Determining Your Audience

As I mentioned in my last post, most of our books--Current Events, Business, and Self-Help--are being sold primarily to the authors' respective communities. This means that if you are writing a book intended for CEOs and Consultants and Coaches to CEOs, then you had better already have a network of people of these professions who are interested in your product. If you are writing a book for sales executives, but you yourself have no connections to sales executives, then there is a very small chance that any one from your intended audience will even consider buying your book.

This is a symptom of a bigger, largely unnoticed phenomenon: filtering. As Cass Sunstein writes in his book Republic 2.0, consumers of media are constantly gaining the ability to filter the information they receive. As general interest news sources are on the decline, personalized media websites are on the rise. Part of the problem is an overabundance of information--far too much for any one person to read. However, this ability to filter can lead to increased polarization; as a person gains the ability to choose what to include and exclude in her daily readings, she is automatically denying herself exposure to certain types of information.

This is what authors are up against. As publishers we're not worried that people who see your book will not buy it. We're worried that people will never see your book. Period.

More and more, people are seeking out what they want and ignoring what they don't. Publicity campaigns, in the traditional mail-blast sense, are on the decline. What is working these days is specialized, targeted campaigns, to carefully compiled networks. Just like finding a job, it's best to know people who know people.

How Many Books Have YOU Rejected?

Since starting here at Berrett-Koehler (a scant two weeks ago), I have informed 24 authors that we will not be publishing their books. As I'm writing this, I just received queries for three more books--a quick scan informs me that they will push the number up to 27.

Sometimes the decision making process is quick and easy. "No, I'm sorry, but Berrett-Koehler does not publish books on vampires and werewolves, try Little Brown Young Readers," or "Sorry, but you live in Antarctica...and we are in San Francisco."

But more often than not it involves a closer look into the proposal.

The proposal is the most important part of the package. If you include a manuscript or sample chapters, that's great, but I won't look at it unless you have other information.

The first thing I look for is the author platform. The sad reality is that books (especially non-fiction books in the ilk of Berrett-Koehler) are selling primarily to the author's immediate community. A lot of writers think that publishing a book will launch their careers, launch their movements, when in reality the opposite is true. The most successful books are those published by people who already have a solid reputation, a national platform on which to rely. You may have the most brilliant idea in the world, but people will be reluctant to buy it if they've never heard of you.

After that, I try to determine what the main focus of the book is--the longer it takes me to do that the worse. In this oversaturated market books need to have a instant hook, something that distinguishes them from the, literally, millions of other books against which they are competing. A lot of times there is nothing wrong a book, per se, it is just not a new or compelling idea. This is often the hardest news to break to an author, "I'm sorry, but there's no room for this kind of book," or worse, "There's no audience for this kind of book."

If all that looks good, then I may move on to looking at the actual manuscript. This starts with the table of contents. A good table of contents neatly summarizes the arc of the book and indicates where it begins and ends. If you have so many chapters that I get bored before even finishing the table of contents, you should hire an editor before submitting this proposal. Then I review chapter summaries and sample chapters.

Keep in mind that throughout this whole routine I am reviewing your writing. If nothing else, I'm a grammarian and if your writing is not up to par, I'm hesitant to consider your book for publication.

Right now, if you're an aspiring author, you're probably chaffing at the crass nature of this whole process. Well, join the club. It's almost as hard to get a book published as it is to get a book sold. If you keep in mind that book publishing is still a business--and a floundering one at that--you may have found the edge you need.

For All You Logophiles Out There

As a new intern, I often find myself with odd pockets of time during the day in which I have no work to do. So, while snooping around the office this afternoon I found The New Book of Lists--and I was hooked. They have a whole section of lists about words. Here are some of my favorites.

Untranslatable Words

1. BILITA MPASH (Bantu) : a word for specifically blissful dreams
2. CAVOLI RISCALDATI (Italian) : literally "reheated cabbage," this phrase metaphorically links the messy and distasteful act of reheating cabbage with trying to revive a dead love affair
3. DOHADA (Sanskrit) : the unusual appetites and cravings of pregnant women
4. DRACHENFUTTER (German) : literally, "dragon fodder," a drachenfutter is a gift a husband brings to his wife after he stays out too late; may also be used by other couples trying to avoid guilt and retaliation ie employees to bosses, children to parents, and students to teachers
   
5. ESPRIT DE L'ESCALIER (French) : that brilliantly witty response to a public insult that comes into your mind only after you have left the party; literally "the spirit of the staircase"
6. KATZENJAMMER (German) : a monumentally severe hangover (leave it to the germans to quantify this)
7. TARTLE (Scottish) : to hesitate in recognizing a person or thing, such as forgetting an acquaintance's name; "Oh, hello Lisa!" "Hi... I seem to have forgotten your name. Pardon my sudden tartle!"
   

Obsure and Obsolete Words

1. BOANTHROPY : a type of insanity in which a man thinks he is an ox
2. CHANTEPLEURE : to sing and weep at the same time
3. GROAK : to watch people silently while they are eating, hoping they will ask you to join them
4. GYNOTIKOLOBOMASSOPHILE : one who likes to nibble on a woman's earlobes
5. PARNEL : a priest's mistress
6. PILGARLIC : a bald head that looks like a peeled garlic
7. RESISTENTIALISM : seemingly spiteful behavior manifested by inanimate objects

Favorite Yiddish Words or Phrases

1. TUMMLER : someone who stirs things up, a clown
2. FONFER : someone who talks through his or her nose; a gossip; unsuccessful optimist (I'm actually surprised this word exists in Yiddish because it implies that someone existed who wasn't a fonfer)
   
3. TSACHEL : good judment (high praise)
4. K'NOCKER : a big shot who shows off but has no real merit
5. FARTOOST : confused, befuddled

Go Where You Feel You Can Make the Biggest Difference

Last week I had the privilege of speaking with Steve Piersanti, the President of Berrett-Koehler. He told me about his experience within the Publishing Industry, beginning as a Promotional Copywriter at Jossy-Bass Publishers over 30 years ago. In 1992, after becoming the President of Jossy-Bass, Steve left and founded Berrett-Koehler. His goal in founding this company was to create a publishing company with balance among its employees, authors, stakeholder groups, and customers.

I was eager to get Steve's perspective on the industry as a whole and ask him about its uncertain future. Preparing myself for the worst, I was still surprised when his first words to me were, "There's no hope for publishing books."

He explained the basic premise of the publishing business model:

1. It's a tiny industry. The whole industry combined (trade, professional, academic, everything) is only worth $50 billion.
2. The market is saturated with new products--there were almost 200,000 books published in the US alone last year.
3. Each new product generates only $100,000 to $200,000 in its lifetime. New products in other industries are expected to gross over $1,000,000. However, the same preparation, marketing, and distribution costs factor in to creating a new book.
   
4. The barriers to entry have gone to zero. Now, anyone can write, print, market, and distribute their book themself.

After being thoroughly discouraged, though, Steve did manage to infuse some hope in me. The industry is popular. People still like books. There's something fun, interesting, even kind of sexy about them. People who write books are, at least momentarily, considered glamorous, successful. For people within the industry, the work is challenging and diverse.

Steve's final words to me were, "Do what your heart says. Go where you feel you can make the biggest difference." I asked him if he felt he had made a difference and he smiled and said, "Yes."

All For One and One for Profit

Increasingly, the rules for acquiring the various permissions needed to reproduce pieces of others' work are getting simultaneously more complicated, confusing, and necessary. Jeevan and I had a talk about what Fair Use really means and how to protect yourself as an author and, by extension, as a publisher.

Fair Use has two main components:

1. There is no specific limitation on how many words, lines, or pages of an original text you may reproduce. What is important is the ratio of the quoted material to the size of the material as a whole. For instance, reproducing one page from a book the size of Moby Dick probably won't cause much of a fuss. However, if you were to reproduce one page from a short story which, in total, is only two pages long, you've just copied half of the whole work. This is when you run into problems.
2. Even if you only copy a small amount of the original text, if the selection you choose reveals the core idea you may still be in trouble. These are the cases that are hardest to judge; two people may have very different ideas on what a work's main idea is. The deciding factor is whether or not by revealing this core idea you have detracted from the original work's potential profitability. If in your review you quote a section of the book which persuades a reader that he does not, in fact, have to buy the book to benefit from its lessons, then you've violated this second principle. In general, this is really only enforced when dealing with new releases; spoiling the ending of The Sixth Sense, for instance (Bruce Willis was already dead!), probably won't cause much of a problem--at least I hope it won't.
   

The best ways to avoid these issues are to:

1. Use your judgment
2. Ask for permission; simply asking in advance can avoid many unfortunate legal problems
3. Cite your sources
4. Ask yourself, "Is this quotation necessary to include in my work?"
   

Protecting Your Own Work

Everything you write is automatically copyrighted. You don't have to do anything; your work is yours and it is protected. You can, and Berrett-Koehler does, go the extra mile and register your work with US Copyrights Office. This legally protects your work more firmly because it includes a date of registration and so guarantees you a claim to First Usage. If someone else claims that you stole their manuscript, you can merely direct them to the Copyright Office and prove that you got there first.

But maybe you're not sure that you really did get there first.

No problem. All the copyrights and trademarks are archived and available to the public at USPTO.gov. Even if you're not conducting research, this website is really interesting to explore. Try running a search for the silliest word combinations you can think of and odds are someone else not only thought of it, too, but went to the trouble of registering it with the government.

Anyone Who Tells You Otherwise is a Liar

Today I sat in on an editorial review meeting. Steve (via phone) Jeevan, Johanna, David, and I discussed promising--and not so promising--book proposals. It was fascinating to see what considerations weighed most heavily in determining whether or not to go forward with a project. It all comes down to an author's platform. When you write a book you are assuming some level of expertise and authority, and it is BK's prerogative to determine whether that authority is justified.

I got to really understand this first hand after the meeting. Jeevan is back, and that means I am being turned into a one-woman proposal reading machine. Together, Jeevan and I looked through about five incoming book proposals and systematically rejected all of them. I have about six more proposals to review on my own. This is an industry of tough-skinned, persistent people.

I'm starting to learn what to look for in a proposal and, more importantly, in an author. The book may seem like the product, but increasingly, it is the author himself (or herself) whom we are trying to sell. Without a good reputation and an excellent network, it is very unlikely that BK will publish your book.

It's easy to learn why not to publish a book--in the upcoming weeks I hope to learn what exactly does make a book stand out enough to warrant consideration and, eventually, publication. This seems like a much more nuanced question that I think will grant me a look at the heart of BK's mission more than insight into the publishing industry in general, though I anticipate the two to overlap in certain areas. I'll keep you posted.

What Kind of Editor Do You Want to Be?

Yesterday I had a very informative meeting with Johanna Vondeling, the Acquisitions Editor at Berrett-Koehler. She sat me down and explained the various roles that editors play in the grand course of a book's publication.

Here is the Campbell's Soup version of what I learned (condensed):

Acquisitions Editor -- In charge of seeking out new material. Johanna told me that she looks for leads for books in many different places. Most of the books Berrett Koehler publishes come from established authors, or other professionals who have already achieved a sizeable following. Previous BK authors also recommend new authors from within their respective professional communities. Other manuscripts come from agents who represent authors. By far the fewest number of books come from unsolicited proposals which go into the proverbial junk pile. Part of my job this summer will be to review these proposals and elevate those which I deem to have real merit.

Developmental Editor -- These are the people who work with the author to improve the book as a whole. They are often freelance--few publishing companies have in-house developmental editors. Johanna explained to me that they enjoy their work because it allows them to select the projects they find interesting and to wok on a variety of books. Developmental Editors are important because they are the people who bridge the gap between the specific field of the author and the conventions of book publishing; ideally they have some level of expertise in both arenas.

Copy Editor -- The detail oriented person who closely reads the manuscripts and makes sure it reads well (in standard American English).

My goal for the upcoming week is to have more of these kinds of meetings with other people from Berrett Koehler. I want to figure out how the industry works and what everyone does to accomplish BK's mission of creating a world that works for all.

Signing It Away

Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Intern/Volunteer Agreement

This agreement is intended to indicate the seriousness with which we treat our interns and volunteers. The intent of this agreement is to assure you of our deep appreciation of your internship or volunteer participation and to indicate our commitment to do the very best we can to make your experience her a productive and rewarding one.

Berrett-Koehler Publishers agree to the following conditions:

1. To provide an environment where new knowledge, skill development, and learning opportunities are conducive to achieving the intern/volunteer's objectives and desires.
2. To ensure supervision, and to provide feedback on performance.
3. To be receptive to any comments from the intern/volunteer regarding ways in which we might mutually better accomplish our respective goals.
4. To treat the intern/volunteer as an equal partner, jointly responsible for completion of Berrett-Koehler's mission.
5. Upon request, Berrett-Koehler agrees to provide a letter of reference.

Intern/Volunteer

1. To complete my assignments to the best of my ability.
2. To adhere to Berrett-Koehler's office rules and procedures, including record-keeping requirements and confidentiality issues.
3. To meet time and duty commitments, or to provide adequate notice so that alternate arrangement can be made.

Twittering into the Future

Today I also sat in on a "webinar" (add that to your business lexicon) with David Marshall and Bonnie about how to use Twitter to promote your business, your product, and to gain a following. It was about half an hour long and then half an hour of questions. I had no idea that so much research had been done to calculate the prime Twitter numbers.

Facts and Figures
--Prime number of Tweets per day: 22
--Prime ratio of Following to Followers: 1:2
--Obama's success on Twitter vs. Hilary's: A Million to None

And in the infamous words of MC Hammer, "Forget the numbers, just make it interesting."

My First Day

Today marks my official start at Berrett-Koehler's newest intern. I arrived promptly at 9:30, totally clueless as to how I was to engage myself that day.

My immediate supervisor, Jeevan Sivasubramaniam, is in DC this week--instead of delaying my start date a whole week, however, we decided I should come in today and get started with helping out the marketing team. I met with Bonnie Kaufman who got me started on my first project.

The Berrett-Koehler website (www.bkconnection.com) serves as a catalogue for all of BK's publications. In an effort to increase site traffic and specific books' prominence on Google, I am creating spreadsheets for the books including Title, Author, ISBN, Meta Description, and 10 Key Words. To do this, I examine the copy written about the books on book jackets, in the BK catalogues, and on the website to create a one sentence description and 10 specific, but not unsearchable key words.

Obviously, this is a very large (somewhat tedious) task. The basic plan is to start with the most recent books--those that actually are not published yet--and work backwards, focusing on BK Bestsellers. To make things even more complicated, some books have multiple editions, and most books come in Hardcover, Paperback, and a PDF E-Book format, each of which has a different ISBN.

Bonnie assures me, however, that this will not be my only assignment. Once Jeevan returns I'll have other tasks. I offered my services as a web developer and graphic artist, so we'll see if they have any use for those skills.

I would very much like to help develop book jacket designs--BK usually outsources these jobs to independent designers, but I contributed a little bit to my dad's book cover. Before my dad's book, Effective Apology, was designed, he asked me to create a mock-up of a book cover to place on his website. I made a very simple design, and was surprised when a few months later I was invited to participate in a phone conference with Diane Platner, a Senior Manager for Design and Production, my dad, and the designer they had hired to do the job. Obviously my design was not the one chosen for publication, but the process is really interesting and I think it's something I would be good at.

Welcome to San Francisco

Good things in San Francisco:

• Lots and lots of restaurants, delis, and little, foreign, food markets.
• Cable television.
• Cheap manicures.
• My own bathroom.
• Entering the publishing industry.