Writers On The Move: Terry Whalin

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Why Distribution Is Critical

By Terry Whalin (@terrywhalin)

For many years I have been writing and studying publishing. There is a critical matter that almost no one talks about the importance: distribution. For over 40 years, I’ve been writing for publication, both magazines and books. During these years, I’ve written for over 50 different print magazines, and I’ve also spent years as a magazine editor.

My first book, a short children’s book, was published in 1992 and since then I’ve written more than 60 books with traditional publishers such as Zondervan Publishing House, Thomas Nelson Publishers, St. Martin’s Press, Alpha Books, and Tyndale House Publishers.

No one goes into a bookstore with the intention of finding a particular publisher, yet these name-brand publishers have a high standard that ensures the quality of their books. Traditional publishers know how to distribute their books through the best possible sales channels.

In addition to working with many different publishers as an author, for over five years, I worked on the inside of two publishers as a book acquisitions editor. I fielded submissions from individuals and literary agents and then championed the books internally at the publishing house, secured the publishing teams agreement about the value of a book, and negotiated the book contract. Because I’ve worked in almost every aspect of publishing, I have a unique perspective to write about the realities of the publishing business. Now for the last 13 years I’ve been acquiring books for a New York publisher, Morgan James Publishing, one of the top independent publishers and in business over 20 years.

Whether I am participating in an online group or at a conference I meet writers who have grown impatient with the publishing world and have decided to self-publish their work.

If you have a book of poetry or short stories you would like to distribute to your family or friends, self-publishing is a good route. However, most writers don’t think about the critical element of distribution when they publish their book. When these writers self-publish their book, they take on the complete distribution, sales, and marketing for their product. It never crosses the uninitiated’s minds how to sell the book. They assume that their books will be sold through the local bookstore, which is difficult to achieve. Self-publishing is a viable alternative, however, to authors who speak and can sell their books in the back of the room. You will need these types of outlets to sell books if you choose to self-publish.

Several years ago, a pastor decided to self-publish a book of his sermons. Excited to have a printed book, he announced to an online group that he planned to spend considerable amount of time the next few months contacting nearby bookstores and taking orders for his book.

What this pastor did not understand is the typical bookstore carries about 10,000 to 15,000 titles. It is not surprising that you don’t find your particular book in the store. This writer was operating under the false assumption that bookstores would carry his self-published book. In fact, bookstores resist any self-published book and rarely stock them in their bookstore. The reason is that these books can’t easily be ordered through the same system as traditional books and, in general, they don’t sell. Because these books fall out of the normal procedures, they are often not returnable to the publisher.

Unless you work inside publishing, you may have never heard that books can be returned to the publisher for the full price. Essentially they are sold to the bookstores on consignment and the stores have complex programs to monitor the sales of their titles. If the books don’t sell within a typical time period of 60 to 90 days, they are returned to the publisher for a full refund. This practice presents a huge problem for traditional publishers who consider it a good sale when a book has a 40 percent return or less. The self-published book falls outside of the normal channels for the retailer and with thousands of titles, he can’t make a special effort for a single book.

Many self-published authors are only selling their book on Amazon and their own website. At Morgan James Publishing where I work, Amazon is a large customer but only 24% of our overall business. If you’ve published with Amazon you are missing 76% of where MJP will distribute your book. We sell in the brick and mortar bookstores and on over 180 online platforms including Target. From my perspective, this critical detail is an important one to take into consideration as you look at your publishing options.

With self-publishing you have the total responsibility, and I’ve met authors who have spent thousands of dollars in the creation process of their book which has limited distribution. Before you publish, I encourage you to explore the various possibilities—including Morgan James. If I can help you, don’t hesitate to reach out. The exploration process costs nothing but time and may help you with some great potential heartache about distribution when you are down the road on the publishing journey.

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There is an often forgotten and critical element (distribution) when an author selects a path to publish their book. This prolific author and editor encourages awareness and wisdom with your choice. (ClickToTweet)

W. Terry Whalin, a writer and acquisitions editor lives in California. Get Terry’s newsletter and a 87-page FREE ebook packed with writing insights. Just follow this link to subscribe. A former magazine editor and former literary agent, Terry is an acquisitions editor at Morgan James Publishing. He has written more than 60 nonfiction books including Jumpstart Your Publishing Dreams and Billy Graham. Get Terry’s recent book, 10 Publishing Myths for only $10, free shipping and bonuses worth over $200. To help writers catch the attention of editors and agents, Terry wrote his bestselling Book Proposals That $ell, 21 Secrets To Speed Your Success. His website is located at: www.terrywhalin.com. Connect with Terry on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn .

Why Every Writer Needs to Publish

By Terry Whalin (@terrywhalin)

It’s no secret in the publishing community but an important truth: editors and literary agents are reading their submissions and looking for people who have been published (have experience) so they can publish them again. This age old practice seems unfair to new writers who have spent a lot of time and energy on a book submission. The best way to get attention is to create a publishing track record in the print magazine area.

You may believe print magazines are dying but that is not true. The 2026 Christian Writers Market Guide lists over 150 periodicals. The editors have told you what they want in their “writer’s Guidelines.” It’s fairly easy to reach 100,000 or even a million readers with a magazine article. If a book sells 5,000 copies during the lifetime of the book that is a good number.

On the surface, the path to publishing might not show you the diversity and range of possibilities for your writing. From speaking to hundreds of writers, I find many of them are focused on a particular area of writing such as writing a novel or a children’s book. They haven’t understood the value of learning good storytelling and communication skills that are relevant and useful for many different areas of writing.

Because these writers are focused on a small niche area of publishing, it’s almost like they are wearing blinders and can’t see any other possibilities. In this article, I want to challenge you to remove your blinders and see the wealth of possible application for your writing within the publishing community. While each area of publishing has its own specific requirements, good writing and storytelling skills can be used in multiple areas to strengthen your overall career.

For example, you may want to write a book and have done a little exploration but the only companies who have responded to your questions are the publishers who want you to pay them to get your book into print. These companies are called self-publishers. Instead, you are looking for a traditional publisher who will pay you an advance, then print and distribute your book. Yet because you have no background in book publishing, you don’t understand that 90 percent of nonfiction books are contracted from a book proposal and a few sample chapters, rather than a complete book manuscript. Without this critical detail, you have focused on writing a full-length book manuscript. Then you discover it may take you 12 months to find a literary agent who has to locate the right publisher. Then you learn it will take a longer-than-expected span of time for this publisher to release your book—normally 12 to 24 months after you turn in your manuscript. To a beginner, this realistic and practical publishing timeframe isn’t evident on the surface.

As a young magazine editor, I quickly learned I had to do less editorial work and could have greater confidence in assigning an article to a published author than an unpublished author. I read the ideas and considered giving the assignment to the unpublished author, but their chances dramatically improved with any type of publishing experience.

Magazine and newspaper writers learn valuable skills that help their success with a longer project such as a book. These writers learn to write for a specific audience or publication and to write within a specific word length. Also, through the writing process, they learn the value of a focused headline or title and relevant subheads scattered throughout the article, as well as hooking the reader with a tightly written opening. Then they continue to feed information to the reader as they structure their writing and conclude the article with a focused point called a “takeaway.” These writers also learn the importance of meeting a specific deadline (or a better way to stand out with the editor is to complete their assignment before the deadline). In addition, writers can learn the skill of rewriting and following an editor’s direction. Sometimes your article will be “almost there” but not quite. Can you follow the editor’s directions and complete the assignment to their satisfaction?

It’s much easier to learn about this process on a 1200-word magazine article than a 50,000-word book project. Finally, these writers built trusted relationships with their editors—newspaper and magazine. Many of the editors I’ve worked with have moved up to higher paying publications or have become book editors or editorial directors. The seeds of my relationship with them were planted through my magazine writing. As a new writer you need to understand the necessity of building these lasting publishing relationships.

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Writing books? Professionals in publishing are looking for experienced writers who have been published. This prolific author and editor gives the details here. (ClickToTweet)

You Can Reach Your Writing Goals

By Terry Whalin (@terrywhalin)

The word “instant” characterizes our world. Addicted to their email, many people have switched to a communication device which is much more than a cell phone but includes email, so they are in constant touch with their work. These writers are committed to answering every single email that comes into their mailbox.

I belong to several online groups and in one group, one writer answers every single question (whether she knows anything about it or not) and sends her response out to more than 700 writers. To me, it has become an annoyance and when I see her name in my box, I reach for the delete key and don’t even bother to open it. Other writers worry if I don’t respond to their emails within 24 hours.

How much time do you have during a single day to move toward accomplishing your publishing dreams? Are you planning and using your time wisely so you can move step-by-step toward the fulfillment of those dreams? There is an old saying in business: “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” Or another version says, “If you fail to plan, you will be sure to hit it.”

Consider These Time Wasters

Whether you have several hours a day or a full day to accomplish your writing goals, it is easy to fill those hours with “good things” that do not help you move toward the fulfillment of those goals. Let’s examine some of the time wasters that can consume our time to write:

1. Email. It is easy to join various online groups and fill your email box with the communication from these groups. Without careful monitoring of your time, you can easily spend your day opening, reading, and answering these emails.

2. Regular mail. Do you receive a high volume of mail from various institutions? What about magazines, newsletters, and other publications?

3. Telephone calls. How much time do you spend on the phone chatting with friends and consuming the day with idle conversation.

4. Following the news. Until a few years ago, the release of world or national news came in cycles. Now we get a steady stream over our phone or computer or other media device. In the middle of such noise, where do you find time to dream about publishing and succeed in those efforts?

5. Television. According to USA Today, the average person watches more than four hours of television each day. If you fall into this category, it is little wonder you are not accomplishing your publishing dreams. What are you willing to give up in order to reach your goals?

6. Family interruptions. If you have small children at home or a pet or an elderly parent, this could be a potential obstacle to your writing.

7. Volunteer obligations.

8. Writing opportunities. You may be surprised that I would include this aspect in the time waster category. When you begin to have your writing published, however, there are many “opportunities” for you, especially people who want you to write something without payment. Do these opportunities fall into helping you meet your long-term goals?

Have a Consistent Short-Term Goal

I’ve interviewed more than 150 best-selling authors about the elements of their success. They consistently state their commitment to a single goal and repeatedly focusing on this goal.

Several years ago, I had breakfast with Bill Myers, whose books and videos have sold more than eight million copies. I knew Bill was prolific, so I asked for the secret of how he has accomplished the volume of writing year after year.

Bill held up his hand with his fingers spread apart and said, “Five.”

I didn’t understand so I asked, “Five what?”

“Five pages every day,” he said. Even if Bill is attending a convention or a conference, he is committed to this goal of writing five pages a day—25 pages a week. “If I have time, I like to rewrite each page four times because I’m still learning my craft.” This constant commitment to a short-term goal and meeting this goal day after day is one of the keys to accomplishing your writing goals.

Another person with a similar goal is novelist Bodie Thoene who has more than 45 million novels in print and has won eight Gold Medallion Awards for her writing. Many people don’t realize Bodie is severely dyslexic and does no pleasure reading, yet she writes 650 page-turning novels. Like Bill Myers, Bodie also maintains a consistent goal of five pages a day. She sits at her computer hitting the keys with two fingers and may work until 10 p.m. to reach her goal—at least five finished pages. “No little elves come out of my closet to write 650 manuscript pages,” Bodie said. “Some mornings I don’t feel like writing, but I do it out of obedience to God. The opening scenes are always the hardest and can take as long as 10 or 20 pages,” Bodie explains. With the opening pages behind her, the writing accelerates until she often completes 20 or more pages a day. Then her husband Brock reads the pages aloud to Bodie and they discuss any rough spots. “If I have to rewrite, I do it on the spot and never look at the pages again,” she said.

Each of these writers accomplishes their short-term writing goal and then uses this benchmark to build and reach a larger long-term goal. It is a strategy you can also use to reach your publishing goals.

Tweetable:

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Opportunity Is Everywhere

By Terry Whalin (@terrywhalin)

David Smith loved language and ignited an excitement in his English teaching at Peru High School in Peru, Indiana during the late 1960s. Of modest height with receding sandy hair and a bug-eyed appearance, Mr. Smith loved his students and reached out to challenge them. As the faculty supervisor for the school newspaper, Mr. Smith was always on the lookout for new talent to add to the staff. Thus, he was excited when a gangly sophomore who had recently transferred from Towson, Maryland, caught Mr. Smith’s attention with one of his written assignments.

One day after class, Mr. Smith pulled that teenager aside and said, “Terry, I think you would make a great addition to our newspaper writing staff. I’d like to invite you to our next staff meeting on Wednesday after school. Can you come?” At that point in the school year, I had made few friends, so I was flattered with his invitation. Another classmate, Jeff Reece, and I became the two sportswriters on the staff. Throughout the school year, I attended various sports events, collected sports data, and started interviewing people. Those first days on the staff newspaper introduced me to the writing world and the thrill of writing something for other people to read in print. Mr. Smith’s simple invitation sent my life on a different career path and awakened my dreams of publishing. My writing became more than a dream; now it was rooted in practical experience and repeated opportunities to practice my craft.

The events in your experience will be distinct from mine yet are equally important. There are vast opportunities in the publishing world for anyone willing to follow the steps to speed up their success. Like the image with this article, there are many diferent doors and you have to select one, then another. Welcome to an imperfect process. I’m excited about how the events will come together for your journey

Because these writers are focused on a small niche area of publishing, it’s almost like they are wearing blinders and can’t see any other possibilities. In this section, I want to challenge you to remove your blinders and see the wealth of possible application for your writing within the publishing community. While each area of publishing has its own specific requirements, good writing and storytelling skills can be used in multiple areas to strengthen your overall career.

Also, writers don’t understand they can gain valuable training, experience, and exposure through writing magazine articles. From idea to assignment to publication with a printed magazine can be a much shorter timeframe for four to six months than books. Every editor is actively looking for writers who can communicate—whether they are a newsletter editor, an online editor, a magazine editor, a book editor or anyone else who has the title “editor.” As a young magazine editor, I quickly learned I had to do less editorial work and could have greater confidence in assigning an article to a published author than an unpublished author. I read the ideas and considered giving the assignment to the unpublished author but their chances dramatically improved with any type of publishing experience.

Magazine and newspaper writers learn valuable skills that help their success with a longer project such as a book. These writers learn to write for a specific audience or publication and to write within a specific word length. Also through the writing process, they learn the value of a focused headline or title and relevant subheads scattered throughout the article, as well as hooking the reader with a tightly written opening. Then they continue to feed information to the reader as they structure their writing, and conclude the article with a focused point called a “takeaway.” These writers also learn the importance of meeting a specific deadline (or a better way to stand out with the editor is to complete their assignment before the deadline).

In addition, writers can learn the skill of rewriting and following an editor’s direction. Sometimes your article will be “almost there” but not quite. Can you follow the editor’s directions and complete the assignment to their satisfaction? It’s much easier to learn about this process on a 1200-word magazine article than a 50,000-word book project.

Finally, these writers built trusted relationships with their editors—newspaper and magazine. Many of the editors I’ve worked with have moved up to higher paying publications or have become book editors or editorial directors. The seeds of my relationship with them were planted through my magazine writing. As a new writer you need to understand the necessity of building these lasting relationships.

Your journey to publication will be completely different from my experience. It will at times startle and surprise you. The writing business is a strange mixture of creative combined with practical “how-to” skills. These pages are signposts, and every step may not be critical for you. For example, you may not care about writing children’s books or short stories, yet I would encourage you to read and explore this type of writing. If you try it and it fits your writing style, it may be the key to expanding your writing world and I’d hate you to miss it.

Tweetable:

As writers, our opportunities are everywhere. In this article, this prolific author and editor details some of the skills you need to seize these opportunities for your writing life. (ClickToTweet)

Why Self-Publishing Books Aren't in Bookstores

By Terry Whalin (@terrywhalin)

I’m involved in a couple of online writing groups and no matter how many times you say it, there seems to be a broad misconception about self-published books. These books simply don’t appear inside the brick-and-mortar bookstores.

Please don’t misunderstand me. These self-published books have their place in the market—particularly if you have a means to sell the books to individuals or companies. For example, if you speak often and would like to have a book to sell in the back of the room, you can easily get a self-published book to use in these situations. Just don’t expect to sell your book to bookstores.

Recently a well-meaning author celebrated his first printed book, which was self-published. He was holding it in his hand—always exciting. He was plotting a strategy to get his book in as many bookstores as possible and asking for help from other authors in the group. If you are going down this path, it shows a clear disconnect with the realities of the market.

Here’s a bit of what I told him. “Congratulations on your book release and I celebrate with you—but after more than thirty years in this business and over 60 books in print—and working as an acquisitions editor over the last thirteen years—I am going to have to give you a bit of a reality check. You will struggle and find it almost impossible for brick-and-mortar bookstores to stock your self-published book. It’s one of those messages that the self-publishing places don’t tell you (they want to get your cash and get your book in their system). Yes, your book is listed on Amazon.com (easy for anyone to do) but getting it into the bookstores is a completely different story.

I’ve been telling writers for years about the ease of getting a book printed—now getting it into the bookstores and ultimately into the hands of consumers, that’s another story.

“Retailers dislike self-published books. Every retailer that I’ve talked with about this issue (and I’ve invested the time to talk with them) has countless stories about the difficulties of these books. They have re-stocking problems and problems with the quality of the products (typos, editing, etc.).

“Here’s the real test for you: go to your local bookstores and ask them if they are carrying any self-published title on their shelves. Go to the big box stores like Barnes & Noble or Books A Million as well as your mom and pop smaller independent bookstores. The answer will surprise you. I will be surprised if you find a single self-published among any of the thousands of books.”

We can’t say it often enough—the bookstore market is a closed system—that deals with distributors and large and small publishers. It’s why we work hard to get our books into the traditional publishing marketplace. It’s why you go through the effort and hard work to create an excellent book proposal or book manuscript or novel, then sell that idea to a publisher. Then your book is available in any bookstore—and can have the possibility of sitting on those bookshelves. It’s a free country and you can feel free to expend the effort and energy to market to bookstores and try and place your book. From my experience and others, it will be frustrating and likely not sell many books. I believe your marketing efforts are better served in other markets (outside the bookstore).”

No matter what I write, several of you are going to take the leap into self-publishing. Here’s several action steps if you go this route:

1. Work with an experienced editor to create an excellent book.

2. Use a professional cover designer and people to format and produce a book where every detail looks like something from one of the big five traditional publishers. This means including elements like endorsements and words on the spine of the book (including a publishing logo on the bottom of that spine). Many self-published books are missing key elements which become striking signals they are self-published such as leaving off the barcode or doing this code improperly (without the price).

3. Keep working consistently to grow your audience. As I’ve mentioned in the past, work daily on increasing your platform and reaching your audience. You need to try new avenues to market and sell your book. For example, in recent months, I have been using PodMatch which is connected to over 90,000 podcasts. I’ve booked or been on over 60 podcasts. I continue to pitch podcast hosts and appear on their shows.

4. Continue to learn all you can about publishing. Get a free copy of my Book Proposals That Sell and study the publishing insights in this book.

5. Never give up on your book. As the author, you have the greatest interest and passion for your book. This statement is true no matter whether you are traditionally published or self-published. Always be looking for new opportunities to write or speak about your book.

This last point is something I try and model with my own books. For example, I continue to promote and use the radio interviews I recorded for my Billy Graham biography which has been in print for over ten years. Each author needs to be actively telling new readers about their books—whether they are carried in the bookstores or not.

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Avoid Publishing Pitfalls

By Terry Whalin (@terrywhalin)

It’s rare that I see this perspective but, in this article, I want to give you a reality check. From my decades in this business, I understand book publishing is filled with possible pitfalls and errors.

I witnessed another one recently. One of my bestselling author friends was about to release a new book. This new book was from a major well-known publisher. The book was designed well and edited and included endorsements and practical information. I’ve supported this author in the past, so I was on the list of people who got a pre-release copy of the book. This pre-release included a personal handwritten note from the author and information about the date of the book release.

It was a push for my schedule, but I managed to quickly write a review and be ready to post it on the launch date. Then I noticed the page on Amazon. It was not the typical pre-release page. Instead the book had already been released a couple of days before the launch date. The book had zero Amazon reviews on the page. How did this happen? Someone at the publishing house set up the wrong Amazon date for releasing the book (my guess).

This author has a launch team and other elements in place to promote her book. I was not surprised to learn this team was in place since she is an experienced author and knows the elements of launching a new book. It is important to have a launch team because there are over 4,500 new books being released every day. Other places say 11,000 new books every day. Whichever number you want to use, it’s a large amount of new books entering the marketplace. I regularly hear that most publishers are selling about 50% of their books through Amazon, that leaves another 50% for brick and mortar, other online retailers, and other places. Still 50% is a large number at Amazon for the book sales.

I’m writing these details about this cautionary tale which contains a number of lessons:

1. Details matter. The release date of your book should match up on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other places. As an author, you can check some of these details but depending on how you publish, they are usually handled internally inside the publishing house.

2. With the launch of a book, things can go wrong. When this happens to you, acknowledge it and keep moving forward.

3. Nothing is fatal in this process—unless you quit. Even when something goes wrong or doesn’t happen, you can still recover from it and sell books. The only way for you to be stopped is when you give up and quit. Almost anything can be overcome with action.

4. Marketing is an ongoing process for every book. Recently one of my books got a new review. I was interested in reading it. When I looked, it was a one-star review with hardly any information. If you only have five star reviews for your book and then someone gives you a one-star review, it validates all the other reviews for the book. In other words, there is nothing to do about the negative review but keep moving forward. In fact, if you get enough five star reviews, the one-star review will have little or no impact. I encourage you to do the same.

I hope this story helps and encourages you with your own marketing efforts for your book. It is not easy for anyone, even people with a lot of experience in this area. The key is to keep going and keep moving forward no matter what happens.

From the stories that I hear I understand authors are trying to find the magic bullet or the perfect place to tell people about their book. The reality is success and book sales are not based on a single event or single television appearance. Instead, success comes from continual and steady efforts from the author to promote their book. Your publisher may be able to get the books into the brick and mortar bookstores. It is the author who drives people into the bookstores to sell those books and move them into reader’s hands and not be returned to the publisher.

As the great hockey player Wayne Gretzky said, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” Opportunity is around us and you need to keep seizing it and going forward even with the pitfalls. The authors who continue are still writing and still touching lives. I want you to be among this distinct group.

Your publishing pitfalls will be different from mine or those possibilities that I detailed in this article. When they happen (and they will happen), it’s critical to not give up and keep going.

Tweetable:

According to this prolific author and editor, publishing has many pitfalls. This article gives a cautionary tale and a series of actions for every author. (ClickToTweet)

The Hidden Costs of Publishing

By Terry Whalin (@terrywhalin)

Because we have computers and can produce stories, everyone assumes writing is easy. From my experience, any skill (including writing) takes hours of practice to become excellent. For example, one of the most successful basketball players of all time is Kobe Bryant, the winner of five NBA championships and two Olympic Gold Medals. He accomplished this success through deliberate practice with a purpose. Bryant was on the 2012 Team USA. One of the trainers, Robert, talks about his first experience with Bryant, who started his conditioning work at 4:30 am. He shot baskets for several hours, then did conditioning work for the next hour, then made 800 jump shots between 7 am and 11 am. Bryant was a skilled professional yet took nothing for granted in his practice and work outs. His work showed because Bryant knew how to grind then grind some more. This type of effort in sports is generally lost in the writing world. There are hours of work and effort behind the scenes that no one sees but is necessary to achieve success.

There are many things in the world of publishing which simply add to the cost and effort to happen but are never documented or talked about. In many ways, these elements become some of the hidden cost of publishing. In some ways publishing is like an iceberg. We can see the top on the water but don’t realize all that is below the surface. In this article I wanted to tell you about a couple of these hidden costs and then give you some tools and basic principles for your own writing life.

People look at my large X/Twitter following (over 175,000) and would like to have that ability to influence and touch others. Yet are you willing to do the work to build that following? I’ve written in my blog about the five actions I take every day. I use a program called Hootsuite (other people use Buffer) to schedule 12 to 15 posts every day. I’ve developed a pattern or system which I use repeatedly to handle these posts—and it only takes about 30 minutes a day to handle.

Many people have started on X/Twitter but have given up the consistent posting. It’s the same with my blog on the Writing Life. I’ve been writing my blog articles each week since 2004. It has totaled over 1,700 articles. Several years ago, I found an article which estimated there are over 600 million blogs and named the top 27 content producers. My name and my blog were one of those listed. You can get my new articles on your email with this form. The consistent effort pays off.

Over the years, I’ve created a number of online information products like Blogging for Bucks (http://bucksforblog.com/ ) or my Write a Book Proposal course (http://bit.ly/wbkpro). I’ve automated many of these products through autoresponders and other tools. Each of these products include my 100% Love it Or Leave It Guarantee. If the buyer isn’t satisfied in a period of time, they can send an email and ask for a refund. This guarantee is a key part of selling products online and it is rare that someone will ask for a refund. One email arrived at a time when I was challenged with other things—yet I took the time to make the refund. Carrying through with your promises is a key part of having an online business and successfully selling products online. It doesn’t make it simple or easy.

Here’s some basic principles for every writer to get beyond the hidden costs of publishing:

* Understand the costs and keep going in spite of them

*Automate when you can. Investing in tools like Hootsuite allows me to continually grow my presence and saves time. I’ve recently added PodMatch and in six months I have booked or recorded over 50 podcasts.

*Keep growing in your craft of writing, attending conferences, taking online courses and reading books. I’ve got shelves of how-to books I’ve read over the years and continue to read them.

*Timing is critical and often out of your control. Numerous times I’ve had authors who have looked for an agent for years (not found it) then return to Morgan James and ask if they can sign our book contract. A recent author signed, who I have been speaking with off and on for three years about her book.

*Take the long view of success yet keep doing the little things and working to promote your writing.

Over and over, I speak with authors who continue promoting yet have stopped telling their publisher about their promotion (big mistake in my view). The publisher is going to assume they are not promoting and have stopped talking about the author with their sales team and the sales team to the bookstores since it is tied together. Yet if the author continues to promote and tells the publisher, then the communication and promotion to the bookstores can continue. Consistent communication matters. No little elves come out and write this material for us. Active authors are the ones to tell the stories and complete the work.

What proactive steps can you take to learn a new skill or try some new way to sell books? It doesn’t matter if your book is brand new or has been in print for a while. Keep the experimentation going until you hit the elements which work for your book.

Tweetable:

Publishing has a series of hidden costs. In this article, prolific author and editor Terry Whalin details some and provides basic principles and resources to move beyond them. (ClickToTweet)

Authors Have a "Magical" Life

By Terry Whalin (@terrywhalin)

Whether you have never published a book or published many books, you may have this concept that authors have a magical life. They get to travel, attend amazing events and talk with well-known people about their book. Bestselling authors must have a wonderful life because they have sold so many books. This concept that the writing life is glamorous is another publishing myth. I wrote the words “magical life” with quotation marks to indicate “tongue-in-cheek” or exaggeration.

In my 20+ years in publishing, there are remarkable moments. I want to begin this artice with a couple of these moments. Early in my writing career, I attended the Mount Hermon Christian Writers Conference. Located in the California redwoods, the event is known for their premier faculty and facility. At the end of this event, they give out some writer awards. During one of these early conferences, to my complete surprise, I was given an award for the Writer of the Year. The moment was outstanding to me because it is the only writer award I’ve ever received.

Fast forward years later, I was writing a book with the leading African American in Promise Keepers, Bishop Philip Porter. At the time, Promise Keepers was the fastest-growing men’s movement in America. I worked with a New York literary agent, and we crafted a book proposal that launched a bidding war between two large publishers. It was an exciting moment in my publishing life to sign a book contract with a six-figure advance. I worked hard on the writing for this book and it was published. Yet the truth is the book was unsuccessful and did not sell for several reasons. The publisher never showed the cover to Bishop Porter before it was published. Bishop Porter’s picture filled the cover of this book, but he did not like it. He disliked it to the point of not promoting the book and it did not sell. The publisher took this book out of print after six months. How is that for a glamorous writing life? Most of those out-of-print books were destroyed—the truth of what happens to many of these books.

Met Former President Jimmy Carter

“We can’t say anything about it,” my literary attorney and writer friend Sallie Randolph began. “But President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn are going to be at our member luncheon tomorrow.”

I was in New York City for the annual conference of the American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA), the leading nonfiction writers’ group in the nation and originally known as the Society of Magazine Writers. Each year, the organization holds a large public conference on a Saturday in a hotel in New York City. Before this public conference, the ASJA has a much smaller member day meeting in the same location. One of our members had written a book with Rosalynn Carter and the authors were going to be given an award from the Society. The award winners were invited to attend the member luncheon and the Carters had accepted the invitation. There would be about 200 members and special guests at this luncheon.

While Sallie and I were not sitting at the table of honor with the former president and his wife, we figured out where the secret service would be sitting and were able to sit at that table. My business book, Lessons from the Pit, A Successful Veteran of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Shows Executives How to Thrive in a Competitive Environment which I wrote for Joe Leininger, had just been released and I had a copy in my briefcase. During the meal, I asked the secret service agent when I could give President Carter a copy of my book. He said, “Do it right now because we’re going to eat, speak, and leave.”

With his permission, I walked over to the former president, introduced myself, and gave him a copy of my book which was published from B & H Publishing Group (formerly Broadman & Holman). I knew Broadman had been one of Jimmy Carter’s publishers and he would be familiar with the company. He was interested in the topic of my book and mentioned his son, Chip, had traded at the Chicago Mercantile.

As the meal concluded, the program began, the Carters spoke to the audience, and then quietly slipped out of the room—the president carrying one book out of that meeting—mine. It was a great experience to have met a former President and spent a few minutes with him.

I’ve interviewed more than 150 bestselling authors in many different settings. I’ve been inside the professional baseball locker of the San Diego Padres or been one of the few journalists who has interviewed bestselling author and pastor Chuck Swindoll. During our lunch, Chuck told me, “There are no heroes in the Body of Christ. We are all like a bunch of guys in the back of a pick-up trying to get our stuff together.” The experience of meeting various bestselling authors and hearing their stories has been enriching to my life but is not glamorous.

The real story is that writing books is hard work and selling books is even harder. From my experience there is often little glamour attached to such work. I’ve never met a book author who didn’t want to sell more copies of their work. It doesn’t matter if they are published through one of the largest publishers or Podunk Press (I don’t believe there is such a small publisher named Podunk Press but maybe, since there are many of them).

If you bring up the topic of selling more books, almost every author has a story about something they tried yet failed to work. Often these stories are filled with the author blaming someone else for the lack of sales. They blame:

• their publisher

• their publicist

• their agent

• their editor

• the wrong title

• the wrong cover

• the missing endorsements

• _____ you name it

It’s rare that I hear the author blame the real culprit: themselves. Yes, it’s hard to admit but it is the first step toward selling more books and understanding who bears the true responsibility for selling books—the author.

Many authors long to have their book appear on the bestseller list. For some authors they equate getting on the bestseller list as their benchmark of success for their book. Over ten years ago, I read Michael Korda’s Making the List, a Cultural History of the American Bestseller 1900–1999. Korda at the time was the Editor-in-Chief at Simon and Schuster, one of the largest publishers. If you haven’t read this book, I highly recommend it.

In the introduction, Korda writes, “The bestseller list is therefore neither as predictable nor as dominating as its critics make it out to be. Plenty of strange books get onto the list and stay there for a long time…at least half of the books on any given list are there to the immense surprise and puzzlement of their publishers. That’s why publishers find it so hard to repeat their success—half the time they can’t figure out how it happened in the first place.” (Page xv) I love his honesty. There is no magic bullet and it is different for every book. The author is key.

Some books start slowly and steadily sell then catapult in sales. Other books begin strongly then sales drop to nothing. There is no consistent pattern.

My encouragement is for you to keep experimenting with different methods to sell your book. Each author has a different experience. Recently I spoke with an author who had sold 8,000 to 10,000 copies of his self-published books. He had held over 300 book signings for his book. For many authors book signings have yielded almost nothing but not for this author. He regularly speaks at schools and service clubs and even AARP meetings.

Every author needs to keep experimenting until you try something that works for you and your book, then continue on that path.

Tweetable:

Authors have a “magical life.” In this article, prolific author and editor @terrywhalin uses “magical” as an exaggeration then gives the reality of the author’s journey. (ClickToTweet)

Jumpstart Your Magazine Writing

By Terry Whalin (@terrywhalin)

How can you write and submit exactly what the magazine editor is looking for? You get some insights from reading the submission guidelines but I’m talking about something much more specific and a simple list of topics and ideas for this publication. Seasoned magazine writers know about this tool and after reading this article, you will know about it too: a theme list. Publication editors will brainstorm this list of story ideas, post it on their website and also send it to their regular contributors. Using a theme list is a sure way to grab the reading attention of the editor.

Recently I attended a Christian writers’ conference. It’s one of the key places where you can build relationships with editors and learn how to meet the needs of editors. If you write what an editor needs, then you are much more likely to get published than randomly writing something and sending it into the publication. If a writers’ conference is not in your plans, make plans to get to one soon. As editors, we publish people that we know, like and trust and you can build these relationships at a conference.

During an editor’s panel at this conference, I heard an editor’s cry for help. I’m not going to give the specific magazine but use this incident as a way to help you be more successful and on target with your magazine submissions. This magazine editor leads a 200,000 circulation Christian publication which publishes a theme list with their guidelines. With each monthly magazine, they publish articles outside of their theme but in particular they need articles tied to their theme. In front of the entire conference, this editor mentioned several of his projected themes did not have a single article ready for publication.

As I listened to this editor’s cry for help, I recalled my work at Decision, the publication of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. As associate editor, I was looking for theme related articles. For example, I needed articles about love for a February magazine (Valentine’s Day). It was not easy to get these articles even for a large circulation magazine like Decision whose circulation at that time was 1.8 million. To gather these needed theme-related articles, I would call or email some of my author friends and ask them for submissions.

If you want to be published in magazines, in general there are two options. You can write whatever you want (inspiration) and then try to find a publication for it. Or you can look at the themes an editor has created for their magazine (their needs) and write an article to meet those needs. The second approach of writing for a particular theme is more likely to be published from my experience.

The Christian Writers Market Guide includes over 150 magazine listings. Many of these listings include the location of their guidelines and theme list. Another way to find these publications is to use Google with the search words “Christian editorial theme lists.” I instantly found several pages of Christian publications with their theme lists.

As you meet needs of the editor (use their theme list) you will be published in magazines and become a dependable resource for your editor. Don’t overlook this important resource for your magazine articles. Writers do much more than publish books. If you write for magazines and have never published a book, call yourself a writer.

Tweetable:

Jumpstart your magazine writing and use a publication theme list. This prolific writer and editor gives the details here. (ClickToTweet)

W. Terry Whalin, a writer and acquisitions editor lives in California. A former magazine editor and former literary agent, Terry is an acquisitions editor at Morgan James Publishing. He has written more than 60 nonfiction books including Jumpstart Your Publishing Dreams and Billy Graham. Get Terry’s recent book, 10 Publishing Myths for only $10, free shipping and bonuses worth over $200. To help writers catch the attention of editors and agents, Terry wrote his bestselling Book Proposals That $ell, 21 Secrets To Speed Your Success. Check out his free Ebook, Platform Building Ideas for Every Author. His website is located at: www.terrywhalin.com. Connect with Terry on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.