Author and editor Deatri King-Bey was always open to sharing her hard-won wisdom with authors, answering their questions about the publishing industry and writing as a craft. When she decided to self-publish in 2010, those questions increased exponentially. “I found myself spending a lot of time answering the same questions over and over, so decided to write a book that answered the questions I received most and to create a website to continue giving authors – aspiring, traditional and self – the tools they need to become successful authors,” she explains.
The end result – Become a Successful Author and its companion website of the same name. Become a Successful Author is available now as an eBook; the print version drops February 28, 2012. Here’s more from King-Bey:
The publishing industry has shifted 180° in the decade I’ve worked in it as a developmental editor and author. The traditional route is no longer the only way to become a legitimate published author, and self publishing is no longer a dirty little secret. As an author, should you travel the traditional or self published route? Become A Successful Author does not tell you to pick one over the other or pit one against the other. Become A Successful Author gives you steps to capitalize on the strengths of both to build a strong brand readers can’t get enough of.
Ascribing success is, at best, a subjective endeavor, and King-Bey recognizes this. “‘Success’ is defined differently for each individual,” she declares. “The book provides proven ways for you to reach whatever success means to you. Success is measurable.” King-Bey the author, for example, set her measurable metrics in terms of sales per certain timeframes, marking/promotion contacts, number of clicks to her website, and the like.
Online and brick-and-mortar bookstores stock their share of the works from experts selling the magic elixir to aspiring authors. King-Bey, though, insists that Become a Successful Author is different from other publishing how-to books that promise literary success. “Most of the time, I was answering people through email, so I decided to write the book in a conversational tone with information all authors – aspiring, traditional, self – need and could understand. So when you read the book, it’s like reading an email from a friend who has the inside track on the business and craft,” she says. The antidote to most of the instructive books that King-Bey had read that were either “too technical, too ‘here’s the secret,’ too ‘all you have to do,’ [written in] tones [that] sounded as if the authors were too hyped up.”
Additionally, she insists, the information included in her book is just plain poles apart. “Many of the other books I read were focused on how to self-publish a book or how to market your self-published book,” she says. “Become a Successful Author is a comprehensive book that will build a strong foundation for all authors in knowledge of the publishing business and the writing craft that authors can build on. It does not teach how to self or traditionally publish, but how to become successful at both by creating a quality brand.”
With the companion website, Become a Successful Author provides free additional guidance beyond the book, what King-Bey calls “an ever changing ‘how to’ encyclopedia in order to truly help authors become successful authors. It can’t all go into one book.”
So what does King-Bey wish she could have included in Become a Successful Author? “I wish I could have included more on how to copyright and all that good stuff in other countries,” she says. “A quality book is a quality book, and marketing is marketing, but I didn’t tell people from other countries how to get their copyright and such. I also only tell the basics on how to start your own publishing company. I did this because each state has its own process for setting up businesses and that process is ever changing. There is enough information to get readers started.”
One questions whether some of King-Bey’s advice, particularly that concerning submissions to publishing houses and reaching out to literary agents, is still relevant, considering the current risk-averse posture of publishers and agents. King-Bey declares that such information remains pertinent, “because the majority of traditional publishing houses will not view your manuscript if it is not agented. I also explain to readers that my crystal ball tells me that in the future, self-publishing will become the new ‘agent’ of the industry. That is why I teach the entire process. Eventually, publishers will be looking to pick up authors who already have a large following. That day hasn’t come yet. Be prepared.”
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