The paradox of new media
In the history of mankind, publishing a work of your own genius has never been easier than today. And it has never been, paradoxically, even so difficult. Precisely the simplicity of the act of publishing has produced such an abundance of materials available for public consultation that it would take three times the world's population and a single language read and spoken across the planet to give a minimum of satisfaction to so many of these publications that have little chance of being noticed, remembered and eventually read.
"Everyone by nature wants to know" wrote Aristotle more than 2 millennia ago. A correct statement which, however, collides with the biological and social limits of beings that can only absorb a certain amount of product. The producer of knowledge, knowledge and also evasion is therefore subjected to a process of "natural selection" which, unlike what happens in nature, does not always preserve the most valid subjects. In the evolution of culture and collective knowledge, it is not yet known whether the wisdom of the crowd transferred to software, the new selection parameter, can replace the intellectual and economic elite that dominated the age of the mass media for the better.
Beyond all limits of absorption
There is even someone who has taken the trouble to count how many materials are published daily globally. According to a calculation made by "Wired" (August 2013, US paper edition), every day humanity writes and publishes the equivalent of half a billion books on the web. Humanity has never written and read as much as now. A beautiful thing, but not without consequences.
Let's take the books, the nobility of what is published and entered into public debate. In the United States, one third of the world's book market, between two and a half and three million books are read every year. There are many, but the small package of bestsellers takes almost 70% of this figure. If we define as bestsellers those titles that sell at least 20 thousand copies, the package is reduced to less than 150 titles. The other books are watching. How to become a bestseller is still an extremely mysterious and unpredictable matter today. Not even Amazon, which knows everything about the behavior of readers, is able to plan a bestseller in advance. Goldam Sachs analysts do not accept orders for books and films.
To get an idea of how many books are published in a year one could look at the number of ISBNs purchased by non-traditional publishers and entities. Well, in 10 years they have increased sixfold in the United States alone. Because of this abundance on offer, today it is very difficult for anyone who decides to publish something to emerge from irrelevance and oblivion.
Time at any cost
There is also the fact that, in the meantime, the free time of people who read, get information and have fun has remained the same, even if access to content, thanks to the web, has extended to segments of the population which before they were excluded. For example, the time spent reading in the United States has remained the same for ten years now. This is a result of great value, but the time dedicated to reading, if compared to other leisure and information activities practiced during free time, is still very low as can be seen from the graph.
Recently at the conclusion of a long report by Joe Nocera in the "New York Times" entitled Can Netflix Survive in the New World It Created?, Reed Hastings, the founder of Netflix, questioned about the future of his business and the challenges that await it he declared “the real challenge is on users' time, not so much on the time they spend watching television (which is the segment of Netflix), but on the time they spend reading books, listening to music and attending concerts”. It's a declaration of war on publishers, we'll come and get your clients. A battle cry that echoes that of Russel Grandinetti, head of Amazon's Kindle operations, when he said that in the digital landscape, a $20 book not only competes with another $20 book, but also competes with streaming services. with video games, applications, YouTube and Vine videos, with blogs, with social media and instant message services and who knows how many other reading, viewing and listening options. In short, all against all on the same battlefield.
The media have now become one large and undifferentiated container where they compete with each other for the attention, time and money of consumers.
How to post
If this is the scenario, one wonders what a person who loves to write and seeks to write a profession for life should do?
Before him today there are many options. I believe that the first option to put into practice is to contact a publishing professional, i.e. an agent or a publisher. But one must address him with a proposal that does not abuse his time and his availability. The first impression is in fact fundamental. It's not a vain action as many think and write on posts.
As a recent Author Earnings report showed, it's definitely not true that major publishers only publish trusted authors, celebrities, and YouTubers. They also publish first-time writers. For every 4 “safe” books published by the American big five (Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Simon and Schuster, Macmillan and Hachette) there is one by a novice. Good, right? So why not try contacting an agent who works with major publishers?
Precisely because this option cannot be excluded at all, we are publishing a sort of vademecum prepared by Steph Auteri, freelancer editor and writer from New York as well as registered yoga teacher (RYT-200). Auteri summarizes her experience in the preparation of an editorial proposal to be addressed to a literary agent or directly to a publisher by a rookie author. Always, as a first step, contact a literary agent.
Any self-respecting publication proposal must make it possible to satisfactorily tick off the nine points that Auteri lists in an article published on the Ploughshares Blog and taken up by BookBaby in the newsletter sent to tens of thousands of independent, first-time or self-published authors who part of its large community of writers. We believe that every young writer or novice writer should apply great diligence to Auteri's suggestions before pressing the "send" button with his manuscript attached, whoever the recipient of his message is.
The nine points to score
1. Attractive title and subtitle. Even if the publisher could always change the title of the book in the final stages of processing, it is always good to give the idea, from the beginning, that the proposal is in a very advanced stage of drafting and that there is an appropriate title .
2. Presentation well done. Are you a writer or not? Then take the time to write down a nice presentation too. May he be brilliant from the very first sentence. It's something to excite. The easiest thing is therefore to convey your enthusiasm! If you don't get it right, the agent will immediately move on to the next manuscript in the pile. He has no time to waste with those who can't present their work.
3. Relevant information about you. What is your background and area of expertise? What important things have you done in literature or other fields? You have to know how to convey to the agent the impression that you were born to write that book. You like this job so prove it!
4. Details of the proposal. Make it easy for the agent or editor to build a mind map of your book. What are the important words? In which categories can it be pigeonholed? Who are the characters? Where does it take place? How many words does it have? Use the metric of words and not of pages, it's more modern. Where have you arrived in the writing process? If you haven't written anything, you're just wasting your time.
5. Knowledge of the relevant public. Make an identikit of the recipient of your book and explain why it will be easy to make them buy it. This is above all what the publisher is interested in when the agent makes the call. You have to be the one to direct it. If the agent can convince the publisher that your book meets an existing need in a particular audience (preferably demographic), then your chances of getting published increase dramatically.
6. Competitor analysis. What differentiates your book from similar books that are already on the market and have been successful? By providing arguments about it, you can demonstrate that there is already a market ready to receive your work and that this is just what it takes to capture the attention of the audience.
7. Marketing and PR plan. Most of the traditional publishing authors' job is to get their books talked about. How do you plan to turn yours into a success? The agent will want to know about your current readership, how you think you can reach them and on which platform or online resource you plan to promote the book, what your relationship with the media is, and whether you will be doing any readings or presentation tours. If you have less than 250 Twitter followers it's a pain. Build them first, then go to the agent. There are many companies that help build a follower base on Twitter. Go to one of these.
8. Index. A table of contents with a description paragraph for each chapter should be prepared so that the agent can easily conceptualize the content without wasting time making his own outline. Bowled porridge is eaten immediately. Cooking for someone uninvited can be annoying.
9. Extract. Good morning starts in the morning. That's why we have to give a good taste of your REAL book, whether it's a full-chapter essay or something more extensive. If you have written all of it and haven't filed it properly yet, don't send the entire manuscript. One taste can whet the appetite.
Now that you have compiled all the essential points of the editorial proposal, refrain from flooding the agent's mailbox with all the materials you have prepared. Most agents prefer to first receive a short letter informing them of the project. Agent preferences vary. To be sure you're moving in the right way, check the agent's website to familiarize yourself with the suggested procedures for submitting manuscripts. Don't do your own thing, but enter the interlocutor's head.
