Careers in Publishing

VGM Professional Careers Series

CAREERS I N

P U B L I S H I N G

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VGM Professional Careers Series

CAREERS I N

P U B L I S H I N G

BLYTHE CAMENSON

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CONTENTS

About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix 1. Careers in Publishing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Book publishing. Types of book publishers. Sample job advertisement. Literary agencies. Other publishing avenues. Preparing for a career in publishing. Finding jobs in publishing. Salaries in publishing. 2. Writers, Illustrators, and Photographers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Magazines. Newspapers. Fiction. The many categories of fiction. Nonfiction books. Getting published. Freelancing. Illustrators and photographers. Finding clients. Sample job advertisements. Firsthand accounts. 3. Literary Agents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Training for agents. How literary agencies are structured. Location, location, location. Choosing a career in agenting over editing. Earnings for agents. Charging fees. Becoming a member of the AAR. What a writer looks for in an agent. Firsthand accounts. 4. Editors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Types of editors and their duties. Sample job advertisements. Advertisements to avoid. Training for editors. Moving up the ladder. Salaries for editors. Employment outlook. Firsthand accounts.

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Contents

5. Book Production. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 Electronic publishing. Prepress. Printing. Postpress bindery workers. Employment figures. Training. Job outlook. Salaries. Sample job advertisements. Firsthand account. For more information. 6. Marketing and Sales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 Market research. Sales. Publishers’ sales representatives. Book wholesalers and distributors. Bookstores. Sample job advertisements. Firsthand account. 7. Publicity, Event Planning, and Advertising . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 What a publicist does. Event and meeting planning. What public relations is. Advertising. Training and qualifications. Sample job advertisements. Firsthand accounts. 8. Publishing Law. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 Contracts and legal departments. What if you have a law degree? How to become a lawyer. Sample job advertisements. Job outlook for law careers. Salaries in publishing law. Firsthand accounts. 9. Self-Publishing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138 Is self-publishing for you? The Complete Guide to Self-Publishing. The other side. The finances involved. Distribution. Firsthand account. Appendix A: Professional Associations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150 Appendix B: Preparatory Programs for the Book Trade. . . . . . . . . 163 Appendix C: Book Distributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168 Appendix D: Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170 Appendix E: Electronic Publishers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Blythe Camenson is a full-time writer. In addition to extensive writing on the subject of careers—with more than four dozen books in print—she has also written several books to help new writers learn how to get published. Your Novel Proposal: From Creation to Contract (Writer’s Digest Books), coauthored with Marshall J. Cook, has been particularly well received. She is also the author of Careers in Writing and How to Sell, Then Write Your Nonfiction Book. Camenson is also director of Fiction Writer’s Connection (FWC), an organization dedicated to helping new writers improve their craft and learn the many steps toward publication. She maintains an informational website at fiction writers.com and is a frequent speaker at national conferences and bookstores. She earned her bachelor of arts degree with a double major in English and psychology from the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and her master of education degree (M.Ed.), majoring in counseling, from Northeastern University, also in Boston. Camenson also spent eight years working in the Persian Gulf, teaching English at various universities. Her many travel articles have appeared in both national and international publications.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author would like to thank the following professionals for providing information and advice on careers in publishing: Andrea Au, associate editor, Simon & Schuster Dianna Bacchi, meeting planner, McGraw-Hill Victoria Harnish Benson, author/owner, Silver Dove Publishing Company Joan Marie Bledig, typographer, JDA Typesetting Corporation Wendy Butler, editor, About.com Publishing Guide Carolyn Campbell, author Stephanie Dooley, event planner, Enchantment Events Jessica Faust, literary agent, BookEnds Miranda Garza, publisher and editor, Kids’ Highway magazine Sara Goodman, publishing law attorney Joseph Hayes, freelance features writer Tracey Hessler, managing editor, Somniloquy magazine Nancy Zoole Kenney, director of contracts, Henry Holt and Company Tanya Lochridge, freelance medical/health care writer Rod Mitchell, literary and entertainment publicist, Adventures in Media, Inc. Mark Ortman, author, director, The Self-Publishing Resource Center Kathy Ptacek, publisher and editor, Gila Queen’s Guide to Markets newsletter Linda L. Roghaar, literary agent, former sales rep Marilyn and Tom Ross, authors, self-publishing consultants Kelly Boyer Sagert, managing editor, Over the Back Fence magazine Doug Schmidt, senior editor, David C. Cook Publishing Company Ellen Urban, freelance editor and proofreader Nancy Yost, literary agent, Lowenstein Associates

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CAREERS IN PUBLISHING

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“There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before.”—Willa Cather

The field of publishing is exciting and competitive. There are risks and surprises, and sometimes, disappointments. Those working in this industry have a great deal of power. They determine which books and stories will see print, and to some extent, help to shape the tastes of the reading public. In the publishing industry there are many sectors in which to pursue careers. This chapter will give you an overview of the different arenas; subsequent chapters examine these fields in more depth.

BOOK PUBLISHING Although there are many sectors in the publishing industry, book publishing leads the field. Last year book sales totaled more than $25 billion, a 3.4 percent increase over the previous year, according to sales figures released by the Association of American Publishers (AAP). Book publishing is big business. What sells the most? Although overall trade sales dropped 3.7 percent—adult hardbound book sales experienced the largest drop, down $2.69 billion—juvenile book sales showed positive figures in both hardbound (up 13.2 percent, $1.20 billion in sales) and paperbound (up 16.4 percent, $753.1 million in sales). Educational book sales were strong, up a significant $3.88 billion, and sales of professional and scholarly books were also positive, up $5.13 billion. Religious book sales were up slightly, 2.5 percent with sales of $1.25 billion. But university press sales joined the adult trade category and dropped 2.4 percent ($402.0 million). Mail-order publications sales showed positive numbers for the first time in two years. Book club sales were up 1.5 percent, with sales of $1.29 billion. Mass-market paperback sales remained fairly even, totaling $1.56 billion.

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Financial concerns often determine which books get published. When those books do well, then everyone is happy, from bookstore owners to the sales team and distributors. But there are only ten to fifteen slots on the various bestseller lists, and with thousands of books published each year, the odds are against producing a blockbuster. Although some books have steady sales and can stay on the publisher’s backlist for years, others can disappear from bookstore shelves after only a month.

TYPES OF BOOK PUBLISHERS Between 75 and 85 percent of all books published in North America today are produced by about eight megacorporations and a dozen or so of the largest independent publishers. After the big guys, another 2,200 publishers or so are listed by the U.S. Commerce Bureau. Literary Marketplace, the industry reference published by R. R. Bowker, lists another 18,000 to 20,000 smaller and independent publishers. Book publishers can be categorized as follows:

National/International Publishers

The eight megaconglomerates that rule book publishing in North America, with some of their major imprints in parentheses, are these: 1. Hearst Corporation (Avon, William Morrow) 2. News Corporation/Rupert Murdoch (HarperCollins) 3. Pearson PLC (Penguin, G. P. Putnam, Berkley) 4. Viacom (Simon & Schuster, Pocket Books) 5. Advance/Newhouse (Random House, Knopf, Modern Library, Ballantine) 6. Bertelsmann AG (Bantam, Doubleday, Dell; Dial) 7. Time Warner/Ted Turner (Little Brown, Book of the Month) 8. Holtzbrinck (Farrar, Straus and Giroux; St. Martin’s Press; Henry Holt) Because of their sheer size, these large publishers require the biggest staffs.

Regional/Small Presses

There are thousands of independent book publishers, most of who never see the light of the New York Times Book Review or the bestseller list. But these small presses can take chances; they don’t need megahits to survive. They know how to reach specialty and special-interest markets and specific regions of the country. They choose to publish the books that will appeal to those markets.

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Small-press and regional publishers release fewer titles a year; print runs are smaller, and so are sales. Staff might consist of one or two people wearing many hats, from editor and publisher to errand runner and mail clerk.

University Presses

Most university presses specialize in particular subjects, often educational in nature, but many also publish mainstream books. Most enjoy fine reputations and give each project professional care.

Organizational/ Sponsored Presses

Many organizations have their own publishing section, putting into print books that would interest their constituents. A professional association dealing with adoption, for example, might produce a nonfiction how-to or a novel with adoption as its theme. The first publisher for Tom Clancy’s book The Hunt for Red October was the Naval Institute Press.

Subsidy Publishers

While traditional publishers are always overrun with manuscript submissions, subsidy publishers have to advertise their need for manuscripts. It’s the writers, not the reading public, who pay the subsidy publishers. Subsidy publishers are also known as vanity presses because they prey on new writers who have not been able to break in yet—and on new writers who just don’t know any better. They present themselves as if they are commercial publishers, offering to evaluate your manuscript (all manuscripts are accepted) and offering a publishing contract. But when it comes time for payment, it’s the writers’ money that goes to the publisher, instead of advances and royalties that should be going to the writers. Subsidy publishers do put a manuscript into print. Some offer minimal help with marketing. But libraries and book reviewers recognize subsidy publishing when they see it and won’t buy or review those books.

Cooperative Publishers

Some publishers ask authors to share the cost of producing the book. The author might pay for part of the cost of printing and binding, for example, or provide the typeset, camera-ready copy. Writers who participate in cooperative publishing are sharing the risk that is usually the publishers’ alone. Some small publishers work in three categories, publishing some books on a commercial basis, some through a co-op arrangement, and others through author subsidy. The stigma of vanity publishing still attaches itself to some cooperative publishers—especially those that also work on a subsidy basis.

Book Packagers/ Producers

This fairly new breed of publishing is on the rise. Book packagers, or book producers as they are sometimes called, act as go-betweens, selling a concept to a

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publisher and then contracting with a writer to create the book. More often than not the author works for a set, work-for-hire fee rather than receiving royalties. Often the book packager holds the copyright to the book. In an article previously published on the Authorlink website, former book packager Jessica Faust says, “A book packager is a cross between an agent and an editor, and more. A book packager often works with agents, authors, editors, designers, illustrators, photographers, and printers—all of the people who make a book possible. By working with such a variety of people, a book packager has the ability to deliver a printer-ready manuscript to the publisher. That means that once the publisher receives the final product it has already been written and edited, pictures have been supplied, production people have been called in to lay out the book, and the entire project is ready to be sent to the printer. “Much like an agent, a book packager submits manuscripts to an editor at a publishing house. These manuscripts are usually prepared in either of two ways: “One. The project has been requested by the publisher. The book packager puts together an outline and finds a writer interested in authoring the book. “Two. The concept is developed ‘in-house’ (within the book-packaging company), an outline and sample materials are put together—with or without an author—and the material is sent to the publisher. “Then, just as if a writer or his or her agent were to submit a proposal to a publisher, the packager waits for that fateful phone call and checks the mailbox for rejections. “Once an editor agrees to buy or publish a project, the process starts from the top. The packager works with the author to develop a well-written book and turns in the edited manuscript to the publisher.” Currently Jessica Faust acts as a literary agent and is profiled in Chapter 3.

Self-Publishers

Self-publishers are responsible for every aspect of the publication of their own material: writing and editing, designing page layout, choosing the cover copy and colors, getting the printing done, arranging for distribution, and handling publicity and sales. It can be very risky business, and it can carry the same sort of stigma that attaches itself to vanity and cooperative publishing. There are a handful of self-publishing success stories (see Chapter 9), but compared to the billions of dollars of books published each year, a handful is pretty small.

Electronic Publishing

Electronic publishing is emerging as an alternative delivery system for books. Or so they say. The options mentioned here do exist, but nobody knows if anyone is making any money at them. In theory, people pay for and then download material. Then they either read the material on their computer screen or handheld device designed just for this

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purpose or print out individual copies of the work. This print-on-demand is carried out at some bookstores or in the customer’s own home. Some electronic publishers act as the online equivalent to subsidy and cooperative publishers, charging writers for web space and uploading fees and not providing any marketing help per se. Many of these do not edit the material and accept every manuscript that comes their way. Other online publishers are trying to be selective and publish only books they feel are worthy. Many traditional publishing houses have created websites to promote their traditionally published books. One such traditional publisher tried an experiment, providing a Stephen King serial only to online customers. Another followed suit—but then the fad rolled to a halt. The question is will these cyberbooks ever become more than a fad? Again, no real figures are available to back up the claims electronic publishers may make. For writers electronic publishing might seem an easy avenue to publication, one that is less expensive than working with a vanity press. And they can eliminate the stacks of books sitting in the garage. But again, there’s that stigma. The National Writers Union (NWU) offers guidelines to help writers as they navigate their way through this rapidly changing industry. They assert that the right to publish the electronic version of any book should be negotiated. These rights should be retained by the creator of the work unless specifically stated in the contract. The NWU is aware that some publishers claim that electronic versions of a book are simply extensions of print rights. The NWU’s position, recently reinforced by the Supreme Court decision in Tasini v. NY Times, is that electronic versions of any book are not extensions of print rights; an E-book is a different version altogether (as with movie rights, audio rights, etc.) and should be a separate item negotiated for in the contract. For more on this issue visit nwu.org. Most job opportunities resulting from electronic publishing include editing and web design and troubleshooting. Are there enough online entities to provide work? In a survey of 546 publishing professionals conducted by Book Zone, a website hosting and marketing firm specializing in book publishing, nearly 79 percent of the respondents’ firms currently had websites, and 36 percent of those firms had had sites for three years or more. According to Mary Westheimer, president of Book Zone, only 56 percent of all U.S. companies sell or promote their products online. Of the 8,596 publishing professionals the survey was distributed to, 546 responded—a 6.4 percent response rate. The respondents appear to be mostly smaller firms, reporting revenues of under $2 million. About 6.9 percent reported sales of more than $10 million. The responding publishers report using their sites for promotion and for direct sales (73 percent). The sites use linking campaigns from other sites, online advertising, and strategic alliances such as associate programs to promote their sites. However, the survey reveals that more than half the sites are dissatisfied with the

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traffic they receive, and 43 percent see fewer than five hundred Web visitors a month. Westheimer noted that those using newsgroups and mailing lists for promotion were the most pleased with the traffic level at their sites. For an extensive list of online publishers, see Appendix E.

SAMPLE JOB ADVERTISEMENT The following is a sample advertisement. The employer has not been identified because the job has already been filled. Other sample jobs are highlighted throughout this book in subsequent chapters. Position: Electronic Publishing Specialist Location: An independent investment management firm in Boston Responsibilities: The electronic publishing specialist will report to the production manager and will provide publishing support for the production, updating, and maintenance of prospect- and client-presentation books. Qualifications: Proficiency with Macintosh OS 9.0 or above is required (PC knowledge a plus). Proofreading experience would be helpful. Publishing software knowledge: PageMaker 6.5, DeltaGraph 4.0, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Adobe Acrobat. Graphics software knowledge a plus: Illustrator, Photoshop. Must be detail-oriented with the ability to prioritize projects, meet strict deadlines, and communicate effectively with internal clients. Ability to work well under pressure cooperatively and within a highly structured corporate electronic publishing environment is critical.

LITERARY AGENCIES Literary agents act as go-betweens for writers and editors. These days most of the big New York publishing houses refuse to consider manuscripts unless they are sent by an agent. Many publishers credit agents with the ability to screen out inappropriate submissions. An agent is expected to be familiar with the different kinds of books publishers prefer to take on. Agents spend their time reading manuscripts, choosing which ones to work with, and then trying to sell them to publishers. Agents free a writer to concentrate on writing instead of marketing. The agents’ job is to find the right house for their clients’ work and, once successful, to negotiate the best financial deal for the writer.

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Agents also handle film rights for feature or TV movies and foreign rights, selling books to publishers overseas. See Chapter 3 for more information on the role of the agent.

OTHER PUBLISHING AVENUES Other publishing avenues include magazines and newspapers, professional association newsletters, and corporate publications. Within publishing there are, of course, the writers (see Chapter 2); editors (see Chapter 4); book and other print-production personnel (see Chapter 5); marketing and sales specialists (see Chapter 6); publicists, event planners, and advertising managers (see Chapter 7); and lawyers and contract specialists (see Chapter 8).

PREPARING FOR A CAREER IN PUBLISHING The field is so broad, a generalized discussion of career preparation would be difficult. The path an editor would take would be different from the path of a sales rep or contract director. One obvious piece of advice is to have at least a bachelor’s degree in a major related to the intended career goal. Finance majors work in accounting departments. Paralegals or lawyers work in contracts departments. English, journalism, or communications majors work as editors. Other important preparation would include any kind of work in the field of publishing. Those seeking a newspaper career should land employment in that setting to familiarize themselves thoroughly with the type of work they would be doing. Gaining this background preparation helps candidates land jobs when the time comes.

FINDING JOBS IN PUBLISHING To learn about openings, job candidates must take a proactive approach. While in college, investigate the obvious sources—career placement offices, the English department job board, job fairs, and so on. Read Publishers Weekly. Regularly search the Internet and bookmark sites that feature posted jobs. Build up your resume with internships, work-study positions, and other “get-a-footin-the-door” types of jobs. The get-a-foot-in-the-door approach is a very viable strategy for this field. In the world of newspapers, magazines, and book publishing, experts advise you to take any job you can to get started. If you want to be an editor, for example, you could start out as a contract assistant, then move into an editorial position, and then move up the ladder to senior editor or higher.

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If you get yourself in the door and get to know the people in the department for which you prefer to work, your chances are better than are the chances of an unknown candidate hoping to go immediately into an editorial position. The same holds true of internships. Any related internship allows for networking and making contacts. Even if the student is hoping for a sales and promotions posting, an internship in the book-production department of a publishing house, for example, will provide fodder for a resume, along with a host of important contacts. And that student will be one of the first to hear about any new job openings.

SALARIES IN PUBLISHING Salaries vary widely depending upon the type of job, the rank within that position, the employer’s size and budget, and the region of the country in which the job is located. In general, though, salaries in publishing are not the most glamorous aspect of the work. Yes, you hear about the seven-figure advances some writers can pull in, but that’s not the norm—and the people paying those salaries seldom earn anything anywhere near that. In the chapters ahead, salaries for each publishing sector are provided.

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WRITERS, ILLUSTRATORS, AND PHOTOGRAPHERS “Writing is the only profession where no one considers you ridiculous if you earn no money.”—Jules Renard “Only a fool would write for nothing.”—Samuel Johnson

Before editors and agents, before book-production workers and sales staff, before promotion and advertising, must come writers and illustrators. For without the written word or a graphic to accompany it, there would be no use for any of the careers covered in this book. Writers have the widest opportunities in this career field. Writers write for magazines, newspapers, advertising agencies, and PR firms. Writers write novels and nonfiction books. They write travel brochures and technical manuals. They write obituaries and garden columns. Here’s a listing of areas a writer can consider:

MAGAZINES Visit any bookstore or newsstand and you will see hundreds of magazines covering a variety of topics—from sports and cars to fashion and parenting. There are also many you won’t see there, the hundreds of trade journals and magazines written for businesses, industries, and professional workers in as many different careers. These publications all offer information on diverse subjects to their equally diverse readership. They are filled with articles and profiles, interviews and editorials, letters and advice, as well as pages and pages of advertisements.

The Different Kinds of Articles

Articles fall into two broad categories: those that educate and those that entertain. Here is a sampling of the topics that articles for magazines cover:

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Art

Humor

Aviation

Military

Business and finance

Nature

Careers

Parenting

Child care

Pets

Computers

Photography

Contemporary culture

Politics

Entertainment

Psychology and self-help

Food

Retirement

Gardening

Science

General interest

Sports

Health

Travel

Hobbies Although the subject matter can be very different, most magazine articles include many of the same elements. They all start with an interesting “hook,” that first paragraph that grabs the reader’s (and the editor’s) attention. They use quotes from experts, cite important facts, and sometimes include amusing anecdotes or experiences.

NEWSPAPERS There are different kinds of newspapers—large-city dailies or small-town weeklies—but whatever the size or location, the job of a newspaper and its writers is to cover local, state, national, and international events and put all this news together to keep the reading public informed. Writers, copyeditors, and photojournalists cover a range of topics, depending on the newspaper. Most are given assignments and cover stories such as a downtown riot or a car accident. Some get to travel abroad and might find themselves on the front line in a war zone or witnessing flood rescues or criminal activity. Reporters gather information by visiting the scene, interviewing people, following leads and news tips, and examining documents. While some reporters might rely on their memories, most take notes or use a tape recorder while collecting facts. Back in the office, they organize their material, decide what the focus or emphasis should be, and then write their stories, generally using a computer. Because of deadlines, while away from the office, many

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reporters use portable computers to file stories, which are then sent by telephone modem directly to the newspaper’s computer system. The departments within newspapers vary from location to location, but most include some, if not all, of the following sections: Art

Health

Books

International news

Business

Lifestyles/features

Consumer affairs

Local news

Courts

National news

Crime

Religion

Education

Science

Entertainment

Social events

Fashion

Sports

Finance

State news

Food

Travel

Foreign affairs

Weather

FICTION Fiction writers are creative, imaginative people. After all, they have to be; they make up stories for a living. Whether writing short stories or full-length novels, fiction writers have to be able to create imaginary characters and events and make them seem real to their readers. Fiction writers have to be troublemakers, too, inventing all sorts of problems for their characters. They have to make their characters’ conversations and thoughts entertaining and fill their lives with action. Finally, fiction writers have to be expert problem solvers, helping their heroes find satisfying solutions to their troubles by the end of the story. If you love to read fiction and you find yourself stopping in the middle of a book and saying out loud, “I could do that better,” then maybe you can. But few new fiction writers have the luxury of working at their craft full time. Most need to maintain some other sort of employment to help pay the bills until they are able to support themselves through their writing. Because of this, dedicated writers use every spare minute they have to work on their books or stories. John Grisham, for example, wrote a good deal of The Firm on yellow legal pads while taking the train to and from work as a full-time attorney in a law

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firm. Others get up an hour earlier, stay up an hour later, turn down invitations to parties or other social events, or let the housework go—whatever they can do to find the time to write. Successful authors who support themselves through their writing treat it as a full-time job. Most report learning how to discipline themselves to put in a certain number of hours each day. Every writer chooses a schedule that is comfortable to him or her. Some work in the early hours of the morning, take afternoon naps, and then go back to the computer in the evenings. Others write for eight or ten or twelve hours straight each day for a period of months until the book is finished. Still others might take years to complete one volume. There is no set formula how a writer should work. The only rule is that you have to write. Author James Clavell said that even if you write only one page every day for a year, at the end of that time you’ll have 365 pages. And that’s a good-sized book.

THE MANY CATEGORIES OF FICTION Next time you visit a bookstore, take note of where the different books are shelved and what the signs in each section say. Here is an example of some of the different genres or categories you’ll encounter, with a few of their subgenres also included: Action/adventure

Fantasy

Romance (contemporary, gothic, historical, regencies, sensuous, sweet)

General/mainstream

Science fiction

Historical

Suspense (legal, medical, psychological, woman-in-jeopardy)

Children’s

Horror Literary Mystery (cozy, crime, detective, police procedural)

Thriller Western Young adult

NONFICTION BOOKS Writers of nonfiction have a distinct advantage over fiction writers. There are more than twice the number of nonfiction titles published each year than there are fiction titles. This means that there are more than twice as many opportu-

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nities for the beginning nonfiction book writer to break in and get published. In fact, it’s probably safe to say that any competent writer with a little market savvy can find a home for his or her writing. But you might be thinking that a nonfiction writer needs to be experienced in a specialized field of knowledge before he or she could even think about writing a nonfiction book. After all, a fiction writer can rely on imagination; nonfiction writers have to be experts. Right? Wrong. Nonfiction book writers do not have to start out as experts, though many of them end up that way by the time they’ve finished.

GETTING PUBLISHED Freelance Magazine or Newspaper Articles

Before starting, read as many magazines and newspapers as you can, and in particular, read those you would like to write for. It’s never a good idea to send an article to a publication you have not seen before. Being familiar with the different magazines or newspapers will also help you to come up with future article ideas. Once you have decided what you want to write about, there are two ways you can proceed. You can write the entire article “on spec,” send it off to appropriate editors, and hope they like your topic. Or, you can write a query letter— a miniproposal—to see if there is any interest in your idea first. Query letters will save you the time of writing articles you might have difficulty selling. Only once you’re given a definite assignment do you proceed. There are three important keys to keep in mind to get your articles published: 1. Make sure your writing is polished and that your article includes all the important elements. 2. Make sure your letter and manuscript are neatly typed and mistake-free. 3. Make sure you are sending your articles to the right publication. A magazine that features stories only on “Planning the Perfect Wedding” will not be interested in your piece on “Ten Tips for the Perfect Divorce.” You can find out about different publications and the kinds of materials they prefer to publish in the market guides listed in Appendix D.

Payment for Magazine and Newspaper Freelancers

Most new writers are thrilled to see their “byline,” that is, their name in print, giving them credit for the article. And to writers, nothing is more exciting than the finished product, getting to see their stories in print. Getting a check or a salary for your efforts can be rewarding as well, but sadly, for new freelancers, the checks might not come often enough and are not always large enough to live on comfortably.

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While staff writers are paid a regular salary (the average wage for staff positions ranges from $35,270 for news reporters to $45,500 for staff writers, plus benefits, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics), a freelancer gets paid only when he or she sells an article. Fees could range from as low as $5 to $1,000 or more per article, depending upon the publication. Some pay per word—from 1 cent to $1 or $2 or more. But even with a high-paying magazine, writers often have to wait until their stories are published before they are paid. Because publishers work so far ahead, planning issues six months or more in advance, payment could be delayed from three months to a year or more. Recently, the National Writers Union (NWU) Delegates Assembly appointed a committee to study pay rates for freelance writers to determine a minimum recommended pay rate. Their research was motivated by a sense among members that freelance rates don’t provide freelancers with even a moderate income. The NWU believes that rates have not kept up with staff salaries in recent years. They had also heard claims that freelance rates had not increased since the 1960s. The NWU discovered that the situation is even worse than they had thought. In real dollars, freelance rates have gone down by more than 50 percent since the 1960s. And while rates have gone down, publishers are getting more for their money. As an example of the pay decrease, the NWU report cited that in 1966 Cosmopolitan reported offering 60 cents a word; in 1998 they reported offering $1 a word. But, during this time, the buying power of the dollar fell by a factor of five. So Cosmopolitan’s real rates fell by a factor of three. Good Housekeeping reported offering $1 a word in 1966 and the same $1 a word in 1998—an 80 percent decline in real pay. Another way of looking at these figures is to translate them into 2001 dollars. Under those terms, Good Housekeeping was paying the equivalent of $5 a word in 1966. How much do freelancer writers need to work to make a decent living? This is something the NWU report tried to answer. They state: “Freelance writers spend a tremendous amount of time looking for work (researching and pitching articles) and revising. While some articles can be done in a week and others may take three months, for most full-time freelance writers, selling and writing 3,000 or 4,000 words a month is about the best that they can expect to do—two feature articles or the equivalent in smaller pieces. (This is more than most magazine staff writers write—which is about 2,500 words a month.) “At this level of output, a rate of a dollar a word means a gross income of $36,000 to $48,000 a year, out of which has to be taken expenses, insurance, and other benefits. This is the equivalent of earning a salary, with benefits, of about $30,000 to $40,000 a year. So for a college graduate working as a fulltime freelance writer to bring in even a moderate income that includes benefits requires at least $1 a word. “The median income of full-time, college-educated workers in the U.S. is around $50,000, plus benefits. So to earn as much as the average college graduate would require somewhat more, between $1.25 and $1.60 a word.”

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The NWU report also studied what publications could afford to pay, based on their ad rates. They compared publication income with words of text published “to get an estimate of income per word and to determine what fraction of total revenue is paid to writers. For example, for Discover magazine, five hundred pages of ads a year at $50,000 per full-page ad gives $25 million a year in gross revenue. (This underestimates their income, because half-page ads cost two-thirds as much as full-page ads). Since the magazine has one million subscriptions at $25 per year, it has another $25 million a year. (This ignores newsstand sales, which make the total even larger.) Divide by five hundred pages of text a year at eight hundred words per text page and Discover’s income is more than $125 per word. Discover pays its writers $1 a word. So they pay their writers less than 1 percent of their gross income. If they paid writers 15 percent of gross income, the way book publishers manage to and still turn handsome profits, they would be paying at least $19 a word.” The numbers are the same for magazines such as Forbes. The gap is even larger with the larger magazines. Good Housekeeping and Women’s Day have ad rates of $200,000 a page and more and as many as eight million readers, earning something like $500 a word. Yet they pay freelancers $1 to $2 a word, less than 0.5 percent of revenues. “If they paid the writers 15 percent of revenue,” states the NWU report, “freelancers would be getting $75 a word at these publications.” The National Writer’s Union report also covers newspapers. “The New York Times takes in about $40,000 per ad page or about $2 million per issue, about comparable to Discover, Forbes, and Good Housekeeping. The Times metro edition hits about a million readers. With $1 million or more in subscriptions per issue, not counting newsstand sales, and thirty pages of text in a daily edition, this works out to at least $38 a word. So at 15 percent of income, the Times could afford at least $6 a word, not the 30 cents to a dollar it normally pays freelancers.” The report asks publications to consider that a minimum rate of $1 a word is no hardship and would be the first step to recovering the ground writers have lost over the past thirty-five years. To learn what specific publications pay, check the Writer’s Market. (It’s listed as a resource in Appendix D.) To the freelancers’ advantage, sometimes the same article can be sold to more than one magazine or newspaper. These “resales” help to increase salaries. And you can also be paid additional money if you can provide your own photographs to illustrate your articles.

Fiction

Writing a short story or a full-length novel is only half the battle. In addition to honing your skills as an expert storyteller, you also have to be a knowledgeable salesperson. That means you must learn which publishers you should approach and how to approach them. There are several market guides, which are men-

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tioned in Appendix D, that will tell you what categories of fiction the different publishers buy. The guides will also list the different magazines that purchase short stories. You can also check your own book collection to learn who the publishers are. Once you’ve made a list of possible markets, you need to make sure your approach is appropriate. Your manuscript needs to be typed and double-spaced, with your name at the top of each page. There are several sources that can give you the information you need to format your manuscript properly. One such source is Fiction Writer’s Connection. Go to fictionwriters.com and click on Tip Sheets for some helpful information. Before you send in your completed manuscript, you should write the editor a brief query letter describing your project. Don’t forget to enclose a selfaddressed stamped envelope (SASE). The editor will use this to send you a reply. If the editor likes what he or she sees so far, you’ll probably receive a request to send more. Alternatively, you can look for an agent first, following the same steps you’d use to make your initial approach to a publisher. But this time, you are asking that the agent consider you as a possible client. At this point, after the query letters are in the mail, many new writers just sit back and wait for responses. The smart writer puts that manuscript out of his head and gets to work on the next one. And the next one. And the next one. In the end, the key to getting published can be summed up in one word: persistence.

Advances and Royalties Even if you manage to break in and sell your first novel, you should expect to receive only about $2,500 or $5,000. The six-figure advances that some superstar authors receive are not the norm. Zebra Books senior editor John Scognamiglio says, “That kind of stuff like with John Grisham doesn’t really have anything to do with the rest of us. There are 110,000 new titles a year, and there are only fifteen on the NY Times Bestseller List at a time. Most of the rest of us are going to make a moderate income and do a civilized business if we work very, very hard. There’s not that much room at the top. And there isn’t much of a middle class in publishing. You either make a little bit of money, which the grand majority will do, or you make a lot.” If you do manage to land that first book contract, you will receive an advance against royalties. A royalty is a percentage, usually 6 to 10 percent, of the money your book earns in sales. The advance is paid half on signing the contract, half on delivery and acceptance of the manuscript. But money is not the only reason writers write. For some, the profession is almost an obsession—a burning desire to put words to paper, to start a book and see it to its finish. They wouldn’t be happy doing anything else. Other perks include recognition and publicity, though some might view the attention as a downside. Many writers report that the nicest perk is being able to go to work in their bathrobe.

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As with any book, you must start with an idea, a topic that interests you and that you would like to learn more about. The topics that nonfiction writers write about cover everything under the sun. Here is just a small sampling of general categories that publishers are interested in: Autobiography

Investing/making money

Biography

New age

Career/finding a job

Parenting

Child care

Politics

Cooking

Relationships

Dieting

Self-help/psychology

Health/fitness

Spiritual

History

Textbooks

Hobbies

Travel

How-to At this writing, among the current top fifteen bestselling nonfiction books are three autobiographies, two biographies, one cookbook, one fitness, one history, two politics, one relationship, and four spiritual/New Age. Most of these books have been written by famous people, but that doesn’t mean that an unknown, competent writer can’t get a foot in the door. What to do with your idea. First you have to check what’s already been writ-

ten on the subject. You won’t get your book published if it only duplicates the information of a hundred other books. However, if your book idea will provide additional or different information from what is currently available—in other words, if your book will fill a gap in the marketplace—then you have a shot at getting it published. Go to the library and the bookstore and see what’s already out there. Note the publishers, because they might be the ones who will be interested in your book, too. Once you have examined the competing books, you can decide if your idea is still a good one. The next step. Before you write your proposal, which is your entry into a literary agency or a publishing house, you have to make sure you can collect the information you will need to write your book. If you already are an expert in a particular area, a hobby or form of cooking, for example, then you have a head start. But you still will need factual information to complete your book. Most

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nonfiction writers use two sources for information: books, articles, and documents on the subject; and interviews with professionals or experts in the field. If you are writing a biography of a famous person, for example, you can study other books written about that person’s life, and you can track down and interview people who know that person. If you want to write about gardening, you interview gardeners. If you want to write about money matters, you interview investment counselors, and so on. Query letters and book proposals. After you’ve done your initial research— you have your idea, you know what the competition is, and you know how to gather the information you’ll need to write the book—you are ready to compose a query letter. This is basically a miniproposal, telling an editor or agent about your book idea, why you think it should be published, who the readers will be, and why you should be the person to write this book. You end your letter by offering to send a full proposal and sample chapters. The proposal is a longer version of your query letter. It should include a table of contents that shows you know how to organize and present the material for your book, and one or two sample chapters. If the editor or agent likes your proposal, he or she will probably ask to see the completed manuscript. Few firsttime writers can land a book contract without a finished book, but it does happen that a good proposal can get you a sale. Your proposal could also save you the time of writing a book that will never get published. You might learn from the editors or agents that there is no interest in your idea for a number of reasons. Some possible reasons for lack of interest are (1) there are too many similar books on the same subject; (2) there aren’t any current books on the subject, but that’s because earlier ones did not sell well; (3) the audience for your book is too narrow—not enough people would be interested in it to make publishing it financially worthwhile; (4) your book doesn’t cover enough ground; or (5) your book covers too much ground. If your book idea is turned down, don’t get discouraged. The feedback you get from agents and editors can give you an idea how to revise your book or might even lead you to a new topic altogether. The rewards for the nonfiction book writer. If you do receive that exciting

phone call or letter in the mail informing you that your book has been accepted, you can expect to receive a book contract that will spell out all the terms. Usually an advance for a nonfiction book could be from $1,000 on up, to even a million dollars or more, depending on how big the publishing house is, how timely and important your book topic is, and how many books the publishers believe they’ll be able to sell. First-time writers should expect to fall somewhere at the bottom of the scale. You will also be paid royalties, a percentage of the price of each book that sells. But while you’re waiting for your advance or first royalty check, it would be a good idea to get started on that next book, then the next one, and the next

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one. Few people can retire after one book; most writers have to write many in order to support themselves. But writing a complete book, then getting it published, no matter the amount you’re paid, is an accomplishment to be proud of, a reward unto itself.

FREELANCING Freelance writers can find satisfying and financially rewarding work writing for others. There are many people, business owners or politicians, for example, who, because they do not have either the skill or the time, hire the services of professional writers to do their writing for them. You can keep busy writing magazine ads, travel brochures, political speeches, or press releases. The possibilities are as wide as the number of clients you can develop. If you have an interest in writing, with a good command of English grammar, a grasp of the political process, or knowledge of sales and marketing techniques—or you are willing to learn—then a career writing for others might be for you. When you write for others, you either work in a client or employer’s office or you can work from home as a freelance writer. You will meet with your client or employer and listen to what he or she needs. Your project might be a brochure describing a resort hotel or a magazine ad to sell a new product. You will then have to estimate the amount of time the job will take you and what additional expenses, such as photography or artwork, you will have. When you have calculated your time and the cost, you then give an exact price to the client. Even if your estimate was short and it takes you more time than you had initially planned for, you still have to stick by your initial fee. You most likely will be working on your own, and this means that you have to be self-motivated and disciplined. The client will want the project finished by a certain date, and he or she will expect you to deliver on time. That could mean you’re working weekends and nights as well as days to get the job done. When you write for others you could be involved in a variety of different projects. Here is a selected list: Advertising copywriters write all the words for magazine ads and radio and

TV commercials. To describe a business’s services or a client’s product, they design and write the copy for brochures or pamphlets. They write all the copy for direct mail packages, which are used to sell products or services such as magazine subscriptions or memberships in a book club through the mail. Ghostwriters write books for people who don’t have the necessary skill to do

it themselves. The client could be a famous person such as a former president or a movie star who has a story to tell but needs help doing it. Ghostwriters sometimes get credit for their writing (you might see “as told to” on the book jacket cover), but many times they stay anonymous, writing behind the scenes.

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Press secretaries work for government officials, actors and actresses, or big corporations that are concerned with relations with the press. They schedule public appearances and read prepared statements to reporters. They also write press releases, which are announcements of an event or service or product. The press releases are sent to various newspapers and TV and radio shows in the hopes of receiving some free publicity. Speechwriters work with politicians and other public figures, listening to what

they want to say, then writing the speeches they will deliver. When you listen to the president on television or see the mayor or governor speaking to a group of voters, you can make a good bet that the speech was written by someone else. Technical writers can freelance or work for a particular company. They fre-

quently write manuals or other instructional material.

ILLUSTRATORS AND PHOTOGRAPHERS Illustrators and photographers (some photographers are known as photojournalists) can work for the same establishments that attract writers: magazines, newspapers, book publishing companies, advertising agencies, PR firms, corporations, private clients, print shops, professional associations, and so on. As with writers, some illustrators or photographers work on staff; others freelance their services. For illustrators and photojournalists, there are a few different routes to take in the job hunting process, but they all include putting together a professional portfolio. Some photojournalists identify the papers they would like to work for and, at their own expense, fly out on spec to talk to the different editors—even when they know there are currently no openings. This approach, though a bit costly for someone just starting out, can often work. The job applicant makes him- or herself known, and when an opening does occur, potential employers will remember the top-quality portfolio. Job hunting through the mail can be just as effective. Send out your portfolio with a good cover letter, and don’t be afraid to mention any story ideas you might have. Newspapers aren’t looking for robots; they appreciate a photojournalist who does more than stand behind the camera and click his or her shutter. Then follow up a week or so later as a reminder. You can make up your own picture postcards, using your best work. This helps to jog the editor’s memory—and shows how creative you are.

Internships

College programs and internships can give the job candidate an opportunity to get a portfolio started. Another successful job-hunting method is to take more than the one required college internship. If you can get involved in two or even three internships, you’ll make more contacts and have a better chance of lining

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up full-time employment when you graduate. At the same time you’ll be adding to your portfolio and creating impressive specifics to include on your resume.

Payment

Payment for illustrators and photographers can vary by the publication or the employers. One well-placed photo in a newspaper cover story on a hot topic could land the photographer a hefty sum. A photo in a small publication could pull in $25 to $50. A travel spread could earn the photographer more money than the writer earns. The bigger the publication’s budget, the better the chances of a comfortable paycheck.

FINDING CLIENTS Many writers and illustrators work for ad agencies, gaining experience and making contacts, before striking out on their own. Others might start with just one client, a big corporation, for example, that will send enough work their way. And through building a reputation of being a good worker who delivers on time, you will receive recommendations from your clients, and that will lead you to new clients. Word-of-mouth is how most writers build up business. For whatever sector you choose to work in, each has its own protocol. For example, press secretary jobs for politicians are usually filled outside the civil service system; the congressman (or other officeholder or candidate) hires directly. Knowing a congressman personally is the best way to go about getting a job, but most people aren’t in that position. If you don’t have an inside contact, you would have to go to the politicians’ offices (at your own expense), walk the hallways, go door-to-door, and ask about openings. Someone just out of college might try for an assistant press secretary position or volunteer his or her time as a student intern.

SAMPLE JOB ADVERTISEMENTS The following are real advertisements, but the hiring employers are not identified because the positions have already been filled. They are meant as examples to give you an idea of the types of positions you’ll see advertised. Position: Copywriter Location: Large independent ad agency in Michigan Description: Seeking a copywriter with experience managing client relations as well as managing a team and major accounts, including attending meetings, developing and presenting concepts, and writing copy for all media, especially collateral. As a seasoned, dynamic copywriter you manage

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other copywriters and are able to work independently, but also within a new design department that focuses on collateral. Your book contains extremely high-end copy. You can sell solutions, not products. You are team-oriented, upbeat, and averse to seclusion to your own cubicle. Your work will include interface with the client as needed, the brainstorming of fresh ideas with the art director and creative director, writing your own concepts complete with strategic foundation, and finishing with a flawless piece that tells a story in a confined amount of real estate. Position: Copywriter Location: Large travel-industry corporation based in South Florida Description: Seeking a copywriter for the creative-services department. Must have excellent attention to detail and be organized and able to work under tight deadlines. Individual must have solid editing skills as well as creative writing. This position will be 50 percent editing and 50 percent writing. Must have solid Quark skills as well as proficiency in using the Mac. Bilingual a must (English and Spanish)! Portuguese a plus. Position: Freelance Writer Location: New trade magazine in Colorado Description: We need freelance writers to write articles on business subjects and trends along with technical articles on such subjects as metal cutting, metal fabricating, tools, applications, etc. Payment is by article. $200–$300. Position: Technical Writer Location: Web-based company in California Description: Looking for technical writers to create Web copy, data sheets, and FAQs. Candidates must have background in one of the following areas: component manufacturing, enterprise software/Web infrastructure software/CRM, managed services (ISPs, VSPs, ASPs, Internet applications solutions/ iBuilders, Exchanges), communication services and infrastructure (including wireless data services). Component manufacturing audience is typically going to be product engineers (mechanical/electrical). Enterprise software audience is going to be CIOs, IT directors, engineers, or business line managers. Managed services and communication services audience is going to be C-level business line managers, CIOs, IT directors, or engineers.

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Position: Illustrator Location: Toy company based on Long Island Description: Seeking an experienced, high-end illustrator. You should have five-plus years of experience and proficiency in Photoshop, heavy retouching, package design, production, bleeds, designing logos on packaging, and the ability to work in dimensions. The ability to execute package die strikes is extremely important. This is a freelance position. Position: Illustrator Location: Educational online company based in northern Virginia Description: This illustrator will be producing simple line illustrations, photo-realistic (not cartoony) for online curriculums for K–2 grades. Can work in Freehand or Illustrator. Will be working closely with Flash Scripters who will be animating illustrations. Flash experience is a plus but not necessary. Submit resume outlining skills and qualifications and illustration samples. Position: Assistant Art Director Location: Leading magazine based in New York City Description: Must have at least one to two years of magazine experience. Responsibilities will include designing front-ofthe-book columns and dealing with still photographers and illustrators for these pages; calling in stock film; returning film and issues to photographers; and coding and keeping track of the department bills; plus any other departmental needs (pasting up boards, ordering supplies, etc.). Qualifications include college degree. QuarkXPress 3.3 or higher is a must! Photoshop and Illustrator are a plus. Excellent organizational and communication skills required. Must be able to work in a fast-paced environment. Position: Art Director Location: Leading publisher of newspapers and magazines to the fashion and retail trade and consumer audience/book division Description: Seeking an art director for our books division, which publishes fashion and interior design college textbooks. The art director will be responsible for designing and scheduling book projects from heavily illustrated manuscript through the production process. Other responsibilities include supervision of freelance designers and illustrators, budgeting, estimating, and interfacing with editorial and production

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departments. Three to five years’ experience in textbooks is required. The ideal candidate will be detail-oriented, organized, and able to manage multiple projects and will have strong communication and supervisory skills. Expert knowledge in QuarkXPress, Illustrator, and Photoshop is a must.

FIRSTHAND ACCOUNTS Tanya Lochridge, Freelance Medical/Health Care Writer Tanya Lochridge writes medical/health care magazine articles, patient education materials, and presentation materials primarily for the consumer/patient audience. In addition, she does some annual reports for managed care organizations and pharmaceutical companies. Her clients also include magazines, websites, medical associations, nonprofit associations, and hospitals. She has been freelancing since 1984.

Getting Started

“I knew that writing was always in my soul. I was just not sure a person could actually make a living at it. I grew up in a blue-collar world, and writing was not an option that was ever discussed as a career. After teaching for several years, I knew that wasn’t for me, so I landed my first job by coincidence at the only pharmaceutical company at the time in Southern California. I spent about a year working in market research—designing, implementing, and writing various market research studies. I realized at that point that I could make a living writing. “While working in market research, I started talking with copywriters and other writers to see what was required for that job and how they reached the position they had. It’s strange—all work from that point in some way led to my freelance status and success now. I wandered around in the pharmaceutical industry for several years working in sales, marketing, and education. That experience provided a much broader background than that of most writers— giving me a slight edge.”

The Realities of the Work

“Freelance writing has many positives and many negatives. For me the positives far outweigh the negative qualities of the work. Freelancing is not a job for someone who likes the social atmosphere supplied by an office environment. “My day begins about 10:00 or 11:00, checking E-mail for assignment updates, and then I write until about 3:00 in the afternoon, taking short breaks to stretch in between. At 3:00 I return calls, check with editors or directors on assignments, and then back to writing until about 9:00 in the evening—although many nights I am up writing until 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning, depending on the work flow. This schedule is the one I keep when I have plenty of work in

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the pipeline. If I see assignments slowing, and just on a regular basis, I send out a lot of promo materials to existing clients and potential new clients. So basically, if I am not working on a specific assignment, I am working on promotion/marketing. Eighty percent of my time is actually spent researching the topic, and the remaining 20 percent is spent writing. “Sometimes to clear my head, I grab the dog and head for the park—what appears to be play to the innocent passerby is really a time for structuring and solving problems in a current assignment.”

The Upsides and Downsides

“I like that some days I can work in my jammies, or a T-shirt and shorts, with my dog keeping me company. I like that I get to use my talents to help consumers/patients at a time when they might be experiencing fear about their health. I like knowing that I can possibly have an effect on someone’s life, because they took the time to read the material I produced, and then took action to seek medical advice. I like that, being a night person, I can work into the wee hours of the morning. I like that I can pick and choose the projects on which I work, although it wasn’t always that way. “What I like least is being the bill collector. Some clients are great and pay invoices promptly, while others make me chase my money. Although, over the years this has become less of a problem since I have weeded out the slow payers by turning down their assignments. Sometimes I find it too easy to work around the clock, throwing the balance off in my life. But as a freelancer, you almost have to take all assignments when they come, because there is no guarantee that they will come again next month. So living on a strict budget is a must—no matter how much you earn in a month. “I don’t know how working as a freelancer would work if I had a family to care for—I think that would make it much more difficult. One problem that I had to solve was making friends understand that just because I am home, doesn’t mean I’m not busy working.”

Earnings

“My annual earnings range between $90K and $125K. However, keep in mind that I have been doing this for years and work in a specialty area in which few writers succeed. It takes a certain skill to be able to take ‘medicalese’ and make it consumer-friendly without talking down to the reader. I believe I could be earning more after all these years—but I am at a point in my life where I am trying to strike a balance between my work and my personal life.”

Advice

“First of all, you’ve got to be a good writer. So many people today come out of school without writing skills. So be sure that your skills are tops. I believe that part of being a great writer is being an avid reader. Read anything you can get your hands on that fits into the category in which you are interested. And, read all the stuff you can that just gives you joy.

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“Education opens the door, but once you’re there you must prove yourself, again and again. It takes a while to establish a reputation in an industry. So be patient, but be persistent. Having the tenacity of a terrier certainly helps in this profession! You also need good researching skills. And, don’t take rejection or criticism to heart. Use it constructively to improve your skills. “Develop a promotional package that lists your education, clients, skills, and so on. Also include samples of previous work. If you are starting out and don’t have previous work, then write some samples that can be included. Don’t expect that one promo package will get you the job. Do regular mailings every few weeks (even after all these years, I still mail once a month to all clients and include samples of projects recently completed). I would suggest you work inhouse with a company or agency for a period of time—this lends more credibility to your credentials. “Always continue to learn and upgrade your skills. For example, I started by writing brochures, added newsletters and magazine articles, and now write content for the Web as well. Each of these requires a slightly different set of skills. So, it’s best to stay current. Never, ever, miss a deadline—that will be your undoing. Everything you did before will be forgotten, and the missed deadline will long be remembered. “If you want to freelance because you think it is easier than working in an office—think again. As a freelancer, in most cases, you are working in a vacuum and do not have the luxury of bouncing ideas off colleagues or just complaining to colleagues about a current project—which can be a relief at times. “As a freelance writer, you not only complete projects for clients, you also have to complete projects for yourself on a regular basis. There are no paid holidays, paid vacations, or paid sick days. Every day you must get up and write.”

Joseph Hayes, Freelance Features Writer Joseph Hayes writes features for a variety of magazines and newspapers. His articles cover people, food, computers and technology, travel, music, and writing about writing. His work has appeared in the following publications: Fiction Writers Guideline, Gila Queen’s Guide to Markets, Inklings/Inkspot, iUniverse.com Nonfiction Industry Newsletter, January Magazine, Jerusalem Report, MaximumPC, Moments Aboard Spirit Airlines, MyMatcher.com, Orlando Magazine, Orlando Sentinel, Poets & Writers, savvyHEALTH, Venture Woman, and Writer’s Journal. His first article was published in January 1997.

Getting Started

“It began as an outgrowth of my ‘other’ profession: I was a corporate sales trainer for many years, and as such, I developed a skill at taking complicated technical terms and processes and putting them down on paper so they were understandable to ordinary people. My first love will always be fiction writing,

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but I’ve been able to take those talents and use them to create what is called creative nonfiction. “I got started by calling up the local newspaper and speaking to a regional editor. I suggested several concrete story ideas about the community I live in. She liked one, told me to write it, and I’ve been writing steadily ever since.”

The Realities of the Work

“My first duty involved personal accountability—weighing the necessities of getting paying assignments with social responsibility. Will I take any assignment as long as it pays? So far the answer is no. “Then the duties of the professional writer come in—meeting deadlines, being obligated to deliver the best work you are capable of regardless of the subject matter, and being in contact with editors once they give you assignments so they know what you’re up to. “I love my job. Not only do I get to (and have to) set my own schedule, but I have the opportunity to meet incredible people, people whom I wouldn’t ordinarily get to know. The hours are long, and there can sometimes be long gaps between paydays, but I’m getting paid for doing something I’ve always wanted to do. “Mostly I write about people—about life. I like to tell stories about ordinary people who do extraordinary things: the guy who sells UFO abduction insurance, the woman who takes photographs of people’s auras, the former police officer who teaches the bagpipes. My travel articles are about places a tourist wouldn’t normally go; my technology pieces are based on helping people understand what on earth modern technology means to them. Bottom line—I’m a storyteller, whether I’m doing it in a piece of fiction or a newspaper. “Ninety-five percent of my work is generated by ideas I send out. This is called the query process. If it’s an editor I know or have worked with before, I will pick up the phone and give my idea a quick pitch. If it’s a new editor or a new publication, I send a letter with a detailed but brief summary of the idea, along with copies of similar articles that I’ve published before—these are called clips. “In either case, it means that you have to have a very clear and specific idea of what story you want to do. Saying ‘I’d really like to do an interview with a band’ isn’t an idea; it’s a daydream. ‘I’ve met the drummer for Backstreet Boys, and he’ll talk to me about the band’ is a legitimate article pitch. “How you decide whom to approach depends on what you write. By looking at guidebooks such as the Writer’s Market and visiting your local newsstands, you get to see which magazines print articles on topics you can write about, which magazines pay, and which ones accept pieces from freelancers. “A freelancer’s life goes through cycles: periods of waiting for work followed by frantic episodes of meeting deadlines. A query can go unanswered for months, but when an editor finally decides he wants the work, he wants it yesterday. This year I had enough time to go on a two-week vacation . . . and when I got back home, there were six contracts waiting for me, all due in a month!

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“I truly believe the job is what you make it. You can be as busy (and successful) as you want to be. Even at this stage, I’m still learning to pace myself when it comes to getting work, and I think I could be doing twice as much writing as I’m doing now if I wanted to, but at the risk of doing less quality work than I demand from myself. As it is, I will often put in a twelve-hour day, between writing, researching, and interviewing.”

The Upsides and Downsides

“The best part is the freedom, working for myself. Of course, I don’t work for myself; I work for magazines and newspapers and editors, but each job has a different boss, and I know if I have a bad experience with one boss, I need not work for him or her again. “The thrill of stepping up to a magazine rack and seeing your name on the stands is one that I hope will never wear off. “The bad side is waiting—waiting for an assignment, then waiting for a check. Keeping track of your submissions, your billing, even your expenses, can be tiring and overwhelming, but it’s part of the job. A writer writes only part of the time. The rest of the time is spent with details and selling yourself. “It can also get lonely—most of the time you are in your office, facing a screen, talking to yourself. And there are times when you have to convince your friends and family that you are actually working even though you are home, and they must respect that.”

Earnings

“Someone just starting out can expect to earn very little, if anything. Most freelance writers do it as a part-time thing and very often get no pay at all for their work. It’s part of establishing yourself in the business and getting experience. “Once your reputation and skill warrant it, a freelance feature writer can expect to find widely varying pay rates—everything from 5 cents to $1 a word (and some lower than that) is typical, while the big, national magazines will pay thousands of dollars an article . . . but that’s a tough group to join.”

Advice

“First of all, love language. Love to write. Some writers say they love having written, but hate writing. Such a waste of time! Enjoy every part of the process, of sitting in front of the computer or typewriter or notepad, and you’ll never suffer from what is called writer’s block. “The article writer should be, first and foremost, an article reader—be aware of styles of writing, of how things are said. Be a reader; be voracious. Devour facts. Some people keep journals or diaries and jot down observations of people and places. Learn how to put those observations on paper; it’s called finding your voice. Writer and teacher Larry Bloom says that voice, the personal voice of the writer, is the most important part of any story; that is, what you yourself add to the article. Remember that only you can tell the story you are telling.

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“To start out, find a discussion group at your library or local bookstore or online, and talk about your daily encounters. Learn to listen. Call your local newspaper or church, check the clubs you belong to, ask at local businesses, and see if they have newsletters you can write for. The more words you put in print, the better your words get. And most important, never give up! I’ve been very lucky, being as successful as I’ve been in such a short time. Some writers take several years of hard work before they see real success. It can be very discouraging, but it’s also very rewarding.”

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“Having an agent is the difference between being published and not being published.”—John Grisham

Literary agents provide a valuable service to writers. They represent writers and act as go-betweens with editors at publishing houses. They free a writer to concentrate on writing instead of marketing. They provide the new writer with credibility—if an agent likes the writer’s work, then that writer has made the first step toward publication. These days most of the big New York publishing houses refuse to consider a manuscript from a new, unpublished writer unless an agent has sent it to them. Many publishers credit agents with the ability to screen out inappropriate submissions, and rightfully so. An agent is expected to be familiar with the different kinds of books publishers prefer to take on. New writers don’t always take the time to research this information. A knowledgeable agent won’t send a romance novel to a publisher who handles only science fiction, although a new writer might make that mistake. Agents are trained to recognize good or bad writing and can also spot a diamond in the rough. Some agents will work with their clients to get almost-ready manuscripts to a salable level. Others expect the writer to have his or her manuscript in market-ready condition before the writer approaches them. In any event, an agent will not submit to publishers a manuscript that isn’t ready, while new writers often rush to send out their work before taking the time to polish and edit. Agents also work with writers with a track record to help them find the best house for new work and to negotiate the best financial package. In addition to having a good eye for marketable writing and topics, an agent must be versed in legalese. Agents handle contracts and rights and must understand the different clauses and what best suits their clients. In addition to literary rights, agents also handle film rights for feature or TV movies and foreign rights, selling their clients’ books to publishers overseas.

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Agents must also keep good financial records and maintain separate bank accounts for each client. Agents generally receive advances and royalty checks from the publishers for their clients and must disburse those funds as they come into the office. Most of an agent’s time is spent reading manuscripts, choosing which ones to work with, and then trying to sell them to publishers. Agents also attend writers’ conferences in search of new talent. They meet with writers and discuss their work. If an idea seems appealing or marketable, the agent will ask the writer to send his or her manuscript to the agent’s office after the conference. (Most agents prefer not to carry dozens of manuscripts home with them on the plane.)

TRAINING FOR AGENTS Most agents have at least a bachelor’s degree in communications, English, journalism, or any relevant liberal arts or humanities major. It is also helpful to be knowledgeable about publishing law and contracts and to know how to do word processing. Needless to say, a love of reading must come above all else. As agent Nancy Yost says, “The truth is, I have always been a reader, and once I started actually working with books and authors, I realized I would be able to do something I would be proud of at the end of the day.” Nancy Yost earned her B.A. in comparative literature from the University of Nevada at Las Vegas in the early 1980s before entering the New York publishing arena. In publishing it’s rare for someone to start out as an agent without any prior experience. Many agents work for publishing houses first, becoming familiar with the editorial process and contracts, before moving into a literary agency. “My training came from my experience as an editor,” says agent Jessica Faust. “As an acquisitions editor for six years I learned the ins and outs of what makes a good book, the importance of marketing potential, and how much is too much competition. I also learned one of the most important aspects of agenting: how to negotiate and understand a publishing contract.” Nancy Yost followed a similar path. “My first job in publishing was as a contracts assistant at Random House, then later I worked as an editor at Avon. During that time I was approached by my current boss, who had lost an agent and needed fresh blood. She had gotten my name from several editors and agents as a likely candidate.” Some agents start as assistants and work their way up. This sample advertisement gives you an idea of what the workload for an assistant is like: “Our small (seven full time), dynamic, and fast-paced office seeks an assistant to two literary agents. One year’s office, publishing experience preferred. Duties include evaluating queries and manuscripts, reviewing contracts, handling heavy phone, tracking submissions to publishers here and in foreign mar-

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kets, dealing with authors and editors, and generally assisting in the sale of authors’ work to book publishers and magazines. Experience in foreign rights and contracts a plus. Candidates should demonstrate ability to work in a fastpaced environment and organize a steady flow of material.”

HOW LITERARY AGENCIES ARE STRUCTURED Some literary agents choose to work on their own, with little more than secretarial assistance. They can rent space in an office building or work from a home office. Other agents prefer to work within an established literary agency, either as the owner or as one of the associates. They can still function independently, choosing the writers and book projects they want to work with. Usually in an agency, agents must contribute a percentage of their income to cover the office’s operating expenses.

LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION At one time agents worked only in New York City, which is where most of the major publishing houses are. But this is fast changing. Agents are now located all over the country. Phone calls, E-mail, and commuter flights make business possible, no matter where the agent hangs his or her shingle. Although there still is some stigma attached to non–New York locations, it’s important not to confuse a “Podunk” location with a “Podunk” agent. If an agent is up on current publishing trends, knows his or her business, and is well read and well informed, the location isn’t important. But if the agent’s practices reflect something less than professionalism—submitting substandard manuscripts or submitting manuscripts to the wrong houses, for example—the agent rather than the location is to blame. In truth, there are good agents and not-so-good agents. And some of those not-so-good agents work and live right there in New York City.

CHOOSING A CAREER IN AGENTING OVER EDITING While both professions can be satisfying, an editor might face some restrictions an agent doesn’t have to encounter. Nancy Yost had a few reasons to switch roles from editing to agenting. “Publishing houses are organized by lists—they have certain kinds of books that they’re good at, and they have certain kinds of books that they don’t do. For example, Avon is very good with romances, very good with original mysteries; they have great science fiction and fantasy editors. But if you ever wanted to work with a big picture book or a cookbook you couldn’t. You were limited by the list. Basically, it seemed to me that if I became an agent I’d be able to play in everyone’s backyard instead of just one.

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“And the money is better, of course; the more you sell, the more you earn. And you work only with the people you want to work with and the projects you like. You don’t have to work in a bureaucratic sort of environment. Even in the best of houses you have salespeople, marketing people, and production people who are all many times at odds with your vision of a book or your enthusiasm for a book. The only limit on my enthusiasm now is what I think the market can do. If one editor doesn’t like it, I can go to six other editors—or twenty other editors—until I sell it or until I’ve been beaten down and realize I’m not going to be able to sell it.”

EARNINGS FOR AGENTS Although editors are generally paid a set salary, agents must sell their clients’ manuscripts to publishers to earn any income. The salary structure varies from agency to agency. Some beginning agents might work partly for salary and partly for commission, earning between beginning $20,000 and $30,000 per year to start—more as the number of sales increase. Other agents generally work on a commission basis only, getting 10 to 15 percent of the money the writer earns. Nancy Yost, as an example, makes between 25 and 75 sales a year. If an agent has a lot of market savvy, carefully chooses which manuscripts to represent, and has success bargaining for big advances and royalty percentages, then he or she can make a very good living, often much more than the editors to whom he or she is selling. The downside for agents is that the marketplace is fickle, fads come and go, and publishing houses merge with each other and often decrease the number of books they will let see print. In a bad year, an agent might have to struggle to make a living. For those starting their own business, initial expenses are fairly light. Says Jessica Faust, “All you really need besides a computer, a phone line, and office supplies are business cards. Of course, once you start acquiring clients you must budget for mailing costs, photocopying, envelopes, and stationery.”

CHARGING FEES Can agents charge their clients for expenses? It depends. The Association of Authors’ Representatives (AAR) has a Canon of Ethics that member agents are expected to follow. It states, in part, “The practice of literary agents charging clients or potential clients for reading and evaluating literary works (including outlines, proposals, and partial or complete manuscripts) is subject to serious abuse that reflects adversely on our profession. For that reason, members may not charge clients or potential clients for reading and evaluating literary works and may not benefit, directly or indirectly, from the charging for such services by any other person or entity. The term ‘charge’ in the previous sentence

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includes any request for payment other than to cover the actual cost of returning materials.” In other words, the job of an agent is to sell the work of a writer to a publisher. If the agent makes his or her income from editing or evaluating work, then a conflict of interest enters into the equation. Why should the agent successful at earning evaluation fees bother to expend the energy looking for a publisher for the work? Having said that, editing or suggesting changes is often an important part of an agent’s job. This is something that agents do when they decide to take on a project but the project still needs some work. They work directly with the writer making notes and suggesting changes and improvements. This is not a conflict of interest; it’s only a conflict if the agent charges for this service. Some unscrupulous “agents” (anyone can hang out a shingle and call him- or herself an agent) have even made false promises to writers: “Pay for my editing service and I’ll agree to take you on as a client. I’ll get you published if you pay for the editing.” For every rule there is an exception—and there is an exception to the policy of charging fees. Also stated in the AAR Canon of Ethics is the following: “In addition to the compensation for agency services that is agreed upon between a member and a client, a member may, subject to the approval of the client, pass along charges incurred by the member on the client’s behalf, such as copyright fees, manuscript retyping, photocopies, copies of books for use in the sale of other rights, long-distance calls, special messenger fees, etc. Such charges shall be made only if the client has agreed to reimburse such expenses.” Some agents pass these charges on to a client only after they’ve made a sale for the client. No sale? No charges. Others charge for photocopying right up front; still other agents might allow clients to make their own manuscript copies. It boils down to what overhead expenses an agency believes it’s responsible for and what should be charged individually to the client. AAR member agents must act ethically in all professional matters and avoid any conflict of interest.

BECOMING A MEMBER OF THE AAR The Association of Authors’ Representatives was formed in 1991 as a result of the merger of the Society of Authors’ Representatives (founded in 1928) and the Independent Literary Agents Association (founded in 1977). The AAR is the sole professional association specifically attending to the agenting profession. The AAR’s objectives include “keeping agents informed about conditions in publishing, the theater, the motion picture and television industries, and related fields; encouraging cooperation among literary organizations; and assisting agents in representing their author-clients’ interests.” It takes two years of active agenting before an agent can become a member of the AAR. Says the AAR: “To qualify for membership, the applicant for membership in the literary branch of the AAR must have been the agent principally

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responsible for executed agreements concerning the grant of publication, translation, or performance rights in ten different literary properties during the eighteen-month period preceding application. “Member agents must conduct their business in such a manner as to be in compliance with the agents’ legal and fiduciary duties to their clients, and each member agent must agree, in writing, to adhere to the AAR’s Canon of Ethics.” Associate members of AAR are full-time employees of an agency member. They do not themselves qualify yet for full membership but are actively engaged in the selling of rights and are working toward qualifying. The full requirements are available in the Bylaws of the Association of Authors’ Representatives, Inc. Contact the Association of Authors’ Representatives, Inc., at P.O. Box 237201, Ansonia Station, New York, NY 10023, or visit their website at publishersweekly.com/aar/homepage.html. You’ll find the complete AAR Canon of Ethics at the website.

WHAT A WRITER LOOKS FOR IN AN AGENT An agent is only as good as his or her word. An agent’s reputation—both good and bad—can spread quickly through the writers’ community. With more and more writers’ associations and Internet connections, writers are not as isolated as they once were. They talk to each other and exchange information. New writers learn what to look for in an agent. As a prospective agent, it’s important to have a sense of what writers would expect from you. Here’s a list of questions a writer might ask a prospective agent who has agreed to take him or her on as a client: 1. Do you have agents at your agency or subagents working in Hollywood or overseas who handle movie and television rights? Foreign rights? 2. Will you be solely responsible for my work, or will another associate in your firm handle my work? 3. Do you have an agent-author agreement or contract? 4. How do you keep clients up-to-date on your activities on their behalf? Will you let me know whom you are sending my work to and what their responses are? Do you call with rejections? Do you mail copies of all correspondence? 5. Do you confer with your clients on all offers that are made? 6. What percentage commission do you charge? What are your policies about charging for normal overhead expenses such as photocopying and messengers? 7. What is your policy for ending the author-agent relationship? Is this stated in your author-agent contract?

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FIRSTHAND ACCOUNTS Nancy Yost, Literary Agent Nancy Yost has been a literary agent with Lowenstein Associates in New York City since 1990. Before that she worked in publishing as a contracts assistant and then as an editor since 1985.

What the Job’s Really Like

“In the very broadest terms, my job is to represent an author’s interests. This includes being able to recognize good writers; to help them refine and market their books in all areas (foreign countries, films, etc.); to act as adviser and advocate through all aspects of the publishing process, from editing to final cover up through the publicity and promotion; and to help authors set and achieve career goals. “Specific duties will vary from author to author—and indeed from agent to agent. My duty is to help the author’s career, and that mandate takes all kinds of forms. For some, it will be editorial input: working on perfecting proposals and manuscripts; finding the right project, the right voice, the best way to present the writing; developing plotlines; and so on. “Then an agent would try to match the writer/project with the right editor and publisher, and that requires that the agent know well what’s being bought and published by all the various publishing houses. Everyone thinks that ‘lunching’ with editors is just for fun! “Agenting also requires knowing what’s going on in national events and reading current books to get a sense of tone and subject matter. “Once we’ve found the right place for the author, there are all kinds of details that need to be tracked, from making sure the contract is right, to making sure the editor reads the manuscript in a timely fashion, to making sure payments are received, to staying on top of the in-house publishing plans—art, copy, publicity, and so on. “On top of that, there’s pursuing all sorts of other avenues that spring from the book, including foreign publication, film possibilities, and magazine excerpts. And this is just the tip of the iceberg, really. No wonder I’m on the phone all day! “What I like about my job is that there’s really no typical day. However, mostly I spend the day talking, talking, talking! I’m talking about a manuscript I’m sending out, finding out who’s read it and what they’re doing, telling all the other people who are supposed to be reading it what the others are doing, finding out when manuscripts are going to be read, nagging people to read faster, chasing after overdue payments, relaying all this info to the author—you get the idea. “When I’m not talking, I’m reading through contracts or writing submission letters. I save the weekends for reading and editing manuscripts; it’s hard to concentrate when you’re constantly being interrupted by the phone.”

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Types of Projects

“I represent different kinds of books because I like variety. The majority of the titles, though, are commercial fiction—lots of crime novels, thrillers, suspense, mysteries—also women’s novels. I also love historical fiction. In terms of nonfiction, I’m interested in human issues (but not politics!), interesting history, and adventure. The other agents in this office do more nonfiction than I do, so among us all we cover the shelves.”

The Upsides and Downsides

“The thing I like most about my job is sharing a good book with others! There’s still nothing that equals the thrill of finding an author whose books you will look forward to reading the rest of your life. And there’s nothing as thrilling as actually helping that come to fruition. “I also love working with publishing people, whom I find (mostly) to be intelligent, informed, thoughtful, and witty. It’s a treat to call them colleagues. I also like the everyday challenges the job brings, the chances to be inventive and smart. “What I like least about my work is when everyone’s best efforts fail. I also am disappointed by the lack of common courtesy displayed by the few people who won’t return a phone call—or even have an assistant do it for them. And sometimes, it’s disheartening to know that no matter how hard you work you’ll probably still be a bit behind.”

Advice

“The best advice I could give someone wanting to get involved in any aspect of publishing is to read a lot. So much of your career is based on knowing whether a book is salable, and you can’t know that if you don’t know what’s been or is being published.”

Jessica Faust, Literary Agent Jessica Faust is cofounder of BookEnds agency. She earned her B.A. in journalism from Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1993. She then went to work at Berkley as an acquisitions editor. She acquired and edited books ranging from romance, mysteries, and young adult to various kinds of nonfiction. As an acquisitions editor, Faust had the opportunity to not only acquire books but to create ideas for a number of books that were later published in-house. Her work has ranged from nonfiction titles such as Practical Aromatherapy, The Good Beer Book, and The Wedding Guide for the Grownup Bride to the Edgarnominated mass-market mystery series Gaslight Mysteries, which are set in early 1900s New York City. After five years at Berkley, Faust moved on to Macmillan, where she became senior editor, handling more than one hundred Complete Idiot’s Guide titles.

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Upon Macmillan’s sale to IDG Worldwide, Jessica moved over to acquire for the Dummies guides and The Unofficial Guide series. Faust first met her partner Jacky Sach in 1994 while working for the Berkley Publishing Group, now a division of Penguin Putnam Inc. In 1999 these BookEnds cofounders decided it was time to leave their corporate publishing jobs to make a new start in book packaging. (See Chapter 1 for information on book packaging.) With a little help and guidance, they put together BookEnds LLC, an editorial book-packaging company focusing primarily on developing fiction and nonfiction books for adult audiences, including handling titles on a for-hire basis. A year and many successes later, including the publication of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Throwing a Great Party, The Ten-Minute Guide to Performance Appraisals, For My Daughter on Her Wedding Day, and For My Daughter on the Birth of Her First Child, BookEnds decided to embark on yet another endeavor—agenting. The agents at BookEnds represent writers in all fields but have special interest in romance, mystery, suspense, and women’s fiction. On the nonfiction side, they handle books in the areas of spirituality, self-help, health, general nonfiction, business, parenting, and books geared to women.

What the Job’s Really Like

“I consider my primary duty as agent is to be the best representative for the author that I can be. That includes submitting his or her manuscript as often as necessary until the appropriate publishing house and editor take an interest and make an offer, negotiating a contract that is in the best interest of my client, and being there whenever needed to provide moral support or advice. “I am an authors’ advocate, and my job is not only to see that they are getting the best deal possible, but to ensure that they are happy and pleased with the final outcome of the book. “My job can be filled with great joy, tremendous disappointment, and incredible stress all in one day. The typical day is often spent answering E-mails and phone calls, looking through the mail to get an idea of the submissions coming in, reading Publisher’s Lunch and Publishers Weekly to keep up on publishing trends, and checking on submissions as well as calling authors to see that everything is on track. “One of the hardest things about this job is its unpredictability. Too often I’ll walk into the office with a plan to catch up on an author’s manuscript, clean out the files, or just read through my submissions pile, when one phone call throws all of those plans out the window. “Each day is so different that there is no set schedule. One of the most important things to know about being an agent, or working in almost any job in publishing, is that it is not nine to five. Agents often get fifty to a hundred submissions a week and rarely have time to read any of them while in the office. And that includes the latest book from any of your already-published authors.

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This means that a great deal of submission reading must be done at home during the night or on weekends. “In addition to that, it is important to keep up with the latest mystery author, bestselling diet book, or big new romance, and equally important to know what the hottest trends are if you plan on covering any sort of nonfiction. In other words, an agent must be reading all of the time. “There is no doubt that agenting is both busy and exciting. However, it can also be incredibly stressful. After all, you have a list of people who have put their careers in your hands. You’ll find that being an agent is a big responsibility. Your authors want nothing more in this world than to be published, and they are depending on you to get this job done. That means that you have to know exactly what editor at what house is looking for the kind of book that you are selling, and you have to convince them that they want to buy it. “Keeping up with contacts is often the most important part of an agent’s job. This means calling editors just to check in, attending cocktail parties, and meeting over lunch. While this may sound like lots of fun, it is also work. Remember, every cocktail party and lunch you attend cuts into all of the other things you need to be getting done that day. So often, one little lunch means an afternoon of catching up on missed phone calls. It also means calling to check in with authors to make sure their writing is going smoothly or just to lend moral support and to let them know they are not alone. “Another key component to the job is acting as an editor. While it isn’t your primary job to edit the author’s material, you’ll often find that a tweak here or a revision there can make all the difference in whether or not you can sell the book. Therefore, you need to make sure the author does the work needed to shape the book into what it needs to be before you send it off to the publisher. “I often describe agenting as a cross between an editor and therapist. Because you are the author’s advocate, you are also the middleman between her or him and the editor. That means that you will be called upon to ask for extensions, fight for a new cover design, or even just ask if the book is acceptable. You might also need to comfort authors after rejections, assure them that their writing is still terrific, and just lend an ear when a deadline is looming and they aren’t sure if they can still meet it.”

The Hard Part of the Job

“Rejecting a good author is the hardest part of my job. So often you’ll read a manuscript that is either very well written but just doesn’t have a good story, or a manuscript that has a terrific story or idea, but the execution just isn’t there. Either way, you know in your heart that this is a not a book you will be able to sell. It is so hard to say no to these people.”

Advice

“I really think that the best agents either have experience working for a reputable publishing company or started out as assistants to already-established

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agents. Learning how to be an agent can’t be done simply by reading a book. One of the most important things you need to become an agent is contacts. “My advice would be to get an entry-level job with either a publishing house or a literary agency (preferably a literary agency) and learn, learn, learn. This is the only way you really understand how to negotiate a contract, determine the marketability of a book, and learn where to make contacts. While you don’t necessarily have to go to NYC to do this, I really believe it is the best way.”

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“An editor is a person who knows precisely what he wants, but isn’t quite sure.”—Walter Davenport

There are more than 340,000 editors working in the field nationwide. Nearly one-third of salaried editors work for newspapers, magazines, and book publishers. Other editors work in educational facilities, in advertising agencies, in radio and television broadcasting, in public relations firms, and on journals and newsletters published by business and nonprofit organizations, such as professional associations, labor unions, and religious organizations. Some develop publications and technical materials for government agencies or the military; others write for motion picture companies. Jobs with major book publishers, magazines, broadcasting companies, advertising agencies, public relations firms, and the federal government are concentrated in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Washington, DC. Jobs with newspapers, business and professional journals, and technical and trade magazines are more widely dispersed throughout the country.

TYPES OF EDITORS AND THEIR DUTIES Editors review, edit, and frequently rewrite the work of writers. An editor’s specific responsibilities vary depending on the employer and editorial position held. In the publishing industry, an editor’s primary duties are to plan the contents of books, technical journals, trade magazines, newsletters, and general-interest publications. Editors decide what material will appeal to readers, review and edit drafts of books and articles, offer comments to improve the work, and suggest possible titles. Additionally, they oversee the production of the publications. Job titles for the most part are the same, no matter the setting—magazines as well as publishing houses will employ executive or senior editors—although 41

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the duties might vary. For an example, let’s take a look at the masthead of Publishers Weekly, the well-known trade publication for the publishing field, and a list of editor ranks at the publishing house McGraw-Hill. You’ll see a good range of editor job titles employed by both a magazine and a book publishing house. PUBLISHERS WEEKLY Vice president Editor-in-chief Editorial director Executive editor Executive editor, bookselling Senior managing editor Managing editor Department senior editors, editors, and associate editors (New, Book News, Bookselling, Children’s Books, Forecasts, Religion, PW Interview, Fiction, Nonfiction, Lifestyle, Mass Market, Audio, Notables) Art Production editor Research librarian Research manager Executive assistant Assistant to the editor-in-chief Contributing editors Correspondents MCGRAW-HILL Vice president Editor-in-chief Editorial director Executive editor Developmental editors Editorial coordinator

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Executive assistant Editorial assistant Freelance copyeditors In smaller organizations, such as small daily or weekly newspapers or membership newsletter departments, a single editor may do everything or share responsibility with only a few other people. The larger the company, the more editors are required. Some job definitions follow.

Executive Editors

In book, magazine, and newspaper publishing the executive editor generally oversees senior editors, editors, associate editors, and assistant editors. Executive editors usually have the final say about what stories or books get published and how they should be covered or approached.

Managing Editors

In the news industry, the managing editor usually is responsible for the daily operation of the news department. Executive and managing editors typically hire writers, reporters, or other employees. They also plan budgets and negotiate contracts with freelance writers, sometimes called “stringers.”

Editors (Senior, Editor, Assistant)

Editors can be responsible for particular subjects, for example, romance fiction for a book publisher or local news, international news, feature stories, or sports for a magazine or newspaper.

Assignment Editors

Assignment editors work for magazines or newspapers and determine which staff writer, freelance writer, or reporter will cover a given story.

Publication Assistants/ Assistants to Editors

Editors often have assistants. Many assistants, such as copyeditors or production assistants, hold entry-level jobs. They review copy for errors in grammar, punctuation, and spelling and check copy for readability, style, and agreement with editorial policy. They add and rearrange sentences to improve clarity; they delete incorrect and unnecessary material. They also do research for writers and verify facts, dates, and statistics. At magazines and newspapers, production assistants arrange page layouts of articles, photographs, and advertising; compose headlines; and prepare copy for printing. On small papers or at radio stations, assistants may clip stories that come from the wire services, answer phones, and make photocopies. Assistants who work for publishing houses may be the first readers, screening and evaluating manuscripts submitted by writers or agents and passing the

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approved ones on to their editors. They might also proofread printers’ galleys or answer letters about published material.

Copyeditors

Copyeditors at news organizations mostly review and edit a reporter’s copy for accuracy, content, grammar, and style. They may be employed in-house or work independently as freelancers.

Associate Editor

Associate editor (a rank usually placed between assistant editor and editor) and acquisitions editor are other jobs titles encountered in the field of publishing. Certainly there are others, and investigations into job openings will reveal more.

SAMPLE JOB ADVERTISEMENTS The following are real advertisements, but the hiring employers are not identified because the positions have already been filled. They are meant as examples to give you an idea of the types of positions you’ll see advertised. Position: Acquisitions Editor Location: University press at a New England university Description: Award-winning university press seeks energetic candidates to acquire twenty to twenty-five new titles per year of exceptional merit addressed to targeted audiences in academic and general marketplaces. Ideal candidate will have graduate training in relevant fields and three or more years’ experience in editorial acquisitions or related publishing. Competitive salary/benefits. May be filled at senior level. This press concentrates in American cultural studies, art and material culture, ethnic studies, nature/environment, international studies, civil society, and new fiction. Applicants should send a letter stating their interests, salary requirements, titles acquired, resume, and references. Position: Copy/Production Editor Location: East Coast art museum Description: Small art museum seeks full-time copy/production editor to assist in editing, proofing, and production of books, magazines, brochures, labels, etc. B.A. plus three to five years’ editorial experience required. Superior knowledge of English language, eye for detail, and consistency. Familiarity with Chicago Manual of Style a must. Ability to handle multiple priorities in deadline-driven environment. Send cover letter and resume.

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Position: Home Page Editor Location: Major bookstore chain based in NYC Description: A major bookstore is currently searching for a website home page editor. The home page editor will be responsible for ensuring the top-flight merchandising and editorial effort on the Internet. Will run weekly planning meetings. The home page editor will also act as the key liaison with production and other departments involved in the daily publication of the page. Will take charge of the home page, making it a dynamic and compelling example of the best we have. The ideal candidate will have an editorial background with a love for books and experience in book publishing or sales. As this person will function much like a news editor, the successful candidate may very well come from a newsroom environment. The candidate must have a proven record of handling multiple tasks and be able to thrive in an environment where priorities and needs change frequently. The home page editor has to be cool under pressure, diplomatic, and creative. Please submit writing samples/clips along with resume. Position: News and Media Person Location: United States Navy Description: History owes a debt of gratitude to the men and women who have documented the triumphs and conflicts of the United States Navy. Sailors in the news and media field are the eyes and ears of the fleet and often the rest of the world. This specialty is an intricate part of the Navy’s delivery of visual, audio, and written information, both internally and to the public. Your ability to handle deadlines as well as your ability to communicate ideas creatively, artistically, and effectively might make this the perfect career choice for you. As a videographer with a combat photography unit, you might develop a training video for an Explosive Ordnance Disposal team. As a photojournalist, your images of a humanitarian operation in a foreign country could open the eyes of the world. Or maybe you’ll keep your fellow sailors informed on what’s happening in the fleet as a news anchor for the Navy/Marine Corps News. Your skills of gathering and creatively communicating information will be used on a daily basis. Some other duties you might encounter in the news and media field include: gather facts and write articles for publications; write, edit, and proofread news for radio and TV; write and produce radio and TV programs; prepare layouts and content for papers, magazines, and websites; maintain and repair interior communica-

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tions systems; operate various types of still and video equipment. On-the-job training in this field is extensive, and there are a number of opportunities for intermediate and advanced schooling in the news and media disciplines, depending on the career path you choose. Position: Editor Location: Leading trade book publisher Description: Publisher of award-winning picture books and children’s novels is looking for an editor to acquire and develop twelve to fifteen books per year. Job requirements: two-plus years of children’s book editing experience (include a full list of books edited with your resume and cover letter), computer fluency (Word, Excel). Position: Editorial and Research Assistant Location: Corporate marketing and communications company Description: This long-term, part-time temporary position (twenty-four-plus hours per week) provides support to the manager of corporate publications for various projects, including the company’s annual review. Exposure to a wide variety of creative marketing communications activities. Researches, checks, and verifies content via phone, E-mail, Internet, etc., for key marketing communication projects. Writes, edits, processes, and proofs manuscripts. Helps coordinate the production process for various projects. Handles extensive communication with personnel across the nation and worldwide. Provides administrative support as needed. Qualifications: bachelor’s degree in communications/journalism/English with focus on creative feature writing; excellent written and oral communications skills; meticulous eye for detail; proficiency in PC MS Word, MS Outlook, Excel, and online research; motivated self-starter who is creative and has an investigative mind and an excellent command of language. Position: Freelance Proofreaders Location: Global management consulting firm specializing in human resources Description: Seeking talented individuals to work as freelancers in our expanding communication practice office in New Jersey. Job responsibilities: proofread corporate communication materials for grammatical errors, consistency, clarity, basic layout/design, and client style. Work with communication consultants and designers to incorporate edits.

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Assist one specific client team in managing the proofreading process through all stages of production. Create client-specific style sheets and update them to reflect client needs as they arise. Requirements: strong grammar/editing skills; good eye for detail; organization/project management skills; strong interpersonal/communication skills (can speak comfortably with clients/designers/printers, etc.); ability to juggle multiple tasks and handle projects of different scopes; assertive/able to suggest alternatives (both written and visual) to the existing content/appearance of a piece; ability to work under pressure and provide quick turnaround on rush projects; task-oriented; flexible/able to work with a variety of personalities and work styles; good sense of humor; personal maturity. Position: Online Associate Editor Location: Major financial publisher Description: The successful candidate will edit feature articles, write headlines, research to support new and existing features, write news briefs, keep content partners on deadline, lay out and translate copy into appropriate format, and perform other assignments. Qualifications: strong, proven copyediting skills are requisite. Must possess good writing and reporting skills and have experience in a deadline-driven news organization. Must be able to use Microsoft Office and have practical knowledge of the Internet and electronic publishing. Would prefer someone with HTML and FrontPage2000 experience. We require a detail-oriented, hands-on, proactive individual comfortable in a PC environment. Position: Editorial Assistant (Entry Level) Location: Scientific publisher of books, journals, and electronic media Description: Seeking organized, detail-oriented individuals with an interest in medicine or life sciences to provide support to acquisitions editors. Responsibilities include interacting with publishers, authors, and in-house staff concerning permissions; drafting and editing back cover copy and book marketing plans; acting as liaison between authors and inhouse departments; attending exhibits (two to three times a year); and preparing manuscripts for production. Requirements for this position include a bachelor’s degree with a minimum six months’ general office experience. Excellent verbal and written communication skills with MS Word and Windows required.

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Position: Assistant Editor Location: Educational publisher Description: This position is responsible for providing support in manuscript preparation, as well as administrative and clerical support, to an acquisitions editor or manager. Requirements: B.A. or B.S. degree in education. Two years’ experience in publishing preferred. Solid computer skills; knowledge of Excel and Word. Quark helpful but not necessary. Excellent written and verbal communication and interpersonal skills. Excellent organizational skills with close attention to detail.

ADVERTISEMENTS TO AVOID Just as in every industry, publishing sees its share of scam notices. If you’ve seen ads for readers, pass them by. Publishing houses have their own readers and never need to advertise for additional help. The people who advertise these bogus positions claim to have a booklet you can buy that will teach you how to get a reader job. Whatever the cost of the booklet, you can assume you’ll be out that amount of money. An editor at Tor Books reveals: “Contrary to certain reports, we aren’t on the lookout for slush readers, and neither is any other publishing house we know of. Tor is fairly typical in that we handle most of our unsolicited manuscripts ourselves. We do have a few freelancers who sometimes read manuscripts for us, but they have industry experience and could use more work as it is. “We’re acutely aware of the common scam whereby intelligent and enthusiastic readers are sold expensive books that promise to teach them all about the lucrative world of slush reading. We’re constantly hearing from them. Unfortunately, that market for freelance readers doesn’t exist. The only really lucrative gig consists of selling fraudulent guidebooks. Here’s the truth: manuscript reading is poorly paid and only sporadically available, and publishing houses don’t use inexperienced readers. We’ve heard of one or two cases where an industry veteran got paid a barely three-figure sum to evaluate a manuscript, but that was freelance editorial work, not slush reading.” If you’re a hopeful writer, there are a lot of scams to avoid as well. Steer clear of “literary agents” who charge fees and hint or out-and-out promise to get you published if you pay their fee. Ditto for book doctors who make the same claims. Reading manuscripts is a part of an agent’s job. Agents get paid by the publishers when they sell your work. See Chapter 3 on literary agents for more information.

TRAINING FOR EDITORS A college degree generally is required for a position as an editor. Although some employers look for a broad liberal arts background, most prefer to hire people

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with degrees in communications, journalism, or English. For those who specialize in a particular area, such as science, fashion, or legal issues, additional background in the chosen field is helpful. Editors must be able to express ideas clearly and logically and should love to write. Creativity, curiosity, a broad range of knowledge, self-motivation, and perseverance also are valuable. Editors must demonstrate good judgment and a strong sense of ethics in deciding what material to publish. They also need tact and the ability to guide and encourage others in their work. For some jobs, the ability to concentrate amid confusion and to work under pressure is essential. Familiarity with electronic publishing, graphics, and video production equipment increasingly is needed. Online newspapers and magazines require knowledge of computer software used to combine online text with graphics, audio, video, and 3-D animation. High school and college newspapers, literary magazines, community newspapers, and radio and television stations all provide valuable, but sometimes unpaid, practical writing experience. Many magazines, newspapers, and broadcast stations have internships for students. Interns write short pieces, conduct research and interviews, and learn about the publishing or broadcasting business. In small firms, editors hired as assistants may actually begin editing material right away. Opportunities for advancement can be limited, however. In larger businesses, jobs usually are more formally structured. Beginners generally do research, fact checking, or copyediting. They take on fullscale writing or editing duties less rapidly than do the employees of small companies.

MOVING UP THE LADDER Within a publishing house there is a distinct ladder most editors climb as they gain experience and develop a successful track record. They usually start out as editorial assistants, answering the phone, opening and distributing the mail, and typing correspondence. Some editorial assistants are first readers for their editors; they’ll read a manuscript and then write a reader’s report. If it’s a good report then the editor will take a look at the manuscript. Most editorial assistants learn the editing process from the editor they work for, and over time they move up into editorial positions with more and more responsibility.

SALARIES FOR EDITORS According to the Occupational Outlook Handbook, the middle 50 percent of editors earn between approximately $30,000 and $50,000 a year. The lowest 10 percent earn less than $21,000, and the highest 10 percent earn more than $77,000. Median annual earnings in the industries employing the largest numbers of editors of nontechnical material are as follows:

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Advertising

$38,100

Periodicals

$35,900

Books

$35,200

Newspapers

$28,500

Radio and television broadcasting

$26,300

The following statistics are culled from the 2001 Association of American Publishers (AAP) Compensation Survey. They reflect average annual salaries. Position (Area)

Average Base

Average Total

Top editorial executive (college)

$142,500

$203,100

Top editorial executive (mass market)

$194,400

$280,100

Top editorial executive (adult)

$228,100

$284,200

Top editorial executive (children)

$215,800

$297,400

Top editorial executive (technical)

$174,900

$191,200

Editorial director (college)

$103,100

$129,600

Editorial director (mass market/trade)

$119,100

$136,400

Editorial director (adult trade)

$103,600

$126,800

Editorial director (children)

$117,800

$166,000

Editorial director (technical)

$118,200

$142,800

Executive editor (college)

$103,300

$143,300

Executive editor (mass market/adult trade)

$114,000

$148,800

Executive editor (children trade)

$102,500

$126,600

$93,000

$112,800

Executive editor (technical) Senior editor (mass market/adult trade)

$74,900

$82,800

Senior editor (children)

$62,500

$77,300

Senior editor (technical)

$68,500

$96,600

Editor (mass market/adult trade)

$52,100

$60,600

Position (Area)

Average Base

Average Total

Editor (technical)

$56,400

$72,700

Editor (children)

$44,900

$49,000

Developmental editor (college)

$48,500

$57,400

Developmental editor (technical)

$70,100

$85,200

Acquisitions editor (college)

$59,100

$79,800

Associate editor (college)

$42,500

$54,000

Associate editor (mass market/adult trade/children)

$38,000

$41,000

Associate editor (technical)

$44,800

$52,200

Assistant editor

$31,900

$35,400

Executive managing editor

$96,900

$99,700

Managing editor

$59,200

$68,300

Associate managing editor

$48,400

$50,900

Editors

51 Senior production editor

$46,300

$49,100

Production editor (mass market/adult trade/children)

$39,400

$39,600

Copyeditor

$39,100

$39,800

Doug Schmidt, senior editor for the Bible-in-Life Curriculum at David C. Cook Publishing Company, points out: “Salaries depend on the type of editor you become, your education level, and the geographic location of the company. Many companies do compensation studies to determine the market value of the positions they offer. Every editorial position has a labor grade, and every grade has a salary range, and publishers tend to hire toward the middle of those ranges. Depending on how a company is doing and how well you’re doing, it’s reasonable to expect a 3 percent to 5 percent raise each year.” For additional editorial salary information, see the firsthand accounts featured later in this chapter.

EMPLOYMENT OUTLOOK Employment of editors is expected to increase faster than the average for all occupations through the year 2008. Employment of salaried editors for newspapers, periodicals, book publishers, and nonprofit organizations is expected to increase as demand grows for their publications. Magazines and other periodicals increasingly are developing market niches, appealing to readers with special interests. Also, online publications and services are growing in number and sophistication, spurring the demand for writers and editors. Businesses and organizations are developing Internet websites, and more companies are experimenting with publishing materials directly for the Internet. Advertising and public relations agencies, which also are growing, should be another source of new jobs. Despite projections of fast employment growth and high turnover, the outlook for most writing and editing jobs is expected to be competitive. Many people with writing or journalism training are attracted to the occupation. Opportunities should be best for technical writers because of the growth in the high-technology and electronics industries and the resulting need for people to write users’ guides, instruction manuals, and training materials. This work requires people who are not only technically skilled as writers but are able to keep pace with changing technology. Also, individuals with the technical skills for working on the Internet may have an advantage finding a job as a writer or editor. Opportunities for editing positions on small daily and weekly newspapers and in small radio and television stations, where the pay is low, should be more numerous than opportunities in larger media markets. Some small publications hire freelance copyeditors as backup for staff editors or as additional help with special projects.

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People preparing to be writers and editors benefit from academic preparation in another discipline as well, either to qualify them as writers specializing in that discipline or as a career alternative if they are unable to get a job in writing.

FIRSTHAND ACCOUNTS Andrea Au, Associate Editor, Simon & Schuster Andrea Au is an associate editor with Simon & Schuster, a major publishing house located in New York City. She acquires nonfiction titles, edits manuscripts, supervises the production process for books, and assists in the marketing of the books. She has been working in the field since 1996, when she graduated from Princeton with a bachelor’s degree in history.

Getting Started

“I had begun my senior year interviewing with management consultants, because that’s what my classmates were doing. I realized halfway through the interview process, though, that that was not what I wanted to do. I had always worked on student publications (I was the editor of my high school and college yearbook) and enjoyed it, so I then began doing informational interviews with people in publishing to see if that was something I might want to do. “At the same time, Prentice Hall sent a recruiter to campus, one of the few nonconsulting or investment banking recruiters; I interviewed with him and was offered a job at Prentice Hall starting that summer. “My first job in publishing was for the engineering division of Prentice Hall, and while I loved the people I worked with, I realized fairly early on that I wasn’t interested in working on engineering textbooks for the rest of my life. Around this time, my college roommate, then working as an editorial assistant at Random House, told me about a position she’d heard about at Simon & Schuster. I applied for the job and got it. It was an assistant editor position, working with two editors at the illustrated book imprint of Simon & Schuster. “About a month after I started, the illustrated book imprint was folded into the main hardcover imprint of Simon & Schuster, where I worked for almost two years. “In late 1999, Simon & Schuster created a new unit called Simon & Schuster Reference. It was a separate department devoted to series and brand-name publishing. One of my editors was transferred to S&S Reference, and I followed her there. Shortly afterward, both my editor and the assistant to the director of S&S Reference left the company, and I moved into my current position, which combines parts of both their jobs. “In the meantime, S&S Reference as a unit was reorganized to become part of The Free Press imprint, changed its name to Simon & Schuster Source, and broadened its focus to become a more general nonfiction imprint.

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“So I am now formally an associate editor with The Free Press/Simon & Schuster Source/Wall Street Journal Books . . . which means that I can acquire titles for any of the above imprints. In addition, I still work as an assistant to the director of S&S Source and edit a number of the books he acquires.”

What the Job’s Really Like

“As an associate editor, I’m in a transitional stage, so I have a two-part job. One part of my job is as assistant to the director of S&S Source. Since his job is both administrative and editorial, I serve as both an administrative assistant (I answer calls, keep his schedule, and sometimes take notes for him at meetings) and an editorial assistant. “The duties of an editorial assistant vary widely depending upon the editor; my current boss does all of his own editing and writes most of his own marketing material (tip sheets for the sales force, catalog copy, flap copy, etc.), but I handle almost everything once the manuscripts go to production. That involves making sure that the manuscripts are in the proper form for copyediting (onesided, double-spaced, numbered consecutively), tracking and labeling art for illustrated books, making comments on the design and layout of pages, and working with production to make sure that everything stays on schedule and that the author has ample time to review each stage. “I also work with the publisher (who is our liaison with the sales force) and publicist to make sure they have whatever materials they need to sell the book. “The other part of my job is as an acquiring editor myself. In this role, I talk with literary agents to let them know what sorts of proposals I’m interested in, review proposals as they come in, and decide whether or not they are worthy projects (which means not just being well written or well organized, but being of the right subject matter for the imprint and having a well-connected author). “If I think a project is worthy, I’ll circulate it to our editorial board, consisting of all the other editors in the imprint and our publisher. (I also am obliged to read my colleagues’ proposals and comment on them.) If they all agree with me that the project is worthy, then the publisher will authorize me to offer a certain amount of money to acquire the book. After acquisition, I’ll work with the author to make sure the book comes in on time . . . and I’ll edit it, of course, and prepare it for production. I will also be responsible for presenting the book initially to our sales force—which we do about a year before the scheduled publication at positioning meetings. “It’s my job to be the in-house champion for the book and the author’s advocate in-house. It’s also my job to explain to the authors why their ideas (whether it’s their choice of words or their plans for publicity) may not be realistic or prudent or commercially wise. I also need to oversee the production budget for the book, together with the production manager. “Because I work for an imprint that does almost exclusively nonfiction titles, I do only nonfiction titles at the moment. My editor works on history, politics, business, sports, health, home improvement, pop reference, and cookbooks—

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so I work on all of these. But as an editor, I’m looking for books on history, health, self-help, spirituality, and pop reference. “One of my primary responsibilities is with the Harvard Medical School series of books. The first book in the series was the Harvard Medical School Family Health Guide, a big home medical reference, which we published in 1999. We have since begun to spin off single-subject health books featuring proprietary Harvard research—on new fertility treatments, for example, or the latest arthritis drugs. “I’ve also done some work on two cookbook series (though mostly in my administrative assistant capacity only)—the Joy of Cooking: All About series and the Williams-Sonoma Collection. Both of these are series of single-subject cookbooks, with such luscious photographs that I always get hungry looking at them. “I’ve also been fortunate to have the opportunity to work on some original electronic books we’ve done with the Wall Street Journal. The most ambitious of these was The Wall Street Journal Guide to Business Schools. The Wall Street Journal, together with Harris Interactive, conducted for the first time in its history a thorough ranking of business schools based on corporate recruiters’ input. It’s been very interesting to see both the possibilities and limitations of E-books in action throughout this process. “My workday usually runs from 10:00 A.M. to 8:00 P.M. (this is very flexible, however), and I always take work home on the weekends. Most of my day is taken up by meetings, phone calls, and all the little production or publicity or scheduling details. I very rarely have the opportunity to read proposals or edit manuscripts at work; that almost always happens in the evenings or on weekends. “I also spend a lot of time reading magazines and newspapers—to keep track of what competing titles are in the workplace, to keep up on popular trends in the world, and to keep an eye out for talented writers or interesting people who might be interested in writing a book. So it’s a lot of work, and a job where one never feels quite caught up. There’s always more that can be done . . . which can be hugely frustrating but is never boring. “Most people are very helpful if you approach them for advice or help, however, and over time I’ve found it a more and more collegial place to work. It’s pretty informal, too, and not that hierarchical, which is nice.”

Upsides and Downsides “I’ve always loved books, and I love having a say in what books get made and how. The free books are a great perk as well, of course. I don’t work in the most glamorous side of the business, but I have had the opportunity to meet so many interesting and accomplished people, it’s amazing. I like the flexibility, as well, of being able to pursue whatever project strikes my fancy (within certain limits, of course) and of perhaps one day having a sideline writing myself.

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“Because I work at a large publishing house owned by a media conglomerate, there is a lot of pressure for editors to acquire more and more profitable books—which inevitably means that everyone is overworked and never has all the time they’d like to spend on any one book. “Also, I’ve had to turn down a few really great books because they’re simply geared toward a niche market that makes it just not lucrative enough for us. One was a self-help book wrapped around the story of a young girl growing up in Hawaii and learning life lessons from her grandmother. I found it moving and powerful and useful, but self-help is such a crowded market that we really require an author to have a built-in publicity platform before we publish them. “Another that I liked very much was originally called Mothers’ Night Out, a collection of stories and advice from mothers to mothers. With this one, many editors felt that most mothers would turn more readily to the Internet for the sort of advice and support that the book would offer. “Yet another was an illustrated book celebrating interracial relationships and families. While it was very well done, it was luxurious and expensive enough (by the nature of the illustrations) that most consumers would simply not buy it for themselves. It would have to work as a gift book—and I would be leery of buying such a gift for my friends in interracial relationships, because there’s unfortunately still a taboo of sorts hovering over the subject. “I’ve also seen many very practical reference books that were very well done but just too narrowly focused: one on homeschooling children with AD/HD and/or gifted children; one on uncovering the environmental dangers that may be lurking in your home; one on starting a business using a pick-up truck. “As with any large company, there are office politics at work. Also, because you are working on your own projects (or your editor’s own projects), there’s very little need for you to work with other editors (though you do need to work closely with people in other parts of the company), which I found rather isolating when I first began working at S&S. “It’s a bureaucracy, as well, with any number of senseless procedures and lots and lots of paperwork. I also feel rather divorced from the sales reps who actually are seeing what the reaction of the public is to these books that we’ve worked so hard on. And, of course, I’m not paid nearly enough for the hours I work.”

Salaries

“I currently earn $33,000, which is slightly on the high side for an associate editor. I started out earning $20,500; these days starting salaries are, on average, still only about $25,000.”

Advice

“First of all, be prepared for a lot of grunt work. This is not the glamorous and luxurious business you might think it is. Publishing still works by the appren-

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ticeship system, so you almost always have to start at the bottom and work your way up. “Second, make sure you find an editor who is nice and willing to give you some of his or her work. It’s crucial that you find an editor who will allow you to read some proposals, write some flap copy, and talk to you about why they do what they do (in specifics, not generalities). You might be able to find a mentor who is not your boss, but it’s rare, so if you find yourself with a very controlling boss who won’t let you do anything more than photocopying, start looking elsewhere. “There are no real prerequisites to being in publishing, though it helps to be able to write well, to read quickly, and to socialize regularly. There are publishing institutes and classes that can help teach specific skills, but the best way to get started is probably to temp or intern at publishing houses. I wish I had done that, because it allows you to get to know people in different departments in different imprints in different companies.”

Doug Schmidt, Senior Editor, Bible-in-Life Curriculum, David C. Cook Publishing Co. Doug Schmidt is a senior editor at the Colorado Springs, Colorado–based Christian publisher, supervising a group of editors who produce David C. Cook’s Bible-in-Life curriculum. In 1984 he earned his bachelor of arts in biblical studies at Wheaton College in Illinois and in 1988 his master of arts at the Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois. He has been working in the field since 1989.

Getting Started

“I was interested in theological education but didn’t really want to teach in a traditional Bible college or seminary setting. I didn’t feel called to be a pastor or teacher but felt strongly pulled to support people in these roles. “Christian publishing turned out to be the perfect fit for me. I discovered an opening for a youth curriculum editor at Cook through Wheaton College’s career center (four years after I graduated from Wheaton). I got the job, in part, because all of my future coworkers had English or journalism degrees, and the department was looking for someone who had a theological background. So I came to Cook as a theologian; I learned how to be an editor on the job. My senior editor decided to do freelance work full time, and I was offered his position.”

What the Job’s Really Like

“We produce and distribute Sunday school curriculum and books; Cook has been in business for 125 years. “My job as a senior editor at Cook is to coordinate the production of thirtyeight cyclical curriculum products. At one time there were three senior editors

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doing what I do, so I could not be successful in my job without a team of exceptionally competent editors who are also great team players. They must work well not only with each other but also with their respective designers. “Seventy to 80 percent of my time is spent reading and reviewing the products that my team works on. I check the material for structure, tone, content, clarity, and theological accuracy. Unless something raises a red flag for me, I go with the editors’ decisions on most content matters. I have found that the best way to manage self-motivated people (like those on my team) is to make sure they have what they need to do their jobs—and then to stay out of their way! “Twenty to 30 percent of my time is spent in meetings that generally focus on issues that can have an impact on product development: customer feedback, quality control, marketing support, and so on. “When I was an editor, I really enjoyed the creative aspects of the job. When I became a manager, I found that I was doing less product-related creative work and focusing more on people-related issues. For me, the trade was worth it; I really enjoy managing creatives. However, many editors and designers who move into management find that they have been promoted ‘beyond their competency’ and find that they hate the lack of product-related creative challenges. “One outlet for these creative urges is freelance work. As long as there’s no conflict of interest with your employer, publishing creatives (and managers) can often do well on freelance projects. Of course the drawback is that you have to do those jobs in the evenings and on weekends, so they can take a toll on the rest of your life. Balance is key here.”

Upsides and Downsides “One thing I like about my workload is that it ebbs and flows—it’s not a constant barrage of products that never seem to end. There are periods when the work flow slows down just enough so I can catch my breath and get organized. And if I plan well enough, the next wave of product packages is conquered with little or no pain. “Schedules are a necessary evil in the publishing industry. Each of our products has anywhere from seventy to one hundred deadlines associated with it, and we have two full-time people to make sure all those deadlines are met. As a manager, I often have to explain why certain deadlines are being missed and what we’re going to do to make up the time. Keeping up with the schedules is the most unpleasant part of my job, but I’d be floundering without them.”

Advice

“If someone asked me how to best prepare for a job in publishing, this is what I would tell him or her: (1) pursue a liberal arts education and major in something for which you have a lot of passion; (2) read with a critical eye—look for things that the publisher did well and for things where somebody dropped the ball; (3) develop a thick skin for criticism by having your work critiqued by knowledgeable people; (4) practice critiquing the work of others—be sure to

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point out what was done well as well as make suggestions for improvement; (5) put yourself on teams in which you have to work with people with divergent personalities, interests, and skills; (6) seek out internships with publishers—you’ll get a great picture of what it takes to enjoy a career in publishing.”

Kelly Boyer Sagert, Managing Editor, Back Fence Publishing, Inc. Kelly Boyer Sagert is the managing editor of Over the Back Fence magazine, based in Ohio. She is also the editor of the company’s business directories, travel guides, and monthly trade magazine. She earned her B.A. in psychology from Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio, in 1983 with a concentration in speech and communications. She has worked in the field of publishing since 1990 and has been the editor of Over the Back Fence since 1997. In addition, she is a freelance writer.

Getting Started

“My great-grandmother claimed a kinship to First Lady ‘Lemonade’ Lucy Hayes. While no one knows how true this claim is, I became interested in this fascinating woman, and I researched her life. Then I consulted the Writer’s Market for a suitable market for an article. I discovered that Over the Back Fence of Chillicothe, Ohio, was looking for historical profiles of local people—and Lucy was a Chillicothe native. “I sent them a query, along with a clip. The clip was of a piece I’d written on the Underground Railroad. On the editor’s ‘wish list’ was an article about Lucy Hayes and another about the Underground Railroad in Southern Ohio. So, I began writing for them. When Over the Back Fence decided to expand and encompass a Northern Ohio edition of the magazine, they called and offered me the job. Serendipity.”

What the Job’s Really Like

“While I work only about forty hours per week (not counting any freelance writing that I do), the scope of my job is wide. For Over the Back Fence magazine I decide which stories will go into each issue, choosing ones that will appeal to our readers, and I discuss the angles and lengths with the freelance writers. I also have to reject some of the writers’ queries. I hire the writers and photographers and negotiate their contracts. I also write some of the articles for the magazine myself. “When the assigned articles are completed, I edit them, both in a copyediting sense and to ensure that the article fits the tone and focus of Over the Back Fence. I then pass the articles and photographs to our design team and let them

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know how much space is available for each. I fact check each of the pieces, as well. “Once the design team has created the magazine, there are a few days of intense proofing and tweaking. We then send the document to the printer. A few days later, we receive a blueline (or final proof), and about a week later we have the magazine in hand. “I am also responsible for the budget for the magazine, and I turn invoices in for payment. Besides that, I generate the publicity for the magazine by sending out press releases, appearing on TV/radio, and speaking at writer’s conferences, libraries, civic groups, and so on. “Back Fence Publishing also publishes business directories, travel planners, and two monthly trade magazines. I do the hiring, editing, and photo gathering for those as well. The company also publishes a Southern Ohio edition of Over the Back Fence magazine, and the editor of that edition forwards me her articles for a second opinion, and I do the same with my articles. She’s terrific, and we bounce ideas off each other all of the time. Her workload is similar to mine. “My job is truly interesting, and I love working with creative people. Our pace is hectic, and there are plenty of last-minute details and crises, but, near the end of a particular publication, the energy is high. My coworkers are intelligent people with terrific senses of humor. “I’m the mother of two active boys, and I work about 50 percent of the time in the magazine office and about 50 percent at home. The owner of the publishing company is also the mother of young children, and she allows me great freedom.”

Upsides and Downsides “I adore the creative end of the business. Writing is one of my passions, and public speaking is the other—and this job allows plenty of room for both. I’m blessed to be working with wonderful and talented people, and I genuinely look forward to working with them every day. Besides that, the flexibility of my job is a big plus. “I’m in a business I love, one where I receive plenty of praise and recognition for my work. “The downside would be the tight deadlines. And what I like least is having to tell a writer that a particular story isn’t working or that it needs to be reduced in scope. I know what that’s like, and so I hate doing that to someone else.”

Salaries

“With my writing and editing combined, I earn about $35,000. I’m paid at an hourly rate, which I understand isn’t the standard.”

Advice

“Read, both critically and for sheer pleasure. Learn all that you can about grammar and punctuation, and practice your writing and communication skills when-

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ever possible. Ask to apprentice somewhere if you have no writing or editing resume, or work as a stringer at your local newspaper. Get started in the field! “Respect accuracy, cultivate curiosity, and honor deadlines—and add to, rather than take away from, the creativity and ideas of those around you. Mentally slap yourself on the wrist whenever you catch yourself saying, ‘I’m sure this is accurate—no use checking it out further.’ Be concise. Work on your people skills. “Strive for perfection, but realize its impossibility; strive for each project to be better than the last, but don’t be hard on yourself when it doesn’t happen. It won’t—at least not always. “Associate with others in the field by joining writing and editing organizations. Know your librarians. Search out your ideal job, but be willing to take on lesser jobs along the way—if they’re in the direction you’d like to take. Don’t expect to start out at the top, but intend to get there—at least your own definition of what the top really is.”

Ellen Urban, Freelance Editor and Proofreader Ellen Urban is a freelance editor and proofreader based in Connecticut. In 1976 she earned a B.A. in English literature from Loyola University, Chicago, and in 1984 she earned her M.A. in English literature from DePaul University, Chicago. She has been in the publishing field since 1978 and has been a freelance editor since 1991.

Getting Started

“Many people I know in publishing didn’t actively pursue it as a career. Like me, they were English lit majors who didn’t know what they were going to do with this degree. Some decided on teaching. Others fell into publishing by happenstance—someone needed someone to proofread something and an English lit grad seemed like a good person to do the job. I belong to the latter category. A friend told me about an opening in a small publishing house, and I got the job. It certainly wasn’t something I purposely went after. I just needed work. “A year later when the company folded, I worked for two more publishers before landing a job with a publishing giant, where I used my editorial skills in producing educational software. Instead of working with paper and pencil, I then worked with a keyboard and computer. “My current job is with paper and pencil again as a freelance editor/proofreader. I started freelancing in 1991 when my husband and I moved to the East Coast for his job. We had a two-year-old and an infant at the time, so I didn’t want to work outside the house. Freelancing was the perfect solution for me. Since then we’ve had two more kids, so freelancing is still the perfect solution for me. “These days, though, I rarely work at home—which may seem like a ridiculous thing to say given that I decided to freelance so I could stay at home. But it’s tough to concentrate with four—shall we say active—children about. The

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youngest one hasn’t started kindergarten yet, so he’s around for most of the day. Next year, when he does start school, working at home will seem like such a treat. But for now, when my husband comes home from work and on weekends, I pack up my “homework” and head for the library where it’s quiet and where there is a lot of reference material available for checking facts. Editing is a portable job. It can be done anywhere—as long as you have a dictionary and a manual of style with you.”

What the Job’s Really Like

“I work for several different publishers. One is McGraw-Hill’s VGM Career Books line, my bread-and-butter publisher. I have a regular gig with them that keeps me busy about eight months of the year. I fill in the rest of the time with odd jobs from other publishers. “I edit new or revised manuscripts, checking for grammatical errors and proper word usage and sentence and paragraph construction. I also proofread typeset manuscripts for typographical errors and to ensure that the style of the book is consistent throughout. “I always have questions for an author when I’m done, and it’s my responsibility to talk with him or her and resolve these queries. Another duty is to typemark the manuscript—which provides a blueprint for the typesetter to follow. I mark which parts of the manuscript are plain vanilla text, label the headings and how they should be set (i.e., major heads, subheads, etc.), show where numbered lists and bulleted lists occur, identify elements of the front matter (table of contents, foreword, preface, etc.) and back matter (glossary, appendixes, etc.), and in short, label and identify all the disparate elements of the book. “I typically work on a line of books about careers—welding, medicine, sales, law, public relations, plumbing, real estate, biotechnology, metalworking, horticulture. You name it and there’s a book about it. All the books look the same; only the subject matter is different. Some books are on obvious careers; others are not so obvious. At first, anybody—as I was—might be amused that someone could write an entire book about, oh, working in a summer camp, for example, but the day-to-day details of various careers are always richer and more complicated than the uninitiated could possibly guess. That’s the value of these books; they offer details instead of gloss and a realistic assessment of the opportunities, salaries, and life cycle a career has to offer. “It’s hard to gauge how long a job will take to complete because each one is different. So much depends on how long the book is; whether it is a new manuscript or a revision, meaning that it has already been edited one or more times; how good a writer the author is; and how technical or easy the material is. Generally, though, by the time you’ve gotten through the first chapter or two, you have a good idea what you’re up against. “Once I’ve edited and typemarked a book and checked for seemingly hundreds of little details, it is typeset. That done, I’ll get a copy of the galleys— the typeset pages—and I’ll read them against the original manuscript to make sure that all the changes I asked for were made and that nothing from the copy has been dropped. I also check to make sure that all the stylistic elements are

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set correctly and consistently. When I’m done, all the changes I’ve made to the galleys will be marked either as typesetter’s errors or editor’s errors, which are changes or corrections that I missed or didn’t make at the manuscript stage. “Finally, I’ll talk with the author and incorporate his or her changes into my master set of galleys. From there it’s back to the typesetter, who makes the final changes and sends it back so that the corrections can be checked. The last stop on the journey of a book in progress is the printer.

Upsides and Downsides “Reading is one of my most favorite things to do, so it’s satisfying to have a job that requires that I do a lot of it. Of course the mind-set is different and I’m not reading for pleasure. Nonetheless, it’s always interesting to see how people think—which comes through in their style of writing and how they express themselves. Also, as I mentioned earlier, this is a job that I can do anywhere, anytime—even 3:00 A.M. “As far as the downsides are concerned, there aren’t many. I’ve heard some people say that editors are wanna-be writers who can’t write. I don’t know if this is true, but for the most part, it seems that in this profession you’re either one or the other but not usually both. “One more thing that comes to mind is that editing is an imprecise science. Of course, there are definite grammatical rules to follow and the correct spelling of words is indisputable. Nonetheless, give five different editors the same copy to edit, and they’ll each produce something slightly different. Some would consider this problematic. I know of editors who switched to computer science because they craved the precision and clarity computer languages offer—as opposed to the sometimes-ambiguous style and prose of the English language. “Finally, the editor is often an unsung hero. One never knows in what condition a book will arrive and what ‘magic’ the editor will have to perform to make it readable. But if you like working behind the scenes, this won’t be a problem.”

Salary

“Salary is a difficult thing to discuss only because the salary scales from one publisher to the next can be very different, particularly if you are a freelancer. Some publishers pay a flat fee per book. Others have you bill them for the hours you worked for a set per-hour dollar amount. The type of publisher you work for—a publisher of highly technical material, a small house that publishes corporate newsletters, a trade publisher, or an educational publisher—will also affect what you can expect in terms of salary. I’ve made anywhere from $120 to $1,200 on a book, depending on complexity, length, and other factors.”

Advice

“It goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway. You should love to read to do this work. And you shouldn’t mind working alone, because for the most part it’ll be just you and your manuscript for great blocks of time. It would help if you enjoy solving puzzles, enjoy working things out, and are a little obsessed with preci-

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sion and details. All these can be applied to turning a rough manuscript into a readable and coherent book. “The best way to get started is to get work with a publisher, perhaps beginning as a proofreader. You’ll see what seasoned editors do with manuscripts, and this will be a marvelous education for you. Eventually, you’ll be ready to tackle your first editing assignment. You don’t need to have a degree in English, but taking an editing and/or proofreading course would be a good idea. Many universities offer courses (see Appendix B). I took one at the University of Chicago in basic manuscript editing, as well as a course in writing picture books for children. Any such courses you can take will be very helpful. “If you want to go the freelance route, you’ll have an extremely difficult time finding work unless you’ve had several years of experience working for one or more publishers. There are a great many people out there who enjoy the freelance life, and publishers typically have dozens of good, experienced people from which to choose.”

Kathy Ptacek, Newsletter Editor and Publisher Kathy Ptacek is the publisher and editor of the popular writers’ newsletter The Gila Queen’s Guide to Markets. She earned her B.A. with a major in journalism and a minor in history from the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque in 1974. She has been in the publishing field since 1988 and is currently based in Newton, New Jersey.

Getting Started

“I always seemed to find various bits of market information, and I would pass along to my friends—all writers—what I had heard about anthologies or magazines currently reading. For some time I had been joking that I should start a market newsletter. Eventually I joked less and thought more seriously about it. “The newsletter comes out about every six weeks. I charge $45 for ten issues.”

What the Job’s Really Like

“I’m not being immodest to say that I am the newsletter. I have folks who do various things—contribute columns and some proofreading—but I do everything else. I contact markets, format files, lay out the newsletter using a computer program, proof, reproof, and so on. I also maintain the subscriber file and take care of all correspondence. “It’s a job with lots and lots of details. It’s a never-ending one. Some days I’ll start off by checking out various markets on the Internet. Those files—if I’ve found any—have to be formatted to fit my newsletter. Other days I may only proofread. And still other days it’ll be simply a matter of catching up on E-mail and sending out new requests for guidelines.

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“Most of my correspondence is now done via E-mail. I still fax a number of editors, particularly when I’m sending market report forms out for the big issues I publish. Those annual issues are devoted to romance, mystery/suspense, and science fiction, fantasy, and horror. “Sometimes I’m quite busy; at other times, I have a lot of idle time—time that seems to get used for a lot of other things. It’s never boring. I have worked for companies and I have worked for myself, and I will tell you that I work far harder and far longer hours than I ever did for an outside job. Sometimes I’m still working at midnight—but that’s all right. I enjoy it.”

Upsides and Downsides “The nice thing about working from home—and having no employees—is that I don’t have to worry about dress codes and such. I can wear shorts and T-shirts and no shoes in the summer; I can bundle up in the winter. I can take as long as I want for lunch, too. But no matter how much I goof off, I know if I don’t buckle down and get the work done, no one else is going to do it. “One of the things I like the most about my job is meeting new people, discovering new markets. I have made so many friends and acquaintances through this newsletter—it’s truly amazing. I was always shy and it was difficult for me to talk to people, particularly over the telephone (that’s one of the reasons I went into journalism—to force myself to get over my shyness). Now I find myself calling folks in foreign countries—and not thinking anything about it. Of course, faxes and E-mail make it a lot simpler, especially for someone who is shy. “What I like least about my job is this: waiting and waiting and waiting for folks to get back to me. I query them about guidelines, then sometimes wait; then I have to ask them again. All in all, though, that’s not too terribly negative.”

Salaries

“What do I earn? Not enough. I don’t give myself a salary, per se. Someone just starting out can expect to not earn very much. I think for a business like this, it helps to have been in the business (I have been a writer for many years), because you have some contacts. And contacts mean more business, which means more money for you.”

Advice

“Be sure this is what you really want to do. It’s a lonely business, as is writing. Be sure that you’re at least halfway organized—or can get that way. “I think having a writing or editing background would help. Someone starting out this way should be detail-oriented—there’s a lot to making a newsletter look good. The best thing to do if you’re going to start a newsletter is check out the books on various newsletters. Determine what kind of newsletter it will be, who will be the target audience—and above all, make sure that the field needs your newsletter. There’s no sense in starting a newsletter in a field in which dozens already exist—unless you can do it quite differently.”

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Tracey Hessler, Managing Editor, Somniloquy Magazine Tracey Hessler is managing editor for Dreamwalker Press, which publishes Somniloquy magazine out of Orlando, Florida. The magazine is sold throughout the United States and in the United Kingdom. She started in the field in 1995.

Getting Started

“As a writer, I realized the need for a magazine willing to breach the genre barrier and willing to judge material on its own merits rather than publish only authors with salable names. I also wanted to produce a medium that provided entertainment without an accompanying flood of advertising. “I started the magazine myself on a shoestring, paying for everything outof-pocket until it began to pay for itself. I advertised on the Internet and with flyers, posters, and word of mouth. I offered other writers the type of product that I wanted for myself.”

What the Job’s Really Like

“My duties? It would be easier to describe what aren’t my duties. I receive, compile, and forward all submissions to the appropriate editors, then begin setting up the layout. I have three editors who help me choose the material that goes in each issue. They also go over the proof copy for errors prior to final printing. “I spend a great deal of time choosing the right cover art, something applicable to the content if possible. I try to keep the magazine simple so I can remove the contents of the previous issue (on the computer) and replace it with the upcoming copy. “A typical day will find me reading and answering my E-mail, transferring material into the correct category, and deleting what I won’t need. Since I also run a writers’ group, host two online chats, and run a web design service, as well as networking with other magazines, I have an intricate filing system to keep track of the constant influx of mail. I check my post office box daily and also spend at least two hours on my personal writing projects. “Then I work for a few hours, compiling the magazine. In short I am busy, busy, but I am satisfied with that. Of course there is a lot of hard work involved in running a publishing company with its accompanying responsibilities, but it is also rewarding. The financial benefits are not very good at first, but as you develop readership, that improves.”

Upsides and Downsides “I enjoy the challenge of providing a unique service to my readers, choosing the right material, then putting it together in an attractive package. I compile, print, and bind the entire magazine. “There’s nothing I don’t like, except that most times everything, including family and friends, must come in second.”

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Salaries

“The magazine comes out quarterly and costs subscribers $22 per year, including postage, in the United States and Canada; $30 abroad. Last count I had about 150 subscribers. And very little advertising (by design). With self-employment the salary varies as the readership increases. Most of my employees are volunteers, and the money I receive just barely covers the expenses I incur.”

Advice

“If you want to start your own magazine or publishing company, first make sure you have the funds to finance it. Keep your day job until everything starts to fall into place. “Above all, the desire to present the best writing available (even if it’s not your own) must be first and foremost in your mind. You have to have drive, stamina, and the unconditional support of your family and friends. “Carefully study the publications that are similar to the one you desire to produce, then just start. Set up your format and start compiling the information you’ll need. You can have your publication printed and bound if you have the funds to do it. And set up a web page, send E-mail to your acquaintances online, and frequent writers’ chatrooms and offer them a chance to submit (with pay if you can, comp copies and subscriptions if you can’t). You’ll be amazed how many beginning writers have real talent.”

Miranda Garza, Publisher and Editor, Kids’ Highway Magazine Miranda Garza is the publisher and nonfiction, poetry, and book reviews editor for Kids’ Highway, a home-based family business she runs with her brother. She started the magazine in 1999 when she had just turned seventeen.

Getting Started

“I like to write fiction and poetry that leaves people with a smile. I strongly believe that fiction should be entertaining and enjoyable, not a way of showing how hard life is. It was difficult to find a market that catered to this kind of work. So, my brother and I decided to create a magazine that would entertain with fiction as well as nonfiction. We made it a family magazine to show that adult fare and children’s reading can coexist. With assistance from the adults in our life, it has been a great success and a lot of fun. “My brother, Hector Cole, has a keen imagination that complements his ability to make quick decisions on what’s perfect for our magazine’s fiction. When he finds it, he revels in it, and this makes him a better fiction/video reviews editor and webmaster. “The job I have fell upon me because of my love for poetry, my insatiable desire to read books, and a well-defined idea of what type of nonfiction I knew should go into Kids’ Highway. It could be informative; educational; new and

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improved; a goal to strive for; something to do, see, hear, or feel; but it also had to be fun. “In essence, our different personalities created our own niches in the building of Kids’ Highway.”

What the Job’s Really Like

“Kids’ Highway is the family magazine where the kids are at the wheel. The finished product is twenty-four pages at eight and one-half by eleven inches, saddle stitched with a card stock cover. The color is different with each issue. Each issue costs $5.95. Subscriptions cost $29. Our circulation is about 100. To get subscribers we advertise on our website and through direct mail campaigns. “Our business is totally supported by our subscribers, because we carry no advertisements. We target grown-ups with our ‘Grown-Ups’ Tug-Out Pages’ and kids ages seven and up. “I love my job! Kids’ Highway is one of my top priorities every day. I work from one to six hours a day, depending on how close we are to our deadline. There’s always something to do or a decision to make. “As the nonfiction/poetry/book reviews editor, my job is to review all submissions that fall under these categories. And I do read the fiction that my brother wants to accept as a means of fortifying his decision. (He does the same for nonfiction.) “As soon as a submission comes in (via E-mail or post), we label and date it. We read submissions in the order in which they come in. Because we know what should go in the magazine, we never disagree about what should or shouldn’t be included. “Naturally, I read submissions by E-mail at my computer, but I don’t like to do that with the submissions by post. The dining room table is a necessity for me. I prefer a relaxed atmosphere where I can have a clear head and no distractions when I read work from writers. “Sometimes, I won’t read past the first paragraph because I can tell that the piece is not right for us. A poem about deformities at birth, African poverty, or death by concentration camp may be about a worthy topic, but not in our magazine. This is frustrating! We are not the type of market that insists writers buy a copy of the magazine, but we would like writers to read our guidelines at least—which we make readily available (through writing publications, E-mail, website, or post), and we are thorough in explaining what we want. When writers can’t make that effort, I don’t feel guilty not going on. “I have total say in what gets accepted or rejected (in my editorial areas), but there are times when I will consult our other editors. We will discuss the piece to see if it is worth editing. This is the time when I might suggest rewrites or word cuts to the writers. “If I find a piece that is perfect for our magazine, I contact the writer via phone, E-mail, or post and let him or her know when it will be published, how much the compensation will be, and when it will get sent.

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“If I find a piece that is attractive but isn’t perfect for us, I will suggest other markets. It takes time and a lot of concentration to consider submissions. An editor needs to be focused on the work at hand to give fair consideration to all the writers. If I’m worried or sick I can’t give the attention they deserve, so I have to wait until I feel better, I’m relaxed, and I’m not distracted. “When our decisions are made for the upcoming issue, we start to build the pages. More decisions. We want to present the stories and articles in the best possible light with the technology we have available to us. We add pictures and have different column widths and fonts. Again the premise here is fun. Sometimes it takes a month to achieve the look we want. “Then, there is the business end of publishing a magazine: balancing the checkbook, paying our writers and the printers, updating technology, and so on. This also includes seeing to it that our writers have copies of their work and sending them out.”

Upsides and Downsides “The greatest feeling in the world for a writer comes when she reads those five wonderful words: ‘your work has been accepted.’ The bulk of our writers send us thank-you cards or notes telling us how thrilled they are about getting accepted. To be able to help writers get published while introducing our readers to the kind of fiction we feel should be published is extremely satisfying. “It’s enjoyable reading how different writers handle old ideas and plots. I love the enthusiasm a writer gets across in his cover letter. It’s so exciting to discover a piece that I just can’t keep to myself or that I’m still thinking about days after I’ve read it. “When a writer has been rejected and he writes us to ‘tell us off’ or let us know how ‘appalled’ he is that we didn’t accept his work, this is hard to swallow. “It also gets frustrating when there’s a mound of submissions to review and most of them scream that the writers didn’t even read the guidelines. This wastes my time and the writers’ time as well. “It’s also difficult to discard a submission because the writer failed to include a SASE or at least a valid E-mail address. But we can’t waste the time reading the submission if there’s no way to contact the writer with our decision. We don’t have the extra resources to pay for a writer’s postage. “But the good definitely outweighs the bad because this is something I really enjoy doing. I’ve always wanted to publish my own magazine, and to be able to do it is literally a dream come true. Not many have such a privilege.”

Salaries

“When you publish and edit a magazine, how much you make depends largely on how much advertising you do. At first, you shouldn’t expect a lot because people don’t know you or your work. But as you establish yourself and tell more people about your magazine, you can expect a better response.

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“Kids’ Highway has made money for us, but we put it straight back into the business. So none of us earns a salary as yet. What we’re doing is building a good reputation for ourselves and the magazine. We have the reputation of paying our writers on time and giving them the utmost respect. And too, we have the reputation of publishing entertaining fiction and nonfiction that parents can trust. We intend to cash in on that reputation.”

Advice

“I think you have to be a writer yourself to appreciate how hard the process of submitting is. Only then could you give the writer his due. Sure, writing is like singing. Everyone thinks he can do it. But it takes a special kind of person and fluidity of thought to keep a reader’s attention. Appreciate those people because they are the ones who’ll keep you in business. “Be a trendsetter, not a trend-wagoneer (jumping on the bandwagon to cash in with copycat manuscripts) or follower. “A publisher must have patience. She deals with people every day, sometimes with angry, stupid, misunderstood, or lazy people who don’t care about quality control. To deal with these people and still have high publishing standards takes a great deal of patience. “You must know how to work and act under the pressure of deadlines. “And, you must love this mode of communication or you’ll find it too easy to give up.”

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“I cannot live without books.”—Thomas Jefferson

The printing industry, like many other industries, continues undergoing technological change as computers and technology alter the manner in which work is performed. Many of the processes that were once done by hand are becoming more automated. Technology’s influence can be seen in all three stages of printing: 1. Prepress—the preparation of materials for printing 2. Press—the actual printing process 3. Postpress or finishing—the folding, binding, and trimming of printed sheets into final form The most notable changes are occurring in the prepress stage. Instead of cutting and pasting articles by hand, it is now common to produce an entire publication on a computer, complete with artwork and graphics. Columns can be displayed and arranged on the computer screen exactly as they will appear in print, and then printed. Nearly all prepress work is expected to be computerized by 2008, and workers will need more training in electronics, computers, and mathematics.

ELECTRONIC PUBLISHING There is another method of production: many segments of the publishing industry now produce their products electronically. For example, many periodicals, books, and promotional materials can be found on the Internet, on CD-ROM, and on audio- and videotapes. This expansion into nonprint media is expected to continue as the Internet heralds a new era in the printing and publishing

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industry. Individuals are now designing their own work on the Web and, consequently, have a potential reader base of millions. As a result, the market for the design and development of Internet pages and publications is growing significantly.

PREPRESS Prepress workers prepare material for printing presses. They perform a variety of tasks involved with transforming text and pictures into finished pages and making printing plates of the pages. Advances in computer software and printing technology continue to change prepress work. Customers, as well as prepress workers, use their computers to produce camera-ready material that looks like the desired finished product. Customers, using their own computers, increasingly do much of the typesetting and page layout work formerly done by prepress workers. This process, called “desktop publishing,” poses new challenges for the printing industry. Instead of receiving simple typed text from customers, prepress workers get the material on a computer disk. Because of this, customers are increasingly likely to have already settled on a format on their own, rather than relying on suggestions from prepress workers. Furthermore, the printing industry is rapidly moving toward complete “digital imaging,” by which customers’ material received on computer disks is converted directly into printing plates. Other innovations in prepress work are digital color page-makeup systems, electronic page-layout systems, and off-press color-proofing systems. Typesetting and page layouts have also been affected by technological changes. The old “hot type” method of text composition—which used molten lead to create individual letters, paragraphs, and full pages of text—is nearly extinct. Today, composition work is done with computers and “cold type” technology. Cold type, which is any of a variety of methods creating type without molten lead, has traditionally used “phototypesetting” to prepare text and pictures for printing. Although this method has many variations, all use photography to create images on paper. The images are assembled into page format and rephotographed to create film negatives from which the actual printing plates are made. However, newer cold-type methods are becoming more common. These automate the photography or make printing plates directly from electronic files. In one common form of phototypesetting, text is entered into a computer programmed to hyphenate, space, and create columns of text. Typesetters or data-entry clerks may do keyboarding of text at the printing establishment, or, increasingly, authors do this work before the job is sent out for composition. The coded text is then transferred to a typesetting machine, which uses photography, a cathode-ray tube, or a laser to create an image on typesetting paper or film. Once it has been developed, the paper or film is sent to a lithographer who makes the actual printing plate.

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Desktop-publishing specialists use a keyboard to enter and select the size and style of type, the column width, and appropriate spacing and to store it in the computer. The computer then displays and arranges columns of type on a screen resembling a television screen. An entire newspaper, catalog, or book page, complete with artwork and graphics, can be made up on the screen exactly as it will appear in print. Operators transmit the pages for production into film and then into plates or directly into plates. Preflight technicians edit the work of the desktop-publishing specialists and ensure the overall quality of the finished product before it is delivered to the customer. In small shops, job printers may be responsible for composition and page layout, reading proofs for errors and clarity, correcting mistakes, and printing. New technologies also affect the roles of other composition workers. Improvements in desktop-publishing software allow customers to do more of their own typesetting. “Imagesetters” read text from computer memory and then “beam” it directly onto film, paper, or plates, bypassing the slower photographic process traditionally used. With traditional photographic processes, the material is arranged and typeset and then passed on to workers who further prepare it for the presses. Camera operators are usually classified as line-camera operators, halftone operators, or color-separation photographers. Line-camera operators start the process of making a lithographic plate by photographing and developing film negatives or positives of the material to be printed. They adjust light and expose film for a specified length of time and then develop film in a series of chemical baths. They may load exposed film in machines that automatically develop and fix the image. The use of film in printing will decline as electronic imaging becomes more prevalent. With decreased costs and improved quality, electronic imaging has become the method of choice in the industry. The lithographic printing process requires that images be made up of tiny dots coming together to form a picture. Photographs cannot be printed without them. When normal “continuous-tone” photographs need to be reproduced, halftone-camera operators separate the photograph into pictures containing the dots. Color-separation photography is more complex. In this process, camera operators produce four-color separation negatives from a continuous-tone color print or transparency. Most of this separation work is done electronically on scanners. Scanner operators use computerized equipment to create film negatives or positives of photographs or art. The computer controls the color separation of the scanning process, and with the help of the operator, corrects for mistakes or compensates for deficiencies in the original color print or transparency. Each scan produces a dotted image, or halftone, of the original in one of four primary printing colors—yellow, magenta, cyan, and black. The images are used to produce printing plates that print each of these colors, with transparent colored inks, one at a time. These produce “secondary” color combinations of red, green, blue, and black, which can be combined to produce the colors and hues of the original photograph.

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Scanners that can perform color correction during the color-separation procedure are rapidly replacing lithographic dot etchers, who retouch film negatives or positives by sharpening or reshaping images. They work by hand, using chemicals, dyes, and special tools. Dot etchers must know the characteristics of all types of paper and must produce fine shades of color. Like camera operators, they are usually assigned to only one phase of the work and may have job titles such as dot etcher, retoucher, or letterer. New technology is also lessening the need for film strippers, who cut the film to the required size and arrange and tape the negatives onto “flats”—or layout sheets used by platemakers to make press plates. When completed, flats resemble large film negatives of the text in its final form. In large printing establishments such as newspapers, arrangement is done automatically. Platemakers use a photographic process to make printing plates. The film assembly or flat is placed on top of a thin metal plate, which is coated with a light-sensitive resin. Exposure to ultraviolet light activates the chemical in parts not protected by the film’s dark areas. The plate is then developed in a solution that removes the unexposed nonimage area, exposing bare metal. The chemical on the areas of the plate that were exposed to the light hardens and becomes water-repellent. The hardened parts of the plate form the text. A growing number of printing plants use lasers to directly convert electronic data to plates without any use of film. Entering, storing, and retrieving information from computer-aided equipment require technical skills. In addition to operating and maintaining the equipment, lithographic platemakers must make sure that plates meet quality standards.

PRINTING During the printing process, the plate is first covered with a thin coat of water. The water adheres only to the bare metal nonimage areas and is repelled by the hardened areas that were exposed to light. Next, the plate comes in contact with a rubber roller covered with oil-based ink. Because oil and water do not mix, the ink is repelled by the water-coated area and sticks to the hardened areas. The ink covering the hardened text is transferred to paper. Although computers perform a wider variety of tasks, printing still involves text composition, page layout, and platemaking, so printing will still require prepress workers. As computer skills become increasingly important, these workers will need to demonstrate a desire and an ability to benefit from the frequent retraining required by rapidly changing technology. Duties of press operators vary according to the type of press they operate— offset lithography, gravure, flexography, or letterpress. Offset lithography, which transfers an inked impression from a rubber-covered cylinder to paper or other material, is the dominant printing process. With gravure, the recesses on an etched plate or cylinder are inked and pressed to paper. Flexography is a

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form of rotary printing in which ink is applied to the surface by a flexible rubber printing plate with a raised image area. Gravure and flexography should increase in use, but letterpress, in which an inked, raised surface is pressed against paper, will be phased out. In addition to the major printing processes, plateless or nonimpact processes are coming into general use. Plateless processes—including electronic, electrostatic, and ink-jet printing—are used for copying, duplicating, and document and specialty printing, usually by quick and in-house printing shops.

POSTPRESS BINDERY WORKERS The process of combining printed sheets into finished products such as books, magazines, catalogs, folders, directories, or product packaging is known as “binding.” Binding involves cutting, folding, gathering, gluing, stapling, stitching, trimming, sewing, wrapping, and other finishing operations. Bindery workers operate and maintain the machines that perform these various tasks. Job duties depend on the kind of material being bound. In firms that do edition binding, for example, workers bind books produced in large numbers, or “runs.” Job-binding workers bind books produced in smaller quantities. In firms specializing in library binding, workers repair books and provide other specialized binding services to libraries. Pamphlet-binding workers produce leaflets and folders, and manifold-binding workers bind business forms such as ledgers and books of sales receipts. Blankbook-binding workers bind blank pages to produce notebooks, checkbooks, address books, diaries, calendars, and notepads. Some types of binding and finishing consist of only one step. Preparing leaflets or newspaper inserts, for example, requires only folding. Binding of books and magazines, on the other hand, requires a number of steps. Bookbinders assemble books and magazines from large, flat, printed sheets of paper. Skilled bookbinders operate machines that first fold printed sheets into “signatures,” which are groups of pages arranged sequentially. Bookbinders then sew, stitch, or glue the assembled signatures together, shape the book bodies with presses and trimming machines, and reinforce them with glued fabric strips. Covers are created separately and then glued, pasted, or stitched onto the book bodies. The books then undergo a variety of finishing operations, often including wrapping in paper jackets. A small number of bookbinders work in hand binderies. These highly skilled workers design original or special bindings for limited editions or restore and rebind rare books. The work requires creativity, knowledge of binding materials, and a thorough background in the history of binding. Hand bookbinding gives individuals the opportunity to work in the greatest variety of jobs. Bindery workers in small shops may perform many binding tasks, while those in large shops are usually assigned only one or a few operations, such as

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operating complicated manual or electronic guillotine paper cutters or folding machines. Others specialize in adjusting and preparing equipment and may perform minor repairs as needed.

EMPLOYMENT FIGURES The printing and publishing industry have about 1.6 million wage and salary jobs in addition to 125,000 self-employed workers, ranking it among the largest manufacturing industries. Nearly two-thirds of wage and salary jobs are in establishments employing fewer than ten workers; nearly 70 percent are in the two largest sectors: commercial printing and newspapers. Prepress workers. Prepress workers hold about 135,000 jobs. Employment is

distributed as follows: Desktop publishing specialists

26,000

Film strippers, printing

23,000

Job printers

17,000

Platemakers

15,000

Compositors and typesetters

14,000

Camera operators

9,200

Pasteup workers

9,000

Photoengravers

2,700

All other precision printing workers

17,000

Typesetting- and composing-machine operators

13,000

Photoengraving- and lithographic-machine operators

6,800

Most prepress jobs are found in firms that handle commercial or business printing and in newspaper plants. Commercial printing firms print newspaper inserts, catalogs, pamphlets, and advertisements, while business-form establishments print material such as sales receipts. A large number of jobs are also found in “in-plant” operations and printing-trade-service firms. Establishments in printing trade services typically perform custom compositing, platemaking, and related prepress services. Printing-press operators. Press operators hold about 253,000 jobs. Employ-

ment is distributed as follows:

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Printing-press-machine setters and operators

142,000

Offset-lithographic-press operators

63,000

Screen-printing-machine setters and setup operators

28,000

Letterpress operators

10,000

All other printing-press setters and setup operators

9,500

Most press-operator jobs are in newspaper plants or in firms handling commercial or business printing. Commercial printing firms print newspaper inserts, catalogs, pamphlets, and the advertisements found in mailboxes, and businessform establishments print items such as business cards, sales receipts, and paper used in computers. Additional jobs are in the “in-plant” section of organizations and businesses that do their own printing—such as banks, insurance companies, and government agencies. The printing and publishing industry is one of the most geographically dispersed industries in the United States, and press operators can find jobs throughout the country. However, jobs are concentrated in large printing centers such as New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington, DC, and Dallas. Bindery workers. Bindery workers hold about 96,000 jobs, including about 6,600 working as skilled bookbinders and approximately 90,000 working as lesser-skilled bindery machine operators. Although large libraries and book publishers employ some bindery workers, the majority of jobs are in commercial printing plants. Other large employers of bindery workers are bindery trade shops, which specialize in providing binding services for printers without binderies or whose printing production exceeds their binding capabilities. Few publishers maintain their own manufacturing facilities, so most contract out the printing and assembly of books to commercial printing plants or bindery trade shops. Bindery jobs are concentrated near large metropolitan areas such as New York, Chicago, Washington, DC, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Dallas.

TRAINING Prepress workers. Most prepress workers train on the job; the length of train-

ing varies by occupation. Some skills, such as typesetting, can be learned in a few months, but they are the most likely to be automated in the future. Other skills, such as stripping (image assembly), require years of experience to master. However, these workers should also expect to receive intensive retraining. Workers often start as helpers who are selected for on-the-job training programs after demonstrating their reliability and interest in the occupation. They begin with instruction from an experienced craft worker and advance based on their demonstrated mastery of skills at each level. All workers should expect to

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be retrained from time to time to handle new, improved equipment. As workers gain experience, they advance to positions with greater responsibility. Some move into supervisory positions. Apprenticeship is another way to become a skilled prepress worker, although few apprenticeships have been offered in recent years. Apprenticeship programs emphasize a specific craft—such as camera operator, film stripper, lithographic etcher, scanner operator, or platemaker—but apprentices are introduced to all phases of printing. Most employers prefer to hire high school graduates who possess good communication skills, both oral and written. Prepress workers should be able to deal courteously with people, because in small shops they may take customer orders. They may also add, subtract, multiply, divide, and compute ratios to estimate job costs. Persons interested in working for firms using advanced printing technology need to know the basics of electronics and computers. Mathematical skills are also essential for operating many of the software packages used to run modern, computerized prepress equipment. Prepress workers need good manual dexterity, and they must be able to pay attention to detail and work independently. Good eyesight, including visual acuity, depth perception, field of view, color vision, and the ability to focus quickly, are also assets. Artistic ability is often a plus. Employers also seek persons who are even-tempered and adaptable, important qualities for workers who often must meet deadlines and learn how to operate new equipment. Printing. Although completion of a formal apprenticeship or a postsecondary

program in printing-equipment operation continue to be the best ways to learn the trade, most printing-press operators are trained informally on the job while working as assistants to experienced operators. Beginning press operators load, unload, and clean presses. With time, they move up to operating one-color sheetfed presses and eventually advance to multicolor presses. Operators are likely to gain experience on many kinds of printing presses during the course of their career. Apprenticeships for press operators in commercial shops take four years. In addition to on-the-job instruction, apprenticeships include related classroom or correspondence-school courses. Once the dominant method for preparing for this occupation, apprenticeships are becoming less prevalent. In contrast, formal postsecondary programs in printing-equipment operation offered by technical and trade schools and community colleges are growing in importance. Some postsecondary school programs require two years of study and award an associate degree, but most programs can be completed in one year or less. Postsecondary courses in printing are increasingly important because they provide the theoretical knowledge needed to operate advanced equipment. People who wish to become printing-press operators need mechanical aptitude to make press adjustments and repairs. Oral and written communication skills are also required. Operators should possess the mathematical skills necessary to compute percentages, weights, and measures and to calculate the

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amount of ink and paper needed to do a job. Because of technical developments in the printing industry, courses in chemistry, electronics, color theory, and physics are helpful. Technological changes have had a tremendous effect on the skills needed by press operators. New presses now require operators to possess basic computer skills. Even experienced operators periodically receive retraining and skill updating. For example, printing plants that change from sheetfed-offset presses to web-offset presses have to retrain the entire press crew because skill requirements for the two types of presses are different. Web-offset presses, with their faster operating speeds, require quicker decisions, monitoring of more variables, and greater physical effort. In the future, workers are expected to need to retrain several times during their career. Formal graphic arts programs, offered by community and junior colleges and some four-year colleges, are a good way to learn about the industry. These programs provide job-related training, which will help when you are seeking fulltime employment. Bachelor’s degree programs in graphic arts are usually intended for students who may eventually move into management positions, and two-year associate degree programs are designed to train skilled workers. Bindery workers. Most bindery workers learn the craft through on-the-job training. Inexperienced workers are usually assigned simple tasks such as moving paper from cutting machines to folding machines. They learn basic binding skills, including the characteristics of paper and how to cut large sheets of paper into different sizes with the least amount of waste. As workers gain experience, they advance to more difficult tasks and learn to operate one or more pieces of equipment. Usually, it takes one to three months to learn to operate the simpler machines, but it can take up to one year to become completely familiar with more complex equipment, such as computerized binding machines. Formal apprenticeships are not as common as they used to be, but they are still offered by some employers. Apprenticeships provide a more structured program that enables workers to acquire the high levels of specialization and skill needed for some bindery jobs. For example, a four-year apprenticeship is usually necessary to teach workers how to restore rare books and to produce valuable collectors’ items. Employers will often train workers with some basic knowledge of binding operations. High school students interested in bindery careers should take shop courses or attend a vocational-technical high school. Occupational skill centers, usually operated by labor unions, also provide an introduction to the bindery career. To keep pace with ever-changing technology, retraining will become increasingly important for bindery workers. Bindery workers need basic mathematics and language skills. Bindery work requires careful attention to detail, so accuracy, patience, neatness, and good eyesight are also important. Manual dexterity is essential in order to count, insert, paste, and fold. Mechanical aptitude is needed to operate the newer, more automated equipment. Artistic ability and imagination are necessary for hand

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bookbinding. Training in graphic arts can also be an asset. Also, vocationaltechnical institutes offer postsecondary programs in the graphic arts, as do some skill-updating or retraining programs and community colleges. Some updating and retraining programs require students to have bindery experience; other programs are available through unions for members. Four-year colleges also offer programs, but their emphasis is on preparing people for careers as graphic artists, educators, or managers in the graphic arts field. Without additional training, advancement opportunities outside of bindery work are limited. In large binderies, experienced bookbinders may advance to supervisory positions.

JOB OUTLOOK Employment growth will differ among the various occupations in the printing and publishing industry, largely due to technological advances. Processes currently performed manually will be automated in the future, causing a shift from craft occupations to related occupations that perform the same function using electronic equipment. For example, employment of desktop-publishing specialists is expected to increase much faster than average as the elements of print production, including layout, design, and printing, are increasingly performed electronically. In contrast, demand for workers who perform these tasks manually, including pasteup workers, photoengravers, camera operators, film strippers, and platemakers, is expected to decline. Overall employment of prepress workers is expected to decline through 2008. Demand for printed material should continue to grow, spurred by rising levels of personal income, increasing school enrollments, higher levels of educational attainment, and expanding markets. However, increased use of computers in desktop publishing should eliminate many prepress jobs. Technological advances will have a varying effect on employment among the prepress occupations. Employment of desktop-publishing specialists is expected to grow much faster than average. This reflects the increasing proportion of page layout and design that will be performed using computers. In contrast, a decline in prepress machine operators is expected as the duties these workers perform manually become increasingly automated. Pasteup, composition and typesetting, photoengraving, platemaking, film-stripping, and camera-operator occupations are expected to experience declines as handwork becomes automated. Compositors and typesetters should find competition extremely keen in the newspaper industry. Computerized equipment allowing reporters and editors to specify type and style and to format pages at a desktop computer terminal has already eliminated many typesetting and composition jobs; more may disappear in the years ahead. Many new jobs for prepress workers are expected to emerge in commercial printing establishments. New equipment should reduce the time needed to com-

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plete a printing job and allow commercial printers to make inroads into new markets that require fast turnaround. Because small establishments predominate, commercial printing should provide the best opportunities for inexperienced workers who want to gain a good background in all facets of printing. Employment in printing trade services is expected to decline because more companies are preparing printing and postpress in-house. Employment in newspapers is also expected to decline as more people choose to receive their news from nonprint sources. Newspapers will also continue to face strong competition for advertising dollars from direct-mail advertising, which targets specific types of consumers in a more cost-effective manner. Many newspapers are responding by featuring specialized products and services for niche markets. Slow employment growth is expected in periodicals, spurred by increasing interest in professional, scientific, and technical journals as well as special interest publications, such as health and fitness magazines. Similarly, employment in book publishing and greeting cards should also see slow growth, spurred by an increasing and aging population. Employment in miscellaneous publishing is expected to grow slowly. The popularity of catalogs and mail-order shopping fuel this sector. However, increased paper costs, changing consumer preferences, and the growth of online catalogs will result in fewer jobs than in years past. With increasing use of computers that do typesetting and composing electronically, the number of typesetting- and composing-machine operators will decline sharply. Declines among precision typesetters and compositors will occur in the newspaper industry, because news analysts and editors can perform these tasks themselves. Of other prepress occupations, job printers, desktop publishers, and other printing workers who perform a variety of printing tasks are expected to experience growth. Employment of press operators is expected to decline. People seeking jobs as printing-press operators are likely to face keen competition from experienced operators and prepress workers who have been displaced by new technology, particularly those who have completed retraining programs. Opportunities to become printing-press operators are likely to be best for those who qualify for formal apprenticeship training or who complete postsecondary training programs. Employment of offset-press operators and letterpress operators should decrease rapidly. Employment of bookbinders will decline in response to the growth of electronic printing; however, bindery machine operators will increase. Employment of bindery workers is expected to grow about as fast as the average for all occupations through 2008 as demand for printed material grows but productivity in bindery operations increases. Most job openings for bindery workers will result from the need to replace experienced workers who change jobs or leave the labor force. As the industry continues to modernize, a greater diversity of workers will be needed, including engineers, marketing specialists, graphic artists, and computer specialists. New equipment will require workers to update their skills to

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remain competitive in the job market. For example, pasteup workers will have to learn how to lay out pages using a computer. The concepts and principles behind page layout and design are the same, but the workers will have to learn how to perform their work using different tools. Employment of marketing and sales workers in the printing and publishing industry is expected to experience little to no growth as a result of increased competition from nonprint media and advances in printing technologies.

SALARIES According to the 2001 Association of American Publishers (AAP) Compensation Survey, the average annual base earnings for these selected positions are as follows: Top art/design executive

$134,600

Art director (educational publishing)

$71,700

Art director (trade, mass market and technical)

$80,500

Design director

$71,600

Senior designer

$50,800

Designer

$39,900

Image researcher

$43,100

Top production executive

$129,300

Director, production

$84,800

Manager, production

$58,000

Associate, production

$42,500

Coordinator, production

$36,700

Director, electronic publishing

$90,600

Manager, electronic publishing

$55,400

Specialist, electronic publishing

$39,900

Director, new-technology development

$110,900

Senior producer, new technology

$75,500

Producer, new technology

$52,600

Director, audio production

$126,200

Producer, audio

$59,800

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According to the Occupational Outlook Handbook, average weekly earnings for production workers in the printing and publishing industry are $515, compared to $563 for all production workers in manufacturing. Weekly wages in the printing and publishing industry range from $414 in bookbinding to $671 in printing trade services. Wage rates for prepress workers vary according to occupation, level of experience, training, location and size of the firm, and union membership. The following table shows the range of median hourly earnings of workers in various prepress occupations: Film strippers, printing

$15.53

All other printing workers, precision

$14.63

Desktop-publishing specialists

$14.00

Platemakers

$13.75

Photoengravers

$13.67

Camera operators

$11.72

Job printers

$11.58

Photoengraving- and lithographic-machine operators and tenders

$11.52

Typesetting- and composing-machine operators and tenders

$11.08

Compositors and typesetters, precision

$10.85

Pasteup workers

$9.53

Of the unionized prepress workers, scanner operators earn an hourly wage of approximately $23.20, and film strippers earn $19.45 per hour, according to the Graphic Communications International Union, the principal union for prepress workers. The basic wage rate for a press operator depends on the type of press being run and the geographic area in which the work is located. Workers covered by union contracts usually have higher earnings. The following table shows the range of median hourly earnings of various press operators: Offset-lithographic-press operators

$14.91

Letterpress operators

$13.76

All other printing-press setters and setup operators

$13.33

Printing-press-machine setters, operators, and tenders

$12.51

Screen-printing-machine setters and setup operators

$9.08

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According to the Occupational Outlook Handbook, median hourly earnings of bookbinders are about $9.95. The middle 50 percent earn between $7.65 and $13.94 an hour. The lowest 10 percent earn less than $6.35, and the highest 10 percent earn more than $17.56. Median hourly earnings of bindery machine and setup operators are $9.91. The middle 50 percent earn between $7.55 and $13.39 an hour. The lowest 10 percent earn less than $6.26, and the highest 10 percent earn more than $17.25. Workers covered by union contracts usually have higher earnings.

SAMPLE JOB ADVERTISEMENTS The following are real advertisements, but the hiring employers are not identified because the positions have already been filled. They are meant as examples to give you an idea of the types of positions you’ll see advertised. Position: Bindery Shift Supervisor Description: Looking for a very experienced saddle-stitch and perfect-stitch supervisor for daytime operation for 150-plusemployee bindery including cutters, fulfillment, direct mail, etc. We need someone with hands-on experience to oversee, schedule, evaluate, motivate, and prioritize work. Looking for someone with growth potential, someone who could be the bindery manager someday. Salary: $55,000–65,000. Position: Production Coordinator (Second Shift) Description: Busy commercial printer has an opening for a production person. Must understand print production and the full print and finishing processes. Most clients involve highend advertising and annual reports. You must be able to analyze quotes and work with outside vendors and various printers throughout Los Angeles. You will be required to write purchase orders, do press layouts, schedule outside services, and follow deadlines—basic trafficking involved in printing. Three years’ experience required. Salary: $55,000–65,000. Position: Mac Retouchers (Two Openings, First and Second Shifts) Description: Seeking qualified Mac operators for commercial printing prepress departments. You must know trapping within the applications, i.e., trapping within Photoshop or trapping within QuarkXPress. Must know Freehand and Illustrator also. You will be tested. Two to three years’ experience required. Must know printing aspects and troubleshooting as related to the printing industry. Salary: $24–$32 per hour.

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Position: Electronic Prepress Manager Description: Electronic prepress manager needed for a highvolume commercial printing company. Macintosh and PC environment. DTP technical knowledge of networks and imagesetting equipment desired. Must have printing background and be able to troubleshoot and solve typical printproduction-related problems occurring in prepress production. High-volume, heavy-work-flow, high-production facility. Must have at least five years of supervisory experience. The position requires a self-motivated, quality-conscious person with a thorough knowledge of electronic work flow in a printing environment. The successful candidate will have proven success in improving efficiencies and quality. Strong staff- and project-management skills a must. The right individual will have excellent problem-solving skills, be able to communicate technical issues to laypersons, and be able to train and motivate staff members. This is a hands-on position that requires experience in all of the major software packages. Salary: $75,000–$110,000, depending on experience level.

FIRSTHAND ACCOUNT Joan Marie Bledig, Typographer Joan Marie Bledig is president and cofounder of JDA Typesetting Corporation in Chicago. She earned her B.A. from the University of Illinois in 1968 with a major in anthropology and a minor in geology. She has been working in the book-production field since 1967.

Getting Started

“I learned the basic rudiments of typesetting when I took a part-time job with a small type house during my last year and a half in college. I never expected to become a typographer. A couple of years after graduation, I was job hunting for a computer-programmer-trainee position without success. The woman I had worked for while I was in college told me I could always get a job as a typesetter. She was right. I had six interviews in two days and was working full time the following Monday. “On my first day I was shown that there are different type sizes and styles and how to change them and how to set copy flush left, flush right, centered, justified, and with leaders. The woman who hired me then gave me a four-panel invitation with envelopes and reply card to set while she went out to make her deliveries and pickups. Yes, that invitation used all those formats, and it was done when she returned!

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“Two close friends, Debbie and Andy Tranchita, and I started JDA as a parttime business back in 1977. We dissolved the partnership about six months later and are still the best of friends today. About September of 1978, JDA business occupied more hours of my day than my day job did, so I decided it was time to make JDA the day job and get some sleep at night.”

What the Job’s Really Like

“I generally refer to myself as a typographer, not a typesetter. There used to be a difference between these terms. Nowadays the differences are virtually nonexistent. “My official title is president of the corporation, which really means I pay the bills. However, the majority of the work I do is production, that is, typesetting, more often today called page building. I capture keystrokes and format them according to the customer’s design. In book production, I style the raw copy into chapter titles, introductions, heads, subheads, text, footnotes, sidebars, etc., to follow the designer’s model. I decide where each page will end, governed by rules established by my customer. I place sidebars, figure text, or artwork on the pages where these elements are referenced so they look pleasing to the eye but do not interfere with text flow. The object of book page building is to maintain a steady flow for the reader. I make sure that happens, thus encouraging the reader to continue to the next page and beyond. “I may discover certain design elements do not work. I may then be asked to modify the design to create a more pleasing look. I also have to remain aware that book pagination is based on the signature. (A signature is sixteen contiguous pages printed eight per side on one sheet of paper in a pattern so when it is folded three times and trimmed on three sides it results in sixteen pages arranged in proper sequence.) I sometimes have to go back and restructure pages by increasing or decreasing the number of lines on each page in order to come as close as possible to a page count evenly divisible by sixteen. “As a trade typographer, I work on just about everything imaginable, from as small as a #10 envelope corner cut (return address) to four- and six-color advertising materials to large-scale projects such as textbooks and trade publications several hundred pages in length. “I recently worked on a college-level text dealing with business marketing. It was a two-color book, meaning that some elements of the design were in a second color, in this case a teal green. I had to make sure that these elements were selected and colored green. In addition, there were sidebar elements having gradient backgrounds in green. I discovered a basic flaw in the design when facing pages each contained a sidebar. The design called for sidebars to always start at the top of the page and end wherever. No problem. But the color gradient flowed from 60 percent green at the top to white at the bottom. Two facing sidebars of differing lengths looked terrible next to each other. Turning the gradient 90 degrees and having the color taper off to white on the right was a much better arrangement and less jarring to the reader.

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“The page building was further complicated by the large number of figures and diagrams illustrating various points in the text. Most of these figures were supplied using design specs from an earlier version of this title. I had to modify each figure to match this edition’s design. I had to place these art elements as close to their text references as possible. Students don’t want to be turning two or three or four pages to find the graphic example illustrating what they read in their text. They want that diagram or figure right there to look at. It is easier for students to assimilate the point the author is making if they don’t have to break their train of thought because they need to leaf through many pages to find that piece of art. “After initial page building, I supplied my client with laser copies of each page. In addition, I sent a laser copy of just those page elements appearing in the second color so the client could check to make sure color separations were correct. These proofs were returned to me with editor and designer changes indicated. I corrected the pages and supplied new composite and second-color proofs for final checking. A few additional changes were requested. These changes were made, new printouts (composite and color separated) were made, and final files were copied to a zip disk for delivery to my customer. “The project was behind schedule before I received the initial copy and design specs. I worked extra hours evenings and weekends on the project and was able to deliver it ahead of schedule. My customer was very pleased with that. “In any one day I may work on a PC or Mac platform or move copy from one platform to another and from one program to another, because the end user of the material I am preparing for my customer needs PageMaker on a PC or QuarkXPress on a Mac. “Deadlines are everything in this business. I like to challenge myself, seeing how many days in advance of a deadline I can finish a project. My customer base appreciates getting materials ahead of schedule. Some days can be boring and slow. For instance, statistical jobs are tedious if the customer is unable to supply raw keystrokes in some kind of word-processing or text file. Keyboarding numbers all day is just not my idea of an exciting time. “Typography requires attention to minute details of context, grammar, and format. The ability to spot inconsistencies in the material is extremely helpful. I have always felt that a call to the customer to clear up an inconsistency before I turn in the job is good business sense. The customer sees that you are paying close attention to his job and giving him that personal service so important in a good business relationship. He also realizes that you make him look good to his superiors or his customer by catching possibly embarrassing mistakes. He gets the opportunity to correct those errors before he has to turn in those first proofs you give him. “If I have questions about the job I try to finish as much of it as I can and then make one call to the customer to resolve any apparent discrepancies. One call is not an interruption to the customer; three or four in the same day about the same job is! Their time is just as valuable as yours. You don’t want to get six calls about the same thing in one day. Neither does your customer. If the

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issues cannot be clarified immediately, I put their job on hold till they get back to me. Back to the pile of jobs and on to the next one, all the while fielding phone calls to and from customers and arranging pickups of new work that cannot be transmitted via E-mail. Sometimes I arrange for a messenger service to handle the running for me.”

Upsides and Downsides “Possibly the greatest advantage to this job is exposure to information on just about everything in the world, from the basics of plumbing to high finance to organic chemistry. We have the potential to be the kings of trivia! I have often thought that typographers must be the most knowledgeable people in the world. We get exposed to an awful lot of information in a wide variety of fields. Good typographers remember as much as they can because five years down the road they benefit from that knowledge while working on some other project in an allied field. Every job is different and therefore challenging. “The downside is that every job is different and therefore challenging. There are days when you’re just not up to being challenged. Or the customer calls and puts the job on hold after you’ve just finished it. Or the customer calls and changes the major parameters of the job after you’ve just finished it. That’s the nature of the business. “The other downside is that it’s either feast or famine—you have too much to do or you don’t have enough to keep you busy for the entire day. After all, you really can’t work at 120 percent every day. “But, all things considered, too much is always better than not enough.”

Salaries

“My monthly salary varies, being dependent on the number of jobs I’ve done and what I billed for them. Most jobs are priced by time. In the case of books, however, I bill the customer a mutually agreed-upon per-page price. “After receiving design specs and template files from the customer, I prepare a sample chapter, usually the first chapter in the book. I take the amount of time it took to prepare the sample chapter, multiply it by my hourly rate, then divide that figure by the number of pages in the chapter. This gives me a per-page price. I have worked on books where the per-page price was $5.50 and others where the per-page price was more than $35 because of the difficulty of the design! “Books are priced by the page because the customer doesn’t always know how many pages the finished project will be. Last winter I worked on a book that was expected to have only 432 pages. The actual page count was 464. A per-page price allows the letter of agreement (LOA, a type of purchase order) to have flexibility, so it can be increased or decreased when the book is finished. Another project I worked on was expected to have approximately 528 pages. The finished book was significantly less, only 448. “Other projects are governed by page count. I worked on a series of titles that had a 96-page format. When copy exceeded the prearranged page count for

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each section in the book, the editor had to cut copy. In those cases, the LOA had a provision for overset copy, based on a dollar amount for each extra inch of copy. “A per-page price makes my bookkeeping for this kind of project simple. I don’t have to worry about starting and stopping my stopwatch to field phone calls or work with customers who stop by to pick up or drop off their jobs. When the job is finished I need only the number of pages to figure my bill. “Typesetters in small companies can make as little as $12 per hour to start or as much as the market will bear, upward of $30 per hour, or anywhere in between. “Freelance designers often bill their time at $100 per hour or more. Freelance typesetters and proofreaders currently bill around $25 to $35 per hour for their services. One downside to working in a job shop or electronic prepress department is that the number of hours worked per week varies with the workload. If the company is slow, daily hours may be cut from a full eight-hour day to six hours or even less. Conversely, working overtime during peak busy periods is expected and usually compensated at time-and-a-half. Many employers will have second and third shifts, and new hires usually find themselves placed on one of these shifts.”

Advice

“The most important piece of advice: be consistent in what and how you do something. Try to train yourself to do a particular procedure the same way every time. For example, always use a tab to start a paragraph or always use a preset paragraph indent. That way, if you have to go in and modify the parameters of this indent, you know that you always used one procedure or another and can use your automatic formatting to easily and quickly change that parameter. If you are not consistent, you may have to go back and change each paragraph individually! And that’s a waste of your time and the customer’s money. “Second, hone your typing skills. Unless you are strictly doing design work, you need to be able to type accurately and rapidly. Train yourself to pay attention to the smallest detail. Don’t rely on spellcheckers to fix your copy— spellcheckers do not know the difference between from and form, except and expect, or their and they’re! “Training in this field is available from many community colleges through either degree programs or continuing adult education. Or, you can buy any of a number of computer programs specifically designed for page makeup and design and teach yourself, with or without OEM help books. All major programs come with tutorials. A number of books explaining typography are available and are formatted so you can read a page or two to get a quick history of a particular aspect of typography and how it is now accomplished via the personal computer. “Currently, it doesn’t matter whether you learned your skills through a degree program, continuing adult education, or on-the-job training. I’m sure in the future it will.”

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FOR MORE INFORMATION Information on apprenticeships and other training opportunities may be obtained from local employers such as newspapers and printing shops, local offices of the Graphic Communications International Union, local affiliates of the Printing Industries of America, or local offices of the state employment service. See Appendix A for union and professional association addresses and websites.

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“There can hardly be a stranger commodity in the world than books. Printed by people who don’t understand them; sold by people who don’t understand them; bound, criticized, and read by people who don’t understand them; and now even written by people who don’t understand them.” —Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

Marketing is often defined as the umbrella category that encompasses sales, advertising, publicity, public relations, and promotion (see Chapter 7). In simple terms, marketing experts help decide toward which audiences the advertising and promotion campaign should be aimed. To aid in the advertising and sales endeavor, marketing professionals poll public opinion or analyze the demographics and buying patterns of specific audiences. They play the role of researcher, statistician, social psychologist, and sociologist.

MARKET RESEARCH Professionals working in market research departments are tuned in to the consumer—what he or she worries about, desires, thinks, believes, and holds dear. Market researchers conduct surveys or one-on-one interviews, utilize existing research, test consumer reactions to new products or advertising copy, track sales figures and buying trends, and become overall experts on consumer behavior. Agency research departments can design questionnaires or other methods of studying groups of people, implement the surveys, and interpret the results. Sometimes, research departments hire an outside market research firm to take over some of the workload. For example, a market researcher could come up with a procedure to test the public’s reaction to a television commercial; the outside firm would put the procedure into action. Assistants report directly to a research executive and are responsible for compiling and interpreting data and monitoring the progress of research projects. An entry-level assistant research executive has strong quantitative skills and a good aptitude for analyzing data. In addition, computer skills and the ability to write and speak effectively are a must. In this field a bachelor’s degree is 90

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the basic requirement, but it is becoming more and more common to find master’s and Ph.D. holders. A graduate of a college program that emphasizes research would have an edge over the competition. Publishers usually rely on the results of marketing research for their advertising and sales campaigns but don’t usually hire marketers directly. Those interested in a career in marketing should approach research firms or advertising or public relations agencies.

SALES The field of sales is easy to understand. A salesperson has a product or service he or she must sell. Within the field of publishing you’ll see salespeople working in four main settings: Publishing houses Book distributors Book wholesalers Bookstores

PUBLISHERS’ SALES REPRESENTATIVES Publisher reps are responsible for making sure every customer (bookstore or chain, for example) they are assigned to cover is informed of the publisher’s offerings of frontlist books. These are the books that will be coming out that season. They are also responsible for taking that customer’s order and delivering the order to the publisher. In addition, reps are responsible for seeing that the publisher’s backlist (already published) titles are well represented in the account. Reps usually travel to the customer, then follow up when necessary by phone. Appointments can last anywhere from twenty minutes to a full day, depending on the number of books, the time available, the attention span of the buyer, and so on. Former sales rep Linda Roghaar says, “Larger publishers have their own, ‘house’ reps, who are usually salaried and paid expenses and are responsible for their time as well as for their sales. Smaller publishers hire independent reps to do the same thing. However, independent reps are paid straight commission, pay their own expenses, and are not accountable for their time, only their sales.”

Finding a Sales Rep Job Publishers usually divide the country into sales territories, and there is usually some sort of open slot available. To find openings, try various online avenues such as About.com’s job boards at http://freelancewrite.about.com/cs/job

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boards/index.htm or job opportunities listed with professional associations, such as the AAP. Publishers Weekly (publishersweekly.com) is another good source, as is networking with bookstore staff. You can also try sending your resume to a publisher.

BOOK WHOLESALERS AND DISTRIBUTORS The two terms wholesaler and distributor are often used interchangeably, but there is a difference. Generally wholesalers purchase books outright, and distributors take books on a commission basis, paying the publisher as books are sold. Bookstores and other outlets such as supermarket and airport bookstands are accustomed to dealing with wholesalers, both local and national ones. (Refer to Appendix C for some names of wholesalers and distributors.)

Jobs Within Wholesalers and Distributors

Visit Ingram’s website at ingrambook.com, and you’ll see an extensive listing of job openings. These are just a sampling: Position: Collection Development Specialist Description: Degreed librarian responsible for creating Opening Day Collection lists for libraries. Position: Manager of Bids and Contracts Description: Directs process and associates responsible for producing proposals to libraries. Position: Shift Order Pullers Description: $8.55 plus 10 percent shift differential. Position: Warehouse Positions Description: $8.55 to $9.20 per hour, including quality control, order pullers, stockers, receivers, shipping, supply distribution tech.

BOOKSTORES Chances are if you’re reading this book you love bookstores. Browsing the shelves, reading excerpts from books, listening to snatches of music, sipping an iced coffee at the pastry bar—all of these experiences make bookstore browsing a pleasant experience. For those who want to keep the experience going on a full-time (and sometimes part-time) basis, consider the four main jobs bookstores have to offer:

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Managers/supervisors Bookstore clerks/sales Buyers Events coordinators Managers supervise the day-to-day activity within bookstores. Clerks stock shelves, wait on customers, update the database, and handle the cash register. Buyers meet with sales reps and sometimes with authors to order books. Event coordinators arrange for book signings, speaking engagements, and other activities that will bring in the public.

Finding Work in Bookstores

One of the first avenues to explore would be to visit your local bookstores in person and ask to speak to the managers. You can also do a web search for specific bookstores and the chains and click on their “job opportunity” links. Sometimes Publishers Weekly will list higher-level bookstore jobs, and local papers will also run help-wanted ads.

Salaries

A 2000 study jointly conducted by the International Association of Business Communicators and the Public Relations Society of America shows that the average annual base salary for communicators such as sales and marketing professionals is $69,000, with an average bonus of $10,000. Bookstores in general are known for low hourly wages. Many sales and clerk positions are filled by students working part time. Consultants’ salaries are considerably higher than salaries of those with a corporate position ($110,000 vs. $63,000). Consultants’ cash bonuses are higher, too ($20,000 vs. $9,000 for those in corporate). Median and Average Salaries by Job Title

President/executive director/CEO

Median

Average

$75,000

$135,000

Manager/assistant manager

$56,000

$56,000

Director

$65,000

$79,000

Specialist

$39,000

$41,000

Coordinator

$35,000

$37,500

Consultant

$52,000

$153,000

Vice president

$95,000

$149,000

Writer

$45,000

$50,000

Editor

$51,000

$48,000

Managing director

$60,000

$65,500

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Average

Independent/self-employed

$56,000

$57,000

Group manager

$60,000

$60,000

Supervisor

$51,000

$45,000

Account executive

$36,500

$36,000

Senior account executive

$50,000

$48,000

Senior/executive vice president

$100,000

$125,864

Partner/principal/associate

$150,000

$97,000

$44,000

$52,000

Educator/professor

Salary by Industry Median

Average

Education

$43,000

$53,000

Consulting firm

$61,000

$79,650

Public relations

$62,500

$123,500

Advertising

$52,500

$50,500

Retail sales

$69,000

$67,500

According to the 2001 Association of American Publishers (AAP) Compensation Survey, these are the average annual base salaries of the following positions: Top sales and marketing executive (educational)

$135,400

Top sales and marketing executive (noneducational)

$144,800

Top marketing executive (educational)

$130,400

Top marketing executive (noneducational)

$158,000

Director, marketing (educational)

$85,200

Director, marketing (noneducational)

$84,200

Senior marketing manager (educational)

$70,800

Senior marketing manager (noneducational)

$67,000

Marketing manager (mass market/adult trade/ children)

$55,100

Marketing manager (college and technical)

$58,400

Top sales executive (educational)

$173,200

Top sales executive (noneducational)

$204,300

Director, sales (noneducational)

$97,400

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Regional sales manager (educational)

$88,300

Regional sales manager (noneducational)

$76,900

District sales manager (college)

$64,300

Senior sales representative (educational)

$53,100

Senior sales representative (mass market/ adult trade/children)

$60,000

Senior sales representative (technical)

$64,300

Sales representative (educational)

$41,500

Sales representative (mass market/trade)

$44,900

Sales representative (technical)

$50,400

National account manager

$74,900

Telemarketing manager

$50,000

Telemarketing representative

$30,200

Consultant (educational publishing)

$52,200

Top international sales executive Manager, international sales

$65,100

Manager, retail special sales

$75,900

Manager, wholesale special sales

$65,300

Director, mass merchandising sales

Magazine Ad Sales Salaries

$115,000

$210,000

Director, premium and promotional sales

$90,500

Director, advertising and promotion (educational)

$80,500

Director, advertising and promotion (mass market/ adult trade/children)

$112,900

Director, advertising and promotion (technical)

$105,500

Manager, advertising and promotion (educational)

$47,600

Manager, advertising and promotion (mass market/ adult trade/children)

$53,700

Manager, advertising and promotion (technical)

$74,300

A recent ad sales salary survey conducted by Folio shows that despite growth in ad sales, salaries are flat or are dropping. In answer to why, Jeff Ward, publisher of Southern Progress Corporation’s Weight Watchers Magazine, suggests

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an answer: “Lately, inflation has been basically nonexistent, which is probably why companies are not providing significant percentages on base salaries. But while business has been good at the same time, publishers have been more aggressive with bonuses.” According to the same survey, ad sales directors reported bonus increases of nearly 6 percent, while ad sales managers took in almost 11 percent. But regional/branch ad managers and ad salespersons/account executives both experienced decreases in their bonuses. This could be because when salaries are assessed by job title and category, business publishing is generous with ad directors and ad sales representatives/account executives, but ad managers and regional managers are compensated the best by consumer magazines. “Titles can mean different things in different industries,” says publisher E. Patrick Weisner. “An ad director for a trade title might not be equivalent to one at a mass-market magazine.” Although there are still more men than women in most of the job categories, women, on average, earn more. Among ad directors, for example, women average $5,000 a year more than men, although men hold 83 percent of the ad director jobs.

SAMPLE JOB ADVERTISEMENTS The following are real advertisements, but the hiring employers are not identified because the positions have already been filled. They are meant as examples to give you an idea of the types of positions you’ll see advertised. Position: Single-Copy Sales Analyst Location: Publisher of special-interest magazines and books for master craftspeople Description: Detail-oriented individual with strong financial, analytical, and communication skills needed to analyze all distribution, promotional, and marketing strategies for our magazines. This individual will work closely with distributors, wholesalers, and various departments within the company. Must be proficient in Excel, Word, and PowerPoint. Position: Sales Operations Assistant Location: Publisher of books and textbooks in the sciences Description: Sales assistant wanted to assist international marketing director. Responsibilities include day-to-day operations of international sales group, including approving all orders, managing consignment accounts, sending promotional information to agents and distributors, liaising with warehouse staff on orders and billing. Also analyze sales figures and determine commission payments, handle all customer service

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issues, provide up-to-date product information to sales representatives and managers. Must be able to prioritize and work independently as international marketing director travels frequently. Salary: mid- to high 20s. Position: Ad Sales Assistant Location: National magazine for women Description: A national women’s magazine is now hiring an ad sales assistant. Will support three account managers by performing the following duties: answer phones, type, and file; manage the complimentary magazine list; handle mass mailings, issue mailings, etc.; coordinate entertainment functions; prepare media kits and presentation materials. Job requirements: college degree; knowledge of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Ability to prioritize work a must when working for three managers. Position: Marketing Associate Location: Independent publisher in Chicago suburb Description: An independent publisher seeks someone with one to two years’ experience in marketing. Must have excellent communication skills and general knowledge and interest in a variety of subjects. Terrific, unique workplace in suburb of Chicago. Position: Key Account Manager Location: Large travel publisher Description: The key account manager will identify and implement sales strategy to meet revenue and unit objectives; identify, select, and direct alternative distribution channels; create annual territory business plan; prepare motivating sales presentations; create and execute communications plan; as well as analyze competitive merchandising programs. Candidates must have a minimum of three years’ book industry experience; B.A./B.S.; and working knowledge of cooperative advertising, merchandising, and buying procedures. Candidates should enjoy travel and have extensive travel experiences within the United States and Europe. French language skills a plus. Position: Special Sales Manager Location: Independent publisher, Boston office Description: An independent publisher seeks an experienced special sales manager for its Boston office. This is an excellent opportunity for candidates who have a desire to sell out-

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side of the traditional book market. A dynamic, analytical, aggressive personality is a necessity. Be part of a team that identifies and pursues new markets. Responsibilities include preparing sales materials, making presentations, following up on sales calls, and creating programs to maximize sellthrough. Position: Sales Director Location: Spirituality trade publisher in Vermont Description: Innovative and experienced salesperson wanted to lead high-energy team in rapid-growth environment. Position to be filled immediately. Position: Marketing Director Location: National child health care association Description: Direct the marketing and sales of our publications and programs. Qualified candidates must have demonstrated abilities in developing and implementing marketing and business plans and promotional strategies, forecasting and analyzing revenue/expense projections, generating revenues, and maintaining strong relationships with book distributors. This position requires at least seven years’ proven experience in product and marketing management in a medical and/or consumer publishing environment and a B.S. in marketing/business (master’s desired). Previous association experience and medical/consumer publishing is highly preferred. Excellent interpersonal, supervisory, organizational, communication, and presentation skills are necessary. Travel and some weekend work are required. Position: Sales Rep Location: Educational publisher Description: Educational publisher seeks aggressive salesperson with three-plus years’ book trade experience for the southwestern states. You will call on trade and nontraditional markets with our highly regarded products. We offer a competitive salary and performance program, comprehensive benefits, and company car. Position: Sales Representative Location: Major educational publisher in Seattle, Washington Description: This position is responsible for the selling of our educational books, software, and multimedia products to the K–12, higher-ed, and adult markets. In addition, this person will be responsible for gathering marketing and editorial leads

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and supplying feedback on established products. Responsibilities: achieve assigned quantitative sales goals; design and implement individual sales and marketing strategies in assigned territory. Requirements: Bachelor’s degree and a minimum of one to three years’ sales experience preferred. Professional selling experience and territory-management skills required. Experience or background in the English as a secondary language discipline preferred. Candidate must possess the ability to present and connect to audience and to positively influence customers. Excellent organizational, time-management, and verbal/written communications skills required. Must be selfmotivated and disciplined with the ability to prioritize. Travel required. Position: Marketing Manager—Trade Location: Major magazine and book publisher Description: Act as liaison with New York publishing house to ensure sales reps have all the materials and information they need on a timely basis. Responsible for sales conference presentations, display materials, conference booths, and regional book trade show. Create the trade catalog, including managing the design and production schedule; acting as liaison among the freelance designer, copywriter, editorial groups, and production; and creating rep-only version of the catalog. Monitor all co-op advertising, including keeping track of expenditures, promotion run-dates, and materials needed. Act as library marketing specialist that includes working with the library sales reps to expand sales and marketing efforts into this area. Act as Spanish-language marketing specialist that includes finding marketing avenues and accounts that sell into the Spanish market. Acquire in-depth knowledge of the content areas and assist in the development of marketing campaigns for these content groups. Must have two or more years of marketing and/or publishing experience; some knowledge of advertising and promotion; strong oral and writing skills; and strong organizational and computer skills. Position: Internet Marketing Manager Location: Large trade publishing house in New York City Description: We are seeking a marketing manager who will manage Internet marketing initiatives. Responsible for the initial planning and execution of promotions for division titles online, including author-specific sites and the corporate site. Will evaluate online advertising opportunities and work with

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the advertising and promotions department to execute new online outreach programs. Candidates must have strong communication skills, strong HTML and computer skills, and a four-year college degree. Position: Sales Manager Location: Family-owned book wholesaler Description: Book wholesaler seeks experienced, entrepreneurial individual to lead our retail sales division. You will sell directly to national accounts and manage the inside sales force. You must love books and have retail book sales experience. Position: Warehouse Supervisor Location: Major book distributor Description: Supervisory experience needed to accomplish goals in this fast-paced distribution center. You will report to the manager of an assigned department and have responsibility for ensuring all department productivity and quality goals are met. Must have good communication and leadership skills. Ability to maintain productivity and quality standards. Recommend and identify solutions as needed. Analyze staffing and scheduling and manage work flow. Prefer three to five years of warehouse experience. Position: Bookstore General Merchandise Department Clerk Location: University bookstore Description: Must have the ability to lift approximately thirty to forty pounds. Must have prior cash register experience. Duties include operating cash register; recording all sales transactions on proper register key; processing Visa/MasterCard/American Express charges; assisting customers; stocking, straightening, and cleaning shelves. Will also assist with merchandise inventories. $6.75 per hour. Position: Bookstore Salesperson Location: Museum collection and independent bookstore Description: We are seeking applicants who are friendly and outgoing, with a positive attitude. Valued qualities include a professional and courteous manner when dealing with customers and coworkers and enthusiasm when dealing with any aspect of the job, from customer service to stock work. Ability to work evenings and weekend shifts (at least one weekend shift per week). Starting salary range $6.25–$6.75 per hour, depending on experience.

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FIRSTHAND ACCOUNT Linda Roghaar, Former Independent Publishers’ Sales Rep From 1979 to 1997, Linda Roghaar was the owner of Roghaar Associates, a regional publishing sales organization based in Nashville, Tennessee. She earned her bachelor’s degree in religion from Miami University in Ohio and her master’s degree in liberal studies from Vanderbilt University in Nashville. She currently is a literary agent based in Massachusetts.

Getting Started

“I had worked in a bookstore and fell in love with the book business. Later, I had a job traveling to bookstores as a field rep for a franchise book chain. I couldn’t believe that I was being paid to do this! I loved seeing all the different stores and loved the travel as well—becoming a publishers’ rep was the next logical step. “Because I always worked as an independent rep, I had no formal training. I learned from other reps, my accounts, and, most of all, from experience. “A couple of publishers hired me, and I was off on the road. It grew from there.”

What the Job’s Really Like

“The publishers’ rep is never bored! The job is cyclical, and a typical cycle is six months, and goes about like this: “The first two weeks of December are spent in sales conferences in New York City. We go at our own expense and meet with most of the publisher clients we represent. At these meetings, which are a few hours for the small houses and up to three days for the large ones, we are formally presented with all the new, forthcoming titles for the next six months (books that will ship from March through August of the next year). “We sit and listen to editors and publishers describe why they are publishing each book and talk about the author and the market for each one. This is much harder than it seems. First of all, there’s so much information to absorb in so little time (perhaps you’ve seen the T-shirts: ‘So many books, so little time’; this is an apt description of a rep’s life). Second, we are people who spend most of our time working independently, and sitting still and not being in charge are not our strong suits. So, sales conferences are exhilarating and exhausting. We leave New York with bags of information on the books of the upcoming season. “The publishers provide us with their catalogs, order forms, book covers, book-by-book information, and promotion plans for each book. These are the tools of the trade, and their quality is important. “We return home, sort through the piles of mail, begin to sort out all the information, and often get together with our colleagues to discuss the goals for the season ahead. Then, we create the sales kit that will stay with us all season.

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This includes a brief presentation of every book, often with a mock-up of a cover. Also, we reacquaint ourselves with the special deals/discounts that we’ll be offering accounts that season. “We begin to make appointments for the next four months. We map out our itinerary. In the Southeast, where I worked, all of us were traveling almost every week, as our territories often included two or three states and lots of driving. We call on the biggest accounts first and then begin the serious traveling. “By the time all the publishers’ material arrives and we’ve sorted it and have all our appointments, it’s the middle of January, sometimes a bit later. We hit the road and call on accounts until mid-April. “We handle all kinds of accounts that sell books. This includes the independent bookstores, the wholesalers, and the specialty stores. Independent bookstores were the mainstay of our accounts in the past, but that’s no longer true. Specialty stores and wholesalers now provide much of the business. This includes museum stores, parenting/school stores, regional wholesalers (which carry only books about the region and often place the books in airports and hotels), and anyone else we can find. For the most part, our accounts are wonderful, informed, and interesting people. Often they become friends. “In an appointment with a bookstore buyer, we are trying to get them to buy as many of our books as we can—as many as they think they can sell in their store. In the old days, you would sell a season’s (three to four months) worth of every title, but now with almost instant restocking options through wholesalers, you are selling information as well as books. It’s important to get a title’s information into a store’s database, so that when the one or two copies they order sell, they can reorder easily. There’s always a haggle over the amount: the owner wants fewer, the rep wants more. And, of course, the customer is always right! “A rep will present one catalog at a time. Each book has unique qualities, and it’s up to the rep to point out these unique factors and explain why customers need the selection. For example, a rep can carry two different travel lines. One focuses on budget travel, another on quaint inns and B&Bs. Even though both have guides to New York, the rep points out the differences, not the similarities. And the prevailing wisdom has always been that these books will be sold to every bookstore, and as long as they’re represented correctly, it doesn’t matter what else the rep is selling. That said, however, reps try to avoid carrying lines that do really directly compete with one another, such as the Complete Idiot’s Guides and Dummies Guides. “By the middle of April, we’ve made our rounds and take two weeks off before we start with sales conferences again in May. “On a daily basis, a sales day might look like this: wake up in a mediumpriced hotel, arrive at the appointment when the store opens at 10:00 A.M. Have lunch with the buyer, finish the sales call, and arrive at the second appointment at 2:30 or 3:00 P.M. Finish about 6:00. “Big accounts are an all-day appointment; seldom do we see more than three accounts a day.”

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Upsides and Downsides “What I liked most is the personal independence of this job. It’s my schedule— no one checking on me, no one to report to. “When I started as a rep, one of the more experienced reps told me the two most difficult parts of the job are driving out the driveway and knowing when to stop. I’ve found this to be true! “After fifteen years I decided to leave repping for one simple reason: I was burned out and needed a new challenge and a change of venue. The business was thriving (still is, in fact, with my company’s new owner), but after fifteen years I was ready for a change!”

Salaries

“An independent rep works on straight commission, so the income varies widely depending on the season, the sales of the various books, and the returns to publishers, which are deducted from the commissions. “Commissions are paid on net sales, less returns. So, a $10 retail book is sold to a store for $6. The rep makes 60 cents, which is 10 percent. For wholesale sales, the percentage is less, 2 to 5 percent, depending on the account. “Usually in a group of reps (which I had), reps operate on a draw against commission. This includes enough to cover all expenses as well and can range from $800 to $1,200 per week. Because you are paying your own expenses, you have a much greater choice about your final paycheck: if you like really nice places to stay and fancy restaurants, you’ll make less in the end, but you’ll be happy while you travel. “A beginning rep ends up making about $35,000 (net), but there’s no limit with commission work. Often an established rep makes $80,000 to $100,000 per year. The salary/bonus/commission structure differs with every group, but the basis is almost always commission. (The exception is that some publishers will pay a group a flat fee.)”

Advice

“You must be highly motivated and organized to do this job. Key ingredients for hiring a rep include an ability to work independently and manage time well and a willingness to travel and work long hours. “The best training is to work for a major publisher in an ‘in-house’ job; they train you and provide much more structure—and also lots more paperwork!”

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PUBLICITY, EVENT PLANNING, AND ADVERTISING “Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.” —Thomas Edison

In the dictionary you’ll find the following definitions for the word publicity: Publicity: 1. Public notice or exposure resulting from mention through any means of communication, including advertising, and popularizing by word of mouth. 2. The business or technique of attracting public attention to a person, product, or company. 3. The material used for this purpose. Publicity is one of the most important weapons in a publisher’s arsenal. The success of a book or new magazine, for example, depends heavily on publicity. If a bookstore has never heard of the publication, then chances are the store’s buyers won’t be tracking down the publishers to make sure its shelves are well stocked. If it’s not available in the marketplace, it won’t end up in people’s homes—and that translates to insignificant sales. On the other hand, if customers come in with tongues wagging—where’s that wonderful new book everyone’s been talking about?—it’s likely the bookstore will take immediate action to order in a good supply. This can translate to healthy sales. Word of mouth can help propel a book to stardom. Publicists can help make that happen. Within the publishing industry publicists generally work in two major settings: (1) for publishers and (2) for authors. Most of the big publishing houses have publicity departments or a publicity staff associated with the sales and marketing department. Within a publishing department the budget for a particular book is discussed and decided across several departments—editorial, sales, accounting. What makes a book a bestseller is still a mystery—no one has the answer to that. But, the amount of attention and money a publisher will put behind any particular title can go a long way to ensuring bestseller status. Of course, well-known writers such as Danielle Steel or Stephen King don’t need much publicity. Millions of fans eagerly wait for each new book to come out. Publishers have a pretty good idea in advance how many copies will be needed, and they’re ready to meet the demand. 104

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But the scenario is different with an unknown author with an unknown product. Publishers first have to decide (guess) that this new writer will be a breakout writer. In other words, they must feel they’ve discovered the next John Grisham or Tom Clancy. And if they feel that way, they then get behind the book 100 percent. In varying degrees, other new books by midlist writers earn publicity from their publishers with a range of a million-dollar budget to no budget (and no publicity) at all. When the publishing house provides the money, it also provides the staff. With a no-publicity budget authors can provide publicity on their own. In each case the services of a publicist are vital.

WHAT A PUBLICIST DOES The primary goal of literary publicists is to work with the media, setting up interviews and TV or radio appearances. They can also arrange book signings at bookstores both locally and nationally. In Wendy Butler’s About.com publishing guide (http://publishing.about .com), she quotes publicists Phenix & Phenix’s article “Why Does Any Author Need a Publicist?”: “Today, there are more than 700,000 books in print. Sixty percent of all trade titles lose money for their publishers. Americans are besieged with 2,700 marketing messages every day. To penetrate potential consumers’ information-boggled minds, you must get a message in front of him at least nine times.” Even authors published by large publishing companies should consider taking part in their own publicity campaign. Says Joanna Hurley of Booksavvy .com, “Each of their many divisions or imprints alone publishes dozens of books per year. While their publicists are generally able and competent, they simply cannot pay attention to every book on their list. When I was director of publicity at Vintage, for example, my department was responsible for the publicity for some two hundred books per year, and we had a staff of three, including me. There was no way we could read, much less promote, them all. And at Vintage we were lucky: many of our titles fell into series so we could promote some of them together. This is not true for most publishers.” Wendy Butler goes on to explain that a good publicist must have the right contacts and knowledge of the topic and genre of the writer’s book. Rod Mitchell, the author of Hiring a Publicist? Get Your Money’s Worth! and founder and president of Adventures in Media, Inc., a Houston-based literary and entertainment publicity and promotions agency, says, “Many first-time authors do not understand the reason or importance of retaining a publicist. If the public do not hear about an author’s book, they will not know that the book exists, and consequently very few sales will result. “Also, those authors who purchase a ‘publicize-your-own-book’ promotion kit are in for the surprise of their life. The media lists provided in these kits are often outdated, as there is vast turnover with the media. They are also bound

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to receive a cold shoulder from many in the media, since wrangling the media is a relationship business and takes years to develop. Authors and others unknown to them are not very high on their reception list.” Mitchell goes on to explain, “Professional publicists purchase expensive but current media data lists and are constantly updating their media files. Because they maintain regular dialogue with news desks, TV and radio talk show producers, and newspaper and magazine editors, they are a ‘known’ contact and their calls are taken, and their faxes and E-mail messages are read, and bookings result. “Though most major trade publishers maintain a publicity department, inhouse publicists are often overworked and regularly assigned to handle up to a dozen titles, which are released simultaneously. The average promotion period for a trade publisher is only forty-five days, so for longevity, trade publishers normally suggest that authors retain an outside publicist. “Also, in-house publicists do not have the time and luxury to place multiple calls to media outlets, and they depend greatly on the power of their publishing house name for response. The media are always on deadline and have a very short attention span. That is why it takes a publicist an average of six phone calls (or communications) to book and schedule an interview or appearance.”

Earnings for Publicists

Publicists who work in-house for publishing companies usually are paid a set yearly salary. According to the Occupational Outlook Handbook, average yearly salaries for promotions managers are about $58,000. Those with nonsupervisory roles average about $35,000 annually. The earnings of publicists who freelance can vary widely. Some charge by the hour—from $50 to $200 is the usual range. Some charge a flat fee for each venue or event they book for the author. Some charge a flat monthly fee, and others charge a set rate for each city tour that’s booked. Still others require a retainer. Publicist Rod Mitchell says, “Publicists operate very similarly to an attorney. They require a retainer, and from that retainer, fees and expenses are charged and deducted. There is much confusion over the retainer/fee issue, because retainers and fees are all over the map, varying from $1,000 to $25,000, depending on the size and reputation of the firm. When retainers are not collected, publicists are too often left holding the bag and end up spending more time as a collector than as a publicist. “The larger firms often charge greater per-venue fees. For example, while smaller firms charge $1,000 for an Oprah booking, larger firms feel this booking is worth $5,000. Even though the outcome from an Oprah booking can be phenomenal, the cost for the appearance is not always relative.” According to the 2001 Association of American Publishers (AAP) Compensation Survey, here are the average annual base salaries of the following positions:

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Director, publicity

$107,800

Manager, publicity

$56,200

Senior publicist

$42,500

Publicist

$34,600

One of the major concerns authors have when working with a publicist is the publicist’s accountability. In other words, are they doing what they say they will do—and what they charge their clients for? As an ethical publicist, you will need to keep a performance log, listing which media outlets were contacted and the outcome. Says Rod Mitchell, “Authors have the right to question accountability—what they have received in exchange for their money. This seems to be especially true when authors are charged by the hour, or a flat monthly rate, in instances when they do not net the number of bookings they had anticipated. “It is a harsh fact that, despite the best efforts of any publicist, first-time, uncredentialed authors releasing a unique, ‘niche,’ nonfiction, or concept fiction book will not net as many interviews, reviews, or feature articles as mainstream topics. Normally, nonfiction authors who are experts on the topic about which they have written draw the greatest attention from the media. This rule does not always apply, and surprises do happen, when books are based on true incidents (Civil Action) or stories that can be tied in with high-profile (current) news stories. “When a publicist accepts a first-timer with a ho-hum book, it is probably best that the publicist require a lower retainer amount and not oversell the outcome. By focusing more on local print and radio media and scheduling book signings and appearances that match the audience they can still perform well for their client and leave the author smiling.” Mitchell concludes, “As more and more authors release books, and as the literary publicity and promotion industry becomes more competitive, there is a cry for us to be fair and equitable in what we charge and more accountable for what we do. This is a good thing for our industry and can be a win-win for everyone.”

EVENT AND MEETING PLANNING Within the realm of publicity falls event planning. A planned event can help promote a person or product—although not every event planner has publicity as a goal. Planners organize conferences and meetings, weddings, parties, and book signings and other events for bookstores. In the publishing field most event plan-

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ners work on professional writers’ conferences or publishing and library book fairs and the like. Most work as freelancers, as publishers tend not to want to pay a full-time yearly salary for an event that occurs only occasionally. Event planner Stephanie Dooley says, “My company specializes in writing conferences and events. In proposals we present to prospective clients, I cover everything from how the sessions will be laid out and whom will be invited to speak to how many banquets there will be and budget planning. Once the concept is firm, I go about planning the event. I make the calls, work the registration, and take care of every detail. “When the big day arrives, depending on the size of the event, one or more of my partners and I will be on-site to make sure the day goes smoothly, working the registration desk, troubleshooting, and so on.”

Earnings for Event Planners

“Salary structure is all over the place in this industry,” explains Dooley. “A new planner working at a midsized hotel can probably expect to earn around $20,000 to $30,000 a year. An independent planner like myself will get paid per event. Because of the work involved, most independent planners should expect between $10,000 and $20,000 per event. This would be for larger conferences with a large faculty and multiple subevents. “A basic standard would be to estimate a proposal based on $50 to $100 per hour, depending on your experience and years in the industry. But again, that depends on the location. A Chicago or New York City market would bear a higher hourly wage than say, Albuquerque or Little Rock.” Working on staff for a publishing house is a different story. Says McGrawHill meeting planner Dianna Bacchi, “No matter what your yearly salary is, divide it by the number of hours you actually work and you will see you make about $1.50 an hour.”

WHAT PUBLIC RELATIONS IS The practice of public relations is a relatively young field, formally founded less than a hundred years ago. Early definitions emphasized public relations as press agentry and publicity. As the profession evolved, those aspects became less the work of the PR professional, falling more into the realm of publicists and advertising and marketing professionals. Today, public relations is a huge umbrella under which a variety of job titles and professional responsibilities exist. Modern public relations embraces the consultant, the corporate communicator, the investor-relations specialist, the public-information officer, the community liaison, the government mediator, the troubleshooter, the spokesperson, and the media coordinator. The number of professionals doing public relations work is estimated to be as high as 160,000. Public relations professionals work in every sector, from the corporate publishing world to the sporting world, from government depart-

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ments to health and medical facilities. And though the settings might vary, their main responsibility usually doesn’t. The backbone of every PR professional’s job description is his or her role as communicator. Effective communications are recognized as vital to the success of every organization or cause. Every organization has a series of “publics” to which it must answer. Let’s take for an example a large movie theater concern that we’ll call National Cinema Corporation. The publics that National Cinema Corporation must stay sensitive to include nutritionists and other health professionals who insist that consumers be informed about the fat content of movie theater popcorn; environmentalists who insist that the containers used for the popcorn and cold drinks be biodegradable or that the tickets be printed on recycled paper; city and town planners who are concerned about parking facilities and traffic patterns near the movie theater as well as signage and lighting; civic groups that are lobbying for improved movie rating systems; zoning officials; school officials—the list can go on and on. However, excluded from the list are customers or consumers. This public is attended to or reached by professionals involved in advertising, marketing, opinion research, publicity, and promotion and is categorized separately. The public relations professional is concerned with how the company is perceived by the various publics. He or she can also help shape a company and the way it performs. The PR practitioner, by research and evaluation, finds out the expectations and concerns of the various publics and reports back to the organization on his or her findings. A good public relations program needs the support of the organization and the publics it is involved with. The Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) offers accreditation to PR professionals who have been in the field, either in practice or teaching in an accredited college or university, for a period of time not less than five years. After candidates pass a written and oral examination to demonstrate their competence and knowledge, they are given the right to use the designation “PRSA Accredited” or “APR.” This adds to their professional credibility and personal confidence. See Appendix A for the Public Relations Society of America’s address and website.

ADVERTISING The goal of advertising (and marketing—see Chapter 6) is to reach the consumer—to motivate or persuade a potential buyer; to sell a product, service, idea, or cause; to gain political support; or to influence public opinion. In the words of the American Association of Advertising Agencies (known as the four A’s): “Advertising is an indispensable part of our economic system. It is the vital link between businesses and consumers. “The business of advertising involves marketing objectives and artistic ingenuity. It applies quantitative and qualitative research to the creative process. It is the marriage of analysis and imagination, of marketing professional and artist.

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“Advertising is art and science, show business and just plain business, all rolled into one. And it employs some of the brightest and most creative economists, researchers, artists, producers, writers, and businesspeople in the country today.” With an idea of the specific audience to target, advertising professionals assess the competition, set goals and a budget, design an advertisement— whether a simple three-line ad or a full-blown campaign—and determine what vehicle is best utilized to reach that audience. Most large publishing houses maintain their own in-house advertising departments, often closely linked with the sales departments. Some contract with outside ad agencies for big projects. Advertising agencies are organized into the following departments (although within smaller agencies, departments can be combined or services contracted out to independent subcontractors): agency management, account management, creative services, traffic control and production, media services, publicity and public relations, sales promotion, direct response, television production, and personnel.

Job Titles in Advertising To work within all of the various departments, advertising agencies employ a number of professionals to perform a variety of duties. Selected job titles are described here: Agency manager. In a small agency, the manager could be the president, owner, or a partner. In giant agencies, the manager could be the chief executive officer reporting to a board of directors or an executive committee, in much the same way any corporation functions. The agency manager is responsible for establishing policies and planning, developing, and defining goals to ensure growth and economic viability. Account manager/executive. An agency’s client is generally known as an “account.” The account manager supervises all the activity involved with a specific account and is ultimately responsible for the quality of service the client receives. The account manager functions as a liaison between the advertising agency and the client’s organization. He or she must be thoroughly familiar with the client’s business, the consumer, the marketplace, and all the aspects of advertising such as media, research, creative design, and commercial production. Small agencies might function with just one account manager; large megaagencies could have hundreds or thousands, each handling a multitude of accounts. Account managers usually reach their position after working up through the ranks. Assistant account manager/executive. Commonly, the assistant account

manager reports directly to an account manager and can be assigned a wide range of duties. Some of these include analyzing the competition, writing reports, and coordinating creative, media, production, and research projects.

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Candidates should possess at least a bachelor’s degree, but a specific major in advertising or marketing is not a prerequisite. Account-management departments, along with media departments, hire the greatest number of entry-level candidates. Entry-level positions within the field of advertising often quickly lead to more senior roles. Creative/art director. The creative department of an advertising agency devel-

ops the ideas, images, words, and methods that contribute to the ultimate product—the commercial, ad, or campaign. Within an agency’s creative department, a host of different professionals work together to meet the needs of the client. The creative or art director supervises and works with writers, artists, and producers, from conceptualization of the advertisement to its final production. Assistant/junior art director. The assistant art director reports to one or more

art directors and is commonly responsible for preparing pasteups and layouts for television storyboards and print ads. The assistant can also be involved in developing visual concepts and designs and supervising commercial production and photo sessions. Employers expect job candidates to have at least a two-year associate’s degree from an art or design school, but they of course appreciate a bachelor’s-level communications major with strong graphic arts experience. Even more important, though, is being able to show a top-quality portfolio that displays skill and creativity. The four A’s reports that entry-level opportunities in art departments are very limited for those without some related business experience such as an internship or practicum spent in a retail advertising department or some other related setting. Copywriter and assistant/junior copywriter. Copywriters write body copy

for print advertising and develop sales promotional materials. Assignments could range from creating names for companies and products to writing television commercial dialogue, scripts for radio spots, or copy for direct-mail packages. Junior copywriters assist the copywriter and also edit and proofread. Although a bachelor’s degree is not required—someone with a strong portfolio could beat out a degree holder—majors that are sought after are communications, English, journalism, advertising, or marketing. Even though some of the largest advertising agencies offer copywriting training programs, opportunities are limited for those with no writing experience. Entry into the creative department of an advertising agency, as a copywriter, designer, or assistant art director, is particularly competitive. Having a good portfolio to present to the creative director will be a plus. Submitting freelance work can also help you get a foot in the door. Print-production managers and assistants. Personnel who work in the

print-production department of an agency are responsible for the final creation

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of the advertisement. After the creative team has specified the different elements it wants incorporated into an ad, the print-production team must see to it that the instructions are carried through. They are responsible for two-color, four-color, and black-and-white printing, color separations, and the preparation of mechanicals. The print-production department works closely with the traffic department and the creative staff and is also responsible for quality control. Some experience with production work is the usual requirement to enter this department. Not considered a highly competitive area, it is still a good place for someone to break in and move up. Assistant media planner. The media department is responsible for making

sure the advertising is presented to the right audiences, at the right time, and at the right place. As mentioned earlier, media departments are usually open to hiring entry-level candidates. The assistant media planner reports to a senior planner. His or her usual duties are to gather and study information about people’s viewing and reading habits; evaluate programming and editorial content of different media vehicles; calculate reach and frequency for specific target groups and campaigns; and become completely familiar with the media in general, with specific media outlets, and with media databanks and information and research sources. Media buyer. Media buyers and their assistants keep track of where and when

print space and airtime is available for purchase. They verify that agency orders actually appear or run and calculate costs and rates. They are familiar with all media outlets and are skilled at negotiations. Other skills that media buyers possess include the ability to work under pressure, excellent communications skills, and strong general business skills. They are also adept at working with numbers and are familiar with basic computer programs such as spreadsheet software. Candidates for entry-level positions are expected to have earned a four-year degree. Some of the large agencies offer training programs for new hires. Traffic managers and assistants. People working in the traffic department

make sure that the various projects are conceived, produced, and placed as specified. This department is in charge of scheduling and record keeping. The traffic department is an excellent place for those with more interest than experience to get a foothold.

TRAINING AND QUALIFICATIONS The best course of study to pursue in this arena has been an issue of some debate. There are those who believe that a straight degree in advertising is the best preparation, but they are usually shouted down by those who recognize the importance of a broader curriculum. To some extent, the answer is determined

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by the area of this career path that you intend to pursue. If you are aiming for a title of account manager, courses in marketing, business and finance, and speech communications are as important as advertising theory. Potential art directors obviously need technical training in drawing, illustration, and graphic design. Courses in publishing—and especially internships in publishing houses—would be an important component of any course of study.

SAMPLE JOB ADVERTISEMENTS The following are real advertisements, but the hiring employers are not identified because the positions have already been filled. They are meant as examples to give you an idea of the types of positions you’ll see advertised. Position: Senior-Level Publicist Location: Major New York publishing house Description: Publicist needed to work on special projects and publishing programs, especially J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and forthcoming movie tie-in books. Looking for creative idea person to initiate and execute nontraditional campaigns. Work closely with marketing/sales team and film company. Salary commensurate with experience. Position: Associate Publicist Location: Subsidiary press of large New York publishing house Description: Publicist needed to manage publicity campaigns and author tours. This is a wonderful opportunity for an associate publicist or someone with two years of publicity experience in book publishing. Requirements: excellent communication/organization skills, knowledge of media, and the ability to manage publicity of own books. Position: Assistant Publicist Location: Children’s book publisher Description: We are seeking two dynamic individuals to fill assistant publicist positions in our children’s book publicity department. Under moderate supervision this key individual prepares review sheets and publication slips; processes and types labels for review copies; arranges distribution of these copies with our other offices; answers telephones and queries; redirects calls as necessary; processes bills; assists with publicity for high-profile authors; writes press releases; prepares responses to correspondence; and assists with press release typing as requested. Requirements: must possess college degree or equivalent work experience; at least one year’s rel-

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evant work experience, including booking experience, and thorough familiarity with the media; and college-level understanding and use of English language. Must be detail-oriented, well organized, and able to set priorities under pressure. Position: Publicity and Marketing Associate Location: On guide series produced by major publisher Description: With great interpersonal and organizational skills, the associate will drive through the marketing/promotions for guides; create an extensive network to publicize the books; act as liaison between our New York and London office while promoting the books in the United States; and assist with events and marketing efforts on the magazine side as needed. This position demands a motivated self-starter to build and develop it. Being part of an energetic and successful marketing team, the associate will have boundless opportunities to grow and succeed. Candidates must have one to two years’ experience in publicity/PR and marketing in book publishing. Excellent communication and writing skills are a must. Please fax writing samples (press release preferred) along with a cover letter, resume, and salary. Position: VP, Public Relations and Promotions Location: Major men’s magazine Description: Under the direction of the senior vice president/chief marketing officer, this position is accountable for overseeing all national/international press relations and promotional activity for the company’s businesses (primarily publishing and entertainment). This position is responsible for evaluating all activities company-wide as they relate to attaining a positive image in the media and among trade constituencies. This position interacts with various levels of management internally and with the press, trade, and clients/potential clients externally. College degree in communications, journalism, marketing, or equivalent, with a minimum of ten years’ overall work experience and a minimum of seven years in public relations, in either an agency or publishing company, required. Experience in high-level media contact and promotional planning required. Excellent writing skills and the ability to interact with high-level corporate executives a must. Position: Advertising Manager Location: Major New York publishing house

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Description: Handle ninety books a year! Seeking an advertising manager to manage all phases of advertising print production for approximately ninety titles a year. Duties include supplying the outside advertising agency with creative direction and materials with which to create ads, critiquing advertising layouts and designs, and supervising all phases including final proofreading of mechanicals and release of ad materials. Job requirements: bachelor of arts, preferably in English; at least five years’ experience in advertising/promotion department of a major publishing house (those with magazine publishing, ad agency, and other business experience need not apply). Excellent proofreading and copywriting skills a must. Ability to communicate effectively and work well with outside ad agency as well as with in-house personnel. Good eye for typography and overall ad design needed, as is the ability to work autonomously. Position: Advertising Sales Assistant Location: Major women’s magazine Description: Our sales assistant was just promoted to marketing coordinator, so we are currently looking for someone to fill her shoes. Will support three account managers by performing the following duties: answer phones; type and file; manage the complimentary magazine list; handle mass mailings, issue mailings, etc.; coordinate entertainment functions; and prepare media kits and presentation materials. Requirements: college degree. Familiarity with Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Ability to prioritize work a must when working for three managers.

FIRSTHAND ACCOUNTS Rod Mitchell, Literary and Entertainment Publicist Rod Mitchell is the founder and president of Adventures in Media, Inc., located in Spring, Texas. He has been working in public relations since 1979 and serving as a publicist since 1987. Getting Started

“I began working with the media at a Des Moines, Iowa, radio station, in the news department. It was my introduction to the media and how important and effective publicity was for a news department. We were regularly briefed by public affairs directors, who controlled the content of the stories that we were reporting.

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“I have always been fascinated with both news and publicity, and from my radio days, I clearly understood the difference. This was engraved in my mind by my radio station news director after every assignment session. He would close by saying, ‘now go out there and get the story, and remember, we don’t make the news, we only report it.’ “Every time he said that I always thought, wouldn’t it be grand if I could create news instead of just reporting it! I remembered how I felt when I queried a public affairs director to complete a news assignment. That’s what led me to my present career. Now I do create the news, and reporters come to me. “When I quit college and got married, I discovered that I could not support my new financial obligations on a radio reporter’s salary, so I answered an ad in 1971 and took a job in the public affairs and marketing department of a large international insurance conglomerate. It was my job to write copy for newspaper ads, product brochures, and sales presentations. When our company purchased a new company, or if there was news of significant public interest, I created press releases and circulated them to the media. “As our company grew, it was time to take advantage of the popular new forum, TV-direct-response advertising. At the time, a former carnival hawker by the name of Ron Popeil was selling gizmos and gadgets on the airways, and word had it that telemarketing switchboards were jammed after one of his TV ads aired. “Our company had salespeople who faced cold rejection as they went doorto-door, and turnover was off the charts. Possibly we could develop prospect leads via the same medium that was making Ron Popeil a household name. We would have to give people an incentive to pick up the phone—a free gift in exchange for their valuable time. “We hired some unemployed but somewhat popular TV and film actors as our spokespeople and went to the airways. It worked, but it also created an unexpected role for the marketing department: a publicist to represent the celebrities for personal-appearance requests generated by the commercials. Guess who got that assignment. “In 1980, I was promoted and assigned to open up the country of Canada. I already knew which celebrity I would approach: Lorne Greene of the Bonanza television series. Canadians loved him, and whatever the Western star said was taken as gospel by Canadians. The response was incredible. “My role as national director of marketing was again taking on an entirely different look. In addition to my regular duties, I was finding myself serving as publicist for our spokespeople, writing press releases and scheduling personal and public appearances. I quickly determined that working as a publicist was fun and it would be my future. “In 1984, after fourteen years’ serving the insurance company, I left to open my own consulting firm—Direct Response Resources. I relocated from Sioux City, Iowa, to Omaha, Nebraska, to the world’s busiest telemarketing hub and the ideal place to set up a direct-response-marketing business. It was more work and less money than I expected, but the celebrity spokespeople that I hired and

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served as publicist for generated a secondary source of revenue that set the stage for a career adjustment. I would focus solely on publicity and promotion and represent celebrities and authors who wanted to bring attention to themselves or their work. “In 1990, I moved my family to Texas and formed Adventures in Media. I immediately began establishing myself with local print and electronic media and representing local celebrities, authors, and events. From 1990 to 1992, I represented a colorful furniture mogul named Mattress Mack. That opened many doors with both local and national media. When he produced a feature film (Sidekicks, starring Chuck Norris and Beau Bridges), major doors in the entertainment industry opened. “Then, in 1992, word of my work had spread to an author located in Las Vegas. She was releasing a little 120-page self-published book. The title and topic were a bit provocative, and I was unsure if I could promote a former New York record producer who went to work in a Las Vegas brothel and after four years wrote a book about her experience. The title of her book: The Brothel Bible. “By that time I had established relationships with national news desks and radio and TV talk show producers. I pitched my new client to national media. To my pleasant surprise, despite the fact that this book was cheaply and poorly printed and was self-published, national media was fascinated with my client. I booked my client with Sally Jesse, Rolonda Watts, Maury Povich, Montel Williams, Geraldo Rivera, and Howard Stern. My client was interviewed on more than thirty major-market TV programs and news segments and got picked up by such TV tabloids as Hard Copy, Extra, and Inside Edition. A cable network also called and wanted to produce a documentary about life as a legal prostitute. Her story appeared in more than a dozen newspapers and magazines. “The publicity that surrounded that little book generated tens of thousands of sales. My client was elated, and I had become even better established with TV news and talk show outlets and the hundreds of local-market and syndicated radio shows where I had scheduled my client. My reputation as an effective publicist also grew, leading to many new client solicitations.”

What the Job’s Really Like

“Since that 1992 book promotion, I have gone on to represent more than forty authors, three of which have become bestsellers. I have been honored to work as an outside freelancer for such major trade publishers as HarperCollins, Morrow, Regan Books, Simon & Schuster, and Wiley Publishing. “Unlike the larger agencies, which maintain a large staff of publicists and represent dozens of clients, our small boutique agency represents only three to four clients at any given time. We provide each client with close personal service and accept their calls around the clock (one of the downsides of operating a home-office business). “On the literary side, our agency represents only nonfiction authors and experts who operate in a variety of fields. From those early days as a news jour-

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nalist, I work very closely with news desks and TV news magazine producers and tie in the agency’s clients with current or breaking news stories. “My work as a publicist is fun, exciting, and different every day. The majority of my time is spent representing authors, but it is split with assignments for celebrities, film and TV projects, and major events. On entertainment projects it is my job to bring major TV and print entertainment media to the set (programs such as Entertainment Tonight and Access Hollywood and magazines such as People and Entertainment Weekly). “The variety of my work is incredible, and I truly love that I have the power and ability to pick and choose what I do every day.”

Finding Clients

“In the past five years I find that I depend more and more on the Internet in my work. The Web has become a major ingredient to both marketing and the distribution of press materials. In 1996, I pioneered Internet News Blasts. I was a bit ahead of my time, but today more and more media outlets not only accept press materials via the Internet—they prefer it. “On the marketing side, the Internet has delivered my last twelve out of fifteen clients. My website (aimpress.com) is found on most major search engines when people are seeking a literary publicist.”

Salaries

“In our agency we traditionally charge on a per-venue basis and provide free telephone and fax services; our retainer averages $5,000.”

Advice

“If you are a people person, like being in the spotlight, are a news junkie, like to write and create, or would enjoy the adrenaline rush that comes after seeing something in the national news that you have taken to the media, then you will love being a literary publicist. It is also best that you enjoy reading, because you will be doing a lot of it. “I suggest you pursue an education in journalism and creative writing. Today many colleges and trade schools also offer public relations courses. If you want to determine if this is going to be your lifeblood, then I suggest seeking an internship with a local public relations firm—preferably one that handles literary publicity. “As is the case in any job, you must love it to be most effective. In a short period of time you will discover if it’s either in your blood or it is not.”

Stephanie Dooley, Event Planner Stephanie Dooley is director of events for Enchantment Events, a division of Author’s Venue, LLC, based in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She is one semester away from a B.A. in English and has been working in the field since 1998.

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Getting Started

“I had never considered an event planning profession until after I became a writer. Writers’ conferences are a huge component to the overall publishing industry. Writing is a solitary profession, so the meetings, conferences, seminars, and retreats have played a large part in information exchange, connections, networking, and learning. “Once I organized the SouthWest Writers Conference in Albuquerque, I was hooked. I found an untapped talent within myself for organization and overall meeting conception. I was good at it! And I enjoyed being able to merge my love for writing with the detail-intensive meeting planning. “Before I founded Enchantment Events, I worked with the writers’ organization SouthWest Writers in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in their outreach program. I organized workshops and other programs for a year. When the opportunity arose to become the director for the 1999 SouthWest Writers Conference I took it. “In January 1999 I founded Enchantment Events, an event-planning company specializing in writers’ events. However, I soon found other agencies coming to me to plan their events. Some were arts or writing related, but I had clients from government agencies, private companies, and others. “After two years with Enchantment Events I began negotiations with my current business partners to create a new company of writers’ services, bringing Enchantment Events in as the event planning component. I still do what I did before, but I have the opportunity to be a part of the publishing industry in a direct way. The events my company produces internally are designed to help writers get published, and I have complete control over the quality of those events. It’s extremely gratifying to see the result in helping other writers.”

What the Job’s Really Like

“I plan workshops, seminars, retreats, and conferences. Most of the events are writing-related events. However, we can serve any company or organization that requires event planning. The process is the same, only the content changes. “The work is definitely not boring! I spend anywhere from sixteen to eighteen hours a day working on the computer, making calls, going to meetings, developing plans. It requires constant attention, particularly since it’s my own company. The buck stops with me, so I have to make sure everything is running like clockwork. I have a wonderful staff that keeps the details in line. That frees up a lot of my time that can be spent on more development- and conceptoriented tasks. As both industries constantly fluctuate (hospitality and publishing), I have to be on top of the new trends. “I have a home office with roughly five large file cabinets—not to mention shelves and a full closet of supplies. Basically my office is overflowing with things I need every day to make the business run. I keep a file on each state in the United States and some foreign countries with hotel portfolios. That way, if I have an event in a particular city, I can have a place to start. “I also keep files on possible speakers and speakers’ bureaus. Even though requests come in for particular speakers I have to track down, for the most part

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my database keeps quality instructors in the events I plan. Working with the faculty of any given event is also a challenge. A single conference can hold anywhere from ten to sixty faculty members. While some of the tasks can be turned over to the contracted travel agent, members of the faculty must be kept informed of conference developments, and biographies, photos, session descriptions, and other material must be obtained by the faculty. All of this takes an enormous amount of time. “Working with the venue is another task altogether. The hospitality industry is a whole new world, with its own language, set of rules, and duties. Extensive knowledge of hotel contracts is a must. Once a good contract is determined, most of the hotel contact is just maintenance. But one wrinkle can send the whole deal into a big mess. A date off or unanticipated attrition (a hotel term that basically means penalties) can mean a struggle. “All in all, it’s the details that are the biggest part of my job—making sure nothing falls through the cracks.”

Upsides and Downsides “I like the concept stage. I do constant research to see what’s out there, what other meeting planners are doing. If there’s anything I can incorporate into my own meetings to make them run more smoothly, give the attendees more than they bargained for, I’ll try it at least once. Dreaming up what your final product will look like, feel like, what the attendees will come away with, is exciting and fun. “While planning the actual event isn’t a drag, it can become overwhelming. When I look at the calendar and realize I have four or five events coming up in the next three months, and I’ve had two or three cancellations, and my events manager is on vacation, well, it can become quite tiresome. There are so many details to keep on top of, and when there are multiple conferences to maintain, it’s like throwing fifteen or twenty lead balls in the air and making sure they all stay up.”

Advice

“Organization skills are a must. You must like details and be good at multitasking. Joining a local meeting planners’ group is a good place to get basic information. MPI (Meeting Planners International) is a huge organization that is known for keeping up with global trends and information. There are degree programs in hospitality, or you can become certified.” See Appendix A for MPI’s address and website.

Dianna Bacchi, Meeting Planner Dianna Bacchi is a meeting planner with McGraw-Hill, a large publishing house in New York City, where she works in the Professional Books Division. In 1997,

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she earned her B.A. in media and communications at the State University of New York College at Old Westbury. She has been working in the field since 1999.

Getting Started

“I first realized I had the skills to be a professional meeting planner at my wedding. Looking back at my life, it seems I was always planning events in one form or another. I realized that I had what it took to do this sort of thing and I actually enjoyed it. My first job planning events was in college. I coordinated all rush and alumni events for the sorority I was in. “After college I worked for McGraw-Hill in the publicity department. I created press releases and contacted reviewers for the training, careers, outdoor, and aviation titles. I also created two newsletters named Beyond Flight and Training News that helped our books reach target publications. When my current position became available I applied for it and got it. I knew I could plan the meetings and do a good job.”

What the Job’s Really Like

“I handle every detail of the meetings for our sales division, from picking the hotels and selecting the menus to reconciling and paying the bill and a few thousand things that fall in between. “I think you need to have three things before becoming a meeting planner. You need to be detail-oriented to a fault, you need to be quick on your feet and able to troubleshoot problems, and you need to be a mom. The last one sounds a little funny, but believe me when I say you have to baby your attendees. They will change their minds a hundred times about room reservations, meal invitations, AV equipment—anything and everything; you can never do enough. One time an international attendee at one of our meetings got something in his eye, and I had to find him a clinic in NYC that would take his insurance. “My job is very broad. I plan three sales conferences a year with about 130 attendees at each. I also handle a majority of the work for the BookExpo America, which is the largest trade show in publishing. The space we exhibit in is approximately 1,200 square feet. To top it all off, I am the assistant to the vice president of sales. A typical day starts off with about thirty E-mails and ten voice mails, each one with a request. There is never a time when you can say ‘I have done all my work.’ Even after your meeting you need to go through the bill with a fine-tooth comb. Every conference I find thousands of dollars in mistakes.”

Upsides and Downsides “The greatest thing about meeting planning is the way hotels treat you. You have the ability to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars at a hotel or convention, and these places know it. They will always give you the penthouse suite and the treatment to go with it.

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“The most frustrating thing about my job is that if you are a good meeting planner everyone thinks it is so easy. Most people don’t see how hard you work; it is one of those things you physically have to do to know what it is really like. “I spend countless hours outside of work thinking about every little detail, and I never enjoy the beautiful places we go. I am always on the clock, 24/7.”

Salaries

“Unless your boss has done your job and fully knows what it takes to be a meeting planner, expect not to make much money. Because many people see this job as easy, the chances are you will do the work of several people.”

Advice

“The best advice I can give anyone is know someone. And make sure you’re detail-oriented and a troubleshooter. Be careful before signing contracts with the hotels or other venues. I’d recommend taking a course in contract law. “Meeting planning sounds glamorous, but it is a very difficult job.”

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“Most writers regard the truth as their most valuable possession, and therefore are most economical in its use.”—Mark Twain

Among other things, the relationship an author has with a publishing house is a legal one. For every book that gets published, a legal contract is drawn up, discussed, negotiated, agreed upon, and executed. In addition, some books require preparation of licensing agreements in connection with the exercise of subsidiary rights. Some books also might need to be vetted for legally objectionable or libelous material. But if you’re getting ready to skip over this chapter because you think you’d have to go to law school to work in this field, feel free to stay put. The field of publishing has many uses for publishing law professionals, and not all these professionals need to have law degrees.

CONTRACTS AND LEGAL DEPARTMENTS In general, publishing companies, especially the large ones, maintain two distinct law-related departments to function efficiently. One is the contracts department. This employs the people who draft the contracts, help the editors come up with wording that makes sense for any special provisions, negotiate the fine points of the deal, propose compromises, file copyrights, disburse the contracts information to the rest of the company, get the authors or their agents their checks quickly, and other related duties. Some publishing companies also have a legal department. Here work the people who protect the company from getting sued. They go through manuscripts and work with the authors to make sure they haven’t written anything libelous; they settle claims or bring in outside lawyers when things get serious. While in most cases legal departments are run by and staffed with attorneys, the same isn’t necessarily true of contracts departments.

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Nancy Zoole Kenney, director of contracts at Henry Holt and Company, a well-known midsized publisher of trade books in New York City, is not a lawyer. She earned a bachelor’s in English from Syracuse University in 1967 and started in the contracts arena working as an assistant to a literary agent. There she learned the fundamentals of contract negotiation and the basics of subsidiary rights. She has thirty-three years’ experience in publishing, twenty-three of those years writing publishing contracts. She says, “I’d like to think that the heads of publishing companies tend to hire people without law degrees to run their contracts departments because there’s a general appreciation of the fact that the ability to write a good publishing contract has more to do with a person’s understanding of how the business works than with the theory of contract law. “In fact, it’s probably mostly about salaries. A publisher can save money by hiring a nonlawyer with enough experience to know when a real lawyer should be called in for advice. Every job I’ve held since 1968 has given me some element of the overall experience in publishing that has become my foundation. “On the other hand, I’m sure that many publishing companies would hire a person with a law degree to manage a contracts department. In fact, the person I replaced here at Holt had a law degree . . . but she didn’t have much experience in publishing. She tended to be much too rigid in her negotiations, and she started alienating both the authors and their agents. An agent expects the contracts manager to take the needs of her particular client seriously, and this usually has absolutely nothing to do with the law. “For example, we have a provision in our contract boilerplate that specifies that an author must read, correct, and return his page proofs within fourteen days. But an agent might argue that her author couldn’t possibly do that in less than twenty-one days. The contracts manager cannot simply refuse to make the change; the contract boilerplate is not the absolute final word on the subject. Instead, she should find out from the managing editor how long the production department can really wait for page proofs to be returned and how long it takes authors, in general, to deal with this particular responsibility. Then she can come up with a compromise that makes everyone happy. As I look back on the contracts managers I’ve known with law degrees, I realize that the best of them were in publishing before they went to law school.” Kenney does not look for law graduates when she hires assistants. “When our human resources department recently placed an ad in The New York Times for a contracts assistant, an overwhelming number of responses were from recent law school graduates claiming they were willing to take an entry-level position in the contracts department to get a foot in the door. That’s not what I’m looking for in an assistant. “I want someone right out of college with little or no publishing experience . . . the idea being that (1) I can teach that kind of person the idea of good publisher/author relations, that is, the possibility that a contract can be created that gives the author every possible concession but does not inhibit the publisher’s way of doing business; and (2) I’ll have someone who will stay for a while and

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do the photocopying and filing and record keeping and general grunt work that needs to be done.”

WHAT IF YOU HAVE A LAW DEGREE? If the company is big enough to have a separate legal staff, a lawyer with experience in some form of entertainment or intellectual property law can apply for a position on that legal staff. At some publishing houses, the general counsel would not hire a lawyer without litigation experience for the legal staff. Lawyers aren’t necessary to write contracts, but they are necessary to handle lawsuits and make court appearances. Starting out in a law firm that handles a wide range of legal areas would be helpful to gain all the necessary experience. Says Nancy Zoole Kenney, “If you’re just out of law school with no experience whatsoever, and you want to be in publishing, either apply for a position as a contracts administrator—that is, start as assistant to an experienced contracts manager—or try to get into a law firm that specializes in intellectual property or entertainment law and get experience that way.” The main point to keep in mind is that to work in law in publishing, the job candidate must have a thorough knowledge of the publishing field—it’s not just about the law; it’s about the particular context in which law is practiced. But as intellectual property/publishing law attorney Sara Goodman advises, “Make sure you’re burning up with love for the practice of law before going to law school, because law is not an easy profession to be in these days. Even though I really liked law school and actually like what I do, many lawyers don’t enjoy law school and eventually leave the practice of law. “In fact, most law students have no notion about what they really want to do with their law degree. So, unfortunately, young lawyers will find a lot of unhappiness and burnout among their colleagues. Although, I think this is more common among litigators because the judicial system is often a frustrating arena in which to solve problems for clients.”

HOW TO BECOME A LAWYER Formal educational requirements for lawyers include a four-year college degree, three years in law school, and successful completion of a written bar examination. To practice law in the courts of any state or other jurisdiction, a person must be licensed, or admitted to its bar, under rules established by the jurisdiction’s highest court. All states require that applicants for admission to the bar pass a written bar examination; most jurisdictions also require applicants to pass a separate written ethics examination. Lawyers who have been admitted to the bar in one jurisdiction may occasionally be admitted to the bar in another without taking an examination, if they meet that jurisdiction’s standards of good moral character and have a specified

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period of legal experience. Federal courts and agencies set their own qualifications for those practicing before them. To qualify for the bar examination in most states, an applicant must usually obtain a college degree and graduate from a law school accredited by the American Bar Association (ABA) or the proper state authorities. ABA accreditation signifies that the law school—particularly its library and faculty—meets certain standards developed to promote quality legal education. ABA currently accredits 183 law schools; others are approved by state authorities only. With certain exceptions, graduates of schools not approved by the ABA are restricted to taking the bar examination and practicing in the state or other jurisdiction in which the school is located; most of these schools are in California. In 1997, the latest figures available, seven states accepted the study of law in a law office or in combination with study in a law school; only California accepts the study of law by correspondence as qualifying for taking the bar examination. Several states require registration and approval of students by the State Board of Law Examiners, either before they enter law school or during the early years of legal study. Although there is no nationwide bar examination, forty-seven states, the District of Columbia, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands require the six-hour Multistate Bar Examination (MBE) as part of the bar examination; the MBE is not required in Indiana, Louisiana, and Washington. The MBE covers issues of broad interest and is sometimes given in addition to a locally prepared state bar examination. The three-hour Multistate Essay Examination (MEE) is used as part of the state bar examination in several states. States vary in their use of MBE and MEE scores. Many states have begun to require Multistate Performance Testing (MPT) to test the practical skills of beginning lawyers. This program has been well received, and many more states are expected to require performance testing in the future. Requirements vary by state, although the test usually is taken at the same time as the bar exam and is a one-time requirement. The required college and law school education usually takes seven years of full-time study after high school—four years of undergraduate study followed by three years in law school. Although some law schools accept a very small number of students after three years of college, most require applicants to have a bachelor’s degree. To meet the needs of students who can attend only part time, a number of law schools have night or part-time divisions that usually require four years of study; about one in ten graduates from ABA-approved schools attends part time. Although there is no recommended “prelaw” major, prospective lawyers, especially those interested in pursuing publishing law, should develop proficiency in writing and speaking, reading, researching, analyzing, and thinking logically—skills needed to succeed both in law school and in the profession. Regardless of major, a multidisciplinary background is recommended. Courses in English, foreign languages, public speaking, government, philosophy, history, economics, mathematics, and computer science, among others, are useful.

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Acceptance by most law schools depends on the applicant’s ability to demonstrate an aptitude for the study of law, usually through good undergraduate grades, the Law School Admission Test (LSAT), the quality of the applicant’s undergraduate school, any prior work experience, and sometimes a personal interview. However, law schools vary in the weight they place on each of these and other factors. All law schools approved by the ABA, except for those in Puerto Rico, require applicants to take the LSAT. Nearly all law schools require applicants to have certified transcripts sent to the Law School Data Assembly Service, which then sends applicants’ LSAT scores and their standardized records of college grades to the law schools of their choice. Both this service and the LSAT are administered by the Law School Admission Council. Competition for admission to many law schools is intense, especially for the most prestigious schools. Enrollments in these schools rose very rapidly during the 1970s, as applicants far outnumbered available seats. Although the number of applicants decreased markedly in the 1990s, the number of applicants to most law schools still greatly exceeds the number that can be admitted. During the first year or year and a half of law school, students usually study core courses such as constitutional law, contracts, property law, torts, civil procedure, and legal writing. In the remaining time, they may elect specialized courses in fields such as publishing, intellectual property, tax, labor, or corporate law. Law students often acquire practical experience by participation in school-sponsored legal clinic activities, in the school’s moot court competitions in which students conduct appellate arguments, in practice trials under the supervision of experienced lawyers and judges, and through research and writing on legal issues for the school’s law journal. A number of law schools have clinical programs in which students gain legal experience through practice trials and law school projects under the supervision of practicing lawyers and law school faculty. Law school clinical programs might include work in legal aid clinics, for example, or on the staff of legislative committees. Part-time or summer clerkships in law firms, government agencies, and publishing legal departments also provide valuable experience. Such training can lead directly to a job after graduation and help students decide what kind of practice best suits them. Law students in fifty-two jurisdictions are required to pass the Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination (MPRE), which tests knowledge of the ABA codes on professional responsibility and judicial conduct. In some states, the MPRE may be taken during law school, usually after completing a course on legal ethics. Law school graduates receive the degree of juris doctor (J.D.) as the first professional degree. Advanced law degrees may be desirable for those planning to specialize, research, or teach. Some law students pursue joint degree programs, which usually require an additional semester or year. Joint degree programs are offered in a number of areas, including law and business administration or public administration.

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After graduation, lawyers must keep informed about legal and nonlegal developments that affect their practice. Currently, thirty-nine states and jurisdictions mandate Continuing Legal Education (CLE). Many law schools and state and local bar associations provide continuing-education courses that help lawyers stay abreast of recent developments. Some states allow CLE credits to be obtained through participation in seminars on the Internet.

SAMPLE JOB ADVERTISEMENTS The following are real advertisements, but the hiring employers are not identified because the positions have already been filled. They are meant as examples to give you an idea of the types of positions you’ll see advertised. Position: Contracts Assistant Location: Publisher of film and nonfiction books Description: Publishing professional with minimum two years in subsidiary rights or contract administration wanted to assist subsidiary rights manager of thirty to forty titles annually for growing, fast-paced publisher of film books (Traffic, Gladiator, Crouching Tiger, etc.), self-help, parenting, and some fiction. Must be familiar with contracts and rights procedures, detail-oriented, and skilled in communication and organization. Administrative duties related to contracts include sending contracts out for signature, tracking contracts, handling check requests, etc. Facility with computers, Word, Excel, FileMaker Pro a must. Salary commensurate with experience. Position: Foreign Rights Associate Location: Major publishing house in New York City Description: Assist VP/director of foreign rights; perform secretarial duties including answering phones, screening calls, taking messages, scheduling appointments, making travel arrangements, and prioritizing correspondence. Qualifications: six months to one year of experience in subsidiary or foreign rights and familiarity with production terms and processes. Excellent communication skills with an emphasis on written correspondence and telephone manner. Excellent typing with knowledge of word processing. Must be able to work under pressure to meet deadlines and be detail-oriented. Position: Subsidiary Rights Assistant Location: Large general trade book publisher

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Description: Seeking a subsidiary rights assistant whose time will be divided equally between the domestic and foreign rights departments. Domestic rights responsibilities will include many facets of sublicensing such as the sale of book club, serial, audio, electronic, and other domestic subsidiary rights. Will learn to build and maintain relationships with rights contacts and act as liaison with in-house departments as well as literary agents and authors. Foreign rights responsibilities will include handling rights inquiries, drawing and tracking foreign licenses, communicating with international publishers and subagents, creating a monthly sales log, reporting to agents on foreign sales, maintaining files, answering phones, and providing general administrative support. Candidate should be self-starter, well organized, with ability to prioritize. Strong written and verbal communication skills, with a strong interest in reading and a willingness to learn. Proficiency in Word, Excel, and Outlook essential. Position: Copyright and Permissions Assistant Location: Large general trade book publisher Description: Seeking an assistant to respond to inquiries regarding permissions and assist in acquiring and licensing permissions. Customer service attitude a must for variety of telephone requests, combined with the ability to research and understand agreements with attention to detail. Must have excellent communication, organization, research, and timemanagement skills. College degree, prior office experience, and a desire to be in publishing required as well as the ability to work under pressure on time-sensitive projects. Position: Business Affairs Counsel Location: Legal department of major magazine publisher Description: Actively participate in the evaluation of transactions and business opportunities. Provide legal and business affairs advice to senior management. Draft and negotiate legal documents including, among others, talent, content licensing, copyright, and business development. Develop “state-of-theart” standardized contracts for publishing operations. Respond to and evaluate requests for structuring, optimizing, and terminating business ventures. Negotiate and advise management regarding joint venture contracts (involving multiple alliances/ partners) pertaining to intellectual knowledge, networks, and technologies. Review and provide counsel regarding Internet-

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related transactions/contracts. The position will be projectoriented, entailing exposure to a variety of diverse business issues associated with the continuing transition into a contentdriven, multimedia business. Requirements: J.D. degree and bar membership; five to eight years of experience in a corporate legal department or law firm specializing in the entertainment or publishing industries; solid track record in basic contracts review and drafting abilities; strong negotiation and communications skills, both written and oral; sophisticated and professional presentation skills; highly developed and reasoned business perspective to complement legal skills; resourcefulness and ability to create structure from concept, taking ideas and crystallizing into term sheets and legal documents; ability to interact effectively with internal executives and business managers as well as with external consultants, authors, and other service providers; excellent analytical skills; ability to identify business and financial risks. Must be a “big-picture” thinker and strategist who can analyze and decipher complex business agreements but also be attuned to critical details relevant to success.

JOB OUTLOOK FOR LAW CAREERS If you’re interested in pursuing a law career in a publishing company or any aspect of law, there is no doubt you’ll encounter some stiff competition. The Occupational Outlook Handbook has predicted this competition will last through the year 2008. The number of law school graduates is expected to continue to strain the economy’s capacity to absorb them. Employment of lawyers grew very rapidly from the early 1970s through the early 1990s but has started to level off recently. Through 2008, employment is expected to grow about as fast as the average for all occupations. Continuing demand for lawyers will result primarily from growth in the population and the general level of business activities. Demand will also be spurred by the growth of legal action in such areas as health care, international law, elder law, environmental law, sexual harassment, and, most significant in the publishing industry, intellectual property. However, employment growth is expected to be slower than in the past. In an effort to reduce the money spent on legal fees, many businesses are increasingly utilizing large accounting firms and paralegals to perform some of the same functions lawyers might have performed in the past. For example, accounting firms may provide employee benefit counseling, process documents, or handle various other services previously performed by the law firm. And, as stated earlier, publishing contracts departments will hire nonlawyers to write contracts.

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SALARIES IN PUBLISHING LAW Salaries of experienced attorneys vary widely according to the type, size, and location of their employer. Lawyers who own their own practices usually earn less than those who are partners in law firms. Lawyers starting their own practices may need to work part time in other occupations to supplement their income until their practice is well established. According to the National Association for Law Placement, median annual earnings of all lawyers is about $78,170. The middle half of the occupation earns between $51,450 and $114,520. The bottom 10 percent earns less than $37,310. Median annual earnings in the industries employing the largest numbers of lawyers are shown here: Legal services

$78,700

Federal government

$78,200

Fire, marine, and casualty insurance

$74,400

State government

$59,400

Local government

$49,200

Median salaries of lawyers six months after graduation from law school vary by type of work, as indicated by the following table: Private practice

$60,000

Business/industry (including publishing)

$50,000

Academe

$38,000

Judicial clerkship

$37,500

Government

$36,000

Public interest

$31,000

In general, publishing law is not listed among the highest-paying fields. Leaving a position in a big law firm to join a publishing house could mean a cut in pay. One lawyer working for Von Holtzbrinck, Henry Holt’s parent company, was not distressed at her lower salary. She had left a prestigious law firm and was happy with her new job doing work that was “more fun and diversified.” And she didn’t have to worry about the number of hours she was billing. “A contracts director without a law degree can probably make between $50,000 and $100,000 a year,” Nancy Zoole Kenney says, “depending upon the size of the publishing company.” According to the 2001 Association of American Publishers (AAP) Compensation Survey, average annual salaries for selected job titles are as follows:

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Top division finance executive Business manager Top rights executive

$150,700 $79,000 $112,200

Rights manager

$57,600

Royalty manager

$80,500

Royalty accountant

$41,500

Manager, copyrights and/or permissions

$69,000

Manager, contracts

$54,000

FIRSTHAND ACCOUNTS Nancy Zoole Kenney, Director of Contracts Nancy Zoole Kenney is director of contracts at Henry Holt and Company, a trade book publisher of both adult and children’s titles.

Getting Started

“I think that I probably wanted to be in publishing in general because I really wanted to be a writer, and I had the fantasy that if I hung around writers, something would rub off on me. “My first job in publishing was as assistant to the managing editor/acting editor-in-chief of McCall’s magazine. This was way back when McCall’s was still one of the top magazines for women. The daughter of some old friends of my parents had been a magazine editor, and I thought it all sounded terribly glamorous. When I was a senior in college, I consulted her about getting a job at a magazine, and it was she who suggested that I take a course at Katharine Gibbs and apply as an executive secretary. In those days, “editorial assistants” were a dime a dozen and were paid about $90 a week, but college graduates who could type and take dictation were in great demand. “In fact, I finished my Gibbs course on a Friday and started working at McCall’s the next Tuesday (that Monday was Memorial Day) at the grand salary of $110 per week. And so, with an unimpressive grade point average from Syracuse and virtually no prior office experience, I got my foot in the door of the publishing world. “After a year at McCall’s and a few false starts (for example, I spent some time in the advertising production department at Redbook magazine), I became the assistant to a literary agent (one of the very grand old ladies of the literary world), where I dug in and remained for three and a half years, learning the fundamentals of contract negotiation and the basics of subsidiary rights. After I realized that I was not particularly interested in becoming a literary agent

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myself, I made what could be considered a lateral move into the subsidiary rights department at Bantam Books. I refer to this as a lateral move, because I was still doing basically the same thing . . . but I was working on behalf of the publisher rather than the author. While my years with the agency gave me valuable insight into (and an appreciation of) the relationship between the author and agent, I must admit that I much preferred being on the publishing end of the business. “In 1973, Bantam was still considered primarily a ‘reprint’ house, by which I mean that many of our books were paperback reprint editions of works that had already been published in hardcover elsewhere; but Bantam had also begun to publish its share of noteworthy original fiction and nonfiction in paperback, so the subsidiary rights department was becoming increasingly active. It was there that I began to realize my affinity to contracts and began to channel my ‘creative writing’ skills into the preparation of customized licensing agreements. I remained in the subsidiary rights department for five years, at which time Bantam hired a new general counsel to run the legal/contracts department . . . one who believed that there was no such thing as a standard ‘fill-in-the-blanks’ acquisition agreement and that her assistants should be trained to prepare contracts from scratch. I asked for a transfer into her department. “During the next sixteen years, I wrote contracts and worked my way up to the head of the department, as Bantam grew in size and prominence and merged with Doubleday and Dell. In 1991, I became vice president and director of the combined BDD contracts department, and then in 1994, when I found myself writing fewer and fewer contracts and having to deal with more and more administrative and personnel issues, I left the company. For the next few years, I worked on a part-time basis as the contracts manager for two small publishing companies, and then in 1999, the new president and publisher of Henry Holt and Company was looking for an experienced contracts director, and my former colleagues at BDD suggested he call me.”

What the Job’s Really Like

“As director of contracts, I’m primarily responsible for the drafting of our acquisition agreements (in other words, contracts with authors and other publishers), including the negotiation of deal points (other than the basic terms; for example, I wouldn’t negotiate such things as the advance, delivery date, description of the work, etc.) and the transmittal of contractual information to the appropriate departments. I also oversee the preparation of licensing agreements in connection with the exercise of subsidiary rights. “As with most people in this business, my day varies depending upon the crisis of the moment and which author or agent is being the most insistent. Whether or not the job can be considered stressful depends upon the personality of the individual. The job is not suitable for a person who becomes agitated simply because there’s too much to do and too little time in which to do it. For the most part, there are few real emergencies, and overanxious agents, authors, and editors can be cajoled into calming down and waiting until you’re finished.

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The job can be boring at times, for example, when there’s nothing new to negotiate . . . when the agents ask the same old questions and want the same old alterations in the boilerplate. On the other hand, it never stays that way for long. “When I receive an official request for a contract, I prepare a first draft and send it to the author or his agent for review. If the agent has objections to provisions in our boilerplate contract, I’m usually able to determine which are reasonable or unreasonable and which can be worked out with some compromise language. If I don’t know an answer, I consult with the appropriate authority in that particular area. Part of being a good contracts manager is in knowing who is best able to give advice and who has the authority to make decisions in each area. “When all of the deal points have been worked out, I prepare final copies of the agreement for the author’s signature. When a contract has been signed by an author, I see that it is countersigned on behalf of the publisher and that any payment due the author is properly issued. As part of this, I convey to the accounting department any special provisions we have with that author, and I am responsible for updating that information as situations change (for example, if an author fires his agent). If anyone has a question regarding an aspect of the contract, it is up to me to render an interpretation. “If the original deal with the author changes, it falls to me to prepare an amendment to the contract. If a book is out of print and an author wants us to terminate our agreement with him, it is up to me to review the sales history and get a consensus as to whether it would be worth our while to have that title reissued. “At the moment, I am fortunate enough to have a manager of copyrights and permissions who has at least as much experience in the business as I have, but in the absence of such a person, I would be responsible for registering copyrights in all of the new books (and, in the old days, would have handled renewals) and handling all permissions requests. “I advise editors on such subjects as whether or not the author’s use of a quotation from someone else’s work requires permission; if a previously published work is still protected by copyright; how many advance installments are still payable to an author; what is the best royalty we can offer an author on sales of his book through nontraditional markets; how the sell-off of excess inventory is handled; and so forth. “A contracts director with a law degree would also be responsible for making sure that the manuscripts are legally acceptable. In large publishing companies, there may be a sufficient staff of lawyers so that this would be handled in-house. Otherwise, the lawyer/contracts director would be the one to hire an outside expert to read a manuscript for liability, accuracy, etc., and then to work with the author and the author’s editor to ensure that any changes recommended by the outside lawyer are properly made. “Likewise, if a claim is made against a book, the lawyer/contracts director will take the first stab at making it go away (usually via a flurry of correspon-

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dence) and then, as a last resort, will hire the outside law firm to handle the litigation. “A lawyer/contracts director might also be called upon to handle other legal matters for the publisher; such as the lease on the office space or the registration of a trademark, including the trademark search.”

Sara Goodman, Intellectual Property Specialist Sara Goodman is a solo practitioner concentrating in intellectual property law, publishing matters, contracts, copyright, libel, and defamation. She received her B.A. with honors in history from Rice University in Houston in 1978 and her J.D. with honors from New York University School of Law in New York City in 1982. She is a member of the New York and Florida bars.

Getting Started

“I decided to go to law school because, as corny or nostalgic as it may seem, my father had, from as long as I can remember, always told everyone that I was going to go to law school and follow in his footsteps. He was a unique and perhaps in some ways an anachronistic lawyer—a solo practitioner with a lot of sophisticated appellate work in a small city, educated at Harvard Law School in the 1930s, interested in helping his clients solve personal and professional problems, and, more often than not, not billing them for his services. This has become a repeated theme in my own life! “When I was very young, in the early 1960s, he argued a case before the U.S. Supreme Court—my whole family went down to hear the argument—and I remember being in awe of the pomp and ceremony at the court, of the respect given to the law and to the justices and to the entire court system. Interestingly, his opponent, who won the case, was a female attorney working for the New York Attorney General’s Office, and my father went out of his way to impress on me that being a girl would in no way stop me from being a successful lawyer. “He also had two to three women lawyers clerking for him over the years, and while these facts might seem insignificant now, they were not insignificant in the 1960s and early 1970s when female attorneys were still very few and very far between, particularly in small cities. “I worked in his office during summers when I was about twelve to fifteen, acting as a general office gopher and helper, and I was always introduced to people as his youngest child, the one who was going to go to law school. “In my senior year of college, my father learned he had advanced colon cancer and had only a few months to live. He wanted me to go to law school so badly; I remember him telling me just a few weeks before he died about some of the schools he thought I should consider. “In the end, I think the decision was influenced a lot by my emotions at the time, as well as an inability at that time in my life—I was only twenty-one—

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to figure out how to pursue other interests I had. Also, everyone I knew said something to the effect that going to law school would always be helpful ‘no matter what else you decided to do.’ I don’t know any lawyer who wasn’t told the same thing. Actually, that was good advice, but I wouldn’t repeat the advice now. Law school is too costly, too time-consuming, and too difficult to merely use as a stepping-stone to something else.”

What the Job’s Really Like

“When I was at Sullivan & Cromwell, a huge Wall Street firm with more than two hundred lawyers worldwide (this is the law firm hired by Bill Gates to defend Microsoft from antitrust attack by the U.S. Justice Department), the atmosphere was more formal and hierarchical, although I think S&C was more progressive and laid back than other firms of its kind. As a junior associate, I spent hours in the law library doing lots of legal research and drafting memos and briefs in cases for huge corporate clients mostly. I also spent a lot of time doing discovery and motion practice in big litigation matters—which meant I spent a lot of time reviewing reams of documents and deciding which ones had to be turned over to our clients’ adversaries. “After just a short stint at Sullivan & Cromwell, I knew that I didn’t want to stay in a big firm representing the largest corporations in America, and I knew I didn’t want to stay in litigation. The lawyers at the firm were so impressive, but their personal lives were so drained by the long, long hours. “I actually got into publishing law accidentally. During a period of time when I was particularly frustrated with the tortuous history and slow progress of the cases I was working on, I applied to a blind ad in my law school’s alumni job newsletter for an in-house counsel position at a publishing company. I had no idea where I was sending my resume, and I even had forgotten about the ad by the time I eventually got a call from the general counsel of Simon & Schuster. But after my initial interview was over, I knew I would really love working inhouse, doing publishing law. “At Simon & Schuster and later at Bantam Doubleday Dell, my in-house work was totally different than at S&C. I was on the ‘front line’ with my clients, helping them make practical decisions all day long and anticipating legal problems that I was able to help them avoid through careful planning. I worked on a lot of contracts and manuscripts. I also really liked working on books—they’re probably the nicest type of product I can think of working with, as opposed to something like widgets, soap, or toilet paper—not that we don’t need widgets, soap, and toilet paper! “I worked with a lot of interesting and famous authors—some of whom were really wonderful and some of whom were kind of a pain in the neck. Publishing is a very egocentric business. Only in Hollywood are the players more egocentric. “Now, in my own practice, which I would characterize as a ‘part-time’ practice at this point in time, I do a lot of the same things that I did in-house, because

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I prefer to stay away from litigation matters (referring them to others) and taking things on that for the most part help people avoid legal problems with others. “I represent writers and publishers who want help with their publishing contracts or their collaboration or work-for-hire agreements. I help authors plan ahead of time if they are taking on a project that will necessarily raise lots of legal flags. “I sometimes represent my former employer, Bantam Doubleday Dell, on a freelance basis, helping their legal department with their overflow of manuscript reviews. This means that I read a book before it gets published and work with the author and editor to help ensure that the publisher and author do not get any successful legal claims against them on publication—for example, claims for libel, invasion of privacy, and copyright infringement mostly. “I like the area of law that I practice in a lot. I also like helping people solve problems in connection with something that matters to them. Unlike most attorneys I know, I honestly think that the law—at least intellectual property law— is fascinating. This area of the law has also taken on new significance in light of the Internet. People generally understand today, for example, that copyright is a live issue that can affect them every day, at least in their businesses. “What I like least is the billing of clients—I hate keeping track of my time, and I find it difficult to bill clients for all of my time. I just want to do a really good job for people even if it takes a lot of time that I don’t want to charge the client for. I really disliked this aspect of lawyering when I was an associate in a large law firm.”

Advice

“The litigation system is mind-boggling to most laypeople—it’s extremely expensive, it’s extremely time-consuming, we have so few really outstanding judges, and, unfortunately, the really frivolous cases give many good lawyers an undeserved bad reputation. I tell everyone I know that ‘if you’re in court, you’re in trouble,’ and this is true no matter what the case is about and no matter what side you’re on. “Certainly anyone who is happy and content with his current career should not seek out a law degree simply to improve his economic standing—it’s a circuitous and very unsteady path. “I think the most important qualities you need to be a good lawyer are integrity and compassion—and it also definitely helps to be an excellent writer.”

SELF-PUBLISHING

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“No author is a man of genius to his publisher.”—Heinrich Heine

Currently there are approximately 700,000 books in print. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 60,000 books are printed annually in the United States. That’s more than 160 different titles a day! How many of those are self-published? It’s hard to say. We only really hear about the ones that make a splash. The Joy of Sex, The Celestine Prophecy, The Christmas Box, Chicken Soup for the Soul, and What Color Is Your Parachute? are all bestselling books—and they were all originally self-published. That’s five. True, these aren’t the only five. Tarzan author Edgar Rice Burroughs selfpublished. So did Mark Twain, Zane Grey, Stephen Crane, Virginia Woolf, Edgar Allen Poe, and James Joyce. They took their work to a printer and brought home cartons full of books. But those were different times. Self-publishing is risky business. Only a handful of books make it; all the others can end up suffering from the same sort of stigma that attaches itself to subsidy and cooperative publishing ventures. (See Chapter 1.) Stigma aside, most self-published books end up collecting cobwebs in garages, basements, and spare rooms. Can it ever work? Yes. In some situations. It can work if you’re an expert on a particular subject, if you’re writing nonfiction (self-published fiction is notoriously hard to impossible to sell), and if you know who your readers will be and how to reach them.

IS SELF-PUBLISHING FOR YOU? “It depends,” says Mark Ortman, author of A Simple Guide to Self-Publishing and director of the online Self-Publishing Resource Center (wiseowlbooks.com/ publish). 138

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“To help you decide,” says Ortman, “answer the following five questions: “1. What is my motivation and purpose for publishing my book? Writing a book is a lot of work. Publishing one is even more work. Is your purpose clear and well enough conceived to sustain you through the experience? If profit is a motive, this venture must be treated as a business. Keep your purpose clear! “2. Is my book written for a specific market niche or group of people? It is more expensive to promote a book to a wide, general audience. Marketing costs are less when the target audience is specific, definable, and accessible. “3. Do I have a way to sell books direct? Selling books direct (at retail price to your target audience) is the most profitable way to recover your initial selfpublishing investment. The standard heavy discounts to wholesalers and bookstores can be costly for slow-moving books. In fact, without a solid marketing plan, selling books to bookstores can be the least profitable way to distribute your book. Think of alternative ways to distribute your book: organizations, associations, corporations, conventions, fund-raisers, back-of-the-room sales after lectures or workshops, to list a few. “4. Am I willing to go out and promote my book? A general rule for authors: a book stops selling when the author does. No matter who publishes your book, the author is responsible for creating the demand. A book will not sell well sitting on a bookstore’s shelf unless interest is created in the book. Typically, from start to finish, a writer will spend 10 percent of his or her time writing the book, 15 percent publishing it, and 75 percent marketing and promoting the finished book. “5. Can I sell at least five hundred copies? Beyond friends and family, who will be interested in your book? It is important to know your market and how to reach those people before investing in self-publishing. If profit is your motive, the initial cost of producing and printing (fewer than five hundred copies) may be higher than a realistic retail price. Of course, the more you print, the less they cost. However, that decision must be weighed against the possibility of many unsold books sitting in your garage. The fact is that 95 percent of all books published sell fewer than 7,500 copies. Most self-publishers initially print five hundred to three thousand copies. Develop a solid marketing plan to give you a more accurate estimate of how many books may sell.” Your answers to the previous questions should help you determine if selfpublishing is a viable option. The next step is to read books on this subject before you make a final decision.

THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO SELF-PUBLISHING One book, The Complete Guide to Self-Publishing, by Tom and Marilyn Ross is a must for anyone considering self-publishing. It is not self-published. It is published by Writer’s Digest Books. That aside, The Complete Guide to Self-

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Publishing covers everything you need to know to write, publish, promote, and sell your own book. The authors are the gurus on the subject of self-publishing. Their bio states: “After self-publishing six books, Tom and Marilyn Ross began giving nationwide writing and publishing seminars to share what they had learned about the process. A flood of requests for individual guidance led to the creation of their consulting service. . . . “In the eighties they decided to put their knowledge in print to be made available to even larger numbers than they could personally reach.” The Rosses have generously allowed the reprinting of their article, called “Self-Publish Your Own Book and Keep All the Profits!” for this book. It shows the can-do side of self-publishing. “Self-Publish Your Own Book and Keep All the Profits!” by Marilyn and Tom Ross

How does a person bridge the enormous gap between a manuscript and a book? There are three options: trade (commercial) publishing, subsidy (vanity) publishing, or self-publishing. Commercial publishers are the so-called giants in the industry. Unfortunately, they’re so big they no longer hear the voice of the little person. Continuing corporate mergers and takeovers compound the problem. Unless you are famous (or infamous), your manuscript has little chance of making it through the corporate front door. And even if it does, this can be more of a curse than a blessing. Trade publishers typically offer a $2,000 to $10,000 advance against royalties. Yet industry statistics show that only one in ten books ever earns back that advance. That’s a 90 percent failure rate! It means you’re unlikely to ever get any more than that paltry initial payment. Those who sign with commercial houses have no guarantee their book will be properly presented to the public. A disproportionate chunk of advertising dollars is spent on authors with established track records or well-known names. We hear many horror stories about authors who make media appearances to promote their work . . . yet customers can’t find their books in bookstores. In desperation, many novices turn to subsidy (vanity) presses. Beware! Here the ink hits the paper only when the author underwrites the cost of the entire venture. But despite the investment, the author is expected to sign away all rights and receives only a partial royalty in return. Plus the vanity publisher’s name on your book stigmatizes it, causing it to be shunned by important reviewers. Last, marketing efforts by vanity houses are dismal to nonexistent.

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Self-publishing is a viable option for many. This “do-it-byyourself” method places you in complete control of the entire process. Critical decisions concerning the title, cover design, content, marketing, and distribution are made by you—not by some executive sitting in a remote New York office. Yes, you invest in your project. Done properly, however, this is a prudent investment in your future. In the past ten years, overall quality in the industry has skyrocketed. Well-edited manuscripts, eye-catching covers, and hightech marketing techniques are the norm. Privately published titles typically command respect—and profits—for their authors. We know that many busy professionals want to control their destinies—but they don’t have time to handle the myriad details involved. To meet this need, About Books, Inc. [editor’s note: About Books, Inc., is the name of the Rosses’ consulting business] offers a turnkey service to oversee the entire editing, design, printing, and marketing process. Here’s the approach many savvy people are taking today: they self-publish initially and promote their book to success. Then they leverage this successful track record by “allowing” a trade publisher to buy the rights to their proven product. This way they have the clout to command a higher advance and can negotiate more favorable terms. By removing the risk for the commercial publisher, you put yourself in a more powerful position. Success can be yours. Self-publishing your book is often the profitable alternative. Many dramatic success stories have left their imprint on the entire self-publishing movement. Such was the case of Louise Hay, author of a phenomenally successful line of books, who chose self-publishing to launch her works. She began with a forty-eight-page staple-bound edition of Heal Your Body; her second venture, You Can Heal Your Life, captured the number nine spot on the trade paperback bestseller list for 1988! Her books and resulting tapes and seminars have helped hundreds of thousands to discover the pathway to well-being. And they’ve helped Louise to wealth. Consider the example of self-publisher Ted Nicholas. His How to Form Your Own Corporation Without a Lawyer for Under $50 started its journey with $5,000 borrowed from a life insurance policy. The result? Over 800,000 copies sold to date. Entrepreneurs of America, a service for independent businesspeople, is just one of his latest spin-offs. Capitalizing on his direct-mail wizardry, Nicholas recently published The Golden Mailbox, a how-to guide for selling books through the mail. The classic career counseling handbook What Color Is Your Parachute? began its climb to bestsellerdom as a self-published

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title. Author and clergyman Richard Nelson Bolles eventually sold it to Ten Speed Press, where the book continues to move at a rate of 300,000 copies a year. The total number of copies sold so far is over five million! Another author to join the ranks of the elite with several million books sold is Peter McWilliams. This self-publishing all-star has written on amazing topics. Starting with poetry and transcendental meditation, he quickly moved into the exploding computer market with The Personal Computer Book. McWilliams’s latest title, You Can’t Afford the Luxury of a Negative Thought, is representative of his popular self-help style. These dramatic success stories have left their imprint on the entire self-publishing movement. Today, more and more people are deciding to publish their own books and keep all the profit!

THE OTHER SIDE So far, you’ve been getting a positive perspective—honest, but perhaps overly optimistic. In fact, very few books make money; even fewer are taken up by traditional publishers; hardly any go on to be well known. Although Richard Paul Evans’s The Christmas Box is a success story—his book made history as the only self-published novel to hit number one on the New York Times bestseller list—he cautions would-be self-publishers. In an interview with author Carolyn Campbell, Evans says, “Don’t start by considering self-publishing. Becoming self-published is not the easy way to become a published book author, but it is sometimes the only way. In studying selfpublishing, you will see both history and the law of chance aren’t on your side. When I decided to self-publish The Christmas Box, no publisher wanted it, yet I sensed that readers wanted it very much. I would definitely begin by submitting the book to traditional publishers through an agent rather than trying to send it to publishers directly.” Be wary of the people who would tell you otherwise. It is fine to use a consulting service, just make sure they don’t encourage every project that comes their way. Those who want to collect their commissions, knowing full well your project will never leave the garage, are doing you a disservice. Be wary of vanity presses, too. Vanity presses are so-called because they do cater to a new writer’s strong desire to see his or her work between the covers of a book. They are no more than subsidy presses, taking the writers’ money and printing books but not selling or distributing them—and in many cases keeping a percentage of the profits. Look around to get an honest and unbiased opinion of your work and its marketability. If you’ve submitted your work to major publishers or agents already and they’ve turned it down, reread the rejection letters. The clues might be there. If they don’t think they can sell the book, chances are you won’t be able to either.

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But, if you can reach a target audience they can’t, then you might have a shot. Ultimately, if you choose to self-publish, learn what’s involved and what steps to take. This way you’ll save yourself a lot of money and frustration. The Rosses have also contributed the following article: “Eleven Tips to Avoid Self-Publishing Traps” Self-publishing used to be the Rodney Dangerfield of book publishing. It didn’t get “no respect.” Today that’s all changed. With originally self-published books such as The Celestine Prophecy, Mutant Message Down Under, The Christmas Box, and What Color Is Your Parachute? monopolizing bestseller lists, do-ityourself publishing is very much in vogue. To be successful, however, it’s mandatory that you adhere to certain guidelines. By following the tips below, you’ll avoid the pitfalls and enhance your chances of flourishing. 1. Educate yourself. Self-publishing is a business. Approach it as such. There are informative books on the subject, seminars offered, and associations where you can learn the ropes and network with the more experienced. This can be very lucrative if properly approached. Conversely, you can waste thousands of dollars by blundering along without knowledge or a plan. 2. Study the competition. Don’t add more to a subject that’s already glutted. Be sure the topic hasn’t been overdone. Just checking a local library or bookstore is not adequate research. Look in Books in Print Subject Guide and Forthcoming Books in Print Subject Guide. You’ll be amazed at how many books there are on the topic. Yours must be better than what’s already available. Make it shorter, longer, easier to use, more informative, funnier, richer in content, or better organized. For fiction, try to tie into a hot topic so you have a “hook” for publicity. 3. Write what other people want. Catering to your personal desires often makes for lackluster books nobody buys. The fact is, few care about your life history or your deep-felt opinions. Personal journals and impassioned tirades are best saved for family and friends, not foisted upon the general public. 4. Think “marketing” from the very beginning. The time to generate marketing ideas is before you write the book, not after you have three thousand copies in your garage. Identify and target your market. How can you reach them? Start folders of ideas: what catalogs might be interested, which associations reach your potential readers, what magazines and newsletters are relevant? Can you sell the book as a premium to companies that would give it away as a gift to entice new customers or would use it internally for training? Think about who else reaches your potential customer and how you can partner with them. Do you have

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contacts who have national name recognition and might write an advance endorsement? 5. Get professional editing. No, we repeat, no author should edit or proofread his or her own work. You’ll miss the forest for the trees, overlooking things that are obvious to you but unclear to your reader. And it’s so easy to pass by the same typo time after time. 6. Create a snappy title. The right title can make a book, just like an uninspired one can be a death peal. Short is best. While clever is nice, don’t sacrifice clarity. For nonfiction, be sure to include a subtitle as it gives you extra mileage in helping readers know what the book is about. 7. Include all the vital components. Just as a cake falls flat if you don’t add the right ingredients, so do books. Yours needs an ISBN, LCCN, EAN Bookland Scanning Symbol, subject categories on the back cover, etc. (If you don’t know what these are, refer back to #1!) 8. Have a dynamite cover. The cover is your book’s salesperson in bookstores. Get it designed by a professional who understands cover design . . . not just somebody who does nice logos or pretty brochures. You have enormous competition—and a wonderful opportunity to stand out. 9. Make the interior inviting. Go to a bookstore and study the insides of books. Find one with clean, “user-friendly” pages. Use this as your model. It may not make sense to purchase and learn typesetting software if you’re only doing one book, however. In that case, consider hiring an outside vendor. 10. Use a book manufacturer for printing. Don’t expect your corner print shop to have the knowledge or technical capabilities to turn out a quality book. Book manufacturers specialize in this type of printing and can save you enormous grief and considerable money. 11. Publicize, promote, publicize, promote. Eat, sleep, and talk your book. Nobody cares about it as much as you do. Ongoing, enthusiastic marketing is the real key to success. Never quit. Keep your antenna out for new review opportunities, freelancers who write articles on your topic, etc. We have books that have been in print since 1979 because we’re tireless promoters.

THE FINANCES INVOLVED Every project is different, and costs (and profits and losses) will vary greatly. Self-publisher Victoria Harnish Benson, profiled later in this chapter, reveals some of her expenses for the book she self-published:

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Editing fee (I was able to have an editor friend give me a discount):

$200

Typesetting and cover work (adapted from my own design):

$320

Printing and shipping costs for 500 books:

$2,188

Total cost for 500 books:

$2,708

Cover price per book:

$14.95

Cost per book ($2,708 divided by 500):

$5.42

Net profit per book:

$9.53

“We set the cover price of each book at $14.95, which is standard for a trade paperback of two hundred pages. Deducting the per-book cost of $5.42 leaves us with a potential profit of $9.53 per book sold at full price. Multiply that by five hundred books, and the potential income is $4,765 net. “However, self-publishers, like traditional publishers, do not sell all their books at cover price. Heavy discounts (anywhere from 30 to 55 percent) are taken by bookstores and distributors. Many copies are given away to media reviewers, friends, and family, and discounts of all types are given to any number of other groups or individuals. You, as the publisher, may set any price for any individual book you sell. “We have given away about seventy books, and about one hundred and forty were sold at an average 40 percent discount to bookstores, museums, and a Latvian organization for resale. “Our gross income from the full and discounted price of 480 books was about $5,100. After deducting the publishing costs of $2,700, our net income, or profit, on these sales was approximately $2,400. This is a highly satisfactory sum for us to collect in royalties in one year of sales. “Remember, you will spend additional funds on promoting and marketing your book. This amount can be as small or as large as meets your purposes, and some of these expenses can be considered business expenses and deducted. “Check with your state to see if there is a requirement for you to buy a business license to market your self-published book. You then must file the appropriate tax returns for your business . . . another factor to consider in deciding whether to self-publish.” Costs will vary depending on the number of pages your book has, whether you use color or black-and-white illustrations, whether you use a four-color cover, how many copies you print, and where you get the books printed. Generally speaking, it’s less expensive to use printers in the northern part of the country—that’s where most of the trees are—but the shipping costs could be more, depending on where you live. Other expenses include postage, mailers, labels, long-distance phone calls to promote your book, advertisements, and office supplies.

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DISTRIBUTION Some bookstores will take small-press books (and self-published books fall into that category); others will not. The bookstores’ main concern is whether the book sells. Visits to local bookstores can result in outright purchases or a consignment arrangement. While there, offer to sit for a book signing. For wider distribution, consider distributors and wholesalers. Investigate what Ingrams, Baker & Taylor, and the like can offer. Appendix C has a list of distributors and their websites. If you do distribute your books to bookstores, be prepared to take a 40 to 55 percent discount off the cover price of all books sold to them. Although the amount of your profit is reduced, you have the chance to sell more books. Victoria Benson says, “Research your market, the shelf life of a first-time author’s book, and any other factors relevant to your book before setting up distribution. I know an author who has seen a large success in using a publicist and a distributor for his self-published book. The subject matter of his work is of interest to a large segment of Americans, and he wisely took that into consideration before making his decision. Because my book appeals to a smaller market, I chose not to undertake such a large expenditure.”

FIRSTHAND ACCOUNT Victoria Harnish Benson, Author and Self-Publisher Victoria Harnish Benson is the coauthor of To No Man’s Glory: A Child’s Journey from Holocaust to Healing, a book she wrote with her husband. It’s her husband’s true story about his childhood as an orphan in Latvia. She started writing the book in 1997, then published and sold it in 2000 and 2001. To do so, she formed the Silver Dove Publishing Company. Benson earned her B.A. in English literature from the University of Colorado-Boulder in 1969. She currently lives in Oregon. Getting Started

“I decided to self-publish for several reasons: 1. I wanted this book to be available as a finished product sooner than traditional publishing would allow. Because it is my husband’s true story, I wanted his grown children to have it right away. There were also many of our friends who were interested in reading it, and many of them are elderly. The time it takes to send queries, send manuscripts, receive rejections, get an acceptance, and then actually publish can stretch out for two years or more. I was not that patient in this case. 2. We purchased the copyright and an ISBN so that any bookstore can order our book for a customer who requests it, and we are in charge of negotiating our discounts. I didn’t feel we needed a publisher for these services.

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3. The major burden of marketing and promotion of this type of book would fall into our laps even if it were traditionally published, so it was no more work for us to self-publish. Because we keep all the royalties, which are about 65 percent of the cover price, we feel that our profit more than compensates for the smaller arena of exposure. 4. Our book crosses genres, falling in both historical and spiritual categories, which sends publishers into a tizzy. They didn’t have a prefab niche for our book, so it wasn’t going to easily find a home with one of them. “Once I decided to self-publish, I went to my local library and read some of the more popular books on self-publishing. Then I took an online course in prepublishing. These are invaluable sources to learn about the nitty-gritty details of self-publishing. Rather than attempting to persuade you to self-publish, they present the facts, the hard work, and the commitment involved in the entire process, from preparing your manuscript for publishing to marketing and promoting your published work.”

What Self-Publishing Is Really Like

“Self-publishing one book would not be considered a regular job or career. However, if one is serious about making a profit on that book, it will be a fulltime job for a good six months to a year of manuscript preparation and publishing, then marketing and promoting the book. There is a timetable to follow, and there are steps to take. “After making the decision to self-publish, I hired a professional editor to go over my manuscript, something all writers ought to do. At least one more rewrite followed, then I hired a typesetter to prepare the entire book, cover to cover, in camera-ready format for the printer. At this point I made the decision not to buy galleys of my book for reviewers. I didn’t feel that my book would reach the number of readers that would make the cost of galleys reasonable. Also, I chose not to hire a publicist, nor to hire a distributor. “If you have a desire to do either of these things, you need to follow a publication release schedule that allows several months’ notice to these people for them to get word out to bookstores, reviewers, and media before publication. Because I opted not to go that route, my publishing date was moved up to the immediate future. I then requested quotes from various short-run printers (also called on-demand printers) whom I located online. After comparing their perbook costs, I selected one and placed my order for five hundred books. “As soon as I ordered my books from the printer and knew what the cost per book would be, I began advertising for discounted presales to my friends. I also contacted various organizations and museums interested in Latvian history or Holocaust survivor stories. I set up a web page specifically for this book, with a sample chapter to be offered each month. By the time my books arrived a few weeks later, I had collected enough money in presales to cover the printing cost. More sales covered the editing and typesetting costs, and nearly 50 percent of my total sales income has been profit.”

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Upsides and Downsides “What I enjoyed most about self-publishing was my total involvement in what became of my book. I didn’t have to wait to find a publisher who liked it, and then wait while their bureaucratic policies ate up precious time before seeing my book in print. I love learning and putting what I learn to use, and this was a rewarding challenge. “I kept copious notes on my computer, dated and saved to both hard drive and floppy disk with zip disk backup. Nothing ruins recordkeeping like a harddrive crash. “Additionally, I was able to design my own book cover, choose my title, and make all decisions concerning the presentation of the contents. Call it control if you prefer, but it was most satisfying. “Perhaps the least enjoyable part was the physical work of mailing books— the grunt work. All books mailed from my house were autographed by both my husband and myself. Some were personally inscribed as well. I wrapped each order in bubble wrap, placed it inside a mailing envelope or a box, then drove a carload to the post office. “When my books first arrived, I had about a hundred of them to mail at once, and it seemed I was wrapping books for days. Yet there was a degree of satisfaction even in that, knowing that someone was going to be reading my book and a message would be spread somewhere new.”

The Future

“This is the only book I have planned to self-publish. I now have an agent who is representing me for this book, and I hope to turn over all the publishing details to someone else. I imagine I’ll have to do much of the promotion myself, as I did when I first published it, but that’s part of the fun. “I didn’t make the decision not to self-publish again because the effort was not profitable. On the contrary; I believe it was highly successful in that I exceeded my expectations in sales and the book received high praise. But the commitment in time spent on the business end kept me from doing the writing that I wanted to do. That’s my main reason not to do it again in the near future. But I still have a block of ISBNs and a company name, so I don’t rule out the possibility at some later date.”

Advice

“Believe in your work, have a message to tell, tell it well, then have it professionally edited. This should be done even if you are submitting it to an agent or publisher. “Research the requirements for self-publishing before making a decision. It’s not for everyone. You must be willing to dig in to the business side of the project after finishing the creative side. Do you enjoy running a business? If not, this will not appeal to you. “And if you still wish to self-publish? In that case, I hope you have a friend or family member who is dying to help you run your business free of charge!

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“Are you shy? Are you willing to contact strangers in order to promote your book? Can you write jacket material for your book? Can you summarize your book in one sentence? These are the tasks that are normally handled by your publisher, and in this case, that means you. If you don’t feel comfortable writing your own promotional material, can you afford to hire someone? “Make sure your book follows the same guidelines and requirements for marketability as would any other published work. Would you buy your book if you saw it on a shelf? Compare how you envision your book with other published books. Can it compete? Check your final proof from the printer in the same way. “Order as many books as you can reasonably expect to sell. You don’t want a garage full of books you will never sell. You might start with a few hundred and order more if you need them. Estimate how many books you will need to sell to cover your costs of publishing. Then you will have an idea what your profit can be, realistically considering giveaways and discounts. “Be willing to give up most of your writing time to market and promote your self-published book for at least six months. Fill orders promptly and politely with a thank you. Autographed copies are a nice touch. Network your book like crazy. Mention it in conversations. My husband used to be shy about his past, and now he tells everyone he meets that he survived the Holocaust and has a book about the experience. You’d be surprised how many people ask to buy his book right then and there. I spend a good deal of time online, and I mention our book in writers’ chats and in E-mail, and I’ve been a guest speaker in several chats. “I even contacted local radio stations and our newspaper, and to our surprise, the title of our book made the headlines of our city paper! Take advantage of small publishing associations, writers’ associations, and writers’ conferences. They are all opportunities to market your book. “Set aside a few dozen complimentary copies for organizations interested in your topic, book reviewers, even interviewers. Many online book reviewers will publish a review of your book if you send them a complimentary copy. Reach for the stars and send them to radio and TV personalities. You can assemble press packages to send to the media. Many how-to books on self-publishing will outline these points for you. “Most of all, have a commitment to your project. You can’t sell something you aren’t 100 percent proud of.”

PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS

A Most professional associations provide career information, and many offer joblocating services. A letter, an E-mail, or a visit to a website will bring you in contact with a wealth of leads in your areas of interest. The following is just a sampling of key associations. Your own Internet search will bring you hundreds more: Books American Booksellers Association Information Service Center 828 South Broadway Tarrytown, NY 10591 [email protected] ambook.org American Society of Business Publication Editors 710 East Ogden Avenue, Suite 600 Naperville, IL 60563 asbpe.org Association of American Publishers (AAP) 50 F Street NW, Fourth Floor Washington, DC 20001 publishers.org

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Association of American University Presses (AAUP) 71 West Twenty-third Street, Suite 901 New York, NY 10010 http://aaup.princeton.edu The Association of Authors’ Representatives, Inc. (AAR) P.O. Box 237201 Ansonia Station New York, NY 10003 publishersweekly.com/aar The Audio Publishers Association 627 Aviation Way Manhattan Beach, CA 90266 audiopub.org Electronic Publishing Coalition P.O. Box 35 Ellsworth, ME 04605 epccentral.org/members.html National Association of Independent Publishers P.O. Box 430 Highland City, FL 33846-0430 [email protected] http://lcweb.loc.gov/loc/cfbook/coborg/nai.html National Association of Independent Publishers Representatives 111 East Fourteenth Street New York, NY 10003 naipr.org Publishers Marketing Association 627 Aviation Way Manhattan Beach, CA 90266 pma-online.org Publishers Weekly 245 West Seventeenth Street, Sixth Floor New York, NY 10011 publishersweekly.com Small Publishers Association of North America (SPAN) P.O. Box 1306 425 Cedar Street Buena Vista, CO 81211 spannet.org

Appendix A

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Society of National Association Publications 1150 Connecticut Avenue NW, Suite 1050 Washington, DC 20036 snaponline.org Offers seminars and resource networks, publications, and job listings Event Planning, Promotion, Advertising, Sales, and Marketing American Advertising Federation 1101 Vermont Avenue NW, Suite 500 Washington, DC 20005-6306 aaf.org American Association of Advertising Agencies 405 Lexington Avenue, Eighteenth Floor New York, NY 10174-1801 aaaa.org American Marketing Association 311 South Wacker Drive, Suite 5800 Chicago, IL 60606 ama.org Association of National Advertisers 708 Third Avenue New York, NY 10017-4270 ana.net Meeting Professionals International (MPI) 4455 LBJ Freeway, Suite 1200 Dallas, TX 75244-5903 mpiweb.org National Association of Sales Professionals (NASP) 8300 North Hayden Road, Suite 207 Scottsdale, AZ 85258 http://216.119.96.39/index.html Point of Purchase Advertising Institute 1600 L Street NW, Tenth Floor Washington, DC 20036 popai.com

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Public Relations Society of America 33 Irving Place New York, NY 10003-2376 prsa.org Sales and Marketing Executives International P.O. Box 1390 Sumas, WA 98295-1390 smei.org Magazines Council of Literary Magazines and Presses [email protected] litline.org/html/clmp.html Magazine Publishers of America 919 Third Avenue New York, NY 10022 1211 Connecticut Avenue NW Washington, DC 20036 http://publishing.about.com/business/publishing/msub1a.htm Society of National Association Publications 1595 Spring Hill Road, Suite 330 Vienna, VA 22182 snaponline.org Publications owned or operated by professional associations and societies For magazine jobs http://publishing.about.com/business/publishing/msubmagazinejobs.htm Newspapers and Newsletters American Society of Media Photographers 150 North Second Street Philadelphia, PA 19106 asmp.org American Society of Newspaper Editors P.O. Box 4090 Reston, VA 22090-1700 asne.org

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The Dow Jones Newspaper Fund, Inc. P.O. Box 300 Princeton, NJ 08543-0300 dowjones.com International Newspaper Marketing Association (INMA) 10300 North Central Expressway, Suite 467 Dallas, TX 75231 inma.org A nonprofit association dedicated to the promotion of advanced marketing principles within the newspaper industry National Press Photographers Association (NPPA) 3200 Cloasdaile Drive, Suite 306 Durham, NC 27705 http://metalab.unc.edu/nppa nppa.org Newsletter & Electronic Publishers Association 1501 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 509 Arlington, VA 22209 newsletters.org Newspaper Association of America 1921 Gallows Road, Suite 600 Vienna, VA 22182 naa.org The Newspaper Guild 501 Third Street NW, Suite 250 Washington, DC 20001 newsguild.org Production The Graphic Arts Technical Foundation 200 Deer Run Road Sewickley, PA 15143 gatf.org Graphic Communications Council 1899 Preston White Drive Reston, VA 20191 npes.org/edcouncil/index.htm

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Graphic Communications International Union 1900 L Street NW Washington, DC 20036 gciu.org Printing Industries of America, Inc. (PIA) 100 Daingerfield Road Alexandria, VA 22314 printing.org Publishing Law Information on law schools and a career in law may be obtained from the following: American Bar Association 750 North Lake Shore Drive Chicago, IL 60611 abanet.org Information on the LSAT, the Law School Data Assembly Service, applying to law school, and financial aid for law students may be obtained from the following: Law School Admission Council P.O. Box 40 Newtown, PA 18940 lsac.org Writers American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) 1200 New York Avenue NW Washington, DC 20005 aaas.org For information on technical writing American Medical Writers’ Association (AMWA) 9650 Rockville Pike Bethesda, MD 20814 [email protected] amwa.org American Society of Journalists and Authors 1501 Broadway, Suite 302 New York, NY 10036 asja.org

Appendix A

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American Translators Association (ATA) 1800 Diagonal Road, Suite 220 Alexandria, VA 22314 atanet.org Association for Business Communication (ABC) Box G-1326, Baruch College 17 Lexington Avenue New York, NY 10010 [email protected] theabc.org Association for Computing Machinery’s Special Interest Group on Documentation (ACM/SIGDOC) 1515 Broadway, Seventeenth Floor New York, NY 10036 acm.org/sigdoc Association for Educational Communications and Technology 1025 Vermont Avenue NW, Suite 820 Washington, DC 20005 aect.org Association for Women in Communications (AWC) 780 Ritchie Highway, Suite 28-S Severna Park, MD 21146 womcom.org Association of Teachers of Technical Writing (ATTW) Department of Rhetoric and Writing Studies San Diego State University San Diego, CA 92182-4452 http://rhet.agri.umn.edu/~tcq Authors Guild, Inc. 31 East Twenty-eighth Street, Tenth Floor New York, NY 10016 authorsguild.org Copywriter’s Council of America Communications Building 102 Seven Putter Lane Middle Island, NY 11953

Professional Associations

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Council for Programs in Technical and Scientific Communication (CPTSC) New Mexico State University English Department, Box 3E Las Cruces, NM 88003 Council for the Advancement of Science Writing Abbotts Building, Room 100 Philadelphia, PA 19104 Council of Biology Editors (CBE) 60 Revere Drive, Number 500 Northbrook, IL 60062 Editorial Freelancers Association (EFA) 71 West Twenty-third Street New York, NY 10010 Education Writers Association 1331 H Street NW, Number 307 Washington, DC 20005 ewa.org Fiction Writer’s Connection (FWC) P.O. Box 72300 Albuquerque, NM 87195 [email protected] fictionwriters.com Freelance Editorial Association P.O. Box 835 Cambridge, MA 02238 Health Sciences Communications Association 6728 Old McLean Village Drive McLean, VA 22101 IEEE Professional Communication Group 345 East Forty-seventh Street New York, NY 10017

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Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ Professional Communication Society (IEEE/PCS) IEEE Operations Center, Admission and Advancement Department 445 Hoes Lane P.O. Box 459 Piscataway, NJ 08855-0459 ieee.org/society/pcs National Association of Agricultural Journalists c/o Audrey Mackiewitz 312 Valley View Drive Huron, OH 44839 National Association of Black Journalists P.O. Box 17212 Washington, DC 20041 National Association of Government Communicators 609 South Washington Street Alexandria, VA 22314 nagc.com National Association of Hispanic Journalists National Press Building Washington, DC 20045 National Association of Science Writers P.O. Box 294 Greenlawn, NY 11740 http://nasw.org National Conference of Editorial Writers 6223 Executive Boulevard Rockville, MD 20852 National Federation of Press Women P.O. Box 99 Blue Springs, MO 64013 National Writer’s Union National Office East 113 University Place, Sixth Floor New York, NY 10003 [email protected] nwu.org

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National Writer’s Union National Office West 337 Seventeenth Street, Number 101 Oakland, CA 94612 [email protected] E-mail for Job Hotline: [email protected] nwu.org Science Fiction Writers of America Five Winding Brook Drive, Number Eighteen Guilderland, NY 12084 sfwa.org Society for Technical Communication, Inc. 901 North Stuart Street, Suite 904 Arlington, VA 22203 stc-va.org Society of American Travel Writers 1155 Connecticut Avenue, Suite 500 Washington, DC 20006 Writers Guild of America (WGA) East, Inc. 555 West Fifty-seventh Street New York, NY 10019 wgaeast.org Writers Guild of America (WGA) West, Inc. 8955 Beverly Boulevard West Hollywood, CA 90048 wga.org Canadian and International Associations for Writers The Association of Canadian Publishers 110 Eglinton Avenue W, Suite 401 Toronto, ON M4R 1A3 Canada [email protected] publishers.ca Canadian Authors Association 275 Slater Street, Suite 500 Ottawa, ON K1P 5H9 Canada

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Canadian Magazine Publishers Association 130 Spadina Avenue, Suite 202 Toronto, ON M5V 2L4 Canada cmpa.ca Canadian Publishers’ Council 250 Merton Street, Suite 203 Toronto, ON M4S 1B1 pubcouncil.ca Societe Quebecoise de la Redaction Professionelle (SQRP) (Canada) C.P. 126 Succursale Roxboro Roxboro, Quebec H8Y 3ES Canada Writers Union of Canada 24 Ryerson Avenue Toronto, ON M5R 2G3 Canada Australia Society for Technical Communication (ASTC) (Australia) 68 Holmes Road Moonee Ponds Victoria Australia 3039 +61-3365-2272 vicnet.net.au/~astc Conseil des Redacteurs Techniques (CRT) (France) 5, Villa des Carrieres F-94120 Fontenay-sous-Bois France http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/bardez_cristina DANTEKOM (Denmark) P.O. Box 146 DK-3600 Frederikssund Denmark [email protected]

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Foreningen Teknisk Information (FTI) (Sweden) Skansgatan 19 S-27231 Simrishamn Sweden nts.mh.se/~fti/FTI-intr.htm Gesellschaft fuer Technische Kommunikation (TEKOM) (Germany) Markelstrasse 34 D-70193 Stuttgart Germany tekom.de Gesellschaft fur Technische Kommunikation Schweize (TECOM Schweiz) (Switzerland) Kirchbergstrasse 30 CH-5024 Kuttigen Switzerland Institute of Scientific and Technical Communicators (ISTC) (United Kingdom) Blackhorse Road Letchworth Herts SG6 1YY England istc.org.uk International Association of Audiovisual Communicators (IAAVC) 9531 Jamacha Boulevard, Number 263 Spring Valley, CA 91977 cindys.com International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) One Hallidie Plaza, Number 600 San Francisco, CA 94102 iabc.com International Communication Association (ICA) P.O. Box 9589 Austin, TX 78766-9589 [email protected]

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International Council for Technical Communication 106 South Airmont Road Suffern, NY 10901-7731 nts.mh.se/~fti/Intecom.htm International Interactive Communications Society (IICS) 10160 Southwest Nimbus Avenue, Suite F2 Portland, OR 97223 iics.org International Society for Performance Improvement (ISPI) 1300 L Street NW, Suite 1250 Washington, DC 20005 ispi.org International Television and Video Association (ITVA) 6311 North O’Connor Road, Suite 230 Irving, TX 75039 itva.org Israel Society for Technical Communication (ETTY) (Israel) 8 Spinoza Street, Apartment Three Ra’anana IL-43588 Israel [email protected] Norsk Forening for Teknisk Informasjon (NFTI) (Norway) ComText AS Gjerdrums vei 12G N-0486 Oslo Norway [email protected] Studiekring voor Technische Informatie and Communicatie (STIC) (The Netherlands) Punselie Communication Services St.Adrianusstr. 1 NL-5614 EL Eindhoven The Netherlands tutornet.com

PREPARATORY PROGRAMS FOR THE BOOK TRADE

B The following is a sampling of the many institutions offering courses and programs in the different areas of the publishing field. To locate current addresses, phone numbers, and websites, do an Internet search or refer to any of the college directories, available in public libraries. Arizona State University Creative Writing Program Arkansas State University Printing Program Association of Graphic Communications Graphic Arts Education Center Baylor University Writing Program Binghamton University Writing Program Boston University Graduate Creative Writing Program Bowling Green State University Creative Writing Program Center for Book Arts Bookbinding, printing, and papermaking workshops 163

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Chicago Book Clinic Seminars Seminars for publishers Childworks Agency White Pines National Conference for Writers and Illustrators of Children’s Books Columbia University School of the Arts Writing Division Dynamic Graphics Educational Foundation Professional workshops and seminars Emerson College Writing and Publishing Program Fiction Writer’s Connection Writing for Publication Program Fordham University Graduate School of Business Administration George Washington University Center for Career Education Graphic Arts Guild New York Business workshops and seminars H. H. Herbert School of Journalism and Mass Communication Professional Writing Program Hamilton College English/Creative Writing Harvard University Radcliffe Publishing Course Hofstra University English Department Hollins College Writing Program Louisiana State University Writing Program

Preparatory Programs for the Book Trade

Massachusetts College of Art Writing Children’s Literature McNeese State University Writing Program Mississippi Review/University of Southern Mississippi Center for Writers Mystery Writers of America Inc. Writing Workshops The National Writer’s Voice Project The Writer’s Voice of New York, New York New York City Technical College Center for Advertising, Printing, and Publishing New York University Center for Publishing Oberlin College Creative Writing Program Ohio University English Department, Creative Writing Program Pace University Master of Science in Publishing Parsons School of Design Design courses Rice University Continuing Studies Rice University Publishing Program Rochester Institute of Technology School of Printing School of Visual Arts New York Stanford University Stanford Professional Publishing Course

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Syracuse University Creative Writing Program Syracuse University S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications University of Alabama Program in Creative Writing University of Baltimore–Yale Gordon College of Liberal Arts Institute for Language, Technology, and Publications Design University of California Extension Certificate Program in Publishing and Professional Sequence in Copyediting University of Chicago Graham School of General Studies The University of Connecticut The Realities of Publishing University of Denver Publishing Institute University of Hawaii Manoa Writing Program University of Houston Creative Writing Program University of Illinois at Chicago Program for Writers University of Illinois Department of Journalism University of Iowa Writer’s Workshop, Graduate Creative Writing Program University of Missouri–Kansas City New Letters Weekend Writers Conference University of Montana Environmental Writing Institute

Preparatory Programs for the Book Trade

University of Pennsylvania College of General Studies Special Programs University of Southern California Professional Writing Program University of Texas at Austin Writing Program University of Texas at El Paso Writing Program University of Virginia Publishing and Communications Program University of Wisconsin Madison Communication Programs Vermont College MFA Writing Program Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers Washington University The Writing Program Writer’s Digest School Correspondence Courses

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BOOK DISTRIBUTORS

C Baker & Taylor 2709 Water Ridge Parkway Charlotte, NC 28217 btol.com A leading full-line distributor of books, videos, and music products BookPeople 603 North Lamar Austin, TX 78703 bookpeople.com Books, magazines, books on tape, cards and stationery, jewelry, and arts and crafts from around the world; includes searchable database, book reviews, and special-events calendar Christianbook.com P.O. Box 7000 Peabody, MA 01961-7000 christianbook.com Bibles, homeschooling products, software, videos, and other products Educational Paperback Association P.O. Box 1399 East Hampton, NY 11937 edupaperback.org Association of publishers and distributors who supply paperback books, prebound books, and other materials to schools and libraries

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Book Distributors

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Independent Publishers Group 814 North Franklin Street Chicago, IL 60610 ipgbook.com Book distributor for a large number of independent publishers and small presses throughout the United Sates and worldwide Ingram Book Group One Ingram Boulevard P.O. Box 3006 La Vergne, TN 37086-1986 ingrambook.com Wholesaler of trade books and related products LEA Book Distributors 170-23 Eighty-third Avenue Jamaica Hills, NY 11432 leabooks.com Spanish and Latin American book import-export service Seven Hills Book Distributors 1531 Tremont Street Cincinnati, OH 45214 sevenhillsbooks.com Major distributor to the book trade of international publishers and small domestic presses SPB & Associates Inc. 411 Wesley Drive, Suite 200 Chapel Hill, NC 27516 soprobooks.com Books and reference material acquisitions for special librarians worldwide

RESOURCES

D Broadcasting and Cable Marketplace R. R. Bowker 121 Chanlon Road New Providence, NJ 07974 Encyclopedia of Associations Gale Research, Inc. P.O. Box 33477 Detroit, MI 48232 Gale Directory of Publications and Broadcast Media Gale Research, Inc. P.O. Box 33477 Detroit, MI 48232-5477 Guide to Literary Agents & Art/Photo Reps Photographer’s Market Writer’s Market Writer’s Digest Books F & W Publications 1507 Dana Avenue Cincinnati, OH 45207 The Literary Marketplace R. R. Bowker 121 Chanlon Road New Providence, NJ 07974

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Resources

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Novel and Short Story Writer’s Market Writer’s Digest Books F & W Publications 1507 Dana Avenue Cincinnati, OH 45207 The Self-Publishing Resource Center wiseowlbooks.com/publish Trade Book Publishing 2001 Report: Analysis by Category Simba Information Inc. P.O. Box 4234 11 River Bend Drive South Stamford, CT 06907-0234 [email protected] simbanet.com/products/pr_bp.html Comprehensive source of data, analysis, and statistics for the $11 billion trade book publishing industry. This report breaks down consumer book sales by category, segment, distribution channels, and publishers. Writer’s Digest Magazine Writer’s Digest Books F & W Publications 1507 Dana Avenue Cincinnati, OH 45207 https://commerce.cdsfulfillment.com/WRD/ subscriptions.cgi?IN_Code=IYAG000

ELECTRONIC PUBLISHERS

E The following is a list of electronic publishers from the Electronic Publishing Coalition. Visit epccentral.org/members.html for more information. Abby the Troll Publications Allstory.com Antelope Publishing Athina Publishing Atlantic Bridge Publishing Author-Network Awe-Struck E-Books Belgrave House BookBooters.com BookMice Booksurge.com Boson Books CityScape Books Clock Tower Fiction Cloudy Mountain Books Dancing Willow Publications Denlinger’s Publishers, Ltd. 172

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Electronic Publishers

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Digitz.net Disk Us Publishing DLSIJ Press Dreams Unlimited Durksen Enterprises eBookAd.com eBooksOnThe.Net eboox.co.uk eKIDna eBooks ElectricStory eNovel.com Gemini Books Hard Shell Word Factory Hidden Knowledge Intellectua.com Iumix Ltd. Jacobyte Books Kripgans.de-Publishing Services Kudlicka Publishing LTD Books Mystic-Ink Publishing Online Originals RSVP Press Salvo Press SeeSpotBooks.com Shoppes At Home Silver Lake Publishing Sirius Publications SMC Publishing Stinky Dog Press

Appendix E

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SynergEbooks Truefire.Com, Inc. 23 House VanGoach Books Virtual Publishing Group, Inc. whidbeybooks.com Word Wrangler Publishing, Inc. Wordbeams Write Words, Inc. Writers Exchange E-Publishing XC Publishing Yellow Creek Publishing Zander eBooks Zeus Publications