Traditional publishing research - Crystal Spirit Publishing, Inc.

a guest post by Andrea Scovel (@AndreaScovel1) 

Vanessa S. O'Neal, Crystal Spirit Publishing

Lately,  I have been wondering what an author needs to be preparing for when looking to get published. Last week I had the pleasure of interviewing Vanessa S. O’Neal with Crystal Spirit Publishing, Inc. Vanessa was able to answer a lot of the questions that I had. I was also pleasantly surprised to hear about Crystal Spirit’s independent publishing practices. It really broadened my perspective as to what an author has to choose from when it comes to finding a publisher. She was also able to provide some general information about the publishing biz. 

Self-publishing research: Interview with Chris O'Byrne from JETLAUNCH

Last week, I believe it was, Chris O'Byrne followed me on Twitter and I found out about JETLAUNCH Premium Publishing, a company that helps indie authors navigate self-publishing their print and ebooks by offering editing, formatting, file conversion, book and cover design, and distribution services.

This got me thinking of indie authors I've encountered who find the idea of learning about the nuts and bolts of self-publishing daunting (especially after having just gone through sometimes years of work writing the book), so I decided to investigate a little further and to invite Chris to do an interview so we could get a glimpse of the man behind the company. Happily, he said yes and was able to respond to the interview questions in record time!

In the following interview, Chris talks about how he got into the business of helping indie authors self-publish, his reading habits, and the challenges to and best strategies for selling a self-published book.

Traditional publishing research: Big Fiction Magazine

This month my learning about traditional publishing takes a new turn in this interview with Heather Jacobs, editor of Big Fiction Magazine. I met Heather at Wordstock this year and was impressed not only with her authenticity but also with the quality and beauty of the magazine. After only a few minutes of conversation I was able to bully her into agreeing to do an interview for the blog - yay! (And by "bully," of course I mean, "I asked if she'd be interested, and she said yes.")

Big Fiction publishes two issues a year and specializes in novelettes (7500-15K words) and novellas (15K-30K words). The magazine also hosts the Knickerbocker Prize contest each year, judged by a guest judge, with publication and cash prizes for first and second place winners. This year's guest judge is David James Poissant. You can find out more about the contest, including submission guidelines, here.

And now, before I slip into any folderol, here's the interview.

*trumpets & applause*

SHA: What got you into this business? Why run a lit mag, and why a print lit mag (as opposed to online) in particular? 

Interview with author Gill Hoffs

Several weeks ago I was gripped by a new nonfiction book idea. The problem was that I'd need some money up front, which meant I'd need to sell the idea to a publisher before I'd actually written the book...and I had no idea how to do that. So I did what many writers in my situation would do: I went to Twitter for help.

And this is how I met Gill Hoffs, a sassy Scottish vegetarian living in England with her husband and young son who writes maritime nonfiction, among other things. Gill was not only the only one who answered my plea for help that day, but she also followed up via email and has offered her continued help as I continue to think about pitching this book idea.

In a nutshell: Gill is awesome.

And so it is with great pleasure that I bring you an interview with her this week, not only because it gives me the opportunity to introduce you to this wonderful human being and her work but also because she has something to teach us (or at least me) about how to pitch nonfiction. Hurrah!

How to be a published writer: Step 6b

Step 6b: Self-publishing.

The invention of the printing press with movable type changed the world because it made books affordable for a greater percentage of the population. We live in another amazing, world-changing time: the means of production are now available to the masses. Gone are the days when the power to publish was in the hands of the elite few who acted as gatekeepers of culture, who decided whose voices would be heard and left the rest to languish in silent oblivion. Now, anyone who has access to a computer and the Internet can make their work available to the whole world.

There are far too many options for self-publishing to provide an exhaustive list here. So instead I'll provide brief descriptions of a few options that I've either toyed with or plan to toy with. (Watch for more in-depth descriptions of some of these in future posts.)

How to be a published writer: Step 6a

Step 6a: Going the traditional route.

This is where this series of posts gets a little tricky. The next steps depend on whether you want to go the traditional route or want to self-publish, on what it is you want to publish (a short work vs. a book), and on whether you want to make money off your writing. In this post I'll focus on the traditional route for short works of fiction, poetry, or creative non-fiction; in the next post (Step 6b) I'll focus on self-publishing.

But first, I'd like to clarify what I mean by "the traditional route." For my purposes, it means that someone who's in the business of making writers' work publicly available makes something I wrote publicly available. (And by "in the business," I do not necessarily mean "gets paid" to do so. Some very reputable journals are run by a staff of volunteers.) This may be a looser definition than yours: it includes getting published online as well as in print, and under this definition someone publishing a podcast online of you reading your work at an open mic counts.

When I recently decided to go the traditional route with some of my poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction, I asked published writers and people in the publishing industry for advice--and thought back to my ex-boyfriend's process for getting his poetry published (he was published a lot)--and here's the process I've settled on:

How to be a published writer: Step 5

Step 5: Make some decisions.

An important step on the road to getting published is to make some decisions about why you want to get published and how you want to be published. You may have already made these decisions, but if you haven't, now's the time. For me, these aren't even decisions I make consciously most of the time, but there's something to be said for being aware of the options so that you don't rule any of them out through ignorance.

Do you want to self-publish, or do you want to be traditionally published?
There are loads of ways to self-publish. My friend Jeffrey Gardner self-publishes poetry on his blog Scribbling Truth with Crayons. I self-publish about food, culture, lifestyle and travel on my blogs (links on the right, under My Other Blogs). There's HubPages and Amazon and Book Baby and more. You could self-publish on your website too.

How to be a published writer: Step 4

Step 4: Edit and proofread.

Only after I've completed one or two revisions and have judged a work "good enough" (because it will never be perfect) do I turn my attention to editing and proofreading.

As I wrote in "Every writer needs an editor," when it came time to edit and proofread my novella, I couldn't trust myself to do it. My head was so much in it that I stopped seeing what was on the page. I noticed as I tried to read it for the billionth time that I was skipping over whole sentences or even entire paragraphs. I needed an editor's help.

A quick note on terminology here, because there are at least three kinds of editing--developmental editing, line editing, and copy editing--and then there's proofreading too. "Oh my!" I hear you say. "What's the difference?"

How to be a published writer: Step 3

Step 3: Revise.

Once I've shared my work (Step 2) and have gotten feedback on it, it's time for revision. (Also see my post "Every writer needs an editor" for ideas on what types of feedback might be helpful.)

What's the purpose of revision? Three things:

1. Clarify the vision. What do I want this piece to do? What values do I have that I want it to support or communicate?
2. Evaluate what's there. How does what's there serve (or not) that vision? What did I do that wasn't intended, and do I like the results?
3. Decide what needs to be changed/added/cut in order to better serve the vision, and then do it.

For me this is hands-down the hardest stage of the writing process because it requires both critical and creative thinking. In the writing stage it's all creative: my task is to let things flow and reserve judgement. (That in itself is incredibly difficult for me, btw.)

How to be a published writer: Step 2

Step 2: Share it.

There are many reasons to share your unpublished work with other people, even your work-in-progress. To name a few: to be witnessed, to share excitement, to get encouragement, to hear how other people are reading your work, and to get revision or editing suggestions.

During Spring term I took a creative non-fiction writing class, and at some point during every class period we had to share something we'd written in small groups. It was terrifying, but also really affirming. There's something very different about reading your words aloud, almost like it makes them more real. And of course I was also sharing what I'd written with the instructor, because I had to turn it in. That class helped me see that there's a lot to be gained by sharing my work in its earlier, ultra-imperfect stages, so now I share my rough drafts with my editor and sometimes with my mother and/or a couple close friends.

How to be a published writer: Step 1

Step 1: Write.

Write a lot. Or as much as you can. This is not new advice; just about any writer will tell you that the first step to getting published is to write a lot. What I hope to add to the conversation are some ideas about what might be keeping you from writing and how to get around those barriers.

Do you neglect to write because you have performance anxiety? I have a tendency to put an enormous amount of pressure on myself to write something fabulous every time I sit down. The effect is that it keeps me from writing anything at all. Don't get discouraged when what you produce isn't as good as you want it to be or isn't doing what you want it to do; keep writing anyway.