writers.com newsletter

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Writers on the Net
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Vol. 8, No. 3
March 2005

IN THIS ISSUE:
BOOK BIZ 101 by Paula Guran
~~CLASS SCHEDULE~~
PUNCTUATION POINTERS: The Comma, Part 1: Lists
ROOTS: "author"
~~NEWSLINKS~~
QUOTATION

BOOK BIZ 101

Book publishing is a business.

That may seem to be an obvious statement, but it may not be as obvious as it should be to many folks who want to become published writers. Not that we blame them. The publishing "news" most of us come across is full of multi-million dollar deals, mega- best-selling books, celebrity authors, award winners, overnight sensations -- nothing but glamour, glitz, and golden opportunity. No wonder becoming a writer seems, to some, to be an easy way to wealth and fame. What skills are involved anyway? Typing?

Of course there are many reasons to write that have nothing to do with being professionally published. For those of you who write only for the love of it, for personal satisfaction or growth, to communicate within the business or academic worlds, or for reasons other than a desire to be published, knowing about the business of writing is not that important. But if you aspire to be paid for what you write, you'd best be at least minimally aware of the business you are entering.

We've come up with some online information that we hope will help you understand more of the business of writing. We've tried to confine ourselves to some basic "orientation" material Consider it just a "beginners guide" to book publishing. We restricted ourselves to book publishing, by the way, because we did not find much on other types of publishing.

You also might want to read our Writers.com feature, "How Do I Get Published?"

WARNING #1: Many of these articles present opinion about ongoing issues in the publishing industry. No one, really, knows *everything* about how publishing works (and some people think they know much more than they really do). Many of the articles here are from one individual's experience and point of view. There may well be other knowledgeable folks who will disagree.

WARNING #2: Some information is appropriate for one area of publishing and not another. Please note who and what the sources are.

WARNING #3: We do not necessarily approve of or recommend all of the Web sites where you will find this information. They may promote positions with which we do not agree with or sell products or services of which we do not approve.

* * *

FROM AUTHORS:

The confessions of a semi-successful author. An anonymous author writes: "I've published several books, won adoring reviews, and even sold a few copies. But I've made almost no money and had my heart broken. Here's everything you don't want to know about how publishing really works."

The Truth About Publishing by Ian Irvine (Revised and expanded, January 2005) Irvine is an Australian author. He's included information from others as well.

The Education of Stacy Sullivan by Gal Beckerman "A First- Time Nonfiction Author Learns That Getting Published Is Not Necessarily the Hard Part"

* * *

THE CHANGING BUSINESS:

National Arts Journalism Program at Columbia University Best and Worst of Times: Best Books vs. Bestsellers in a Changing Business A panel discussion moderated by report author Gayle Feldman on Dec. 4, 2002

Report to the Authors Guild Midlist Books Study Committee (PDF) "Not a definitive analysis but...the beginning of a conversation about the problems of the midlist book."

10 years of best sellers: How the landscape has changed by Bob Minzesheimer, USA Today "When USA Today began its Best- Selling Books list 10 years ago, books weren't sold on the Internet, J.K. Rowling was a struggling, unknown writer, and Oprah Winfrey had yet to become publishing's darling."

* * *

ECONOMICS:

The Profit Motive by Denise Little. Explanatory article on the basic components that go into figuring out a publisher's profit and loss (P&L) statement

The Economics of Publishing by Otto Penzler. From a talk delivered at a meeting of Mystery Writers of America/New England, April 1999.

Thirty bucks for a new hardcover! by Christopher Dreher "How book prices got so out of hand, who's responsible and what it will take to make reading more affordable in the future."

* * *

SELLING BOOKS:

NetRead: How Books Are Sold

How Books Are Sold Before You Buy Them by Claiborne Smith (Austin Chronicle)

The lost boys (and girls) (The Independent UK) by Tom Boncza- Tomaszewski whose "favourite writers are slipping slowly into oblivion."

* * *

GENERAL:

Inside Publishing: A series of article from the Guardian (UK): How to be a bestseller; Price wars: Who decides which books get prime visibility in the shops; Why size matters; The agent's role; Advance warning: Which authors get the big bucks - and which get peanuts?; A book's life: (3 parts)

Other Guardian articles:

Death of the Editor How the role of editing has changed

The route to literary success: be young, gifted but most of all gorgeous

The literary lion cubs that failed to roar Those big advances that don't pay off...

Why big advances are often pure fiction It's all a plot to get free publicity...

They've got it covered Focuses on the history of book covers, but also has some information on the current state of the art.

Some Statistics on Books and Publishing (some are dated, sources are missing on some)

Understanding the Players in the Publishing Game Adapted from: Getting Your Book Published For Dummies

Making Books By Robert Weil (Washington Post Book World) "An executive editor speaks his mind about publishing quality books in a mass market climate."

Publishing In The Twenty-First Century: Three-part article by Richard Curtis
Part One: At the End of the Millennium
Part Two: Paperbacks: The Tail That Wagged the Dog Part
Three: On The Road to Virtual

What Do Publishers Do? by William Germano. A chapter from Getting It Published: A Guide for Scholars and Anyone Else Serious about Serious Books

* * *

Ready for more?

The leading magazine of the book publishing industry is PUBLISHERS WEEKLY. If you want to continue your education in the book biz, regular reading is strongly advised. Some articles on their Web site may be viewed for free, but for full access, you must be a subscriber. A free 30-day trial is available.

PUBLISHERS LUNCH is a one-man operation that gathers together stories from all over the Web and print of interest to the professional trade book community and adds a dash of comment. The full version is by subscription, but a minimal free version is available.

PUNCTUATION POINTERS
The Comma, Part 1: The List

Comma usage confuses just about everyone. One reason is, to a great extent, where you (or editors) place a comma is a personal matter. The type of publication or publisher determines another difference in style. (Magazines and newspaper publishers tend to use fewer commas than book publishers) Commas have also gone in and out of punctuation fashion. (What many of us were taught in elementary school is no longer considered standard in the US.) Once they were commonly overused, now they tend to be used more sparsely. There are also some differences between British preferences and American.

We'll be tackling a series of Writers.com "Punctuation Pointers" on the comma over the next few months. We'll start this month with one of the more contentious rules involving the comma's use: lists.

The contenders:

* You should place a comma before the last item in a list:
We ordered a Manhattan, a daiquiri, and a martini.
This is known as the serial comma (also known as the Oxford or Harvard comma).

* You should not use a comma before the last item in a list:
We ordered a Manhattan, a daiquiri and a martini.

* You should use the serial comma when the elements in the series are short but in a more complicated list that may be misread, use it.
Not used: We ordered a Manhattan, a daiquiri and a martini.
Used: We ordered a gin and tonic, whiskey and soda, and vodka and cranberry juice.

In British English, the serial comma is less commonly used than in American English, but is a distinguishing feature of the house style of the Oxford University Press - thus the label "Oxford comma." (Similarly, in case you hadn't figured it out, the Harvard University Press uses the serial comma.)

Most American book publishers follow the Chicago Manual of Style, which firmly espouses the serial comma. the most common style used for academic writing in the humanities is that of the Modern Language Association. MLA style, which insists upon the serial comma, is delineated in the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (for high school and undergraduate college students) and the MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing (for graduate students, scholars, and professional writers). Writers in the social sciences, education, business and psychology use publication Manual of the American Psychological Association published by the American Psychological Association. It, too, sides with the serial. The Texas Law Review Manual of Style and Harvard's The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation, both authorities in legal writing, agree the serial comma is to be used.

Journalistic stylebooks, however, go with the third option. The Associated Press, the standard used by most U.S. newspapers, states:

IN A SERIES: Use commas to separate elements in a series, but do not put the comma before the conjunction in a simple series: The flag is red, white and blue. He would nominate Tom, Dick or Harry.
Put a coma before the concluding conjunction in a series, however, if an integral element of the series requires a conjunction: I had orange juice, toast, and ham and eggs for breakfast.
Use a comma also before the concluding conjunction in a complex series of phrases: The main points to consider are whether the athletes are skillful enough to compete, whether they have the stamina to endure the training, and the proper mental attitude.

The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the Canadian Press style guides concur. Journalistic style is also used in news magazines and other media.

(The differences in comma use supposedly came about because eliminating the "extra" comma saved both ink and page space for newspapers. If this seems unrealistic, is also said that the London Times saved over £100,000 per year in ink when it dispensed with the period it once placed at the end of its name on every page.)

The serial comma is used in most technical writing. A survey by the Society for technical communication notes 88% of the respondents use it.

Our thought? We use the serial/Oxford comma because it is consistent and usually reduces ambiguity.

ROOTS:
"author"

In Latin auctorem meant "enlarger, founder, creator"; "one who causes to grow." Auct- was the past participial stem of augere which also meant both "increase" (from whence "augment" comes) and "originate." "Auctor" or "auctor" (spelling varied) entered English by way of Old French around 1300. Some authorities say the meaning of "one who originates the written word, writer" was already extent in the O.F. and then carried over into English. Others claim this meaning developed about 1380 in English. During the 15th or 16th century the spelling variant substituting -th- for -t- appeared in French as "aucthour." English quickly adapted it, usually in the spelling "auctour" to form "aucthour". Eventually the pronunciation took on the -th- sound and the -u- disappeared.

Although "author" is now mostly associated with "writer," the related word "authority" (and its derivatives "authorize" and "authoritative") retains the idea of a creator with the power to command. "Auction", like "augment", is based in the idea of increasing -- the sale price increasing in steps in an auction. "Wax", meaning "to grow, increase" (now used almost exclusively in connection with the phases of the moon, as antonym to "wane"), is also has the same Latin base, but came into English through a Germanic route.

QUOTATION:

"To write what is worth publishing, to find honest people to publish it, and get sensible people to read it, are the three great difficulties in being an author." -- Charles Caleb Colton (1780-1832)

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