Sex, Lies and Book Publishing: What You Need to Know By Rupert Heath Kindle Edition Sex, Lies and Book Publishing: What You Need to Know Keep your friends close. Keep your enemies closer. Keep your publisher closest of all. If you are interested in being published, you should do all you can to make the publishing business interested in you. But how? Youve already written a good book, so what else do you have to do to give yourself the edge with agents and publishers? Sex, Lies Book Publishing is your field guide to the nature of publishing the unspoken rules and conventions deciding which books get published and which dont based on the way the industry and its denizens think and act. It is an up to date insiders guide to an often mysterious business, and an invaluable resource for any author seeking an agent and, ultimately, a publishing deal. Sex, Lies Book Publishing lifts the lid on the publishing world today, and the people who work in it from the occasionally eyebrow raising private lives of book editors, to the ways they judge new fiction and non fiction and prepare it for publication. This guide is packed with trade secrets you wont read anywhere else, including some which publishers might just prefer went unprinted. I found it interesting to read that editors must have a healthy hit to miss ratio of publishing success or they will be fired It s something an author doesn t think about but obviously should The editor that rejects a manuscript ultimately does have to secure a book that they think will sell Also very interesting is the way book sales are reported You ll be surprised at this and the low rate of how many books actually make money for publishers Learning these two facts alone covered the price of the book for me. In a very interesting section the author looks at all the facts behind the question a lot of people are now asking in the 21st century What exactly do publishers think they re doing He then goes on in depth with three chapters on the subject of agents.

Keep your friends close Keep your enemies closer Keep your publisher closest of all If you are interested in being published you should do all you can to make the publishing business interested in you But how You ve already written a good book so what else do you have to do to give yourself the edge with agents and publishers Sex Lies Book Publishing is your field guide to the nature of publishing the unspoken rules and conventions deciding which books get published and which don t based on the way the industry and its denizens think and act It is an up to date insider s guide to an often mysterious business and an invaluable resource for any author seeking an agent and ultimately a publishing deal Sex Lies Book Publishing lifts the lid on the publishing world today and the people who work in it from the occasionally eyebrow raising private lives of book editors to the ways they judge new fiction and non fiction and prepare it for publication This guide is packed with trade secrets you won t read anywhere else including some which publishers might just prefer went unprinted Sex Lies and Book Publishing What You Need to Know It did not lift the lid on scandalous goings on in the book world as it seemed to promise but instead focused on the practical steps a publishable writer might take to negotiate the tricky terrain of getting published and getting published than once Because it was written in Summer 2015 I felt it needed an update to take account of fast moving changes in online publishing and other trends Worth its 99p price however Kindle Edition Insight into what publishing is really like Read this before you start submitting your manuscript to agents Useful information and food for thought on the future of publishing Kindle Edition I m no expert on the subject but it was interesting and easy to read helpful I think for writers going into the industry and wanting an easy overview of all the cogs working the wheel It s not in depth but a nice broad strokes look at things It is a bit out of date with regards social media and ebooks but then in this climate any book will be soon enough I suppose Kindle Edition Finally some hard hitting reality on the book publishing world that pulls no punches We are often scared to dump on publishers and literary agents for fear that we may never find one again or have our existing contracts if we are so lucky to have one cancelled This is a incestuous and insular business and we have to be kind to everyone within it goes the wisdom However Rupert Heath takes the gloves off and voices some truths we always suspected existed. Reading this very short book I realized that most aspiring authors are caught up in a publishing model that existed in the 1960s 80 s a time when many of them came of age and were inspired to become writers The writer of the 21st Century is a different beast Even though pickings are slimmer today and in order to earn a decent living we need other jobs to supplement our income the professional commitment to writing has to be continuous and sustained over a long period of time Heath cites Robyn Young s Brethren trilogy for which the author neither a journalist or an academic spent seven years studying its historical period including the arts of falconry and horse riding in order to render a sense of verisimilitude to her work On the other hand Heath points out to a notorious lack of knowledge in Frederick Forsyth s Day of the Jackal in how obtaining a false passport is described I was however left with the question on Forsyth s faux pas in today s world of fake news does anyone care I wish this book had been longer and had exposed many skeletons hidden in the slush pile What Heath is alluding to but never quite prescribes is that for the vast majority of writers the writing of books will remain an artisanal business a limited run of books most likely produced via POD technology or as e books distributed to a small circle of trusted readers from which they would grow outwards by engaging those readers on a one to one basis Writing is an art publishing is a business and many of us will have to content ourselves with just the art side if luck circumstance or the odds don t thrust us into the publishing side. I didn t fall across any sex though as alluded to in the title Perhaps that was Heath s marketing gambit Sex sells and that was what prompted me to buy this book in the first place for I thought there would be scenes of bodice ripping and panting going on inside the hallowed halls of the publishing houses You are warned there ain t none of that stuff here Kindle Edition Submitting a book to an agent or publisher Well this book is an essential tool In Sex Lies Book Publishing we find out how all consuming the publishing industry is It s not just a job it s a way of life And a very interesting lifestyle at that In Chapter One Rupert Heath explains the interweaving of the personal with business There is no official study describing the pattern of personal relationships in book publishing but it is clear that a very high proportion of men and women in publishing look for and find their life partners within the same industry Editors marry editors agents marry editors authors marry agents usually but not always their own Sometimes the love is spread slightly further afield and extends to publishers reps publicists or book scouts Publishing communities in London and New York are a big networks of inter related individuals I can t imagine their antipodean counterparts having as much fun another on the covering letter very invaluable He also offers five pieces of writing advice There is a chapter on how to write a non fiction book proposal and another on going into partnership That s a brief summary of Part 1 From Inspiration to Representation. Part 2 From Representation to Publication begins with the chapter entitled The Submission Process Another seven chapters step us through the whole process doing the deal marketing and publicity sales and booksellers and a lot of other insightful information ending with the chapter Publication Day. Part 3 The Wild Blue Yonder is a reality check examining the experience of being published Was it all worth it Heath looks at alternatives and in the final chapter of the book reveals his private dystopian fantasy I m not going to reveal it here You ll have to read the book to find out what it is Highly recommended for aspiring writers Kindle Edition

Sex, Lies and Book Publishing: What You Need to Know By Rupert Heath

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Kindle Edition

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As the numbers are way down here on all fronts But you never know: Take for example advice like 1 Make multiple simultaneous submissions It improves your odds, And skeletons unloaded from the closet like 1 A majority of agented submissions are rejected: 2 Editors have no time to edit today They are busy heeding the demands of marketing departments. 4 The majority of marketing funds are spent on retail merchandizing The entrances of retail book stores are tranches of real estate.2 Offering a trilogy is okay.3 Self publishing is the way of the future.3 Publishers are getting into fee based writing courses i.e monetizing the slush pile.5 Launches and book parties are now thrown by the author