Things to consider before getting in contact with Carolinda.
1. Why do you want to write a book?
- Do you want to make money from sales of your book or to enhance your public persona or public speaking career?
- Is your story historically important?
- Will your story vindicate an injustice or validate something you have achieved?
- Do you want to share your story to help others or as a catharsis for yourself (and perhaps others in a similar situation)?
2. Who are your readers? Who will buy your book?
- Are there other books like yours with a similar story to tell?
- What is unique about your story? How is it different from the others?
- If you were to walk into a bookshop (or search online), what section or category would you find your book in? Here is a selection of Amazon’s non-fiction categories for example:
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- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Money
- Education & Teaching
- Health, Fitness & Dieting
- History
- Parenting & Relationships
- Self-Help
- Sports & Outdoors
- Travel
3. Are you hoping to get a publisher?
A publisher wants to make money out of your book, so the question they want to know is whether your book will sell. Publishers have a very good idea of what people buy due to Nielson, which compiles sales data obtained from retail point-of-sale outlets. Through data provided by Bookscan, publishers can analyze sales, competition, trends, and opportunities. This data is only available to booksellers, publishers, etc.
You can get a pretty good idea yourself by looking at the sales ranking for books similar to yours on Amazon or by reading the reviews on Goodreads, Google, Amazon, and various booksellers.
Only a small percentage of published books ‘earn-out’ their advance royalty payment given to them by the publisher. Only when this royalty payment is repaid by sales in the marketplace do authors start receiving a per-book royalty of 7-10%. In Australia, sales of 5,000 copies are considered to be good, and 7,000 is considered to be a bestseller.
Apart from your writing skill (or that of your ghostwriter or co-author), together with a book a publisher believes will sell – here are some other factors that may induce a publisher to take on your book.
- Are you well-known, or is your book about someone well-known?
- Is the topic of your book currently hot?
- Does your story have an unusual twist or an important secret revealed for the first time?
- Will you generate sales of your book as a result of your public speaking or business career?
- Your ability to market your own book. Do you have contacts in the media, or can you obtain the endorsement of someone famous? Are you influential? Do you have a good social media following or the skills to market your own book?
4. What about marketing?
Publishers only dedicate a small amount of resources to obtain publicity for your book. Unless you are an established author, it generally involves sending out Press Releases and then following up when media or booksellers show an interest. It depends on the budget allocated to your book: some publishing houses create and book authors for events and talks, but only if they are successful – generally, authors who have a backlist of books and a public following or if an author’s topic is incredibly hot.
Be prepared to do most of the work yourself, the aim being to keep up demand so booksellers keep ordering your book and print runs are repeated.
5. Self-publishing
Carolinda has experience in this area as she bought back the rights to her first book and re-published it under a different name in a paperback and digital format.
It is vital to obtain a professional edit before publishing your manuscript. You don’t want to get bad reviews for something so preventable, as this negatively impacts your sales!
There are several specialist publishers who can do this for you: book & cover design, formatting, copy editing, proofreading, etc. Make sure they are reputable, as there are many people out there cashing in on the lucrative market of self-publishing.
Before we get in contact…
As a writer for hire, Carolinda specializes in biography, memoir, ancestral and genealogical family stories, and general non-fiction.
If your inquiry is about fiction, scripts, business, academic, technical, or science books, blogs, press releases, speeches, or editing, I recommend you hire a writer who specializes in these areas. You can find someone online or contact the Australian Society of Authors (ASA), of which Carolinda is a member.