Writing a successful book is like germ warfare. You have to combine
the elements necessary to create the desired effect and then make sure
the result is carried to enough people to make them crazy about your
book. Success results from following a proven strategy that all
writers have used to get published well.
There’s one system for success, and only one. Everyone who has ever
been published has followed this system. You are welcome to decide to
invent your own system, but you’ll still be shopping at Barnes&Noble
while everyone else is selling there.
There are Five Steps to Success as an author. But you don’t have to
take my word for it. I’ve been an agent since the Dawn of Time, sold
more than 300 books for clients, given variations of what I teach in
this article 500+ times to thousands of writers all over the country,
and used what I teach myself to create 21 published books of my own
under four pseudonyms. My 16th book has been so successful I’ve been
on more than 253 radio shows, 21 print hits like the New York Times,
Dallas Morning News, Chicago Tribune, Miami Herald, Playboy, Maxim and
so on. I’ve been on 49 national TV shows including Dateline NBC, CBS
The Early Show, Crosstalk, Fox, ABC, MSNBC, Politically Incorrect and
others. Frankly, I know what I’m talking about.
The first step you must commit to is Understand Your Market.
This is the most critical step in success. Skipping it will mean
failure. Period. Luckily, this is not difficult. It simply means that
if you hope anyone besides you will read what you write, you must
begin by thinking it through based on a true assessment of your future
readers’ needs. That is how you build the germ of an idea into a book.
The renowned book editor Roy Carlisle describes publishing like this:
When something happens in news today, it gets put into the papers.
When the public has had collective time to mull it over, and it is
still of interest, it shows up in “interim media” - Time, Newsweek,
and television news stories that reflect more effort and thought. At
this point, the news people are bringing in analysts, consultants and
other experts. Finally, after society has collectively processed the
ideas, they occur in book form, the highest written expression of a
cogent thought.
No matter what your subject matter, think about any overlaps between
it and what is currently sticking in the collective mind of Americans.
A book can take two years from idea to shelf, so look for ideas that
mean something to you, that catch your fancy, and that are showing up
in longer lead articles in magazines you read. Discover what people
are thinking about now.
To achieve a true understanding of your marketplace, you must also
read similar books. Find out what your book’s competitors have
already written. Take impeccable notes to determine how your intended
book will be New, Different, Better or offer something More than all
those others out there.
Take a month to devise a list of questions and ask everyone you can
find if the subject, is interesting to them, what they think about
your take on it, and what comments they have. When I was writing my
most successful book published under my own name, The Cult of the
Born Again Virgin: How Single Women Can Reclaim Their Sexual Power
I interviewed nearly 100 women about their views on choosing celibacy
until a relationship meant something to them. Like all authors, I did
it with an open mind, not trying to sell my viewpoint, but instead
asking them if they’d ever considered waiting to be sexual and what
benefits they received from that decision if they made it. The book
changed 100 times, once for each interview, and its success since then
is largely attributed to the “experts” I spoke to – the women who
would buy and read my book later.
Once you’ve done your “field testing” by knowing which books really
compete with you and why yours is better, and you’ve talked to enough
potential buyers and experts to know that you aren’t writing something
off the planet, the next thing to do is nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Nothing, that is, except spend a day, a week, a month or two just
letting the ideas percolate in your head. Let them mature, come to
full awareness, mellow out. Your book will begin to rise from the
mists in your brain. Don’t jump right into writing it until it’s
matured and ready.
This brings you to the Second Step in becoming a successful author:
Create Excellent Material. Write what you have learned in the best
light possible, brightly, clearly, concisely. Writing is an art form,
not something you pick up because English happens to be your native
language. If you don’t know how to write, find someone who will train
you. If you don’t know about proper tone, style and format, get a book
on it or come to a live event. My agency is one of many excellent
places where you can learn both in one concise seminar weekend if you
are writing nonfiction. There are other resources. Your objective is
to do whatever it takes to express your clear message in the best
possible form so the greatest number of people can benefit from it.
You can already start to see the Third Step. In fact, if you’ve had
the dedication to get this far, you already clearly know what it is.
It is: Be willing to put time into your book. Much as it would
be nice, it’s highly unlikely any publisher is going to come tapping
on your door asking you if you have a book. Even if they did, would
you be ready to express your concept live and also on paper? Chances
are no, so find your weaknesses and shore them up! Right away! Your
job as the author of the book and promoter of the ideas in it is to
promote. This requires time.
The Fourth Step and the Fifth Step are close companions.
The Fourth Step is to Have Realistic Expectations and the fifth
is to Understand the Process of Publishing. These are both
critical and easily handled. By “realistic expectations” we mean that
you will be wise enough to know that there are probably some things
you don’t know about how this Neanderthal industry functions, and how
to work the system. Any literary agent will be glad to enlighten you
live, but in this article, let me share a few tips: Believing you will
be on Oprah after your book comes out is wonderful. It reflects the
Power of Positive Thinking, and I commend you. I even hope you do get
on Oprah and the NYT best-seller list. Even more, I hope that if you
do, I am your agent when it happens. But it is not common for every
one of the 65,000 books we publish in this business every year to show
up on her show. (It just seems like it!)
In short, don’t mention you will be on Oprah when you are writing your
book’s marketing plan, unless you can guarantee it. And by having
realistic expectations, you will also know that it is you who must
write AND implement that marketing plan on behalf of your published
book because you have been forewarned that publishers only print and
distribute books and do not market them except on the rarest of
occasions. Those were the good old days. They are gone.
These are but two examples of having realistic expectations. But both
of them can be critical to your success. All five of these steps show
you how to work the system to your advantage. In our seminars on
proposal writing, I always elaborate on these points so that authors
understand two things: What they are up against and How to beat the
odds to get published well.
Once you have completed these steps, your next task is to find a
highly qualified literary agent who has sold and is currently selling
books like yours. Make sure you like and trust this person immensely,
because you are giving your baby to them! The agent can illuminate for
you all the other details of publishing and can show you how to work
them to your greatest advantage.
Publishing is an industry unlike no other. Many of the inner workings
are the same today as they were in Ben Franklin’s day. Others have
caught up to the rest of the world. The Internet and
conglomeratization have created a new set of rules for authors to play
by, and made the stakes much higher. There’s enormous room to profit
in this industry, as witnessed by some of our own NSA members’
successes. Learn to look for the opportunities and read the writing
boldly scrawled across the walls of America and you will discover the
secrets of highly successful authorship.
Wendy Keller
Keller Media, Inc.
Literary Agency & Speakers Bureau
23852 West Pacific Coast Highway, Suite 701
Malibu, CA 90265 USA
310.857.6828 voice
310.857.6373 fax
