Tag: Mike Nappa (Page 12 of 23)

Reason #29: You Stink At Grammar And Spelling

/ Mike Nappa

An Editorial Team reason for rejection

In 1631 Robert Barker and Martin Lucas were the royal printers in London. Imagine their pride when, by order of King Charles I himself, they were commissioned to publish a new edition of the King James English version of the Bible.

All went well for Barker and Lucas, and their publication of the Scriptures was considered a general success, until…

About a year later, it was discovered that a compositor error had omitted a single, tiny little word (“not”) from Exodus 20:14. The result of that teensy error in sentence structure? God’s 7^th Commandment now read: “Thou shalt commit adultery.”

Barker and Lucas were publicly reprimanded, fined what was then an enormous sum, and stripped of their printing license.

Still, Barker and Lucas were in good company. Some 20 years earlier, in 1611, the first edition of the King James Bible also contained a muff. A reference in Ruth 3:15 was inadvertently misspelled, which caused the biblical heroine to be identified “he” instead of “she.”

Why do I tell you these stories? Because I want you to understand that words have meaning and consequence.

If your words are garbled, misspelled, grammatically-challenged, omitted, duplicated, misused, or otherwise incoherent, your meaning is lost. The consequences of that kind of presentation is that I will be both frustrated by you and doubtful of your credibility as an author.

Hey, you claim to be an author, but you can’t even string together a coherent sentence? Very funny joke. But I’m not laughing.

Yes, a certain amount of typographical error is to be expected in any lengthy piece of writing, your book proposal included. But if I begin to see more than just a few inadvertent typos or even one glaring error in the way you use our language, your proposal won’t last very long in my hands. It’ll be rjectd. Excuse me. I mean rejected.

What You Can Do About It

1. Memorize this website address: Dictionary.com

I’m amazed how many authors simply don’t double-check when they use unfamiliar words. On more than one occasion, I’ve actually sat with an author, looking at a manuscript, and asked, “What does this word mean?” My question is always sincere—if I don’t know something, I’m the kind of guy who isn’t embarrassed to ask about it. Too many times the author has looked blankly at me and either stumbled through a guess at the meaning or simply said, “I don’t know exactly.”

Crazy. Why give away precious real estate in your manuscript to a word whose meaning is unsure to you? Look, words are more than just tools. They are the gems you use to decorate the jewelry of your prose. Guard them. Study them. Know them.

And visit Dictionary.com for instant help or even just to expand your vocabulary. When it’s this easy, you have no excuse for word abuse.

2. Keep this book next to your computer: The Pocket Wadsworth Handbook

You may feel like an uneducated high schooler when you buy this book, but it’s worth it. The Pocket Wadsworth Handbook by Laurie G. Kirszner and Stephen R. Mandell contains—in easily-accessible, clearly organized sections—all the grammar and spelling rules you and I should have memorized before going to the senior prom.

I actually discovered this book when I was teaching English Composition at a state university. So many of my students had graduated from high school without basic grammar skills, that I was constantly frustrated by having to explain again what they should have already known. Finally, I required every student to buy this book, and then I just started marking their papers with notes for them to study certain pages from it.

Now, don’t tell my students this, but along the way I discovered I didn’t know as much as I thought I did about grammar and spelling! So I kept this book, and I still use it as a reference whenever I’m unsure of whether to use “lay” or “lie,” or when it’s appropriate to use a semicolon. I’d recommend you keep a copy nearby as well.

3. Swallow your arrogance.

Some writers are almost haughty about their grammar and spelling skills—or dismissive of their lack of expertise in those areas. Those people deserve the rejections they receive. Don’t be one of them.

Instead, when you’re done writing, assume the worst. Recognize that even your best effort is going to be pock-marked with errors and unintentional corruptions. Go ahead and swallow your pride and take steps to eliminate (as much as you can) the mistakes you know are there. Here’s a process I use that, while not perfect, certainly helps:

Spell- and grammar-check. Use the basic spell-check function in your software to catch obvious errors.
Re-read the manuscript word for word, beginning to end, on your computer. (I’m always amazed at how many stupid mistakes this reveals, like words left out of sentences, cut-and-paste casualties, and confusing word choices.)
Spell- and grammar-check again.
Print hard copy and read it, word for word, beginning to end, marking corrections with a pen. (Again, there are always obvious errors that I should have caught earlier when I do this!)
Make corrections on the computer file. Spell-check and grammar-check again.
Find a friend or family member to read the manuscript and mark errors.
Make corrections…and pray you caught everything!

Looking for more? Check out these links:

Reason #30: You Didn’t Give Me A Complete Proposal

/ Mike Nappa

An Editorial Team reason for rejection

Imagine that you and I are professional bakers. We’ve got a recipe for Chocolate-Raspberry Muffins that our customers simply love, and so we agree to work together to bring those to market. I promise to do the actual cooking, the messy measuring-and-mixing work in the kitchen. You promise to supply the ingredients needed to make our delicious muffins.

Now, you and I both know that this recipe requires chocolate chips, eggs, flour, milk, baking soda, salt, and fresh raspberries. So it’s not unreasonable for me to expect you to bring those things to the kitchen. But what if you show up with a lumpy bag containing only chocolate chips and eggs?

Well, I could make Chocolate Scrambled Eggs…but not Chocolate-Raspberry Muffins.

Or what if you delivered to me baking soda, salt, chocolate and raspberries, but left out the flour and milk? Well, again, without the complete ingredients I simply can’t make the full recipe.

Unfortunately, this is the way some authors view their proposal submissions. They send the parts they like (chocolate! raspberries!), and either ignore the need for other necessities in the “contract approval recipe,” or provide cheap, poorly-made ingredients that simply can’t stand in for the quality required in baking.

Please understand this: If you want me to cook with you in the publisher’s symbolic kitchen, you’ve got to give me all the ingredients I need to have success with the publishing recipe. The place to do that is in your proposal.

Typically speaking, every book pitch you send out should include all of the following proposal elements:

• A compelling title and subtitle

• Short (one paragraph) at-a-glance summary of the book’s content

• Short summary of your author bio / credentials

• Short description of series potential (mostly for fiction only)

• Manuscript details (such as word count, completion time frame, and shelving category)

• Clear identification of your book’s primary target audience, along with potential secondary audiences that could add on sales

• Clear, compelling statements of reader benefits (that could be used in marketing copy)

• Competitive analysis of books like yours that are already in the market

• Annotated table of contents, with chapter-by-chapter content summaries (for nonfiction)

• Plot summary (for fiction books; best to keep this at around 500-1,000 words)

• Compelling writing samples (introduction and at least one full chapter for nonfiction; full manuscript for fiction)

There are also additional elements you can add to your proposal that are helpful—such as a list of potential endorsers, PR possibilities, or even a mockup of an advertising piece—but those are not essential. The things that are essential are the bulleted items above. If you send me a proposal without these ingredients, chances are good I’ll view it as incomplete—and reject your book.

What You Can Do About It

1. Don’t omit anything an editor expects.

Before today you might have been able to plead ignorance when it came to preparing your book proposals. Ah, but with knowledge comes responsibility. Now that you know what I have to have to succeed with your proposal, you have no excuse.

So don’t send a proposal unless it’s complete. If that means you have to take extra time or postpone your submission schedule, so be it. You’ll do better by including everything I need anyway, so it’ll be time well spent.

2. Don’t do a shoddy job on anything the editor expects.

Some authors live by the rule that “anything is better than nothing” or “good enough is good enough.” Unfortunately, neither of those philosophies is true.

The only thing worse than sending me an incomplete proposal is sending me complete crap in your proposal. Your proposal should reflect clear, competent thinking that’s reinforced by the superb samples of your writing. If you’ve rushed through your competitive analysis, or don’t actually understand how to articulate reader benefits in a compelling way, you’ve wasted what little time you spent on those things.

Remember, good enough is never good enough. Make sure you submit only your best, from beginning to end.

3. Don’t pitch to me until you are absolutely sure you’ve got all the ingredients I need to succeed with your proposal.

Before you send me your work, the one gift you have is time. As long as my company is in business, I’ll be considering book proposals—yours included. (And if I can’t stay in business, do you really want to publish with me anyway?) So take the time you need to prepare a complete, effective proposal package before you send it to me.

After all, you’re only going to get one chance for this book to make a good impression on me. Be sure to make it count.

Looking for more? Check out these links:

Reason #31: Bottom Line—You Didn’t Do Enough Of My Job For Me

/ Mike Nappa

An Editorial Team reason for rejection

Yes, this is a “catchall” reason for editorial rejection, and one that’s not often articulated in publishing circles simply because it makes us agents and editors look like lazy loafers in our work. Obviously agents and editors work hard—in our industry it’s required for success. At the same time, we all hate doing extra work.

As I mentioned in the introduction (and despite the arrogance with which we typically carry ourselves), the fact is when it comes to your book we editors are advocates at best and cheap salespeople at worst. In order to secure a contract for you, we’ve literally got to sell your idea to the people who have the power over the corporate checkbook.

If you’ve ever had to work in retail, you know what this is like—and how difficult it can be to overcome the obstinacy of a miser and his money. As a result, we’ve got what seems like a million little details to attend to, all with the hopes that our diligence in preparation for a publishing board presentation will result in successfully securing a contract for your book.

Meanwhile, we’re also in the middle of editing several other books on our schedule, dealing with a temperamental author or two, hiring and coaching freelance editors, preparing to present at a sales conference for books we acquired a year or two ago which are just now reaching the public, sifting through a billion other book proposals, answering tedious emails, attending way too many irrelevant meetings, solving problems that unexpectedly arise during production, and…well, you get the idea.

What that means for you is that, both on an emotional and intellectual level, I will prejudge your proposal based on the amount of new work I expect it’ll make for me.

If I like your book idea, but realize I’m going to have to teach you how to organize your thoughts, or how to write dialogue, or whatever, I’ll usually reject. If I see that your competitive analysis is nonexistent, or weak, that means I’m going to have to do it for you if I want to publish your book. But I’m already working 10-hour days, so I’m just not going to take the time for that. I’ll reject you instead. Same goes for titling, and author platform summaries, and anything else that’s actually part of my job—but which I’m hoping you’ve already done for me.

Bottom line, editorially speaking?

Your best chance to avoid rejection is to do as much of my job for me as possible, and show it in your proposal. After all, I do hate taking on extra work.

What You Can Do About It

1. Review Reason for Rejection #30.

If your proposal is complete, you’re already a step ahead of 90% of the other authors pitching books to me this week. So use the information there to make sure you’ve already done all the basics of my job before you send me your book.

2. Become familiar with my job responsibilities.

Don’t simply assume you know what an editor does. Most likely, you don’t have a clue as to all the little frustrations that fill our days. So try to find out. Read career books on editorial jobs. Check out editorial jobs on Indeed.com or LinkedIn.com, and study the specific responsibilities and qualifications listed in those job descriptions. If possible, ask to be allowed to “shadow” an editor for a day at a publishing company, magazine office, or newspaper headquarters in your local area. (Bring along your son or daughter and pretend it’s an “educational field trip” for your children.)

The point is, once you know what the mundane tasks are that fill up my day, you can tailor your proposal to complete them for me. Then when I look at your book, I’ll rejoice that it makes my job easy for once—and will advocate enthusiastically for your book as a result.

3. Remember that, when it comes to securing a contract for your book, my primary job is as your salesperson.

Think of me as someone you’re hiring to effectively present your book to my publishing board. Now, you’re not going to just slap a few pages in my hand and send me off to close the sale. No, if you really want me to make those customers buy, you’re going to take time to immerse me in a thorough training about the features and benefits of your product (your book), to suggest real-world sales strategies I can use with my customers, and to give me every tool you can think of to help me succeed.

After all, you only succeed if I do.

So when you prepare your proposal pitch and writing samples, make sure to give me everything I need to be the best salesperson your book could possibly have.

Looking for more? Check out these links:

Reason #32: You Have No Idea What It Means to Market a Book

/ Mike Nappa

A Marketing Team reason for rejection

In this context I’m using the word “market” synonymously with the word “promote.” Yes, I know that in business school they teach you the supposed “Four Ps of Marketing” (“product, price, place, and promotion”), but for your purposes the primary marketing concern is that last “P”—promotion. So let’s ignore those other Ps and focus on what’s important.

If you want to publish a book, you have to help my Marketing VP succeed in her job of promoting that book. If you don’t know what that means, or if you have an overly simplistic/inaccurate view of what it takes to market a book, then you’ve already set yourself up for failure.

I have a friend who partnered with another friend to create and self-publish a very worthwhile media product. During the time when they were creating that product, they spoke enthusiastically about how they’d set a goal of selling 50,000 copies soon after publication. I was impressed, so I asked them, “How will you market this product?”

“Well, we’re going to have a website,” one said.

I nodded, waiting.

Finally they said, “And we’ll figure out the rest when the time comes.”

That was it. That was their marketing plan. That was how they intended to spread the word to hundreds of thousands of potential buyers. Put up a website. And figure out the rest later. Needless to say, they fell about 49,950 units short of their goal.

Unfortunately, too many authors think that marketing a book is something for someone else (i.e., the publisher) to worry about. And honestly, it should be—an author ought to just write, right? But in today’s publishing climate, that’s not the way it works.

When your book comes up for review at publishing board, my marketing VP is going to want to know that you’ll be a real partner in the promotional efforts—not simply dead weight. To my VP, if you have no idea what it takes to market your own book, then you don’t deserve to be published.

What You Can Do About It

1. Study the basics of book promotion. Duh.

OK, we all know about the “big” promotional vehicles: TV commercials, radio spots, infomercials, magazine ads, newspapers, movies, product placement, and so on. Truth is, your book will get none of that.

In reality, your book will probably get:

• A spot in the corporate catalog

• A sell-sheet that’s shown to bookstore buyers

• A press release (maybe)

• Advance Reader Copies (ARCs) sent to basic media outlets prior to publication (maybe)

• A certain number of “Influencer Copies”—that is, a certain number of books that you can direct the publisher to mail for free to people you know who are considered “influential”

That’s about it—but honestly, a book can succeed with that as the starting point. So your job is to understand what goes into creating those things and then providing that material in your proposal.

A helpful resource for you in that effort is Publicize Your Book! by Jacqueline Deval, so be sure to check that out.

2. Learn to speak in terms of benefits.

As an advertising copywriter myself, this is always what makes the difference between me getting paid quickly or me having to do a rewrite. You see, Marketing VPs got to where they are by being able to tell readers, in clear, compelling language, exactly why they’ll benefit from buying certain books. That’s what it means to “market” a product. So if you want to appeal to a marketer, you’ll need to learn how to speak about your book in terms of its benefits.

We’ll talk about this in more detail in Reason #34, but for now try this: When your manuscript is done, take a good hard look at it and ask, “What specific benefits does this book give a reader?” Make a list, and make it clear and compelling. Then speak in those terms as much as possible when you’re writing up your proposal package.

Make your benefits obvious and you’ll get a Marketing VP’s attention…but in a good way.

3. Create key marketing phrases to go with your book.

Think about things like:

• What’s the one-sentence “hook” that’ll make people curious enough to read your book?

• What are the “felt needs” a reader has that’ll prompt him or her to be attracted to your book?

• What are the unique features of your book—and why are they important to your reader?

• What’s an attention-grabbing headline that could be used on the back cover of your book?

Then craft one-sentence, sound-bite style phrases that can be used for each of those questions above. Gauge them for impact, clarity, conciseness, and emotion. Then, when you’ve got something you think could be plugged right into use for the promotion of your book, add a section to your proposal that showcases them for the Marketing VP.

Looking for more? Check out these links:

Reason #33: You Have No Legitimate Platform to Promote a Book

/ Mike Nappa

A Marketing Team reason for rejection

What we’re talking about here is commonly referred to as “author platform.” That is, the author’s unique ability to spread the word about his or her upcoming book.

Best friends with Oprah Winfrey and can promise she’ll mention your book on TV? No problem. You’ll get published. Have your own national radio show on NPR or KIIS FM? My Marketing VP is going to love you. Built a blog readership that pulls in hundreds of thousands of people every month? OK, we can work with that.

Got none of the above (like most of us in the rest of the world)? Well, you’re going to have a tough time getting published.

Over the past two decades, the publishing industry has constricted, readership of traditional books has either gone flat or gone into decline. Thousands of bookstores nationwide have shut down, and the rise of the Internet has made it easy to steal entire works with the click of a mouse. (Hey, why spend $25 on a hardcover book when you can just copy the text off an obscure website?) All these factors and more have made it harder for traditional publishers to find the same kinds of success they used to take for granted. The result has been across-the-board cost cutting and only targeted promotion of perceived “higher profile” books. That means today’s book marketing team faces shrinking or nonexistent budgets, tougher markets, and more pressure to perform.

In many marketers’ minds, that situation has been translated to mean that the author must now bear the primary responsibility for promoting his or her book.

Is that expectation fair? Absolutely not. The author’s responsibility should be solely to create a wonderful book that people will want to read (an extremely time-consuming job all by itself!). And besides, if you honestly have the ability to showcase your book on Oprah or some other widely-known marketing channel, then you don’t need a publisher. You can just self-publish, and let your pal O do the rest for you.

Ah, but publishing has never claimed to be a “fair” industry. It rewards only the strong, only those who can stay viable in the marketplace. So, even though it’s not fair—and can occasionally be downright harmful for the industry—your book will often be rejected simply because the Marketing VP doesn’t see a legitimate way for you to do the marketing team’s work of promoting your book to the world.

Lack of platform, unfortunately, is by far the second-most common reason why a book is rejected (see Reason #1 for the first). Platform is a must for today’s professional author; ignore this fact to your own peril.

What You Can Do About It

1. Invest time building an author platform.

This is hard for those who have dedicated themselves to a lot of the principles I outlined in the first section of this book. Why? Because instead of spending your time to hone your craft and create works of art on a written page, you’ve now got to split your time between writing and platform-building. (Who knew a writer would be required to become a marketing professional?)

Still, we work within the situations we’ve been given, right? So the best way to build an author platform is to look for opportunities to combine your content writing with platform channels that are a natural expression of your work. For instance, if you write parenting books, you might try to place a parenting column in your local newspaper or in a national magazine. Then you can assume that the writing you do to reach the masses with your column will also be one day usable for a book that compiles those columns. But, of course, getting a newspaper or national magazine column is easier said than done.

At any rate, here are a few platform-building channels you can pursue in your spare time:

high-traffic websites (try to become a content provider for some of these);
high-traffic blogs;
local newspapers;
regional and national magazines;
local, regional, and national radio programs;
local, regional, and national television programs;
political affiliations;
national association publications;
national speaking careers.

Basically, any organization or publication that allows you to tell thousands and thousands of people about your new book will be welcome in the publishing board meeting, so look for opportunities to connect with those kinds of organizations/publications.

2. Network, Network, Network.

The more people you know, the more favors you can call in when your book releases. Hey, if you really do get into Oprah Winfrey’s network of friends and/or colleagues, that makes a difference. If you meet Stephen King at a writer’s conference and you two hit it off to the point of exchanging email addresses, that might turn into a high-profile endorsement for your next novel. Maybe a college student that’s your Facebook friend will start interning for Jimmy Fallon. That connection could evolve into a guest spot on late night TV—you never know.

So be someone who collects business cards, who stays in touch with entertainment industry colleagues, who stays in the good graces of people who know people. That kind of thing extends your platform and promote-ability, so make it a priority in your writing career.

3. Study DIY Marketing and Publicity Strategies.

Last, but not least, remember that you don’t have to be helpless when it comes to promoting your book. If you know how to reach 85,000 people with your own press release, or if you know how to take advantage of low-investment, high-exposure marketing channels, or even how to start a whisper campaign on the streets of New York City, that means something to a Marketing VP. So hit your local library and carry home a stack of books on do-it-yourself marketing and publicity. Identify the strategies that seem feasible for you, and include a promise to implement them (along with the number of people you expect to reach) in your book proposal.

If you can market your book successfully through your own author platform, you become a valuable commodity to a Marketing VP—and you get one step closer to getting that VP’s vote during the publishing board meeting.

Looking for more? Check out these links: