Terry Whalin Gives Book Doctors Some Nice Love
Monday, December 13, 2010
Do You Need Permission?
I work with a number of first-time authors who ask me about whether they need to gather permissions for their work. While I am not a lawyer (the first thing that I remind them), in most cases they do not need to get permission. Now if it is a poem or a song, then it is likely they do need permission because of how those forms are treated in the marketplace. If they are quoting a few sentences from a full-length book and refer to the source, it is unlikely that they need to get permission from the publisher.
Recently I read Arielle Eckstut and David Henry Sterry’s new book, The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published, How to Write It, Sell It, and Market It…Successfully! This book is loaded with sound advice on many areas of the publishing process–including permissions. As they write on page 212, “Don’t start getting permissions too soon, because you don’t want to waste your time or money. However, since it often takes a while to track down a pesky permission–and all permissions should be handed in with your finished manuscript–we suggest the following process:
“1. Break your permissions into three piles. Definites, Maybes, Unlikelies. Track down all sourcing and contact information for the Definites as early as possible. Get prices and any necessary forms. This will help you guesstimate total costs and figure out how much you’ll have left over for the Maybes and Unlikelies.”
“2. Don’t pay for a thing until you’re sure what’s going in your book. This way, you won’t wind up spending money on a Definite that turns out to be an Unlikely.”
Then Eckstut and Sterry include a length section about what needs permission. This discussion is tied to the over 30 pages from The Chicago Manual of Style on the topic of fair use (a legal term related to the amount of material you can use from a source without asking permission. Here’s the critical sentences on page 213, “It’s okay for us to quote 122 words from The Chicago Manual because that’s a tiny percentage of its total word count (the book could double as a doorstop). However, if you took 122 words out of a 200-word poem, you must get permission to reprint it–unless, of course, it’s in the public domain. And don’t forget, composers’ and poets’ estates are notorious for going after people who abuse copyright law.”
Also Eckstut and Sterry include a fascinating story called The Pangs of Permissions: Acquiring permissions requires the patience of Job and the persistence of a pit bull. When she began writing A Thousand years over a Hot Stove, a book with more than 100 photographs and illustrations, Laura Schenone was ill-prepared for the amount of work permissions required. Not to mention the pounding her pocketbook took in the process.”
“Laura was presented with an unexpected challenge. Many of the people she was dealing with would sell her rights only for the first printing of her book. ‘My editor told me this would be 7,500 copies,’ she says. ‘When I bought the permissions, I wanted to up this number to 10,000 to 15,000 copies to be sure I was covered. But sometimes the fees as much as doubled.'”
“Laura’s story illustrates the importance of understanding permission costs before signing a deal or developing a project. That said, Laura couldn’t be happier that she wrote her book permissions and all. A Thousand Years over a Hot Stove went on to win a James Beard Award, the Pulitzer Prize of food writing.”
Eckstut and Sterry include a sample permission form in an appendices (page 448). I’ve only shown one little area this book covers many other topics with great depth and valuable insight. I recommend this book, The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published–and in the process of writing this entry, hopefully I’ve shown you a little bit about the permission process.
AddThis Social Bookmark Button
Pitchapallooza Winner from Dayton: GREAT Fantasy Book Pitch
Daisy’s Book Journal Gives Love to The Essential Guide
The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published offers authors advice on how to write, sell and market their books successfully.
I really enjoyed this book. The information is offered a in concise and entertaining manner, which not only makes it easy to read, but fun as well. This material could be pedantic and heavy, but it really comes across as interesting and light-hearted in the hands of these authors. Even though I don’t plan to write or publish a book, I found the information fascinating. I’ll never really know how hard authors work, but after going through this book, I have a better idea. They have my upmost respect.
While the book is geared towards helping authors, it contains lots of information regarding the writing and publishing process that others (for example, book lovers) may find interesting. It covers topics such as: submitting the book, self-publishing, working with contracts, touring, selling your book and much, much more. There’s also several appendices with invaluable information for the author, including a list of selected publishers and contact names.
The book was first published in 2005, but this recent edition includes a new chapter on social networking sites and all things online. There’s tons of information for authors as well as others who use those online sites.
Recommended.
For more information about this book or to browse inside, please visit the Workman Publishing website.
Would you like a peek inside? There are a couple of chapters online: Chapter 2 and Chapter 3.
For more information about the authors and other cool stuff, please visit Eckstut and Sterry’s website.
http://lazydaisy0413.blogspot.com/2010/11/essential-guide-to-getting-your-book.html
Pitchapalooza Mini-Doc Touching Testimonial from Winner – Try Not to Cry
This is from our Long Island Pitchapalooza at Book Revue in Huntington. The winner, Suzanne Wells, gives a beautiful & moving testimonial about what it meant for her to win. Newsday Video – http://www.newsday.com/video/newsday-video-1.1482431?idno=25019
The Essential Guide Tour Pitchapalooza, Long Island #17: White Knuckles, Crime & Punishment, and Transcendent Triumph in Long Island
We hope and pray you never get stuck on Northern Blvd. in Long Island during rush hour when you have to be at your bookstore event by 7. It plum wears you out. It took us longer to travel 10 miles in Long Island than it did to get from New Jersey to Great Neck. At 6:48 David was into full-blown white-knuckle mode, and the knots in Arielle neck had migrated into her belly. Naturally, when we finally arrived, there was nowhere to park. But we finally slammed out of the car, and ran the two blocks back to the bookstore.
The second we entered Book Revue, all anxiety melted away. It was packed beyond the gills, ripe and swollen with 250 writers just waiting for us to hear them pitch their books. It was an absolute mob scene. From 12-year-olds to 90-year-olds, pierced to permed, ex-junkie to a man who’s run marathons in every state.
We were again blessed with a fantastic panel: James Levine, founder of the Levine Greenberg Literary Agency, author, golfer, and a man who’s helped dozens and dozens and dozens of writers, thinkers and businessmen become successfully published authors; and one of the great book dudes in the business, Mauro DiPreta, Executive Editor at It Books/HarperCollins, who has shepherd mega-bestsellers like Marley and Me onto the New York Times bestseller list. Oh, and he’s also a children’s book author. Not only are these men spectacularly articulate about the book business, they both have a ribald sense of humor. It was kind of like getting to have Derek Jeter and Tom Brady both on your team.
And then it was ON! A rhyming scratch’n’sniff pitch. A weight loss pitch with a bold new twist. A literary novel that was somehow Portnoy’s Complaint meeting Crime and Punishment. Swami Pajamananda dispensing equal parts spiritual wisdom and comedy. The winner gave a beautiful pitch about plunging from business executive to homeless heroin addict. Arielle had welled up by the end of the pitch. The whole thing was yet another vivid illustration of just how many Americans, from every walk of life imaginable, have books inside them that they desperately want to share with the world. Looking out over that vast sea of aspiring writer faces, our hearts and minds were filled with a real sense of happy accomplishment.
The pitches went by so fast, all of a sudden it was 8:30–time to wrap it up. Only about 20 people got pitch, and an audible groan came up from the crowd when we announced our last pitcher. But we offered up a new deal: anyone who buys a copy of our book gets a free consultation, and this seemed to soothe the savage beast. Julianne, the events coordinator, who was in large part responsible for getting the word out about this event, whisked us upstairs to a signing table. The line to buy the book literally went around two different corners and down a flight of stairs.
We ended up selling 100 books. If you’ve never actually tried to sell a book, that might not seem like much. But this is a niche reference book, on a Thursday night, in the middle of Long Island. It was the closest we’ve come to being Justin Bieber.
Spent and drained, but gratified and ecstatic, we hauled our asses back to Montclair, New Jersey. In half the time it took us to get to Long Island. But we were reminded how the hundreds and hundreds of hours spent writing the book, sending out the e-mails, putting together the website, the often dull, tedious, frankly painful work that’s gone into making and marketing this book, can sometimes, when the stars line up just right, lead to a transcendent triumph that lifts the spirit high, higher, highest.
The Huntington Patch covers our LI Pitchapalooza at Book Revue
Pitchapalooza Comes to Huntington
By Ashley Milligan
More than 100 aspiring authors filled the Book Revue Thursday night, hoping to get the opportunity to pitch their book idea to a panel of people in the publishing industry.
The event, known as Pitchapalooza, is the brainchild of literary agent Arielle Eckstut and author David Henry Sterry. Eckstut and Sterry, who are married, have also co-authored a book together, “The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published.”
While Pitchapalooza has been happening across the country for the past decade, this Thursday marked the first Pitchapalooza event in Huntington. Two guest panelists joined Eckstut and Sterry: James Levine, founder of the Levine Greenberg Literary Agency and Mauro DiPreta, vice president and associate publisher of It Books.
The rules of the event were simple. Audience members were chosen at random from the event’s sign-up sheet. If selected, guests had exactly one minute to pitch their idea to the panel. The four judges then offered feedback to each contestant, ultimately selecting a winner at the end of the two-hour event. The winner would receive an introduction to a literary agent best suited for the genre of their book.
There was no shortage of original and captivating material pitched by contestants. Pitches ranged from funny to serious, fictional to deeply personal and children’s stories to self-help guidebooks. Highlights included Amber Jones’ scratch-and-sniff children’s book about New York City smells, autistic teenager T.J. Dassua’s collection of short stories and Gerald Rosen’s personal account of completing a marathon in each state.
While the panel offered contestants insightful and constructive feedback about each individual pitch, they also gave general pointers for the audience as a whole.
“A nice way to leave a pitch is have it so we don’t know what choice the protagonist is going to make. It keeps people interested,” Eckstut said.
Levine added, “When you make a pitch to the editor, you want to make them feel confident you know where the story is headed.”
The panel also advised hopefuls to give specifics in their pitches, convey the voice of their book within the pitch and use “comp titles,” or reference books similar to theirs, if applicable.
Ultimately, the panel selected Suzanne Wells of Kings Park as the winner of Pitchapalooza. Wells, a yoga, zumba and pilates instructor, as well as freelance writer, so convincingly pitched her personal account of overcoming addiction, divorce and poverty that she left Eckstut in tears.
“I’m totally intrigued,” Eckstut said after Wells finished her pitch.
Wells now has the opportunity to meet with a literary agent to discuss her memoir, tentatively titled “One Wing-The Book.”
Click here for article.
Author Enablers Names Our Book as One of the 10 Best Books for Writers
From Author Enablers, Kathi Kamen Goldmark and Sam Barry…
“We have a time-honored tradition of providing our readers with gift book suggestions from noted authors. This year, we’ve decided to put in our own two cents with a list of the very best books—some new and some classics—for the writer in your life, even if that writer is you.
The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published: How to Write It, Sell It, and Market It . . . Successfully by Arielle Eckstut and David Henry Sterry is an updated version of Putting Your Passion into Print, a book we’ve recommended before. Eckstut and Sterry leave no stone unturned in this comprehensive look at the current landscape of publishing.”
For the rest of the list, go to Book Page.
The Writer Magazine Names The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published One of Its Top 10 for 2010
From The Writer Magazine…
We at The Writer work hard all year round to bring you reviews of great writing books that provide “advice and inspiration for today’s writer.” Among the 30 or so books we’ve featured in 2010 have been practical manuals to help improve your writing skills (The Weekend Novelist Rewrites the Novel: A Step-by-Step Guide to Perfecting Your Work), books to refresh your grammar (The Glamour of Grammar: A Guide to the Magic and Mystery of Practical English), books filled with insightful interviews from successful writers (Tales From the Script: 50 Hollywood Screenwriters Share Their Stories), and books that inspire by revealing important truths about the challenges of the writing life (Raymond Carver: A Writer’s Life).
While we seek to be your trusted source for suggestions about new writing books, we can’t possibly cover this massive landscape in the limited space we have (numerous writing books are published each year). As the Bible says in Ecclesiastes 12:12, “of making many books there is no end,” but our time (and editorial space) is limited. So we make choices as best we can, knowing full well we can’t cast our net over all the freshly spawned writing books that constantly wash upon our shores.
To help widen our net, we’ve pulled together a list of 10 outstanding writing books, the ones that almost got away. Whether you’re reading for your own pleasure, seeking to enhance your writing skills by incorporating the advice of experienced practitioners, looking for inspiration to get you through the rough patches, or simply searching for great, writer-friendly gifts for the holidays, this crop of terrific books should feed your appetite.
The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published by Arielle Eckstut and David Henry Sterry. Workman Publishing, 480 pages. Paper, $14.95.
Written by two veteran publishing insiders (Eckstut is a literary agent, Sterry a book doctor), this real-world guidebook demystifies the entire publishing process, showing you how to create an effective book proposal, comprehend the legal complexities of a book contract, develop the publicity skills you’ll need to succeed, and, if necessary, self-publish. There’s lengthy advice on using the Web to market your book, and even help with producing a video book trailer. The authors include interviews with hundreds of publishing insiders and writers. This valuable how-to also offers sample book proposals, query letters and more.
To read the rest of The Writer Magazine’s Favorite books of 2010, click here.
Book Doctors on Huffington Post: Popping My Cyber-Cherry on Twitter
Thanks once again to Huff Po! And thanks to the Book Maven for guiding us through our first live Twitter event, and leading us into the Future.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-henry-sterry/my-first-time-popping-my-_b_791435.html