The Author's Handbook

By Arthur Frank

Arthur Frank has been the leader of writers groups for about eight years and has taught fiction writing at the collegiate level for several years. He is a member of Mystery Writers of America. He used to be in the consumer magazine business after leaving a corporate career in labor relations behind. He has seen any number of aspiring writers struggle incredibly trying to carve out a career in the literary world.

He struggled with many of these concerns himself, finding out that the literary world is so far away from the magazine business that it might as well be on Jupiter. He has offered all kinds of advice to new writers for many years, but never wrote them down except for lesson plans. He writes fiction and a “how to” book is non fiction, which is also in a completely different world.

This book is an effort to cushion the hard knocks that most writers experience along the way and cause many talented people to simply give up. It is intentionally priced at about as much as a cup of coffee, and intentionally kept short to clear a lot the jetsam away from the path to a literary career. Good things do come in small packages after all.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arthur Frank
• Release date: Jun 25, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476420820

Arthur Frank

Arthur Frank is a former Director of Labor Relations for several fortune 250 corporations, responsible for union contract negotiations, strike preparations, arbitration advocacy, grievance handling, discipline and discharge, and staff supervision. As America was losing its industrial base in a dying career field and he changed careers to own a magazine publishing business, producing both consumer and trade publications.Magazines are also a declining field, and he sold out in favor of pursuing leisure activities. He is an expert in 19th Century European paintings and sculptures, and trades in the art market, a highly specialized challenging field. He never considered writing fiction until he told his wife that a certain story was really disappointing and that he could do better himself, in Colin Dexter fashion. She retorted he couldn’t possibly do it, that it was not his training, with his bachelors and masters degrees and US Air Force service, so he wrote his first novel of some 130,000 words. Surprised, she said it was actually good.He has lived all of his adult life in Northern Monmouth County, New Jersey now living in Holmdel for many years, where he is active in the community holding several elected or appointed local positions. He has always been afflicted with wander lust, and may be found on the beaches and waterways of Fort Lauderdale in the winters and in the cafes and theaters of Woodstock NY in the summers. He speaks 5 northern European languages and travels overseas by car when he can. Getting lost is half the fun.

Book preview

The Author’s Handbook

Or

All the things they never told you

about being a Writer

Copyright © Arthur L. Frank, 2011

All rights reserved.

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

PUBLISHER'S NOTE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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Table of Contents

Forward

1 Your manuscript is finished < or is it>...........................................................5

2- Let’s talk about format....................................................................................7

3- Let’s talk about professionalism-or how the finished product should look..11

4- Should I belong to a writers group?

How about a professional writer’s organization?..........................................16

5 – Should I self publish my work?...............................................................23

6- Do I have an agent? Do I need one? How do I get one?...........................29

7- Let’s talk about independent publishers....................................................34

8- Let’s look at major publishers- what is the difference?.............................37

9- What are the stages of publication?..........................................................41

10- Who does the promotion of this new book, and who pays?...................43

11- How are my books actually sold?...........................................................46

12- How much do I get paid, and when?......................................................49

13 How do I know if I am a success as a new author?.................................53

14 What about e-publishing? Does it help or hurt?......................................54

15- What about publishing contracts? How do I protect myself?.................57

16- What is the difference between hard cover, soft cover & mass market books? 58

17- What is the hope for a new author?........................................................63

About The Author

FORWARD

There are virtually hundreds of books on writing, with plenty of people telling you how to write .Everybody who can’t write love to tell you how to do it. They postulate all kinds of rules for writing that they swear will get you into the big time. I have read a lot of those books. For the most part I find them to be trite, boring, misleading and generally discouraging. I have argued with many writers organizations about the value of these how-to books to no avail. Those kinds of arguments are the reason to write this manual.

Naturally not all books on or for writers are a waste of effort. There are some books on the market that are excellent .Generally texts written by notable writers are well worth investigating. Steven King’s book is outstanding, as are the volumes by Elmore Leonard, David Morrell and Evan Marshall which are all outstanding. If you could only have one book on writing for your entire life, that book absolutely must be Strunk & White’s ON STYLE.

It is my belief that most of these books are written by journalists, college professors, former publisher’s line editors and other people who have a few contacts in the industry and the ability to generate a decent outline and proposal to make ten thousand or so dollars easily. Books on writing actually sell pretty well in bookstores and to various libraries. Writing texts are generally written to enrich the author and not inform the reader. Essentially, if they could have written a bestselling novel, they would have done so and headed right into the big time. There is a lot of money in best selling novels, a topic to be discussed further no in this manual. Take a minute later on to look up how many novels your favorite author wrote and how many copies were sold .It might prove real interesting.

Writing a great manuscript is just the beginning. Once it is done, you have to get it out of the word processor and into print which is a major undertaking. I ought to know; I have 8 different manuscripts, have been rejected hundreds of times, and on three different occasions had a book deal die at the last possible minute. This is not unusual at all. It happens to plenty of relatively talented writers all the time. It takes years and plenty of hard knocks to break into the fraternity. Some people have some of the necessary attributes. I just happen to be born with none of the lucky qualifiers. I am a USAF Viet Nam veteran, , male, an American of German heritage, and all the wrong degrees. Bachelors and Masters in things