Synopsis

For those working on writing a synopsis of their novel:

Miss Snark wrote a blog post about what a synopsis is actually used for, and she also did a Crapometer on a bunch of synopsis.

Author Lisa Gardner has a useful lecture on writing synopsis on her Craft of Writing website page.

How Agents Do Their Work

Jessica Faust at Bookends wrote several posts on how different agents agent differently, including Standard Agent Practices and I Get Paid to Pester. She also wrote an interesting, semi-related post about This Book Won't Sell.

Nathan Bransford wrote a post about How Long Does It Take to Sell A Novel?

Ask Editorial Anonymous wrote about The Heroic Journey of the Requested Manuscript.

More Personal News

I just don't have the time right now that I used to. I can no longer read a large number of publishing/writing blogs. I barely have time to do my writing. So I'm going to reduce my posting to once a week, probably on Mondays near noon CST.

An alternative is that I can post interesting information as I discover it. However, I'd then like to set up a feed that allows readers to sign up to have new posts delivered directly to their e-mails. Does anyone know how to do this? I've seen them on other blogs, but it's not immediately obvious to me how to set it up on blogger.

Thanks.

Statistic on Returns

On GalleyCat, from the article Who Knew? Eliminating Returns Reduces The Book Business's Carbon Footprint:

In 2005, 31% of the roughly 1.5 billion books printed in the US were returned to publishers.

That's nearly one-third of all the books shipped! As for the reason the return policy is currently needed, GalleyCat wrote an article called Why Printing Fewer, Non-Returnable Books May Not Save the World. In the article, Wiley marketer Andrew Wheeler is quoted saying:

If there are three books on a shelf, and two customers come looking for it, two sales will result. If there is one book on a shelf, and two customers come, one of them is out of luck—and so is the bookseller. You end up with returns because it's impossible to always have precisely one book for every purchaser in the right place at the right time.

Writing and Money

Jennifer Jackson wrote about deals may be about more than money - the agent perspective and Royalties.

Kristin Nelson at Pub Rants wrote about Royalty Statement Time, Payment Schedules, and Payments on Pub.

Miss Snark wrote about Split Royalty Checks and Royalties on "Net".

I'll Post Regularly Again Soon

I've been down with a severe case of bronchitis for the last two weeks. I'm better now and busy playing catch-up. I will try to get back to posting things next week.

On Self-Publishing

A number of people have been commenting on self-publishing.

Evil Editor gave his opinion about Should I self-publish?

Tess Gerritsen, an author, wrote about self-publishing.

The Rejecter, an agent's assistant, answer a question by someone with self-published books who is now trying to sell professionally.

How People Buy Books

Here is some interesting information found in David Wolverton's Daily Kick in the Pants: Writing a First Chapter:

Sol Stein, a famous editor, once made an informal study with several other editors who lurked in bookstores in New York, watching potential customers pick up books.

Customers, as you know, will typically be interested in a book based on the cover and title.

They might flip to the back of a book to see what kinds of blurbs other authors or critics might have given the book--but probably not. The cover and title are what they focus on. In fact, recently I was selling a children's book called Rindin the Puffer at some Christmas festivals. I'm very proud of the cover quotes on our book, but I found that of over 500 sales, only two consumers bothered to read them!

After glancing at the cover, the readers then open the book and read a bit. Stein says that his editors found that in every single case, the customer made a choice to buy the book that they browsed through based upon the first three pages. In fact, he found that some ninety percent of the buyers read only the FIRST page.

David Wolverton, of course, was using to say that authors need to write a very engaging first page or three. While that's true, I also think we need to look at why people read so little before deciding to buy.

At least for me, I use the back cover description of the book to decide whether or not to buy the book. If I'm not sure, reading the first few pages might be what decides me one way or the other. However, more often, I've already decided that the idea is intriguing, I just want to find out if the author's writing is a style I'll enjoy reading for 200-800 pages. Some styles turn me off, and the book goes back onto the shelf. Others engage me, and I'd be ready to read practically anything by the author because I enjoy the writing so much. After reading the book to make sure it lives up to its promise, I'm willing to buy the next one sight unseen. Other styles don't engage me as much, so I might buy one book by the author but not another.

I'm pointing this out because I think we often forget that agents and editors are readers, too. Our novels may be publishable, but truly "not right" for that agent because she doesn't want to spend hours reading and working on a story with a style that she doesn't like. If we aren't willing to spend money on a book which might be good, but we don't like the style, then why get angry at agents who don't want to spend their limited time on a book for the same reason?

On the other hand, I'll admit that it can be supremely frustrating to not know if a rejection is due to different reading tastes or a fatal problem with the manuscript.

News on Book Sales

From Publishers Weekly, 4/21/2008:

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, bookstore sales in February jumped 11.3%, to $1.13 billion, bringing the two-month total to $3.40 billion, a 6.7% increase over the comparable period in 2007. Total retail sales were up 7.3% in February and ahead 5.9% for the two months.

So we don't have to worry quite yet about publishers not being interested in acquiring new books.

Publicity and Marketing

Alison Morris at ShelfTalker wrote a booksellers view on booksigning tips for authors and what bookstores do behind the scenes for booksigning/promotional tours.

Rachel Vater wrote about The Importance of Publicity.

Victoria Strauss at Writers Beware! wrote about Ways Not to Publicize Your Book: Spam Campaigns.

Kristin Nelson on her Pub Rants blog wrote about getting a Promotional Head Shot Photo and if authors who aren't published yet need to build a website.

On the Bookends blog, Sally MacKenzie wrote about The Place of Reviews in the Writer’s Universe.

Tess Gerritsen wrote about "Major Marketing Campaign": where does the money go? and book clubs.