Edit and Organize BEFORE Submitting Your Manuscript

I have written about this in a variety of ways, but think it is worthwhile to mention again--especially since I received several emails over the past two weeks seeking my assistance in this regard.

It is very difficult to get published in the traditional fashion these days, and it is not getting any easier. Did you know that the vast majority of manuscripts are turned down without being read or if they are examined, they receive  no more than a casual 60-second glance before being tossed aside?

Why?

Because a high percentage of manuscripts are not properly organized and edited BEFORE they land in the hands of agents or acquisition editors who are desperately looking for quality work.

If you have a manuscript on a topic agents and publishers are seeking, you're halfway home. It is at that point when authors make the mistake of submitting what they believe is a solid manuscript for review. Guess what? Acquisition editors and agents see "solid" manuscripts day in and day out. (I sure do and we are a small independent company.)

Agents and editors are not seeking "solid" manuscripts. They are looking for manuscripts that GRAB them and demand that they keep reading. I would guess 95% of the manuscripts floating around out there don't grab anyone.

As a result, decent manuscripts are often--to an editor's eye--poorly organized and/or have too many grammatical issues to encourage someone with little time to continue reading them. They are not crafted to immediately catch someone's attention, first with a cover letter, and then with the main body of work submitted. Make that mistake once, and forget landing a publishing contract with that company.

I routinely consult and provide editing services for authors, agents, publishers, ghost writers, etc. worldwide. Many "good" manuscripts are sent to us for "help," but often only after they have been seen and rejected over and over again. Why burn bridges and then seek help?

Seek help before you submit your work, polish it up, and increase your odds of at least being read. You can't get published unless someone is willing to read your work.

Click here if you need to email me.

--tps

Reader Feedback on e-Book Pricing

A reader to a different blog commented thusly:

Kelly said (in part): I think you may be missing the biggest price point issue for consumers — the price of the mass market paperback. Publishers need to give readers a reason to pay more for an e-book.

Well worth reading the reply. Click here to do so.

--tps

A Letter from Macmillian re: Amazon

To: Macmillan Authors and Illustrators

cc: Literary Agents
From: John Sargent

I am sorry I have been silent since Saturday. We have been in constant discussions with Amazon since then. Things have moved far enough that hopefully this is the last time I will be writing to you on this subject.

Over the last few years we have been deeply concerned about the pricing of electronic books. That pricing, combined with the traditional business model we were using, was creating a market that we believe was fundamentally unbalanced. In the last three weeks, from a standing start we have moved to a new business model. We will make less money on the sale of e books, but we will have a stable and rational market. To repeat myself from last Sunday's letter, we will now have a business model that will ensure our intellectual property will be available digitally through many channels, at a price that is both fair to the consumer and that allows those who create and publish it to be fairly compensated.

We have also started discussions with all our other partners in the digital book world. While there is still lots of work to be done, they have all agreed to move to the agency model.

And now on to royalties. Three or four weeks ago, we began discussions with the Author's Guild on their concerns about our new royalty terms. We indicated then that we would be flexible and that we were prepared to move to a higher rate for digital books. In ongoing discussions with our major agents at the beginning of this week, we began informing them of our new terms. The change to an agency model will bring about yet another round of discussion on royalties, and we look forward to solving this next step in the puzzle with you.

A word about Amazon. This has been a very difficult time. Many of you are wondering what has taken so long for Amazon and Macmillan to reach a conclusion. I want to assure you that Amazon has been working very, very hard and always in good faith to find a way forward with us. Though we do not always agree, I remain full of admiration and respect for them. Both of us look forward to being back in business as usual.

And a salute to the bricks and mortar retailers who sell your books in their stores and on their related websites. Their support for you, and us, has been remarkable over the last week. From large chains to small independents, they committed to working harder than ever to help your books find your readers.

Lastly, my deepest thanks to you, our authors and illustrators. Macmillan and Amazon as corporations had our differences that needed to be resolved. You are the ones whose books lost their buy buttons. And yet you have continued to be terrifically supportive of us and of what we are trying to accomplish. It is a great joy to be your publisher.

I cannot tell you when we will resume business as usual with Amazon, and needless to say I can promise nothing on the buy buttons. You can tell by the tone of this letter though that I feel the time is getting near to hand.

All best,

John

HarperCollins Levels its Big Guns Against Amazon

Another publishing/media giant, Rupert Murdoch (HarperCollins) has weighed in on Amazon's pricing policies. This is in the end good news for everyone, buyers included in the long run. Without a foundational price point that allows widespread survival, there will be precious little left to sell down the road, and what is available will be produced by fewer and fewer publishers.

Read more here.

Amazon Revealed: It Hates You, and it Hates Publishers

More on the Amazon vs. Macmillan dust-up.

You decide. Click here to read the story.

The Battle Over the Agency Model Begins, As Amazon Pulls Macmillan Buy Buttons

Fascinating. Good for Macmillan, I like this shot across the bow. Well worth the read.

From Publisher's Lunch:

As originally reported last night and many readers know by now, sometime yesterday evening the buy buttons for apparently all of Macmillan's books--including bestsellers and top releases, and Kindle editions--were removed from Amazon's site. Macmillan books remain listed but can be bought only through third-party Marketplace sellers, while Macmillan Kindle titles all lead to pages that read, "We're sorry. The Web address you entered is not a functioning page on our site." It is the first shot across the purchasing bow in big publishers' efforts to reset ebook pricing above the loss-leader $9.99 price point and retake control over that pricing by moving from the wholesale selling model to an agency selling model (first reported exclusively in Lunch Deluxe on January 19), at least for ebooks published simultaneously with new hardcover releases. Kindle customers further reported on Amazon forums that any Macmillan books that were on their "wish lists" disappeared from those lists with no explanation, as apparently did Macmillan sample chapters that had been downloaded previously.

Macmillan has commented by way of a paid message to authors, illustrators and agents, reproduced below this story. Amazon has declined to comment thus far, either to the media or directly to their customers.

Among the books subject to the greatest potential short-term effect of Amazon's buy-button removal is Andrew Young's just-released THE POLITICIAN, which curiously still ranks at No. 9 on Amazon's bestseller list (and has been between No. 4 and No. 6 today at Barnes and Noble.com). Hilary Mantel's WOLF HALL was at 69 on Amazon last night, falling steadily today and now at No. 128. Atul Gawande's THE CHECKLIST MANIFESTO: How to Get Things Right was at 34 last night on Amazon, now at No. 66,--and has risen from 112 up to 86 at BN.com in the same time period. (These numbers change slightly every hour we've been checking them.)

We were able to reach a couple of agents for some of Macmillan's current bestselling authors. Co-head of the William Morris Endeavor books department Eric Simonoff, whose clients include Douglas Preston (author of the January Tor release Impact), told us: "The current model of Amazon selling Kindle editions as a loss-leader is fair for publishers and authors in the short-term but as we have told Amazon we don't believe it is sustainable in the long term. Something had to give to prevent the ongoing devaluation of e-books. Macmillan is the first to draw a line in the sand but we expect not the last."

Tina Bennett at Janklow & Nesbit, agent for Atul Gawande's new bestseller, comments: "This development is very unfortunate for my author, but it's also troubling for public health. The checklist approach that Gawande describes in his book is a major life-saving advance. It has been demonstrated to reduce harm to surgical patients by more than a third, but has yet to be widely adopted in US hospitals. To make THE CHECKLIST MANIFESTO unavailable for sale is the equivalent of blocking the distribution of a book announcing the discovery of penicillin."

Agent Robert Gottlieb at Trident Media Group offered this view: "The agents I know feel the $9.99 price for new releases is not good for the business. They want the publishers to work with all the retailers in a peaceful manner. I don't think it is in any book retailer's interest both short and long term not to do business with companies like Macmillan and at the same time Macmillan needs Amazon. What will Amazon do if S&S moves in this direction or Hachette? If consumers can't get the books they want from Amazon they will move to other retail sites for what they want."

One senior publishing executive called the move by Amazon "fairly draconian" but added that their company had not received any threats of similar action from Amazon. As we've said before--though consumers have not yet gotten the message--the agency model that publishers are trying to implement with Apple and across their customer base actually lowers the publishers' proceeds from each ebook sale and gives more profit to sellers versus the current loss-leading model behind the $9.99 price point.

Another senior publishing executive said that "Amazon may 'spin' that the consumer is at the heart of the decision, but really their goal is a monopoly position in books. Publishers don't want a monopoly - they want consumers to have choice through a number of partners and channels. They want digital pricing which allows bricks and mortar retailers to survive and thrive alongside a growing digital market." That person added, "This reaction proves what Amazon's true motives are. It is a signal to any other publishers not to change the model and weaken Amazon's pathway to a monopoly. I hope authors, agents and publishers see what these motives are and stand by Macmillan."

Among remarks from Macmillan authors posting online, perhaps one of the most curious came from Sherrilyn Kenyon, who posted to Facebook and then later in the day removed her entry, which read in part: "All of you asking why you can't find my books on Amazon Kindle? It seems that Amazon is the one to blame. They are in a disagreement with my publisher and to prove a point, they have removed Macmillan books from their Kindles.

"You know, as a Kindle owner, I have problems with this. They're not cheap and I bought it so that I could download the books I wanted to read. I don't like a store taking something from me like this without warning. It's just like when Amazon removed books from my Kindle that I'd paid for because they didn't have permission to sell them."

In comments over at John Scalzi's blog, bestselling Simon & Schuster author Scott Westerfeld writes, "The real power we authors have is removing links to Amazon from our websites and such.... Random blackouts do not make customers happy."

Amazon's own forums have been quite busy with postings today, with customers expressing a wide range of everything from support to dismay with the etailer's move. The most damaging aspect of their action in the short-term may be the removal of Kindle "wish lists" and sample chapters. For some posters that action has echoes of the incident last summer when Amazon deleted copies of certain books from Kindle owner's libraries, in violation of the site's own terms of use. As one person writes, "we do feel vulnerable, even if Amazon is right to fight. Wishlists disappeared, with no backup of what the titles were. Sample books we chose to download lead to links that say Error. It reminds us that we do not have control over the situation, even if we backup, since what is offered today may not be available tomorrow." (Amazon apologized for that earlier incident, provided refunds to customers, and eventually settled a customer lawsuit.)

While many customers support Amazon's efforts to provide low prices, one "open letter" suggests that the company let customers decide for themselves what is the right price. "Here's a thought Jeff: You list them and I will decide if I want to buy them or not. How's that sound? I agree with you they should not cost more than $10, but I can enforce that with my pocketbook. I don't need you to make a big hairy freakin deal out of it on my behalf and I certainly don't need you to limit my choices based on this principle."

And now . . . Barnes and Noble?

 Barnes & Noble (BKS), the largest book store company in the US, recently disclosed that sales from November 1, 2009 to January 2, 2010 were down 5% to $1.1 billion. Same-store sales were off 5.1%. BKS is up against a rapid increase in book sales over the internet which is dominated by Amazon (AMZN) and includes large retailers such as Wal-Mart (WMT). The rise of the e-reader and e-books is also in the process of undermining “bricks-and- mortar” book buying traffic. BKS peer Borders (BGP) recently closed 200 of its Waldenbooks outlets and fired 1,500 people. Barnes & Noble has 775 outlets and 636 college bookstore. BKS will have to push online sales, marketing of it Nook e-reader, and close at least 100 stores.


Read more here.
. . . Which explains why (most) Savas Beatie authors understand when we tell them, if you really want to sell niche history books and expect a royalty check larger than $100.00, you better be active, aggressive, involved in social networking, etc. . . .

--tps