Confessions of a Big Five Publisher Intern - a Guest Post by Sara Wildes

Hi! This is Patricia Beal. I'm happy to introduce my new writer friend Sara Wildes. We met after the publisher she works for rejected my debut novel early this year (I later sold it to Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas). Enjoy this unique behind-the-scenes Sara wrote for us. She is young, about to get married, and an aspiring author herself.

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Becoming a Publishing Intern 

My entry into the publishing world began December 2015 during my last semester of school at Lipscomb University. My class was required to attend mock interviews with the intent to discover how we would do in a real job interview. I almost skipped the interviews, but my senior year motto pushed me forward: when the only thing better to do is sleep, you don't skip. So I breezed through the interviews without much thought and was glad when they were over, never to reenter my mind--until a couple weeks before graduation, I received an email from one of the interviewers. It was the lead editor from a major publishing company in Nashville, wanting to know if I'd be interested in interning starting the next month as an editor/marketer while one of their members would be out on maternity leave for five months. For a student about to graduate and already getting depressed about possibly getting stuck working as a fast-food cashier for the rest of her life, this offer was just what I needed to get launched into my first year as an official adult. 

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly 

My first day on the job, I was overwhelmed with the amount of books on shelves throughout the building. The perfect place for a reader. Even the front counter desk was made of stacked books! The first task I was given was to print out a manuscript and bind it. This task has gotten old three months later, but it was cool the first couple times to know I was holding a young book in its early stages of being created. Other exciting aspects of being here have included meeting authors, attending a sales conference, titling books, and gaining an insider's perspective on how publishing actually works. 

Within two weeks, my naive positive outlook on publishing was crushed upon attending my first acquisitions meeting. A dozen editors and marketers sat around the table to discuss three of our latest debut titles that hadn't been immediately declined. A couple days prior to the meeting, we had all been sent the book proposals followed by a survey for us to rate each 1 to 5. Believing them all to be interesting stories I'd like to read, I think I gave one a five and the other two a four. I felt embarrassed when the others' scores were revealed in the meeting. Several 2's. A couple 1's. The rest 3's. What was wrong with these people that they didn't want to immediately acquire these books?! 

It was called: social media. For acquisitions meetings, everyone reads the proposals then does research on the writers to discover how many followers they have, how many platforms, and determine the quality of social content/website/blog. Typically, Twitter and Facebook are the two important sites, along with either a website or a blog which serve as a central platform to point to the others (Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, etc.). It's up to the writer how many platforms they utilize--a couple good ones will impress, several good ones will really impress, while several bad ones will look bad. 

Do what you think suits your content best and will reach the audience you want to publish to (don't bother with Google+). If the writer has been published before, we also look to see if their books have at least 300 ratings each on Goodreads. Ultimately, if a writer hasn't marketed themselves well enough already, the team won't even consider acquiring their manuscript. Realizing this was what discouraged me about ever getting my own book published. Maybe being an author really was just a crazy dream. Until the day came when I thought, If other writers have become famous, who says I can't too? And so I decided to start taking action to become another great author. 

What I will do differently now as a writer 

All my life, I have wanted to have my own book published. My friends would say to just go get them published. What held me back? I didn't know how to just "go publish my book." I wrote my first complete book when I was twelve. Since then I have begun several others, completed two, and written half of two others. The first two are Christian Fiction, the others young adult fantasy, and future novels mystery/suspense. Since coming to a publishing company and seeing the process writers have to go through, I have begun serious edits on my favorite manuscript, started a blog, and begun building my social platforms to gain an audience (more details on this process can be found on my blog post Adventures in Social-Land). Both my blog and social media have allowed me to connect with a lot of great writers I never would have met otherwise. They have helped to both encourage as well as provide guidance in the areas I need it. Getting the numbers I need to impress a publisher will take a while, but they are increasing steadily. Now my next step to getting published (after finishing final edits on my manuscript) is to prepare a proposal to start sending out to agents. 

Advice for authors to sell more books 

Listen to your marketers. I can't speak for every publisher in the world, but here our marketers take care of the book sales. A few weeks ago, I mailed out boxes to booksellers with a couple copies of a new book, a few bookmarks, pens, personalized M&Ms, and a magnet (all the products were designed specifically for that book). To spread a book's popularity to readers, we also regularly give out digital versions of books on Net Galley as well as physical ARCs (advanced reader copies) to people who either blog book reviews or review books on places like Goodreads and Amazon. These sort of things are the reason a writer should strive for a contract with a publisher before attempting to self-publish. A publisher will take care of all your editing and marketing for you. They want you to succeed, because they are as dependent on your book's sales as you the writer would be. 

Advice for people hoping for a contract with major publisher 

Connections make a huge difference for people trying to get a contract with a major publisher. Even if a book proposal doesn't sound immediately enticing, it will still be voted on in a meeting, if it has been suggested by a respected author or agent (Not many proposals actually get voted on. We may receive five or ten a week, but only two or three will appear in the biweekly acquisitions meeting). Become friends with published authors and meet good agents at writing conferences. Also, don't try to self-publish if you want a major publisher. With the belief that a self-publisher will be hard to work with, the marketers here don't want to work with someone who will likely think they know how to do everything themselves. Marketers want a writer who will follow their direction without question and put in the time to upkeep their social platforms. 

Where will I go from here? 

Once this internship is over, I plan to continue marketing myself as a writer (on Facebook, blog, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Goodreads) to gain an audience for my books. Hopefully you'll see one of my books published within the next few years. For now, I'm working on my blog livinglitup.wordpress.com to educate and inspire other writers while searching for an agent to represent me. As far as my career is concerned, I'm not sure that an 8 to 5 indoor job is suited for me. I'm too much a free spirit to be indoors all day from sunrise to sunset. And I have too many dreams to pursue. Between writing, I'd love to open my own restaurant featuring a bookstore then pursue marine biology to become a dolphin trainer. If those don't work, I'll move to gardening. Honestly, my list doesn't end. I'm a writer and an adventurer. I don't believe in having to find one job and sticking with it forever. We get one short life to live. So I live through both my characters and through myself, seeking adventures and living life to the fullest.

Connect with Sara:

https://livinglitup.wordpress.com/
https://www.facebook.com/Sarawildesauthor/
https://twitter.com/sara_wildes
https://www.instagram.com/sara_wildes_author/
https://www.pinterest.com/sbwildes/

Aspiring Writer. Blogger. Reader. Dreamer. Adventurer. Lover of hot chocolate, rainy days, and nature.



(Dream Big Image by Dan Elijah Fajardo - Dandingeroz Designs; Social Media Image by Shutterstock)

FRIENDS - special treasures

What would we do without friends?

I suppose our closest friends are those we’ve found always stand by us when we need  encouragement, help, or plain good advice. I value my friends now more than I ever did. I have lost a couple of dear ones but I’m comforted knowing they are with the Lord. I used to wonder at their kindness in being there when I most needed them, but now I know. They, like me, have discovered it’s even more blessed to give of yourself than receive.

I heard a touch of disappointment in my friend’s voice when she told me no one was planning anything for her birthday. That was my opportunity to make a special cake for her. She was so surprised when she assumed it was a simple dinner invitation. But then the candle-decked birthday cake came! Such a simple thing. She keeps my books. Another friend does my hair, so we have a lunch date every so often. And so it goes. Other friends visited me in hospital.And I keep ‘tabs’ on them. It’s mutual give and take, joyfully given and gratefully received. Yet another dear friend guides me in everything to do with computers … no mean feat.

Online Friends They are special in another way They can give valuable help and encouragement from afar. They can cheer you on when you're despondent, something that happens many times in a writer's world. Only another writer can truly empathize with you. It may be a simple comment, but that can mean so much.

So let's look after our friends. They are a special gift to treasure. And  sometimes they understand you more than you understand yourself. Do you possess those special pals who truly are the wind beneath your wings?

(left) Three of Rita's friends who were the first to turn up at her book signing at Koorong, a Sydney bookstore. 

www.ritastellapress.com

Strike It Out

I have been out of the loop lately, largely because I have recently become an "empty-nester". After twenty three years of having children in the house all hours of the day and night, my wife and I now find ourselves in the strange position of being back were we started during our courtship and the first years of our marriage. We still speak to our children every day (mostly by Skype because they are both overseas) but it's not the same.

Having so much extra free time has lead to a certain amount of retrospection, especially in regard to our success or failure in the parenting department. Were we too strict? Were we not strict enough? Did we give enough guidance? Did we give too much guidance? At the end of the day, all we can do is trust that God is in control and know that we have done the best we can.

One thing that I have noticed during my chats with my children is that they now recount things to me that they have discovered about life in the big world that I clearly remember telling them, often many times. Back then they did not seem to take my fatherly advice on board. Later, having experienced it for themselves, they get what I was trying to say. Some things, it seems, can only be learned by experience.

And so it is with me and my writing. There is an awful lot of advice out there for writers. Sometimes it seems that people spend more time writing about writing than actually writing (just as I am doing now, for example). I do appreciate this advice, however, because, let's face it, I need all the guidance I can get, but sometimes the nugget of wisdom goes over my head. Like my kids, I need to experience some things before I get them.

These gentle "eureka" moments can happen when I am editing one of my manuscripts, but it is usually when I am reading something by a best selling author who really should know better. It's at times like this that I want to contact the author and tell them what they are doing wrong. It's not a judgmental thing. I'm well aware of the multitude of planks in my own eyes. Rather, I feel the need to help the author not make the same mistakes I have been making for so long.

One particular piece of advice that has become clearer to me over the years, I honestly did not understand it when I first read it. Now it makes perfect sense and I do try to follow it at all times. Sometimes I need the help of an unbiased reader to point it out but generally I manage to spot it myself. What is the mistake? Well, rather than explain let me give you the snippet of advice given by a college tutor, as quoted by Samuel Johnson:

'Read over your compositions and where ever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.'

When I first read this my response was: "Okay, but why on Earth would I want to remove good writing?" If you are not sure what this means then there is a simple test. Have you ever written something (a sentence or a paragraph) that you immediately wanted to show someone? Or, from a different perspective: have you ever succumbed to an invitation on a social website to post a favourite piece of your own writing? If so, then you need to take heed of this advice.

One thing I have noticed with my own work is that my beta readers seldom comment on my favourite passages. Usually, they remark on a piece of text that I considered normal or even dull. I may hover around them, waiting for them to get to the "good" bit, and watch with some dismay as they read past it without a flicker of emotion. Horror of horrors, they may even suggest deleting that particular line.

So what did the college tutor mean, and why is it so important? For me, the best analogy would have to be animated film. According to a Pixar producer, their goal is to make the animation of a standard where the audience forgets that they are watching an animation. The aim is to tell the story. Everything else is there to support this. If the audience is distracted by the animation (because it is not good enough, or even too good) then they have failed. It's the same with the script, music, and acting. Anything that distracts the audience's attention from the story is bad.

Writing is exactly the same. As an author, our job is to tell a story. The reader should forget that we are even there. Bad writing full of typos and grammatical errors, or with a distracting voice, will pull the reader out of your story, as will writing that is overly florid. If the writing is too bad or too good, then the reader will be distracted and we have failed. But how can something be too good? To go back to the Pixar example: there was a point in one film where the animators created a character that was too life-like. They actually had to lower the standard a little because this character stood out from the rest and was distracting.

When we write a scene, we have to be careful of creating something that is (at least in our eyes) "particularly fine" just as much as we have to eradicate poor writing. While listening to the best selling novel these past few days, there were times where the prose really distracted me. It was usually a description or metaphor which, had it appeared in a poem or on the book's cover, might have been suitable. The problem was that I could almost feel the author hovering around me, waiting for me to get to that bit so that she could enjoy my reaction to her brilliance. They were all wonderfully descriptive turns of phrase to be sure, but they stood out like a sumo wrestler at a ballet. There is a time and place for sumo, but a ballet is not one of them.

So the next time you write a line that you want to show someone, or post on Facebook, take a deep breath, read it again, and seriously consider hitting that backspace button. Save it somewhere if you have to, but chances are it does not belong in your novel and you should "strike it out".