Writing Young Adult Fiction For Dummies

by Deborah Halverson

  That’s an unsavory thought to many in the book world, especially to writers, who feel such passion about their craft. And rightly so — without that passion, you wouldn’t have spent months or years with those characters and that story. Children’s book editors are not devoid of that passion. The halls of publishing are filled with literary aficionados and all-out book-lovers. But those aficionados must keep in mind the business side of publishing: If their publishing houses don’t make money, their houses don’t stay in business, and if houses don’t stay in business, they don’t get to publish great books.

  Salability is a subjective call, which is why rejection letters say things like “not right for me” and “I don’t see a place on my list, but maybe it will be just what another editor is looking for.” No single editor has the final word. Getting the thumbs up — and a contract! — is based not only on the editor’s reaction to the story you’ve crafted but also on her perception of the current marketplace, her particular interests, her own career strategies, her imprint and publisher’s demands and interests, and, yes, sometimes her mood or situation the day your manuscript rolls in.

  Try to keep your feelings out of the submission process. If you’re angry, sad, or embarrassed, you won’t be able to decide whether to revise or to stick to your current draft and keep submitting. Yes, you’re allowed those emotions, but get over them quickly. A working writer must develop a thick skin.

  Famous rejects: Five writers who turned “no” into bestsellers

  Getting a rejection letter stinks, no bones about it. But “no” is by no means the final word. Just ask these very famous writers who refused to take that two-letter word for an answer:

  J. K. Rowling: Twelve publishers rejected Harry Potter, and an agent told Rowling, “You’ll never make money selling children’s books.” But Rowling kept submitting until one publishing CEO’s 8-year-old daughter, Alice, begged him to say “yes.” He did — to Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Bloomsbury Publishing printed a modest first printing of the book, young readers got their hands on it, and Rowling became a publishing phenom.

  Judy Blume: Blume received “nothing but rejections” for two years before hearing “yes.” “I would go to sleep at night feeling that I’d never be published,” she said. “But I’d wake up in the morning convinced I would be. . . . I was determined. Determination and hard work are as important as talent.” Blume has since received more than 90 awards for her books, which are among the most widely read fiction for young people, including Blubber, Superfudge, and Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret.

  Madeleine L’Engle: Even though L’Engle was already a published novelist with six books under her belt, she endured two years of rejection by 26 publishers before landing a contract for A Wrinkle in Time. Publishers felt the novel was “too difficult for children.” That book went on to win the 1963 Newbery Medal and remains hugely popular with young people. Asked how it felt to have such a smashing success, L’Engle said, “Since it was a book nobody wanted, it feels kind of nice.”

  William Golding: Golding’s story about a group of English schoolboys plane-wrecked on a deserted island was rejected by 21 publishers, with one declaring it “Absurd & uninteresting fantasy. . . . Rubbish & dull.” Lord of the Flies is now a standard in the high school English curriculum.

  Meg Cabot: Cabot originally envisioned 16 books in her The Princess Diaries series, but she couldn’t get a “yes” on just one. She says the project was rejected “by almost every publishing house in America.” Now, 16 Princess books, two major motion pictures, and several other popular series later, Cabot’s vision has been realized . . . and how!

  Chapter 14

  Self-Publishing: Is It for You?

  In This Chapter

  Weighing the pros and cons of self-publishing

  Summarizing various publishing options

  Demystifying the publishing process and players

  Deciding whether self-publishing is right for you

  The publishing world is in transition. Digital publishing, print-on-demand, freemium . . . it seems as if new formats, methods, and players are emerging every day. The growth is both exciting and overwhelming. One of the biggest shifts in this age of transition has authors taking matters into their own hands — that is, self-publishing. This chapter tells you what self-publishing is, outlines the author’s role in the process, and helps you determine whether self-publishing is the right path to publication for your young adult fiction.

  What’s So Different about Self-Publishing?

  In the traditional publishing model, the author’s role is to write the manuscript and submit it to publishers until landing a book contract; then the publisher takes over, designing, producing, marketing, and distributing the bound book. Although savvy writers supplement the publisher’s marketing efforts to help increase book sales, self-marketing is optional in this scenario. The author gets paid a royalty on each book sold (about 15 percent, with an advance against the royalties) as he moves on to his next project. But here’s the rub: What if you don’t land that book contract? Or what if you don’t want to settle for 15 percent of the sales? What if you don’t want to let someone else drive the fate of your book? Then maybe self-publishing is for you.

  Self-publishing cuts out the publisher — and the agent, if that’s part of trying to land your book contract. Self-publishing puts you in the captain’s chair, writing, designing, producing, marketing, and distributing your own book. You fund the expenses and keep all the profits. As with all business ventures, self-publishing has both benefits and drawbacks.

  Eyeing the benefits

  The reasons for self-publishing’s appeal to writers are valid and compelling:

  Money: In self-publishing, you keep all the profits. All the money you make after paying your production- and marketing-related costs goes straight to your pocket, without detouring through your publisher’s and agent’s coffers. And if you choose electronic or print-on-demand publishing options, you don’t have to fork out for warehousing or shipping (more on those options in a bit).

  Control: Not only do you have final say on everything — you have all say. This control gives you the freedom to print any type of content, with any type of design, and run whatever marketing campaign you want.

  Time: Your book is available for sale sooner than in the traditional publishing model because you work on your own timetable. No waiting for editors or wending through a publisher’s production queue and release schedule with scores of other books.

  Realizing the drawbacks

  Writers’ reasons for concern about self-publishing are valid and sobering:

  Money: You pay all the costs and thus assume all the financial risk. Producing your own book costs several hundred to several thousand dollars, depending on your choice of bound books or electronic books (e-books) and your commitment to content and packaging quality. Professional editors and cover and interior designers don’t come free. Marketing costs may extend well into the thousands for professional publicists and campaigns, and even basic marketing items such as websites and promo materials can add up. (I go into detail about marketing options in Chapter 15.) Can you sell enough books to recoup your expenses and then turn a profit?

  Control: You must make all the decisions and thus must educate yourself in all aspects of the publishing process. You can hire freelancers and other experts, but the buck starts and stops with you, so you’d better understand what the hired help is offering and advising.

  Time: Designing, producing, promoting, and distributing a book takes a lot of time — time that you could spend writing.

  Stigma: Like it or not, a stigma lingers around the label self-published. Some people will assume the story wasn’t good enough to get a “real” publisher. A significant number of self-published books exhibit inexpert or downright poor quality, bringi
ng down the public’s perception of the entire category and creating a serious hindrance to your credibility.

  Understanding Your Publishing Options

  The publishing industry is morphing, but at this time you have three publishing options for your young adult fiction: traditional publishing, print-on-demand self-publishing, and digital self-publishing. This section gives you an overview of all three.

  Traditional publishing

  In the traditional publishing model, a publisher buys the rights to your manuscript and then produces, markets, and distributes the book, paying you a royalty for each book sold. These publishing companies use offset printing methods on traditional printing presses, printing batches of hardcovers or paperbacks that must then be warehoused. The publisher assumes the financial risks, taking a significant share of the profits in return. This approach is a long-established path to publication and the model that I focus on in this book.

  Hardcover books have cardboard covers wrapped in cloth and sewed or glued to a block of paper pages. Hardcovers, which are often wrapped in book jackets, have a high perceived value with consumers. Paperback books have thick paper covers glued to a block of paper pages. Paperbacks are significantly cheaper to produce, which is why they carry lower cover prices. Although young adult fiction is published in both hardcover and paperback, paperback versions are typically printed and sold in higher numbers.

  Traditional publishing can make your life easier. A publisher brings to bear a staff of experts in bookmaking and bookselling, so the quality of traditionally published books is dependably high. These books get stocked in brick-and-mortar stores as well as online because publishers offer bulk deals and sell on credit. And because publishers accept returns of unsold books, retailers are willing to risk buying books by untried authors. Your trade-off for these benefits is minimal control over the book-making process and the packaging of the final product, lower cuts of the profits than you’d get if you self-published, and publication dates that are determined according to your publisher’s schedule, which takes into account all the books that house is producing, not just yours. See Chapter 13 for info on submitting manuscripts to traditional publishers.

  Print-on-demand (POD)

  The print-on-demand (POD) model is how you get physical, printed-and-bound books without signing with a traditional publishing house. Instead, you pay a POD publisher to handle everything from designing your book to printing and distributing it. A POD publisher prints the book in any number of formats (such as hardcover or paperback), registers the copyright and obtains the ISBN, gets the book listed with online booksellers, and fills orders from customers. The publisher uses high-end laser printers to print books one at a time as ordered. Within days of an order, the book is printed and then shipped to the retailer, customer, or distributor.

  Your costs depend on the services you choose. For example, you may use the POD publisher’s design templates to lay out the text and cover yourself, or the company can design the book for you. POD companies are able to customize books, such as by pasting CDs onto covers or using higher quality paper, but the writer pays extra for the enhancements.

  POD has its share of pros and cons:

  Publishing process: The full-service menu of POD publishers simplifies the publishing process for self-publishing authors, although the companies’ staff expertise may not compare to that of traditional publishers.

  Cost: POD books are printed only after they’re ordered and paid for, making them pricier per copy than in the traditional model. The flip side is that you don’t have to pay for warehousing.

  Distribution and sales: Brick-and-mortar retailers and distributors don’t typically stock POD books because POD publishers don’t allow them to buy stock on credit, nor do these publishers accept returns of unsold books. Also, with high sales unlikely, retailers don’t order enough books to qualify for shipping discounts, so the cost of stocking a POD book is higher for them than stocking books from traditional publishers. This means that online retailers and author websites are the primary selling fields for POD books. Without a strong platform or aggressive self-marketing, books published using POD typically sell only a few hundred copies.

  If you’re intrigued by POD publishing, start your research with two professional organizations for self-publishers: the Independent Book Publishers Association (www.pma-online.org) and the Small Publishers Association of North America (www.spannet.org). SPAN sponsors a self-publishing Yahoo! group that welcomes newcomers at http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/self-publishing.

  Digital publishing

  Also called electronic publishing or simply referred to as e-books (electronic books), digital publishing allows readers to download electronic text onto a dedicated digital reading device (e-reader) or onto any PDA (personal digital assistant) or computer. E-books are typically distributed via the Internet, usually through online booksellers. As long as a person has a device that can store and display the text, he or she can read the e-book.

  E-books . . . free books?

  Millions of e-books are available for free on the Internet. How do writers make money if they’re giving their books away? Simple: The free stuff is a marketing tool for their paid stuff, that’s how.

  People like it when you give them stuff. Getting free stuff makes folks want to give you stuff — their money. The business concept is called freemium (as in “free” and “premium”), and it works like this: You give people something for free, and then they’ll pay for other products that are similar or related to it . . . namely your other books or the rest of a book they’ve just sampled at no cost. With their low production costs and easy delivery, e-books fit well in the freemium model:

  Loss leaders: Loss leaders are products people give away or sell at unprofitable prices with the goal of driving sales of future products. Just as coupons and sales lure you into retail stores where you then buy a whole basket of nonsale items, you can give e-books away in order to build a customer base. If you hook people with your giveaway, they’ll come back and buy new books from you because they know you’ve got the goods. Plus, they’ll tell their friends, creating word-of-mouth that will (you hope) increase sales of your for-sale books. This model works if you have multiple novels or perhaps a series with the first volume in the series being the loss leader.

  Short-story teasers: You can give away a short story or novella, something related to your main book, for free. The hope is that this teaser hooks readers, and then they fork over money for your main selection. Your only real cost with this kind of giveaway is the time it takes to write the shorter pieces. Fantasy series lend themselves to this kind of freemium thanks to their deep fictional worlds, which offer many possibilities for ancillary stories.

  Limited-time free downloads: You can build interest and word-of-mouth by offering your e-book for free for a limited time. Make the giveaway period long enough for people to hear about the book, start reading it, and tell their friends about it but not long enough for the entire world to come and download. Also, an end date puts people in the “I gotta buy this before it’s gone!” mindset. Your gamble is that those who do download your book for free will love your novel and return to buy your other books.

  Digital publishing allows authors, readers, and publishers immense flexibility. E-books can be of any length, and because they’re virtual, they don’t require warehousing or shipping. Since the introduction of e-readers in the early 2000s, digital reading devices have made great strides in onscreen readability, making them more appealing to readers. Visually, the pages appear onscreen in the same layout as they do in a book. Although you must design and format your text according to the set specifications of each reading device, this formatting can be relatively quick and easy to do.

  Consumers have shown their approval by making e-books the fastest-growing segment of the publishing market, with the 2011 Digital Book World Conference a
nnouncing that e-book sales reached almost $1 billion in 2010 and Forrester Research predicting nearly $3 billion in e-book sales in 2015.

  Because the price of e-readers is going down and the popularity of PDAs and tablet computers is rising with young people, your young adult fiction audience is poised to be a major consumer of e-books. The trick, as with any of your format options, is to make those young people aware of your book so they’ll download it. See Chapter 15 for ideas on how to publicize your young adult novel to your unique audience.

  Digital publishing can be part of any self-publishing plan thanks to the relative simplicity and low cost of formatting your novel’s text. If you choose the POD option and write, edit, and design the book yourself, go the extra step of formatting your electronic text for the main e-reading devices and make it available to an entirely new audience. Traditional publishers do this with the books on their lists. More formats, more readers, more sales.

  Knowing the Players

  With self-publishing still finding its feet as a publishing alternative, specific players are constantly emerging, merging, and folding. If you decide to pursue self-publishing, you should tap into the self-publishing community online to get up-to-speed with the companies currently offering the most useful, most cost-effective, and highest-quality services. No matter which path your self-publishing endeavors take you on, though, you need to be familiar with five roles in the self-publishing world. I cover them in this section.

  Odd tasks you didn’t know publishers do

  When most people consider self-publishing, they assume that they’ll be taking over the publisher’s production tasks. And they’re right. But that’s more complex than most writers realize. Here are six tasks you probably didn’t know you’d be taking on . . . and six more reasons for pledging to learn everything you can about self-publishing before you make the final call to do it: