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    How to Get Published and Deal with Clients, Co-Writing, Copyrights, and Contracts
    How to Get Published and Deal with Clients, Co-Writing, Copyrights, and Contracts
    How to Get Published and Deal with Clients, Co-Writing, Copyrights, and Contracts
    Ebook129 pages2 hours

    How to Get Published and Deal with Clients, Co-Writing, Copyrights, and Contracts

    By Gini Graham Scott Ph.D.

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    About this ebook

    HOW TO GET PUBLISHED AND DEAL WITH COPYRIGHTS, CLIENTS, CO-WRITING, AND CONTRACTS covers a range of topics for both full-time and part-time writers -- from finding publishers and agents and getting published to being successful as a freelancer.  It is a continuation of the previously published book: HOW TO FIND PUBLISHERS AND AGENTS AND GET PUBLISHED.

    It is divided into the following sections:

                - the steps to finding publishers and agents and self-publishing

                - getting a copyright and dealing with piracy

                - freelancing successfully

                - working out co-writing arrangements

                - entering into contracts with publishers and agents

                - what to include in ghostwriter and co-writer contracts

    The book has been developed from blogs on these subjects on Publishers Agents and Films (www.publishersagentsandfilms.com), and it is used in a workshop series on these topics. 

    The author Gini Graham Scott, Ph.D., has published over 50 books with major publishers on numerous topics, and has published an additional 40 books through her own company Changemakers Publishing.  She is a frequent speaker on finding publishers and agents and self-publishing, as well as on the subjects featured in her books. 

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherGini Scott
    Release dateSep 30, 2015
    ISBN9781519932259
    How to Get Published and Deal with Clients, Co-Writing, Copyrights, and Contracts
    Author

    Gini Graham Scott Ph.D.

               Gini Graham Scott has published over 50 books with mainstream publishers, focusing on social trends, work and business relationships, and personal and professional development. Some of these books include Scammed (Allworth Press, 2017), Lies and Liars: How and Why Sociopaths Lie and How to Detect and Deal with Them (Skyhorse Publishing 2016), Internet Book Piracy (Allworth Press 2016), The New Middle Ages (Nortia Press 2014), and The Very Next New Thing (ABC-Clio 2010). She published a series of books on homicide: Homicide by the Rich and Famous (Praeger Publishing 2005; Berkley Books paperback 2006), American Murder (ABC-Clio, 2007), and Homicide: A Hundred Years of Murder in America (Roxbury 1998).             Scott has gained extensive media interest for previous books, including appearances on Good Morning America, Oprah, Montel Williams, CNN, and hundreds of radio interviews. She has frequently been quoted by the media and has set up websites to promote her most recent books, featured at www.ginigrahamscott.com and www.changemakerspublishing.com.

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      Book preview

      How to Get Published and Deal with Clients, Co-Writing, Copyrights, and Contracts - Gini Graham Scott Ph.D.

      PART I: FINDING PUBLISHERS AND PRODUCERS

      CHAPTER 1: THE STEPS TO WRITE YOUR BOOK, FIND PUBLISHERS AND AGENTS, AND GET PUBLISHED

      ––––––––

      Here’s a quick overview of things to keep in mind when you write your book, look for publishers and agents, or decide to publish your book yourself. 

      Writing Your Book

      Collect your blogs, articles, or journal notes into a book

      Use transcripts from your workshops, seminars, or talks to groups

      Do interviews and have them transcribed

      Develop a chapter by chapter outline for what to include and target future blogs, articles, journal postings, interviews, etc. to fill in each chapter

      Dedicate 1-2 hours a day for writing, or consider a ghostwriter

      What You Need to Pitch Your Book to a Traditional Publisher

      If your book is fiction and you are unpublished, you normally have to complete the book, plus create a 1-2 page single spaced synopsis.

      If your book is nonfiction, you generally need to write a proposal plus 1-3 chapters to submit to agents and/or publishers, even if the book is completed.  The beginning of the proposal is generally 10-15 pages, and includes an overview of the book, chapter by chapter outline, and plan for completing the book. It also should include a market and competitors section listing similar or related books already published, the publisher, and how the book is doing; an author’s bio; and an author’s platform section, indicating what PR you have gotten in the past and how you can help support the book in the future.

      Unless you already have an agent or knowledgeable rep pitching your book, you need to write a query letter or have one written for you to send to publishers/editors and/or agents.

      Contacting Publishers and Agents about Your Book

      If you can contact publishers or agents at conferences, workshops, and through personal referrals, that’s ideal.

      If you already have an agent, make sure your agent is continuing to pitch your book; you might also propose supplementing what the agent does by making some contact with publishers yourself; some agents will welcome this; others not so much.  If you do make some of your own contacts, be sure to check with your agent in advance to make sure not to contact anyone your agent has already contacted. Keep your agent aware of the responses, and refer any editor or publisher who expresses interest to your agent for follow-up.

      If you feel your agent is no longer actively representing your book, end your agreement and find a new agent or pitch the book yourself.

      If you plan to query traditional publishers and agents, don’t self-publish the same book, unless you have a powerful platform and can build large sales for this book. Publishers don’t want to publish a book that already has been published, unless there are big sales. 

      A good approach is self-publishing a book to build your platform and sell it yourself; then pitch a follow-up or related book to mainstream publishers and agents.

      Sending an E-Mail Query to Publishers and Agents

      If you don’t have an agent or personal connections for contacting agents or publishers, an e-mail query can be an effective way to contact them.

      You can contact a large number of editors and agents with a personalized query, so they respond directly to you.  Publishers Agents and Films can help you send these queries to hundreds of agents and editors based on your type of book. For details: www.publishersagentsandfilms.com.  

      While many editors at major publishers want submissions by an agent, some will accept queries from writers and some will make exceptions for a really good query letter.

      When you send a query don’t include attachments or graphics, since a regular text query is more likely to be received and read, but you can include links to a website. Editors and agents often will not open any attachments due to fears about viruses, trojans, and other malware.

      Keep your query letter short and to the point, since a successful query letter is typically about 300-400 words, and no more than 500-600 words, and includes these key components:

      1) A strong subject line to attract interest; it should indicate specifically what your book or script is about and be in upper and lower case, Title Case, or Sentence case.

      2) A short summary statement of 1 or 2 sentences highlighting what the book or script is about and what makes it especially interesting and salable.

      3) Two to three paragraphs describing the plot of a fiction book, the main topics covered in a nonfiction book, or the main plot points in a script.

      4) A sentence or two about the book or script’s key selling points and why the book or script is marketable to your main audience.

      5) A short paragraph about your own background, including what may have inspired the book or script, and recent highlights about previous publications or films, writing, and relevant work experience. 

      6) A sentence or two about any PR or promotion you have already gotten.

      7) A final sentence indicating that if the recipient is interested, you would be glad to submit a more detailed synopsis, proposal, sample chapters, or the complete manuscript. 

      8) Be prepared to follow-up within a week or 10 days with a proposal, synopsis, sample chapters or complete manuscript, or a script treatment. 

      9) Include personal contact information at the end, including your name, company if any, city, state (full address and zip is optional, though good to include), website if you have one, phone, and email.

      Self-Publishing Your Book

      A simple low-cost way to publish your book is as a Print-On-Demand (POD) book through CreateSpace and Kindle, though there are multiple services with various pricing plans.  You can use one of their templates or design your own cover, and you can order as many or as few books as you want at about 1/3 of the retail price. 

      Generally you need the final copy formatted according to the publisher’s guidelines in a WordDocument or PDF, with appropriate margins and any graphics or photos in the text. 

      While you can self-publish yourself, Publishers Agents and Films can guide you through the process or set up everything for you.

      Keep the pricing low to attract sales – about $9.95-14.95 is a good price point for a paperback book; $2.99 for an e-book.

      CHAPTER 2: SEARCHING FOR PUBLISHERS

      ––––––––

      When you are searching for a publisher for your book, don’t only target publishers who are interested in your type of book but the editors who handle that subject. The way to do this is by using keywords, such as historical, relationships, self-help, although this is not a perfect science, since these searches will pull up some editors who still don’t handle that particular type of book within the category selected.  But at least, this kind of targeted search will help to narrow the field.

      When you do this search, there are a number of sources you can use, such as the Writers Market directories that come out annually, the Literary Marketplace, which  has an online database of publishers, the Publishers Marketplace, or some companies that sell data.  However, using such sources of information can be expensive and time consuming – and some data can be out of date. 

      For example, the Writers Market directories for publishers, agents, and children’s publishers and agents which come out in September for the following year are about $25 each. But because of the delay in publishing and distribution, some of the contact information may have already changed or some companies may be out of business.  There is an online directory you can access after buying a book, but you have to do individual searches, and some of the information may not have been updated. 

      In the case of Literary Marketplace, you  need a paid subscription to get more than a physical address, and the cost is $25 for a week, $399 for a year; Publishers Marketplace has a subscription fee of $25 a year.  The other companies that sell data have other fees, and typically they only sell you a portion of their total database or allow you to send queries to a limited number of publishers who you have selected from their database. 

      But even if you have a direct access to the data, you then have to select the publishers to contact individually and create a mailing list or database from that. Then you have to do individual mailings unless you create your own database for multiple mailings. 

      By contrast, a company like Publishers Agents and Films has already bought the books and subscriptions has created a database with keyword codes to indicate what a publisher is interested in, do their own test mailings every 4 to 6 weeks to update their databases with the latest information, and can do targeted mailings for you within a day of getting your final letter.  Plus the company uses special software to personalize an email to the selected contacts and can use anyone’s email for the send and reply addresses, so interested editors and publishers think you

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