If huge, mouth-watering book advances got you interested in the publishing industry, you might be in it for the wrong reasons. Most of us will never be fortunate to get a big advance for our first book. But book advances, never mind the size, will figure in your publishing contract. It wouldn’t hurt to know more about the topic, so you know what to expect when it time to sign on the dotted line of the contract.
Sameer Kamat
7 Reasons why you should start an author blog
I maintain 3 blogs. The first one is an MBA blog which is quite popular among Indian MBA applicants who are targeting international business schools. The second blog is based on a creative word puzzle (Onamography) that I invented. This is my third blog and focuses on helping budding writers break into the publishing industry.
Maintaining a blog can be tedious. Maintaining 3 blogs can be, well, tedious X 3. But there are definite benefits that you can expect to get back if you understand the basic rules of the game.
Whether you are a struggling author waiting to get your first book published or you are a veteran in the field, having an author blog is a good idea. It serves to be more than just a marketing platform. If you don’t have a blog yet, here are some reasons why you should start writing blog posts
How to write a Query letter for your book?
I wrote several hundred query letters and sent them to a whole lot of literary agents and publishers. ‘Several hundred’ refers more to the variations of a basic format, rather than hundred distinctly different formats. It was more of an experimentation and fine-tuning process where I made minor alterations after every few submissions.
One of those query letters got me a great literary agent and subsequently a publishing contract with a top tier publisher. I can’t call myself an expert at writing query letters, but after having gone through the drill so many times, I can share some basics that you can use as a starting point to create variations that work for your book.
Read the Query Letter FAQ post first.
How long should a query letter be?
A good query letter will not be more than
As a new writer, will you pay to get your first publishing break?
There’s a common saying in the conventional publishing world. Money flows to the writer. What does it mean?
It means that you should never have to pay money to anyone in the publishing chain – publishers, editors, literary agents, websites running websites or any facilitators who are suggesting that they’ll make the rocky road a little smoother for you.
Here’s how it works for each team.
How long are you willing to wait to get your book published?
For all the hundreds of thousands of books that seem to hit the bookshelves each year, you might get the impression that there’s some fantastic super-efficient machinery running behind the scenes that’s working at break-neck speed to pump out tons of books at a record pace. Far from it.
Publishing is a extremely slow moving industry. If you are a new writer waiting for your first big break, the earlier you realize this, the less painful your journey will be. Set the expectations right and get ready for a LOT of waiting at every stage of the process.
The maximum control you have on the book publishing process is when you are
Why social networking in the real world is important for writers, bloggers and authors
The virtual world offers writers a fantastic opportunity to open the mind and let their thoughts soar. No boundaries, no constraints. Just you, your thoughts and your creative output. Inspiring and poetic, huh? But if you have been writing for a while, you’ll agree that after a while it can start seeming like a pretty solitary activity, with you in front of your computer typing away to glory.
I worked in the corporate world for several years and each day would be filled with multiple meetings with members from various departments. Apart from the analytical and documentation work, every activity revolved around people. After saying adieu to the corporate environment, there was this suddenly change in my work ambience
Asteroid Belt (Gaane mein daal) – The frustration release song
In a world full of frustrations, pressure and tension, it is extremely rare to encounter an earth-shattering concept that gives you the strength and hope to tackle the negativity that permeates our everyday lives. This latest addition to alternative healing therapy world has the potency to leave you speechless.
The idea is simple, yet powerful. Rather than make a hue and cry about being at the receiving end, make a song about it. Or in other words – ‘gaane mein daal’.
The concept is literally out-of-the-world as it draws symbolic inspiration from the Asteroid belt, the dark underbelly of our bright and glorious solar system
Looking for free ebook, pdf, video, torrents for Beyond The MBA Hype?
Update: This post was published when the ebook version wasn’t launched. Now the ebook is available on Amazon. Here’s the link:
Many MBA applicants are looking for free downloads of the Beyond The MBA Hype ebook, pdf from online torrent sites after reading the good reviews that have been popping up on various publications. After the book featured as a non-fiction bestseller on the Times of India, the free download searches on Google have gone up.
Before we get into the interesting observations and analyses, there are a few clarifications on the topic.
Beyond The MBA Hype on The Times of India bestsellers list
There was no formal book launch for Beyond The MBA Hype, no celebrities waxing eloquent about the book and consequently very limited media attention. People I knew started finding out that my book got published based on my Facebook comments and they would be kind enough to reach out with their best wishes.
A few days back I got a phone call from a friend congratulating me (yeah, Ravi-bhai, you triggered the story). I thought this was another one of those calls trickling in. But it was unusually early for him to call
Writer’s block: What is it and how can you deal with it?
Writer’s block can become a roadblock for authors irrespective of the stage in their career. The professional ones who’ve faced this several times just know how to deal with it better. But if you have just started writing you may not know what is happening or why. There’s no way you can completely avoid it and it’s only a matter of time before you start staring at one. Before you hit the panic button, here are a few points that you might help you.
Book marketing and promotion: Meet the superheroes
Marketing and promoting a book can be one of the biggest hurdles for first-time authors (Well, ok, after you’ve got a good literary agent to represent you, got a contract from a good publishing house and all other other equally challenging hurdles have been crossed…) Fortunately for those who have the backing of an established publishing house, the journey can be a little less rocky. This post is a tribute to the unsung heroes of the publishing world.
Before the book goes to the printing press (and the editorial process is still on), the sales and marketing team has already got into action. Here’s a little to-do list to give you an idea of the complexities that Marketing guys have to deal with:
Query Letter FAQ: How literary agents and publishers will evaluate it
So you’ve decided not to venture into the world of self-publishing yet. That brings you back to the process of wooing publishers or literary agents to represent you.
If you are aiming for the traditional publishers, chances are they would want you to get a literary agency to review your manuscript first and then forward it to them.
You know the reasons why – too many requests, paucity of time and effort (for the publishers), quality issues with the slush pile, yada yada.