First Word

As a publisher, the no. #1 comment I hear continually is ... "Everybody has a book in them." While it's true we all have a story to tell, that comment doesn't address the professionalism required to make a book a reality. Using the various methods available to others to get their books out of them, it's true everybody can, in fact, have a book published. But that requires the realization that to get a book into the popular culture, it needs to be treated like any business endeavor -- and any business endeavor requires professionalism to do it right. If you can't necessarily write, but do have a story to tell, you can do the following: Hire a ghost writer -- Did you know many books aren't written the author whose name is shown on the front. A ghost writer is a professional writer who can make your story not only structurally make sense, but also grammatically work. A ghost writer knows how a book is supposed to be written, and there is no guesswork...

It's not easy at a table full of authors to have to state the most unpleasant reality of self-publishing tools like Lulu or Lightspeed or even Smashwords or Createspace. No one wants to hear it. They especially don't want to hear it with their self-published, print-on-demand book in their hands. Now you might construe my points as self-promoting, but I'm being honest and blunt, it is what is ... First and foremost, those "tools" ARE NOT publishers. They do not provide professional editing, proofing (yes, proofing is a whole other process), graphic design, or even truly "publish" your book. Second (and people especially don't want to hear this one), I can tell a self-published book just at a glance. I don't have to scrutinize or even analyze. Lulu looks a certain way as do all of the others. Third, unpleasant truth: if I can tell it's a self-published, print-on-demand book within seconds, the critics (who have equally critical and experi...

I don't watch much television, but every now and then I catch a show. Well, the other day I was mindlessly sitting on the sofa when a commercial came on. It was an "Author's Kit": everything you need to be an author. Wow! My mouth dropped, and I wondered since when did my chosen profession become a Tinker Toy set? We ALL can be authors, and here' the kit. I imagined an engineering set: here is your Build a High Rise kit complete with concrete and hammer. You too can build a downtown high rise just use our handy kit. Dear friends and prospective authors if publishing has now come down to a KIT we're all in for a lot of really bad books. Do-it-yourself publishing kits do not replace professionals. Each part of publishing is a profession. Editing is a skill. Writing is a talent. Graphic art another profession. People go to college and attain degrees to perfect these skills. What I think happened is the eBook revolution has created a slippery slope. An area that...