StorytimeWednesday

  You’ve gotten a publishing deal contract, now what do you do? No matter how new to publishing you are the first thing you want to do is sign the contract and mail it back to the publisher because you’re so excited. But don’t do that. Be smart and protect yourself and your work. Let’s go through the contract one area at a time. Never enter any contract lightly, always negotiate the contract to your benefit, not the publisher’s benefit. What does that mean you might ask, well let’s break it down so you’ll understand. As an experienced author who was taken advantage of by a publisher, I learned my lesson and I want to pass on that knowledge to you the future authors of the world. No matter how they word their contract, a publisher’s language can not only harm you, tie you up for many years and eventually come back to haunt you in the future. You must educate yourself on how to conduct this contract negotiation as a business deal, not as an emotionally excited teenager looking to get...

  So you’ve written a novel and you’ve hit the End Button then saved your work and you can now relax. Nope not yet. You must give it a day, then go back and reread it, and correct any mistakes in spelling, grammar, and flow. Then have at least 3 people read the book and give you critical feedback. Then go in and make the corrections that they’ve found and then reread it again yourself. Now you’re done. The next step is for you to send it off to literary agents and potential publishers for consideration. You’ve sent out about 30 query letters and now you’ve gotten half of those back in rejections, but you did get one that sounds interesting. Now what do you do? Do you print off a copy rush it to the post office and wait again? No, you don’t you take a day or two to do the following. You proofread your manuscript once again. You compile what has been requested, Note, if you send anything that is not requested you can be sure to receive a rejection back quickly. Agents are sticklers...

  One of the difficulties in a writer’s life is rejections. Think of this, you write a book and want it published but you have no idea how to get that done, so you write to various publishing houses, or agents in the hopes of getting it accepted and picked up by them to publish, only to receive rejection after rejection letter in the mail. So, what do you do once you get a rejection letter? You carry on with your writing, never allowing a rejection letter to stop you from writing that next book or chapter. Not to worry you’re not the only writer to ever receive a rejection letter, geez every successful writer throughout the ages has received a rejection letter at some point in their career. Sometimes multiple rejection letters. So if you have been rejected by a publishing house or agent, then you are in really good company. You’ve joined the rejected club. You know what that means right, it’s only a stones throw away from getting you published by the right publishing house, or pi...