A Few Points to a Publisher

January 14^th 2015

Just a few points, (owner of Publishing House), from a man who has been part of your social media group as an author, been rejected, and has nothing to gain or lose from giving his opinion. 

The idea of a social media website for readers to read books and choose those to publish is a noble one. I commend you for taking such a risk. The problem remains at this time that you simply have too few book reviews to honestly determine the viability of any one book.

Before you pulled my work from your site it had two official reviews and two ‘unofficial reviews’ as your fellow (Publisher Employee) described the comments. I, the author, am left with some sparse ideas on how to improve my work, and that quashes any means of my returning to your company to publish a new draft.

Now some authors will be unhappy with anything but publication, but some of us will be happy with a better understanding of our work. You want authors to send you new drafts. You want them to feel like they are better for experiencing how you do business. The last thing you want is for an author to go to another company and then do well, because that means you missed out on a profitable contract.

One idea, and maybe not a great one, would be to recruit unpaid college interns to review books. English students often have an internship requirement for graduation, they know something about books, and would be happy to telecommute.  These interns would be required to read the whole book and write a solid and professional review.

What this would do for your community would be to increase the number and quality of your reviews. It would also get the word out to perspective authors in English writing communities and bring more reading enthusiasts to your company. 

Another idea would be to add a step to publication. This would be a ‘would you like to read more’ section like your first fifteen forum. Both unofficial reviews of my book and one of the official ones read only a small part near the beginning.  Unfortunately, there were too few reviews to see a consistent pattern of what was wrong.

If I were to take this small section and place it on your site with a simple thumb up thumb down review and a minimum of ten reviews a pattern should start to emerge by that point. Then I would be able to say what was wrong with my work with some confidence.  In fifteen to thirty pages an author will express stylistic choices and in those pages a reader can find and mention what they dislike. Too many thumbs down will mean rewrite and resubmit, enough thumbs up will mean that the rest of the manuscript will be posted.

What this could do for your community would be to increase the number of reviews and interaction with authors. It would save time with books that just need more work, and give the author a path to come back.

One thing you may wish to think about is to put ads on your site. If you need to pay for it then it can do some paying for itself. You’re already involved in advertising on your site when you send out group requests for published books. If you’re going to advertise for your own company then you can advertise for other companies and offset the cost of operations.

Another point, I believe an author interacting with reviewers is a good thing, but I believe an author shouldn’t review when his work is up for review. It will always be in the back of my mind that (Publisher Employee) gave me a hard time, because I gave him a negative review. This probably isn’t true. He just gave me an honest review, and I’m unhappy with what he said, but that thought will stay with me. You may want to think about having author accounts that expire if a book isn’t picked up and reader accounts that expire after they have been inactive for long enough.

Finally, a rejection letter thanking the author for their interest, apologizing for their rejection, and summarizing how they can improve their work would only be polite. The author is a customer just like someone who buys a book and the service you provide them is to screen their work for profitability. I would never want my book published if it wouldn’t do well, so you’re providing a superior service compared to competitors. A letter making it clear to the author that there is hope would go a long way to clarifying that fact.

Those are my two cents. Forty nine more of these and you have a dollar.

Richard Leland Neal

Writing Like Life

I got this as a reply to a forum post on a now defunct publishers webpage. I wish I could find out what I said to this person, but that is lost in time. I hope you all like it. 

Forum reply from unknown author:

I just recently noticed you replied to my post, so my apologies for the length of time in between. Your response made me smile. The thing is, this hasn’t been an easy road to publication, but it has been an interesting one. I have worked my way through multiple review sites with my manuscript (Book Country, Critique Circle, Scribophile, etc.) before it was ready to be read by another human being, let alone read by a potential publisher. The general public, or at least the members of it willing to read my work, have been the greatest help to me. Everyone noticed something different, good and bad, about my manuscript, and helped me to develop my skills as a writer. Once I determined the critique material was valid, I made my way into doing research on the specific topics, essentially studying until I understood the material, and then moved on to writing and re-writing where needed. I’ve been through everything from proper comma placement to the intricacies of emotional expression in writing, with volumes in between. I go about my writing with no expectations…but as long as I’m writing, I have hope. I write because I love it, because it makes me happy (and frustrated, and sad, and overjoyed). I don’t know if ‘fight’ is the right term for me, but I think if someone wants it, if they want to work toward publication, it involves continual effort to learn and grow as a writer. They must be open to criticism and praise, all while maintaining a solid core of belief in themselves. I’ve been turned down by agents, I’ve been turned down by publishers, and I think much if it had to do with the fact that I simply hadn’t done enough work. Rejections never kept me down very long (at least not for more than a day), because I just dusted myself off and started writing again. I believe editors have a vital role in the success of the author, but the biggest role is played by the author themselves.

Seeking High-Concept Stories

This was a letter responding to an ad for 'High-Concept Stories' to be turned into a graphic novel. I'm going to grant you that 'high-concept' means that it's easy to explain but the truth is that high-concept and lowest common denominator are closely related marketing terms. 

This is one of those situations where I can show the reply to the letter and you tell me if you think I should have spoken to any of my friends about this fellow.

26th December 2017

Hay there (Publisher),

I read your ad on Craigslist for material for a Graphic Novel. Well, I have my own work which is not published, and I happen to know a fellow who is a bestselling Sci Fi author who was thinking of turning his work into a graphic novel.

I’m sure you’d be most interested in the bestselling author, well, I’m going to need to see some art work before I recommend you to him. He’s not the kind of man I’d like to have mad at me.

As for my own work, I have a film/novel I’ve been trying to market. It’s a Cabin in the woods style slasher. It got me an A+ in college as a film script, and then I rewrote it as a novel. I’ve never been good about marketing these things, but it’s definitely high concept. These would be characters you’d like to see face off with Jason or Freddy. The novel goes a step further to include evil bikers and men in black.

I wrote this to be a lowest common denominator kind of work with a possibility for merchandising. I also have some harder Science Fiction but it would be a much more involved project.

In any case, let me know if any of that sounds interesting,


Richard Leland Neal
Reply:
"Lowest common denominator" kind of stuff really doesn't sound too appealing to me. But I would be interested to know what your author friend might be pitching. But I don't want to pretend that my operation is any bigger than it is. I have self-published a handful of comic books and graphic novels over the last decade, nothing big. I don't do any of the artwork myself, and instead hire artists that are a good fit for the material. I act more as the publisher and editor.

My Response to Reply:
"Lowest Common Denominator" is how Shakespeare wrote so you're not interested in anyone who has a 'bestselling Author' stamp and he's not pitching anything. We just had a conversation about turning one of his earlier works into a graphic novel.

Loss of Your Company

18^th January 2018

Dear (Book Geek),

My condolences on the loss of your company as it would appear it has gone under. This isn’t the first book publisher I’ve seen that fell to the bad economy, but with the world turning more and more to used books and books about politics coming more and more into the public eye you can hardly be surprised.

However, with nothing left to lose or gain I do have two questions to ask. The first is ‘may I publish the correspondence between myself and your company’, and the second being ‘what was the real truth behind what happened to my work’?

I publish almost every letter I write or receive of a page length or longer on my blog, and so I think it would be helpful to other writers to publish at least one of the letters you sent me. I will remove your name and the name of your company, not that it would make a difference, and I will never speak of who wrote them. I simply believe that the advice I was given may be of help to others.

As for my second question, there is no secret to the fact that I was feuding with another author and that it was him and his friends who gave my book bad reviews. You asked for harsh criticism, and I gave it to you, but everything I wrote was honest. This fellow took it personally and got his friends to gang up on me. Then you took both of our books down.

I know this to be a major outlier, because there were books that sat for more than a year with no reviews and still were left on the site, but the two of us got the ax without a definitive number of reviews. I also noted that I could still access my book on your page but that, unlike other books that had been taken down, moderation had been removed.

If I offended you I’m sorry, if I caused you trouble you have my apologies, but it still looks as if there is more to the story, and I would like to know. It may even do you well to tell.

Best,

Richard Leland Neal 

Rich but Lacking

This was a book review I wrote that was taken down because the book was removed from the website. I think the author get a bit ticked that I didn’t like his book and returned the favor by writing me a bad review. Give that the website in question used review to decide if a book should be published or not I guess I was keeping him from a paycheck. Alternately, if I was giving him good advice he should have thanked me and better attended his story. Was I to hard on him?

Some Time in 2014

‘The Thrumble’ by (Author)

I’ve read the prologue and first two chapters of this novel and feel it’s time for a kneejerk review. I reserve the right to review this book again once I have read the whole thing, but I believe this review will be helpful.

There is a deep richness to this text of Thrumble and a clear high level of thought. Unfortunately, what is missing is the polished execution of this splendid idea.

I read another review comparing this to the Diskworld series which is one of the largest and most popular in modern times. Well, Diskworld started with a description of the world or at least the great turtle it spins on and the four elephants that serve as bearings on her back. The Trumble starts with an examination of ruins that we are given no indication of being even near Thrumble. Further on that, what is the Thrumble? By the end of chapter two we get that it’s a living building of some kind and that two entities of great magic maintain this building. What is so living about brick and plaster I couldn’t tell you. I’m sure that if I read the whole thing I would understand what the Thrumble is but unless this is a big reveal later in the text then I would have to say there would be more explanation and description early on.

Another place I need more information is who and what are the Rangers? They look to be something like this world’s Jedi in form and function. In Star Wars we knew as much as Luke did about the Jedi, but the main character is almost a full Ranger and we know almost nothing about the order.

As the reader I feel like there is a lot for me to get in my head and very little time spend on each of these things to get it there as the story moves on. I feel the characters, objects, and motives involved in this story need to be fleshed out before its publication.

?

A question I have for the two or three folks who read this blog comes up with the creation of this image.  I drew this to accompany the first post on this blog and have since updated said post to include this image. You can see the post here:

http://letterstocassiandotherfolks.blogspot.com/2011/04/letters-to-cassi-and-other-folks.html

So I need  ask:

Should I update old post with images or delete old post and post them anew when I add an image?

If I simply update the old post should I post an acknowledgement of the update?

Letters to Cassi and Other Folks

One of the most memorable conversations in my life is one I had with my friend Cassi. I believe it was in two thousand ten that I came about to ask her if the real paper letters I write her have any worth. She said that not only did they lift her spirits, but that she kept a few of them with her wherever she went to read when she felt down. That was a statement that made a lasting impact on me.

 From the time I was eight I had wanted to be a writer, and the last thing my mother gave me before her death had been a microphone so I could record my ideas on tape. The written word and I had a love-hate relationship back then and, well, we still do, but even in the darkest hours of my life some form of written art seep from my soul like blood from a wound. Here those words had finally had an impact on someone. More importantly, they had brought comfort to the pained, even if in a small way, and that was what stayed with me.

I’ve always like the feeling of helping people and that is what made me decide to start posting my letters on the internet. Will they ever truly help people? Probably not, unless you count the aforementioned Cassi, but as the letters abound I’ve nothing to lose...