Book in Progress #11: Marketing
Joe Taylor You think you know what you know, until you find out you don’t. I learned some lessons selling my first book, “I’m Just Lucky To Own My Own…
Book in Progress #10: Reaching Out
Joe Taylor Results have exceeded my expectations. I should feel grateful. Instead, I feel thankful. Of the 78 copies of “I’m Just Lucky To Own My Own Car” that I’ve…
Book in Progress, Part 9: Selling the Book
Joe Taylor The Writing End Game Why do you want to write a book? Because you have something the world needs to hear? You want to entertain readers with a…
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Self-Publishing: Book in Progress, Part 8
by Joe Taylor - why self-publishing became an attractive option, given some drawbacks The Vision of a Book Admit it, this has happened to you---a friend reads a couple of…
Getting the Book Tested – Book in Progress, Part 7
by Joe Taylor Legitimate Doubts Just the other day I tore up and threw away the list of over 80 literary agents that I had queried about finding a publisher…
Book in Progress, Part 6: I Believe in My Book
by Joe Taylor To be brutally honest, it's been worse than brutal. It's been silent. A month after Labor Day, when I thought my responses from prospective agents might pick…
Preparing for a Literary Agent – Book in Progress, Part 5
My first couple of days of submitting to agents were exhausting and extremely frustrating. I would identify a target agent then send her (90% are women) whatever she requested. About a quarter of them came back immediately as undeliverable. Thinking, I guess, that "this agent was my only hope" I'd keep trying to find a better email address or resending it. Finally, I realized she may be out of business or posted a bad address and moved on.
Enacting the Edits: Book in Progress, Part 4
Surgeons have often been accused of being emotionally removed from the patient they're operating on, removing 'this' and 'rewiring' that. I could relate to that as I performed literary 'surgery'…
Beta Readers: Book in Progress, Part 3
As my Beta reader, Jo discovered repetition, describing the same era of my career in different pieces or talking about the same aspect of the business in two pieces. She did me a huge favor in pointing out that the reader would have trouble following my stories and trying to place them in some coherent chronological order. From this came her most important suggestion-make the book a memoir, rather than a collection.
The Process: A Book in Progress, Part 2
I've always been a planner...some say to a fault. Some people have criticized me for "wasting time" planning, when I should just jump in and "git 'er done". I believe good planning is essential to success. So, rather than sitting at my keyboard banging out whatever came into my head...just to get something on paper, I brainstormed with myself.