Start talking about your book; set up speaking gigs, workshops,
mailing lists, and a Web site. Become a storyteller.
Get yourself out there.
Patricia concluded that if writers are going to successfully
write, publish, and sell their books, they must shift from the
creative right-brain process to the rational left brain. This can
save time in the long run, and, by focusing your writing in the
proper direction, you may very well facilitate the creative
process and make things easier and more gratifying when you
switch back to the right side of your brain and write your
book. #
Get Published in
2007
Order Patricia Fry’s Book:
The Right Way to Write,
Publish, and Sell Your
Book
(as discussed at WRWA Fall Conference)
$19.95, 328 pages, Matilija
Press, 2006
www.matilijapress.com/rightway.html
Jack Magestro: Changing the Paradigm of Publishing by Claudia Anderson
A feisty and articulate speaker, Jack
Magestro tackled the topic of publishing.
He explained that there are two ends to
publishing: self-publishing—or vanity
publishing—on one end, and traditional
publishing in the other. Vanity publishing
(Print on Demand and other forms of
self-publishing) entails the most risk for
the author, as the editing, design, distribution,
and publicity fall largely in the
author’s lap. The rewards for selfpublishing
are lower publishing costs, higher percentage of
sales returned to the author, and the ability to promote yourself
the way you want.
On the other end of the scale, traditional publishers take all
the risk—finding editors, typesetters, graphic designers, and
others who do the legwork to promote your book. Their
amount of involvement is the reason why it is hard to get a
publisher to take a risk on a new author.
To make publishing our writing easier, Jack suggested we
find a way to manage the risk, finding a middle ground between
doing everything ourselves and waiting for someone
else to do all the footwork for us. That means doing some of
the work ourselves. Suggestions included finding someone to
edit your writing objectively, designing your own work
through programs such as InDesign or Microsoft Word, submitting
your work to objective readers and working their comments
into your manuscript, and even producing a full mockup
of your book, similar to a galley proof.
Jack suggested there are several programs on the Internet
that can help you create a professional-looking document.
Www.lulu.com has a free utility that helps distill (translate)
Microsoft Word documents into PDF files. Once you convert
your document, he recommended having the PDF file mailed
to you so that you can see how it looks. Then you can have
your manuscript printed and bound with a soft cover in up to
five copies for a very low cost just to demonstrate the final
product. According to Jack, the closer you are to producing a
manuscript in its final form, the more likely you are to get it
read by an agent or publisher, and the less risk there will be,
both for you and the publisher.
Final submissions and production depends on how much
we are willing to risk; how much we are willing to put out to
succeed. Self publishing can be a bonus to getting picked by a
larger publisher if you have a selling record. But preparing a
professional looking document will take you one step closer to
being considered by a larger publisher. #