Customer Reviews

Are You Still Submitting Your Work To A Traditional Publisher?

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Edward Patterson has put together an encouraging little guide to getting your novel written and revised. Then he walks you through the necessary steps for getting published on Kindle and CreateSpace, and gives some good advice on promoting your newly-published work.

At least three audiences will enjoy this book: those who have been talking for years about writing that book but need some encouragement to get off their duffs and get it done; those who have recently published and are looking for new ways to promote; and those who want to see what's happening inside an author's head.

I belong to the third category: I met Edward on an Amazon thriller "Shameless self-promtion" discussion thread, and I've had the pleasure of reading many of his little gems of wisdom as they were birthed in discussion posts. This book strings those gems together and presents them, giving us an insight into how Patterson can actually crank out eight novels a year.

Patterson's advice comes sprinkled with personal stories and lessons he learned. He writes directly to you the author, sometimes praising and other times damning you for your writing sins. In all cases, his sense of humor and personal accomplishments shine through.

If you're thinking of writing a book, if you're tired of the traditional publisher slush-piles, if you want to improve your writing or your promotions, or if you want to see how wacky authors think, get this book and learn. You won't be sorry.

Edward Patterson does a truly excellent job of opening up the world of electronic publishing to those who are interested but afraid to stick their toes in the water.

He introduces the concept by showing how and why such publication is not only a valid alternative to the "Dead Tree" publishers, but may even be the preferred medium for certain books. Then, in a very carefully and clearly written style reminiscent of the "Complete Idiots' Guides" he lays out the step-by-step details of how one can dip those toes in and then dive in and swim without fear of drowning. If I had read this book earlier it would have saved me untold hours of Googling and worrying about my first attempts at navigating the intricacies of Amazon's Kindle submission system and would have resulted in a far better setup with regard to such important niceties as using the various search fields to best effect.

I would recommend this book without a moment's hesitation to ANYONE who is new to the field of electronic publication as well as to those who are already in the swim but would like to check to see what they may be missing in the details.

Michael J. McFadden
Author of Dissecting Antismokers' Brains

Great advice and step by step instructions for getting a book published without going through traditional publishers' gatekeepers. Edward C. Patterson gives invaluable tips for determining whether a book is actually ready to publish, then he tells exactly how to get the manuscript formatted for ebook and POD. The second half of the book is filled with writing tips that prospective authors can use to polish their work before publishing.
You can't go wrong with this book. Buy it today and get your manuscript in print in a matter of weeks, not years.

In "Are You Still Submitting Your Work To a Traditional Publisher?", Edward C. Patterson not only gives us the benefit of his years of experience and the publishing of a dozen (and counting) books, but he outlines specific steps and techniques to take advantage of today's opportunities for self-publishers.

But first, he gives some of the best advice to writers I've ever read, when he gets right to the heart of a problem that threatens all writers: Too many believe their work is golden, that it springs forth from their heads ready for publication, without need of rewriting, editing, or revision.

"In fact", Mr. Patterson says, "most writers think they are perfection - first draft is magic, immaculate - eat your heart out, Stephen King."

The result is that too many books are published before they are ready; contributing to the ever-growing public perception that self-published equals poor quality.

If your work is poor, mediocre, or even just good, don't publish, Mr. Patterson says, because the first readers will proclaim your stuff "crap", and you will have blown your best opportunity. It also hurts all other authors when some think they are ready for prime time when they are not.

Any who doubt the truth of that statement, should take a look at reviews of self-published books right here on Amazon, which, far too often, downgrade, and sometimes even declare a book unreadable, because of errors and poor editing.

If you are about to independently publish, Mr. Patterson says, you should get your mind in order. You will no longer get rejection notices (as with a traditional publisher), but without the proper mindset, you'll still get rejection... public rejection.

It isn't easy, he agrees, to take off your writer's hat and look at your own work objectively, but it must be done. He then proceeds to tell us how to do it... and how to find editors and beta readers to help.

He spells out names and discussion groups, and tells us how and where to get involved to get the help we need.

Some of the editing techniques he describes are things we learned in school - or should have - others are his own, born of his experiences, and others are made possible by today's technology... such as putting your work on a Kindle, looking at it in different type sizes, and having it read your own words back to you.

When we have done all the above, and our work is really and truly ready for publication, he gives names and contacts for several different self-publishing plans and programs, explains their ups and downs, and gives advice on how to decide among them.

He also tells how to write a Press Release and where to get it published, and how to get the best publicity of all... good reviews of our books.

Then we get to real gold... the part that's worth the price of this book many times over even if you are an excellent writer with a flawless manuscript.

That's the PATTERSON Recipe for self-publishing success.

Actually, he didn't say that... He calls it publishing without pain.

I added the last half of that sentence... because that's what I think it is.

Starting with your MS Word manuscript - it's squeaky clean now, remember? - he steps you through publishing for the Kindle; creating an eBook to be published on MobiPocket; and publishing a paperback book on Amazon's CreateSpace.

Along the way, he teaches us how to use the tools at Lulu.com, which must be the world's most efficient publishing program.

I've been around this business a long time; you can believe me when I say that this information can save you hundreds of dollars worth of time.

I liked this book so much that I purchased a second copy... the paperback edition, even though I already had the Kindle edition.

If I had my way, I'd make this book required reading for anyone who wants to self-publish on Amazon.

C. Jo Allan, assisted by Matt the Cat

This is a easily accessible guide for the writer with a project ready to go or close to completion. It's a well written guide put together by someone who knows the turf well, having publishing a mighty number of his own books.

One of the first things I noticed was the intimacy of tone. The writer addresses the reader in a conversational fashion - this is readily acceptable and helps make his advice clear.

The most up to date technology is included, most notably Kindle. As this way of downloading books is daunting to the less technically inclined (such as myself) his step by step approach is practical and takes away the more intimidating aspects technology can bring.

I'm taking a star away because this doesn't look at all the options open to self publishers, but that's a bit of a minor point given that this information is available elsewhere.

Overall, highly recommended.

Sherlock Holmes and the Flying Zombie Death Monkeys

Nice book. I needed it. So do at least half the people self-publishing on Kindle--more likely, they have it and need to pay attention.

It's divided into two parts. One, on preparing a manuscript for the Kindle, the other on writing in general.

My guess is that the preparing part will look a bit dated if we try to use it exactly. Maybe not. Certainly his ideas are still good--formatting, making sure that hyphens end up in the right place, etc. Proofreading.

Now that last is the reason I didn't give it five stars. I would have instantly if he'd given us a free book from his fiction collection if we could tell how many ("quite a few" is one answer) typos and the like are in this book.

I've been pretending to write for years. Some of what he says in the second part, on writing fiction in general, I've already learned. Only some of it, going to have to look hard at the rest. And I wish more of the people putting their books on Kindle would have paid attention to his "on writing" part.

He doesn't put it this way, but how to inject your back story without putting pages and pages of that--always interesting to the author, including everything from recipes to what the beach the narrator spent his pre-school days on looked and felt like--into the book is one of the things I'm learning from that section. (He just says something like "cut a third of your book out.")

Having recently published my first book for the Kindle and in paperback, I wish I had read "Are You Still Submitting Your Work To A Traditional Publisher?" first. Publishing digitally or for a publish-on-demand publisher isn't rocket science, but it can be a daunting and downright intimidating process for a newbie. Mr. Patterson's book would have saved me a lot of weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth!

"Are You Still Submitting Your Work To A Traditional Publisher?" lays out a simple step-by-step process for both digital publishing and print-on-demand publishing. In addition, the author covers the post-publishing steps to market your book and increase sales. I recently bought a book for $15 on this subject, and Mr. Patterson's book is more thorough than that book.

The second part of the book is like a bonus, covering how to write. The author is obviously very experienced in writing, and he gives some valuable tips and examples based on his own writing.

If you're even thinking about publishing a book, this book is a must-read and a bargain for the price.

I'm really glad I didn't try to self-publish anything (not that I have yet) without reading this book first. I bought it and read it in a day. The detailed instructions on "how to" publish using CreateSpace and other platforms really opened my eyes. For example, I had no idea that CreateSpace offered POD (publish on demand). There is also a thorough section on marketing, as well as a great "keeper" on the craft of writing. I can't even count the number of pages I bookmarked on my Kindle. I'll reference this book repeatedly. BUY IT. It could be your best investment ever.

This how-to-publish through Amazon is a very direct and clearly worded set of instructions that anyone can follow. From start to finish the author keeps the reader grinning with his elbow-in-the-ribs style of nurturing the new author into evaluating, editing, formatting and selecting the best venue of testing the viability of their work and break them into the self-publishing world.

Everything he covers will challenge the reader to explore their own reasons for publishing and give them a realistic view point of what they can expect when and if they decide to publish, then lays out the steps 1,2 and 3.

This book points out that if you are going round and round publishing houses or agents with no results then you need to see if you have some valid talent and act on it; prepare it the very best way you can and move on with getting your work out there.

His experience in the field of marketing is validated through his work history and this, along with a long list of titles that he published through this shared knowledge, makes this book credible for someone to learn and not just another book to buy to search for some clue as to how to get your work out to the public.

Read and learn!

Mr. Patterson's friendly, author-to-author writing style makes this little book a treasure for anyone interested in self publishing. The step-by-step instructions, tips and tricks will save you hours and perhaps even days of heartburn.

If you're thinking about self publishing or new to the business, do yourself a favor and read "Are You Still Submitting Your Work to a Traditional Publisher?" before you step onto that lonely path alone.