Navigating Publishers

I’m in the process of trying to find a publisher. Either to help me self-publish or go the traditional route and find a publisher that will take my offering and turn it into a best seller. Well, isn’t that everyone’s goal?

This has been an exhausting process. What do I do? Where do I go? When your funds to pay for services the indi-publishers want, what do you do?  Like most people who self-publish, you do the best you can and publish what you have then promote it to everyone you know and they know.

If you are in this situation, I just came across this article I think is worth reading, print it out and read it again.

https://www.janefriedman.com/evaluate-small-publisher/ 

I hope this helps any of you joining me and the millions of other writers looking to get their work noticed in this ocean of books.

 

Re: Graham Moore, et al

We all have favorite authors. I have many authors who have written books that inspired me or held me captive, turning pages into the early morning hours.

 
What is it that these authors have? Where does one achieve that ability? Is it inherited? Only those who are born with the prerequisite DNA can pen(or type)words in such a way?

 
I have no idea. Whatever IT is, I want it. I want the same ability to craft a story, not just the plot, but to craft the words in such a way that the characters come to life and tell their story to a captive audience.

 
What I am about to tell you may seem like following Alice down the rabbit hole. Most of us have these connections in our lives. We may not think about them until one day we look back and see we have made choices leading us down paths where we intersect with people or movies, in my case, and arrive at an AHA moment.

 
Graham Moore. You may not know him, I didn’t. I did, however, know his work. The Imitation Game. I saw the movie and was inspired.

I might not have been so inspired had I not seen a BBC series called Bletchley Circle. The series was based on women who had brilliant minds and worked “under cover” for British Intelligence. This series lasted two seasons. The second season not near as good as the first.

 
As the Imitation Game story unfolded and the setting was Bletchley I immediately became invested in the story. The story is an amazing account of the workings behind WWII and breaking the German code. My mind whirled as the characters played their parts.

 
A week or so ago, while looking for audio books for purchase, I came across the title: The Last Days of Night by Graham Moore. The synopsis mildly intrigued me because of the mention of Nikola Tesla. I’ve been intrigued by this man since the movie The Prestige where supposedly, the main character sought out Nikola Tesla in his Colorado laboratory. I’d watched a couple of documentaries on the brilliant man to further satisfy my interest.

 
Back to Graham’s book. I used one of my credits to buy the audio version. It began slow with the set up of characters. Paul, the main character is a young lawyer and a wordsmith. The story is crafted in such a way, although I know Westinghouse won the war so to speak by using Tesla’s AC, this fictionalized version has me entranced.

 
I went to Graham Moore’s website and perused his three books and what he wrote about them. I clicked on his BLOG which hadn’t had a recent post in a few years. I didn’t feel so bad at my missing months. What further captivated me was the section marked OTHER. Here were a list of things he’d written on a variety of writing subjects.

 
I’m going to share this one, which hooked me into reading other postings. I hope as writers who want to learn more about writing engaging characters and plots, follow the link and read all of his post.

https://medium.com/@MrGrahamMoore/how-to-write-about-characters-who-are-smarter-than-you-c7c956944847

 

It is finished

The manuscript for Silent River is finally done. At least this part of it is done. I’ve been posting chapters on a writing site and receiving great advice and edit suggestions over the past 18 weeks.

I purchased Grammerly (finally) and for two evenings put my manuscript through their program. Rewriting and editing. Now its ready for beta readers.

I has a professional reader recommended to me and a number of non professionals who are just great readers. This gives me a diverse response to this fiction based-on-fact crime novel.

In the old days, great writers went unfounded because the choice to publish was l)In the hands of agents or in an overflowing slush pile. 2) Intimidated writers who might not get the query letter written in the most perfect manner gave up after a few rejections. The problem is you never knew if it was the query letter, the synopsis or it landed on a flunkey’s desk and not the real decision maker.

Look how many times it took JK Rowling to get noticed. She actually was spotted by an agent who happened to see a bit of her writing and pushed until a publisher listened to her. Wouldn’t that be great to find someone willing to go out on a limb for you?

The publishing world is more about how dedicated are you as a writer to put out a good book and work to get it noticed than sending 1-75 query letters hoping someone finds yours and likes the theme or premise.

I may sound a bit negative, but when I see some of the books on the shelves and read some of the books listed on Amazon, I wonder who the agents or how much the publisher was paid to print the book. Then there are books I find that are self published and are great. They may not be perfect but have a good enough story, you can overlook a few flaws.

I pose this question. When choosing a book to read, how much goes into the thought of buying it?
* How much depends on what you read on the back cover or inside flap?
* How much depends on the cover design itself?
* How much depends on what others have said about the book? Would you read it if the synop didn’t intrigue you, but was recommended?
* How much of your choice to buy the book depends on the format? Paperback, hardbound, e-reader or audio? What are your first choices?

I hope you take some time and respond to my questions.
I’m trying to decide whether to solely self publish or pay to self publish.