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)

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.

Don't Avoid This Writer Responsibility

 

By Terry Whalin @terrywhalin

It was a life-changing moment and a revelation to my writing life. In 2007, I was a literary agent with, the Whalin Literary Agency, a small Arizona-based agency. Mark Victor Hansen, co-author for Chicken Soup for the Soul, invited me to Mega-Book Marketing University in Los Angeles. About 400 people attended this event with well-known speakers over several days. At that point in my writing life, I had written over 50 books for traditional publishers. Two of my proposals received six-figure advances and publishers made beautiful books and got them into bookstores. Yet my books were not selling and I had the negative royalty statements from my publishers to prove it. 

Throughout the conference, I listened carefully and took notes. One of the speakers was Jack Canfield who had just published The Success Principles. For years he has studied what it takes to be successful and I certainly wanted to be successful as an author. The first of his 64 principles is: “Take 100% Responsibility for Your Life.”

I didn’t want to take 100% responsibility.  I wanted to write the books and then have my publisher sell the books. Wasn’t marketing their responsibility? Didn’t they sell the books into the bookstore? I was writing excellent books and delivering them on deadline and working through each editorial process. But I was doing very little to market the books. I had a single website with my name but no email list, no social media, no blog or other type of writer’s platform. At Mega-Book Marketing University, I learned publishers make books and distribute them to bookstores. Here’s what I was missing and I learned: the author drives readers into the bookstore (brick and mortar or online) to buy those books. Ultimately, the author sells the books to the readers.

Like many writers that I meet, my expectations were unrealistic and I was not taking my responsibility as a writer. I made a decision to change. I started to blog and today my blog has over 1500 searchable entries in it. I began an email list (which continues to be a unique way to reach my readers).  Also I’m active on social media with over 190,000 Twitter followers and over 19,400 LinkedIn connections. For years, I post on these platforms 12-15 times a day.

If I’m honest, I don’t want 100% responsibility for my own success as a writer. Yet from my decades in publishing, I’ve watched many things go wrong in the publishing process. Good books don’t get marketed and go out of print. Editors change while you are working with a publisher. Those situations are just two of a myriad of things which can push your book off the rails in the wrong direction. I can’t control my publisher, my editor, my agent, my marketing person or ____. But I can control myself and my own efforts.

My acceptance of this responsibility means I have to continually grow and learn as a writer. It means I often take courses or read books and I’m always looking for new ways to build my audience and reach more people.  Thankfully as writers we are not alone. Others have shown us how they have achieved success. This path may work for me or it may not. There is no success formula used for every book to make it sell into the hands of readers. Instead there are basic principles others are using to build their audience and find readers. I have one certainty: it will not fly if you don’t try. I continue to take action—and encourage you to do the same. It’s the writer’s journey.

Tweetable: 

Are you looking for someone else to sell your books? This prolific writer andeditor has taken an unusual responsibility. Learn the details here. (ClickToTweet)

________________________________________

W. Terry Whalin, a writer and acquisitions editor lives in Colorado. 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 one of Terry’s recent books, 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 ToSpeed Your Success (The Revised Edition). 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.