A World Without Readers

What would writers do without readers? As the old saying goes, “If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it fall, did it really fall?” “If words appear on a page and no one reads them do they really exist?

Well, yes. Unlike the trees in the forest, books in libraries all over the world contain the words of thousands of writers. But if no one reads them, what good are they?

Words are a writer’s stock in trade, but many beginning writers seem to think that just the act of writing is enough. To complete the communication process, all writing needs to be read.

It used to be that writers were limited to the printed page. If you wanted more than one person to read your work, you had to get it published. Competition in the publication arena is tough, so beginning writers had to spend much of their time pitching story ideas to editors. And while this is still a big part of the market, there are lots of other possibilities. And as the slogan for Mastercard says, “Master the Possibilities.”

Besides print publishing there are lots of other venues where readers can read your work. However, it’s important to understand what type of reader you’ll find in each. Don’t go looking to readers to provide criticism, constructive or otherwise. You should leave that to other writers—people who know writing.

The average reader reads for enjoyment or information. They don’t read to give feedback to the writer. In fact, most people don’t read in detail. Writers, on the other hand, should know how to read like a writer.

So it’s important to know your readers. Let’s say you post something you wrote on Facebook. People generally use Facebook as a quick way to catch up on what’s happening with their friends, as well as people they don’t know—Facebook calls these people “friends,” also. If you post an article or a very short story in the Notes Section of your Facebook page, chances are that very few people will read it. You could post it directly, but even if you do, most people will just skip over it.

Posting a piece of your writing on a writing Web site or creating a site of your own will guarantee that you get the most readers. Blogs are a good example of this. But readers won’t flock to your site or blog just because you wrote it. You have to promote it. Now this is where Facebook can help. By creating a post that includes a link to your article or short story, readers, many of them accessing Facebook from their smartphones will probably take the time to go there and read—or at least skim over—what you wrote. Blogging programs, like Google’s free Blogger, allow readers to post comments.

By devoting a little time to promoting yourself and your writing on social media—Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.—you’ll be surprised how many readers you can attract from all over the world.

A publisher printed 5,000 copies of a writer’s book, of which only 3,500 sold. That doesn’t necessarily mean that 3,500 readers read the entire book. Some people stop reading after the first chapter. That same writer created a Web site on which he posts articles in his field of interest and now the site gets over 17,000 readers a month. It’s as simple as doing the math. In fact, more people read writing of all kinds online than all the books put together.

So remember, a writer without readers is like a musician without listeners, a teacher without students, a garbage collector without trash. Knowing that someone will be reading what you write will motivate you to write more. Too many beginning writers keep journals in which they're both the writer and reader--the only reader. To be successful as a writer, it's important to write for the reader, not for yourself. And the more readers, the better.

To read more of my articles and book excerpts, please visit my Web site. And to read more articles on freelance writing, grammar, and marketing, go to Writer's Corner.

Beyond Words

Words are the building blocks of writing. They’re what pulls readers in and keeps them there. But having a great vocabulary isn’t all there is to writing. In fact, it’s only half the story. Besides being able to choose the right words, a writer must also know how to assemble them to communicate a clear message. And part of that is mastering the language in which the writer is writing—in this case English.

The use of sentence structure, punctuation, and capitalization is called English usage. Grammar is part of it. As a writer, you cannot ignore grammar. Too many beginning writers today think that it’s the editor’s job to correct their sentence structure and grammatical mistakes. And while an editor may correct the occasional grammatical error, his or her main job is to make sure sentences read correctly and that the content is clear. This is the job of the copy editor.

If you don’t make sure that your final draft is free of grammatical mistakes, then you’re not much of a writer. And while good editors will make sure to point out all of your grammatical errors, it will take away from the job they were meant to do. Plus it will cost you since the more time an editor spends on your work, the more an independent editor has to charge.

If you send your work to a publisher, he or she will assign an editor to work with you. But before an editor even begins to edit a book manuscript, for example, a reader will be assigned to read it. If there are lots of English usage and grammatical mistakes, your manuscript will be rejected.

If you have a problem with sentence structure, punctuation, and the like, you’ll need to do something about it before you go on. A professional writer is a not only a wordsmith but has honed writing skills. They’re the tools of this profession.

Perhaps you felt that grammar and such were unimportant as you sat in English class bored to tears as the teach went on about participles and gerunds, for example. After all, you want to write—to create interesting stories. Why do you need to concern yourself with such mundane things. What you didn’t realize at the time was that those mundane things would become your everyday tools to help you create those interesting stories.

So where can you get help? You could sign up for a basic writing class at a local adult evening school. Or you could buy yourself a book on English usage. You can easily find a used one at a local library book sale or get it online at Amazon.com. You can also improve your English usage and grammar online.

Begin with the article “14 Must-Visit Websites to Learn English Grammar Online.” Then check each one of them out and see which offers the best resources for you. Another great site is English Grammar 101. There are whole lot more to choose from, so take your pick.  Use the exercises provided to improve your writing skills. And before you know it, you’ll be writing like a pro because isn’t that what you want to be—a professional writer. 

Tips for Writer/Agent Negotiations

Okay, you’ve decided that you just can’t be successful as a writer unless you have a literary agent representing you. You’ve found one, but just because you're excited someone wants to represent you doesn't mean you should let them take advantage of you. You still must watch out for your own interests. Not all agents are as professional as they should be. Before you sign on the dotted line, be sure to follow these tips while you’re negotiating your contract.

First, find a reputable agent. You’re first thought is: Aren’t all agents reputable. The simple answer is no. Reputable agents generally don’t require payments of any kind when you sign a contract with them for their services. They also don’t charge fees to read your work. And they don’t sell your work to vanity presses. But most importantly, they’ll readily share with you the names of other authors and projects they’ve represented.

Reputable agents don’t charge excessive commissions. Today, the standard is 15 percent for book sales, although you could pay up to 20–25 percent for foreign sales, and 10–20 percent for movie, TV and theatrical sales.

Most reputable agents won’t try to cash in on your speaking fees—they really aren’t entitled to, unless they were directly responsible for getting you the engagement.

Control your agent-related expenses. Ideally your agent won’t charge you for making one or two copies or standard postage, but only for unusual expenses, such as large numbers of copies and priority mail, express or courier services. You agent should work within spending limits that you set and not spend anything over a fixed amount, say $100–$250, without your approval.

Some agents demand that publishers pay them your entire book advance directly, then they’ll send you your share. In most cases, a publisher will send you your 85 percent and the rest to your agent to cover your commission fee. The first incidence can pose a risk. If your agent gets paid your entire advance and then goes bankrupt, you’ll get nothing. Insist that your publisher pay you the entire advance directly, then you pay your agent.

Although most publishers still report and pay royalties semi-annually, typically within three months after the semi-annual period ends—the check for the royalty for a book sold in January will be paid in late September. If your agent insists on receiving all monies owed to you by the publisher, he or she should pay you promptly upon receiving the funds—ideally within 10 days, but no longer than 30.

Above all, you should expect your agent to be honest in their dealings with you., but don’t take that for granted.

What It Takes to Write a Non-fiction Book

Beginning writers look up at that ivory pedestal and wish that some day they could be standing on it. But most of the time the writer that’s currently standing on it high above the masses is the one who writes fiction. Why is that?

Perhaps it’s because the majority of what a novelist writes comes from his or her imagination. Readers respect that. But those who write non-fiction books work just as hard—perhaps harder—since they deal in facts and can’t embellish those facts to enhance their story.

So what does it take to write a non-fiction book? It takes commitment and lots and lots of research. The subject you chose for your book has to be one that will appeal to a wide variety of readers. While other writers may have written about it before, you have to choose the right angle that will make your chosen subject seem new and exciting. In non-fiction, that’s known as a slant.

No matter how much you want to write a book, don’t start out doing that. First, your writing skills may not be up to it, and second, your organizational skills won’t certainly be up to it. And if you haven’t written and published articles, on the subject of your book or not, you don’t have the credibility publishers look for.

So you say, forget the publishers, I’m going to publish my book myself electronically. That’s all well and good, but unless you have a reputation as a writer, why should readers buy it. And after all the work you’ll be putting into it, you certainly want them to do that.

Writing a book direct from the starting gate is like going from grammar school to graduate school in one leap. Chances are highly likely that you won’t finish it, and even if you do, it won’t sell. You need to be comfortable with the writing process before you tackle a book. You should be sure you can actually write well enough to be able to focus your attention on other things, such as organization, process, and deadlines and not have to worry about your writing. .

Before you begin to write your book, you’ll need to plan it out. Writers call this blocking. While you may want to start with an informal list of what you want to include, eventually you’ll need to create a table of contents. The table of contents becomes your guide while writing your book.

But before you can even begin putting together your table of contents, you’ll need to do quite a lot of research. You’ll need to do two types of research—marketing research and content research. The first looks into what other books have bene published on your subject and when. The second digs for the facts you’ll need to produce the content of your book. Both are equally important.

If there are lots of books published on your subject, it may not do well because of a flooded market. If there aren’t any or few books published on your subject, it may also not do well because readers may not be interested in it. So you have to look for a happy medium.

Researching the content of your book is a big job that takes a great deal of organization. You may choose to do all the research and then write your book, or you may research one chapter at a time. Whatever you do, use your table of contents to help keep things organized.

If you’ve chosen to self-publish your book and before you start to write it, set a drop-dead deadline—one that you can work with—and work backwards to the present time. Include editing, copy editing, revisions, and extra time for the unknown and unknowable. If there isn’t enough time between then and now, change the final deadline or publication date

If you choose the publisher route, you’ll begin by composing a query letter and sending it out to publishers, that through your marketing research, you believe may show an interest in it. In this case, you won’t begin to write your book until you get a firm commitment from a publisher who will also set the deadline for completion of the manuscript.

There are two ways to write your book. The first is in chronological order, beginning with Chapter One. The second is to write it out of order, beginning with the easiest chapter first and working ahead to the more complex ones.

Edit each chapter as you finish it. This is much easier than waiting to edit your whole book. As you write, be honest with yourself. If you get that little pang of doubt, listen to it. Don’t con yourself and don’t fall in love with your own pearls on paper. On the other hand, don’t polish until you take all the luster off the page. Know when to stop editing.

However, the editing you do is to get the manuscript in the best condition possible. Even though you’ve edited your work, you’ll need to find a professional editor to edit it if you’re self-publishing. Otherwise, you’ll send it to the publisher who will assign an in-house editor to work with you on the final copy edit. Writing your book is only half of the process.

Unless your publisher gives you a short deadline, figure out how much time you’ll need to complete your book and plan accordingly. Writing can’t be rushed. You’re not trying to make the early edition. You’re writing a book, perhaps your first. Between writing times, do something other than think about the book. Leave space between work sessions. Take a day to review research, and then sleep on it. Write, reread, leave it alone, and sleep on it. Remember, your mind will be working on your book while you’re sleeping.

It’s important not to overdo it when writing your book. Don’t work for hours on end. Take frequent breaks and spread the work out over days and weeks. Also, eat well, sleep as much as you need to, stretch frequently, and exercise. This is work. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.

Making That Deadline

Deadlines are the bane of all professional writers. Once you make the jump from writing for yourself to writing for readers for money, you’ll have to deal with deadlines. In the beginning, you most likely will be working on shorter pieces—articles and short stories—the deadlines for which aren’t too stressful. In fact, there really aren’t deadlines for short stories except self-imposed ones.

But once you start writing books, deadlines will become an everyday challenge. At first, you may equate deadlines with due dates, but you’ll soon come to realize there’s a whole lot more to them.

Before you even begin work on a book—whether a project of your own that you’ve pitched to a publisher or one commissioned by a publisher—you need to assess the amount of time you have to work on it. How much research will you need to do? How much writing will be involved? How many words will your book be? After you know the answers to these questions, you’ll need to ask yourself how long it will take to write that number of words?

How long it will take you to write your book depends on how many words you can comfortably write in a day—500, 1,000, 2,000, 3,000. Once you know that, you’ll be able to figure if your deadline will allow enough time to research and write your book. Frankly, you should figure all this out before signing a contract, agreeing to write a book.

Most books average 40,000 to 125,000 words. Check your contract for the number of words your publisher expects. Too many intermediate writers faced with the opportunity to write a book, think more about the potential fame and fortune a book may bring and less of actually getting it done.

While you may plan on writing a certain number of words per day, many things can prevent you from doing so. Are you planning on writing seven days a week or will you take weekends off? What about days where you just can’t produce enough material? Will you be able to take a day off and make it up the following day? It’s a risk.                       

Remember to allow time for editing and an additional week to read over your finished manuscript.

In order not to let deadlines stress you out, you’ve got to set yourself up for success. Do the best you can and press onward. Nothing screws up trying to make a deadline than continually redoing parts over and over. So the better prepared and organized you are to begin with, the smoother your writing will go.

Too many writers work too long at one sitting. Be sure to take breaks. Working in true deadline mode doesn’t mean working until you drop. Try not to write for longer than two hours at a stretch. Between sessions, go for a walk, watch some T.V., or visit a museum. You need to replenish yourself even if you don’t think you have the time. You’ll soon discover that by taking regular breaks, your writing will flow along because your mind is fresh.

Finding Your Ideal Reader

Whether you always knew you wanted to be a writer or you’ve just recently discovered that you had some hidden talent, one of the hardest things to learn is to whom you should focus your writing.

Everyone learns to write in school, but the type of writing you learned during those years was the kind used by academics. In this type of writing, the main focus is on the writer. But to academics that seems egotistical. So many find ways to avoid drawing attention to their interests and opinions and use such devices as passive voice to direct the reader to their subject, sucking the energy out of it. 

But since you’ve gotten interested in writing for publication, you’ve probably discovered that focusing on yourself doesn’t really get you anywhere. That’s because writing outside of academia focuses on the reader. As soon as you realize this, you’ll be on your way—almost.

Focusing on the reader is only the beginning. To be successful at writing for publication, you have to focus on a specific reader. If you try to write to a whole room full of people, for example, you won’t hit your mark because each reader is different.

While this isn’t as important in writing short pieces like articles or short stories, it plays a major role when you write books. Some people say you should write a book that you would buy, but not every reader has your same likes or interests.
                                               
Perhaps you think you should write for your editor. Surely, that will impress him or her. Unfortunately not. Your editor won’t be buying your book.

To find the best reader to write for, think of someone you know that would enjoy reading about the subject of your book. This applies to both fiction and non-fiction. For instance, if you decided to write a travel book about a particular country, think of who best from the people you know would enjoy traveling there.

Another avenue of approach is to visualize one person. Let’s say it’s a man. How old is he? What does his do for a living? What’s his level of education? Is he married? Does he have a family? What are his interests? What is his name? Imagine him reading your book. What sort of questions might he have? Once you answer these questions, you’ll be able to begin writing your book.

As you work on each chapter, imagine him reading it. Is he able to understand what you wrote? If it’s a non-fiction book, is it too technical for him? If it’s a novel, is the plot too complicated?

Once you learn the tastes of your ideal reader, you’ll learn to write to those tastes.  Doing so will force you to be consistent in both style and voice in your writing.

By focusing on your ideal reader, everyone with similar interests reading your book will be drawn into it. The reaction you want to get from your reader is that he can’t put it down.  You want to enlighten and entertain your ideal reader. What results from this method is a focused effort that targets your reader. By fulfilling your ideal reader’s expectations, you’ll have a reader for life—and a successful book.

Challenge Thyself

It’s hard to keep up the creative energy that all writers need to succeed. All writers are prone to intellectual laziness from time to time. Coming up with totally original, totally innovative ideas is exhausting. So many writers, once they’ve achieved success with a particular concept or genre, tend to repeat it.

Writing is a business. And business success relies on repeated production. One book does not a writer make. However, many beginning writers, like yourself, are under the mistaken impression that if they write a book, then they’ll have achieved success—at least for a few brief weeks or months. But what happens after that? Nothing unless you make it so.

As a writer, you have to constantly keep challenging yourself. You have to train your brain to constantly come up with new ideas or ways to reinvent old ones. A good writer never stops. It’s amazing how many writers publish a book or two, and perhaps several short stories or articles, and readers never hear from them again.

Others, like James Michener, fall into the trap of success. Michener wrote Tales from the South Pacific which became a bestseller. He soon realized that the format of the epic novel was the key to his success, so he wrote one after another. Originally, he did all the research himself, but after much success he was able to hire a team of researchers that would travel to a location and work for six months or more to help him write a book. Each book was much like the last. His publisher and his readers preferred it that way. Michener continued to write epic novels for years until he decided that he had had enough. He wanted to write something different. Unfortunately, his readers wanted more of what he had always done. His effort at writing something different failed miserably.

Many authors fall into this same rut. It’s really not all their fault. Instead, it’s usually a business thing. The more success a writer has with one subject or type of writing, the more he or she continues to do it—or is forced to continue to do it.

So the key is to challenge yourself. Try something new once in a while, some kind of writing that’s up to now been out of your realm. That doesn’t mean you have to go to the opposite extreme, say from writing articles to writing a horror novel, but perhaps the challenge may be in tackling a new subject. Get out of your comfort zone and wade into deeper water. Whatever you write will be better for it.

What Makes a Self-publisher Run?

As traditional book publishing routes become more complex and harder to crack, more and more writers are turning to self-publishing—and not just those who can’t seem to get their work accepted by established publishing houses. But before you take the plunge into the world of self-publishing, you’ve got to strongly believe in your own work. Of course, patience, perseverance, organizational and writing skills will also contribute to your success. If you’re not a good writer, you won’t have any more chance of success in self-publishing than in sending your work to traditional publishers.

Not so long ago, "self-publishing" meant "vanity publishing." There were companies out there who prayed on novice writers, gladly taking thousands of their dollars to print their books with no guarantee of success.

A great example was the person who had been misaligned in some way. The following scenario was all too typical: A widow, whose husband had died at the hand of surgeons, is out to tell the world about the incompetencies of the medical profession. She decides to write a book and spends as much as $8,000 to have it “published.” In this case, published means printed. She’s a terrible writer and seeks revenge for her husband’s death more than anything else. In the end, she ends up with 5,000 copies of a book no one wants to read.

On the other hand, there’s the story of a young food writer who desires to write a book on Moroccan cooking. She does so, has it printed in Morocco—it was cheaper there—then ends up with 3.000 copies stacked in her bedroom. Instead of sitting on those books, she began to peddle them to gourmet food stores in high-end retailers like Nieman Marcus and Bloomingdale’s. Her book is a success and five additional books later, she’s a success. But only because she was not only a good writer but a savvy businesswoman.

Vanity publishers ran ads in magazines for writers—the ones only beginning writers read. The chances of your book, so printed, reaching much of an audience at all are slim. In most cases it will end up collecting dust in your attic—if you still have one after putting up the cash to have it published.

Today, the advent of ebooks and POD (Publishing on Demand) books makes it possible for you to self-publish your work without shelling out thousands of dollars. And the market is constantly growing. These days more books than ever are being self-published—fiction, nonfiction. poetry, art, design, crafts, guides, etc. While some are amateurish in their production, others look professional—as good as any commercially published book. They, like any book brought out by a large publishing concern with a list of hundreds, can bomb, or they can break the bank. As a self-publisher, you’re the publisher, as well as the designer, salesman, distributor, and publicity agent of your book. Fortunately, you’ll also collect all the proceeds from its sales.

How do you start out if you're going to make a profit? First, plunging into self-publishing without ever having published anything is as bad as writing a book and sending the manuscript around to endless publishers. Many beginning writers have the mistaken belief that they should start out by writing a book—the hardest type of project they could tackle. They have no idea what they’re doing and thus, end up with a poor product. But self-publishing after you’ve had quite a bit of work published, especially books, makes sense.

A mystery writer, who already has four published books under her belt, decided to convert some short stories of hers into shorter books and publish them on Kindle. While she’s not making tons of money, her book sales have been steady. And that’s because she already had a following. Her readers wanted more and she gave it to them. Now she’s experimenting with a POD book—a republishing in paperback form of one of her ebooks—for readers who don’t use Kindle. In the end, she’ll be successful because she’s plotted out her book market as well as she plotted out her mysteries.

What you need to start in self-publishing is a sound, well-researched idea for a book that appeals to a wide audience. After you write it, you need to get it professionally edited. You’ll also want critics, experts, etc., to endorse your book so your promotions will have credibility. And you get those by previously following the traditional published route.

Self-publishing is an affirmation of your belief in your own best efforts, because no publisher will care quite as much about your work as you do.

Do You Need an Agent?

Do you need an agent? The answer could be both yes, and no. Today, with a lot of writers heading into self-publishing, over half the books published go to market without an agent’s help. Even if you work with a traditional publishing house, you can place your book without an agent.

While it’s true that every writer gains some prestige by having an agent, having one doesn’t make you any better a writer. If you don’t produce quality writing, having an agent won’t help you. Agents save editors time and money. Editors know that agents, if they’re competent, weed out the bad material, so basically an agent vets the material for the editor, so whatever an agent sends in is usually given preference in being read earlier than material that comes in “cold." But in no way does it guarantee that the work will get published.

A good agent knows which publishing houses are in the market for what sort of book or project. He or she knows which publisher will release which rights and what the probable bottom line on other negotiations will be. And agents like to deal with certain editors.

A good agent should also be a good friend who can also be objective. He or she will be part salesman, part lawyer, part literary critic, and part father/mother-confessor.  Agents get calls from writers who can't pay their bills, from writers who are drunk or who have been arrested for one thing or another, and from writers who just want to hear a reassuring voice.

Of course, once you place your book or book proposal in an agent’s hands, you may hear nothing for a long time. Busy agents are in constant touch with those who buy ideas, books, movies, scripts for TV miniseries, book excerpts, and subsidiary rights, as well as with their clients. And remember, you won’t be the agent’s only client.

What agents are good for is negotiating through the maze of book contracts and subsidiary rights, both foreign and domestic. These include sales to book clubs, special sales, film and T.V. options, syndication and reprint rights, and so on. Depending on the arrangement you make, your agent may handle all of your works, only your books, or only certain kinds of books. Some agents will tell you at the beginning what they’ll handle and what they won't. If they don't, ask.

You may want to give an agent only certain kinds of writing and sell the rest yourself. Some writers feel the advantage of a large literary agency lies in the specialists who negotiate film or T.V. rights which can be lucrative. But most good agents who have been in the business any length of time will have some sort of representation in this highly specialized area. It's rare  these days for agents to handle magazine articles or short stories. If they do, it’s usually because you’ve made money for them through your books and have gained some notoriety.

Agents also help negotiate solutions to conflicts between you and your publisher. They push for timely payment of advances and royalties. They keep accurate records of your sales. Some agents are also lawyers, or have lawyers in their company, and can review alleged abuses by a publisher, alert a writer to possible problems stemming from something he is about to publish, and act as a knowledgeable go-between for the writer. Some agents act as middleman by finding the right author to write a book on an idea an editor or publisher has.

Should you attempt to publish your book with a traditional book publisher? Even if you manage to get an editor’s okay, you may want to consider getting an agent to handle the contract. Book contracts can be sticky business. In fact, some publishers have been known to send outrageous contracts to beginning writers, who don’t know any better. Book contracts can be 30 pages or more with lots of fine print—important fine print that if not read correctly and dealt with could end up costing you a lot of money in lost subsidiary rights and even fees. A good example is requiring you to create an index for a non-fiction book—something you’ll end up paying for out of your advance.

And while it’s possible to sell a book on your own, you may end up spending a large part of your time doing so—time you could have spent actually writing. It’s for this reason that an agent’s 10 percent is often worth it.

One Plus One Doesn’t Always Equal Two

At some point in your writing career, you may have entertained the thought of collaborating with someone on a book or other writing project. Collaboration can take two forms—working with  another writer or working with someone who’s an expert in a particular subject area.

Writers, agents, and editors all feel strongly one way or the other about collaboration, depending on whether their own experiences with collaborators have been positive or negative.  Rule Number One: Consider what may lie ahead before you get involved.

If you collaborate with a friend, you can ruin your friendship. Or it can be the stimulating experience that keeps both of you working at top form. Looking at collaboration from a strictly business point of view, there are advantages—pooling resources, contacts, and efforts. However, you’ll also need to share the proceeds whether they’re good or bad. 

Before starting work on a collaboration project, draw up a contract specifying who will do what kind of work, how moneys are to be divided, and so on. You’ll both need to think out this agreement thoroughly. After all, it will be a legally binding agreement. If it’s for the long term, you should discuss it with your accountant, lawyer, or agent to help iron out any negative parts prior to signing. Be sure to include a buy-out or phase-out clause in case you or your partner have a change of heart.

A collaborative writing effort means two people agree before-hand what kind of contribution each will make to a given work. The problems aren't the same as those involved in ghostwriting for a non-writer—a scientist, a doctor, or any other professional—who wants to have his or her thoughts or discoveries published. But problems will crop up, even though the neither of you has have no inherent disagreement. Each is bound to react differently, for instance, to what an agent or editor or publisher says about a book, for instance—how it looks, what sort of publicity it gets, and so forth.

In most cases, a writer works individually on a piece, thus deciding what should or shouldn’t be included. In a collaboration, each partner will want his or her own say. And each will have more expertise in one job or another.

One, for example, may be better at research and writing the first draft while the other is better at editing, asking for clarification or amplification where needed, making suggestions, cleaning up the language. With two pairs of eyes looking over the manuscript, it should be in much better shape when you finally send it off to a publisher than if just one of you worked on it.

In this type of working arrangement, the second partner, the one not involved with writing the text first, approaches the manuscript cold, and will see and comprehend it as a reader would. If parts are confusing or there are voids, this partner will find them. Also, working with someone else, especially another writer, will force you and your partner to work to higher standards.

A different set of problems may arise when working with an expert in a given field. While the expert may know his or her subject matter, they may not be able to relay it clearly to the reader. As a writer, you’ll be in the best position to accomplish this. However, the expert partner may think they know how to write, based on the academic writing they learned in school. This can and often does create conflicts in writing style. Let’s face it, the style of writing you work with as a professional writer is often very different than what’s used by academics. You won’t be producing a thesis, but your partner may approach the project as if you are.

Before you make any final decision about collaborating, be certain you've evaluated your own most important needs. If your analysis shows that two heads are better than one, go for it. But if your intuition tells you that you may run into more problems than collaboration is worth, back off.

Payment in Advance

As a freelance writer, there aren’t many opportunities to get paid in advance. Book writing is about the only one.

The advance is the money a publisher pays you for the time and effort put into the writing of a book. Traditionally, the advance has been perceived as a loan made by the publisher to you to keep you alive and producing until the royalties from your book begin to come in—at which time the publisher will recoup his or her loan by withholding the amount of the advance from your share of the royalties.

The advance also reflects the book’s potential for sales. The better the potential, the bigger the advance. If the book has a smaller target readership, then the publisher will offer a lower advance. In this case, there’s no way you can live on just the advance while writing the book. It’s important to remember that during your negotiations.

In the case of many books, where the royalties don’t amount to as much as the advance, the advance serves as an out-right purchase price by the publisher. So it’s important to negotiate for an advance which represents either a fair return for your labor as a writer or the best return you can reasonably expect since you most probably won’t see any more money. When negotiating your advance, point out that the publisher is going to get a far better book if you’re free from money worries and can concentrate on your work.

Some publishers will tell you their advance is small because they expect to invest heavily in promoting the book and that, therefore, you’ll be money ahead in the long run if the contract promises larger than usual royalties to make up for the skimpy front money. But in reality, publishers aren’t doing much promotion today, especially small ones. That means you’ll be out begging people to buy your book just to make up the difference between your advance and your royalties.

Today, publishers sell many of their books wholesale to book distributors, so the royalties from them amount to only a fraction of what you’d receive from retail sales. And competition from the digital book market clouds the situation further.

Your publisher may try to recover all or part of your advance when, for any reason, he or she chooses not to issue a book. Yes, after all the work you put into your book, it just may not get published. Perhaps the market for that topic collapsed or there’s a downturn in the economy. This is clearly unfair if you have kept your part of the bargain faithfully. So, at a minimum, make sure that the language of the contract shelters you against recovery attempts. If you deliver your work on time in the form and content specified, you have every right to the advance money.

Book contracts can be very confusing. Make sure that there are no penalties for not meeting your deadline. So safeguard your advance by making sure the contractual deadline gives you enough time to meet all your obligations.

The book advance isn’t the only way you can finance your book project. You should also consider possible perks like expenses. How will you pay extra costs for travel, extensive research, artwork, photographs, charts, computer printouts, periodicals, books, photocopying, researchers, or secretarial help?

Your publisher will expect you to cover most of these expenses, so it's up to you to ask for help. Will the editor send you books for research that she has on hand? Ask for anything that would help. It can't hurt to try. But ask early. Realize there are limitations. Give your editor time to justify your expenses with the editorial board. Some publishers regularly agree to such arrangements with authors, others seldom if ever. And keep in mind that it's sometimes easier for an editor to justify such expenses as these than a more sizable advance, especially for new writers.

Choosing the Hare or Tortoise Route

As the old saying goes, “Slow and steady wins the race.” Whether you choose to go the fast route or the slow route to freelance writing success depends on how you start out. If you sprint from the starting line, you may find that soon you’ll run out of energy and slow down considerably. If you start at slow and steady, you may find that you’ll have enough energy to go to big and better things.

You may find that you can jump-start your writing career if you do one of three things. You may get some pieces published in at least six top markets within your first year or so. If you play your cards right, you may find you’ll become a regular in one or two of those markets, thus affording you a steady income. From this early success, you’ll be able to pitch more articles and books to editors because your credibility will have taken a quantum leap.

Another way to jump-start your career is by coming up with a sparkling new and innovative idea for a book which might begin a new trend in publishing. Agents may be beating down your door to get a crack at auctioning it off to the highest bidding publisher. But if you go this route, you must be prepared to continue the trend and come up with even better ideas.

The third way to jump-start your career is by publishing your own work and promoting it every way you can until you end up with one or more bestsellers. Until recently, editors and readers looked up any writer who self-published his or her work as one who wasn’t good enough to get published commercially. However, in today’s fast moving publishing environment of the Internet and E-readers, that attitude is changing fast. So if you’re a good writer and have lots of good ideas and some technical know-how, you can easily produce some great material, bypassing the slower traditional publishing route and hopping on the fast freeway to potential success. (NOTE: I’ll cover self-publishing in future blog posts.)

If you’re an enterprising writer, traveling any of the above routes will get you on the fast-track to success. Being at the right place with the right idea at the right time will guarantee it. On the other hand, you could just get lucky. A magazine editor may love your work and welcome you into his or her stable of writers, sending you assignments faster than you can tackle them. Too many beginning writers only think of this route and pitch their ideas only to top markets, then come crashing down when the editors reject their work or, worse yet, don’t even reply, leaving them in limbo.

For the majority of writers just starting out on the path to success, going slow is the best way. Unlike the hare who starts at the top and then fights to stay there, you’ll need to start at the bottom and work your way up the ladder. It’s a tough climb from which you’ll be knocked down more than a few times, but eventually you’ll reach the top. With lots of writing experience behind you, you’ll have a better chance of staying on top longer.