For aspiring authors, the numbers are not encouraging. Some experts say it’s harder than ever to get published. And even if your work does see the light of the day, who’s going to read it? According to a study released by the National Endowment for the Arts late last year, Americans today are reading less than ever.
But writers have never paid much attention to numbers.
The best advice for writers, it seems, is to keep writing.
“It’s very frustrating and very difficult,” National Book Award-nominated poet and author H.H. Hix says of the publishing process.
Hix, whose “God Bless: A Political/Poetic Discourse” will be published this fall by Etruscan Press, directs the creative writing masters of fine arts (MFA) program at the University of Wyoming. Hix, who has been recognized with the Grolier Prize, T.S. Eliot Prize, the Peregrine Smith Award and an NEA fellowship, tries to impress upon his students that they should concentrate on writing, not publishing, while they craft their pieces.
“The first thing I tell creative writing students is to focus on the work itself and not the publishing part,” Hix says.
It’s good advice, because thinking about finding an agent and a publisher can be maddening. For example, Etruscan, housed in the offices of the graduate creative writing program at Wilkes University, only publishes about 10 percent of the works submitted to it, says Etruscan Assistant Managing Editor Nicole DePolo.
“Rejection is definitely part of the process, and I’ve heard, ‘Expect 25 rejections for every one acceptance,’ whether you’re submitting a novel or a short piece like a poem,” DePolo says. “Rejection is part of the process, but it’s also part of educating yourself on all the venues you have for submission. And it’s also an important venue for feedback.”
Feedback from fellow writers, especially those that have had work published, is key when you’re preparing to shop your first manuscript. Hix suggests finding an individual with such experience or even hiring someone to give you feedback.
“Everyone I know does that with their manuscripts, no matter how many books they’ve published,” says Hix.
Should you get an agent?
Most major publishing houses do not accept submissions not represented by agents. Novelists and major nonfiction writers, especially, are advised to hire agents, which shop writers’ manuscripts to publishers. They’re paid a percentage of sales they negotiate for their clients.
Hix recommends that first-time submitters, after some feedback from peers, get a sense that the piece is ready then work on finding an agent. If a writer has a colleague that has an agent, try to have the colleague recommend his or her work to that agent, and make sure any agent you consider has experience shopping your type of work, whether it’s fiction, nonfiction, memoir, etc. (Hix notes that poets generally do not use agents due to the low commercial potential of most poetry books.)
Author Ginny Wiehardt, who also has experience in the publishing industry, reminds submitting authors to include a query letter, book synopsis and self-addressed, stamped envelope with any manuscript you send to a publisher. She also recommends picking up “Guide to Literary Agents,” subscribing to the Publisher’s Marketplace newsletter and finishing your book before shopping it. Writer’s Digest magazine is another popular source.
Writers with published work under their belts, whether in literary journals or through collegiate publications, are more likely to get noticed, as are submitters with MFA degrees.
Another aspect to consider is which agents accept unsolicited manuscripts. Regardless, making sure you have a feel for your finished product is important before you become earnest about having it published.
“I think it’s important for authors to get a sense of the community of other authors and publishers and try to make contact with that community directly instead of submitting straight mailings,” DePolo says. “They make themselves aware of festivals and meet authors and publishers face to face.”
Etruscan, according to its Web site, was founded in 2001 and is “a nonprofit cooperative of poets and writers working to produce and promote books that nurture the dialogue among genres, achieve a distinctive voice, and reshape the literary and cultural histories of which we are a part.” It publishes books of poems, novels, short stories, creative nonfiction, criticism and anthologies. Two of its poetry collections have been National Book Award finalists, including Hix’s “Chromatic.” Etruscan books are distributed nationally by Small Press Distribution and Consortium Book Sales and Distribution.
Another alternative
More and more authors are choosing the alternative of self-publishing — that is, paying a publishing house to print their work rather than find a publisher that will pay them. One such publisher is Tribute Books, based in Eynon. For a fee, Tribute works with authors to design the cover and inside of the book, print the book and get onto the shelves of bookstores like Borders and Barnes and Noble as well as online at Amazon.com.
“There are writers that have been writing for decades that haven’t had the opportunity,” says Nicole Langan, Tribute’s owner. “They have been turned down by the major publishing houses, by the Random Houses and the Simon & Schusters. They have had trouble obtaining an agent. We get the book on Amazon.com, and we focus on the regional area. Having a national type of audience buying books is pretty unlikely, but you do get a few.”
Tribute, which launched in 2004, has had its biggest success to date with “Scranton’s Mayors” by former Scranton Mayor David J. Wenzel. The book came out in 2006 and has already sold more than 1,000 copies, and it’s still selling and the author is still doing book signings and events, Langan says. Another popular Tribute title, Langan notes, is “The Brooklyn Dodgers: The Last Great Pennant Drive, 1957” by John R. Nordell Jr.
Tribute does the cover and book layout and secures the books with ISBN numbers, which register the work throughout the book world. The publisher offers other options, including copyright, marketing and publicity. Tribute is flexible in the amount of books it can have printed at any given time throughout a book’s life; the minimum increment is 25 copies, and the printer can reel off 5,000 at a time if needed, Langan says.
Langan works with Partners Book Distributing, of Michigan, which fulfills bookstores’ orders for Tribute releases. Again, local exposure is the top priority for Tribute books, most of which are written by Northeastern Pennsylvania authors about NEPA topics.
“To get into the bookstores locally, we do have relationships that we build with the store managers,” Langan says. “The big ones are Borders in Scranton, the two Barnes and Nobles in Wilkes-Barre and Anthology in Scranton.”
A changing landscape
Previously, there was a stigma attached to pay-to-publish authors.
Tribute explains this stigma and a changing attitude on its Web site, noting, “In the past, it was believed that authors should never have to pay to be published. But today’s publishing world is changing at a rapid pace. Authors are finding it more difficult to get noticed than ever before. … Agents are frustrated that some of their most talented clients simply cannot land a publishing contract.”
Langan acknowledges the stigma and echoes the Web site’s sentiments regarding the changing publishing landscape.
“I think a lot of authors are learning that you can have more control over finished work working this way,” she says.
Hix agrees, explaining that technological advances have allowed for all different types of author-controlled publishing.
“It really has changed in part because now the culture of reading is changing, for one thing,” he says. “Things like blogs, they’re really like self-published work, and people are used to the idea in general.”
Furthermore, Tribute doesn’t just accept and publish any work that comes down the pike.
“We do have quality control in terms of what we do accept,” Langan says. “If it’s not well written, if it’s not grammatically correct, if it’s anything in terms of pornography, we wouldn’t accept it.”
While it seems tougher — and more costly — than ever to get published, Hix advises aspiring authors to keep writing and stay abreast of an evolving industry.
“The market has changed in some respects; it’s easier to get something out there in the sense that there’s some ways you can control your own Web site,” Hix says.
“And despite the questions and readership,” he adds, alluding to the NEA study, “more books are published each year. There’s a lot happening in the book world, so it’s tough to get noticed. Less books are getting reviewed, for example. You just need to stay aware of it and work.”
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