A Conversation With the Publishing Industry

Me: Self-explanatory

PI: the publishing industry
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Me: I'm an unpublished author. May I submit my manuscript?

PI: Whoa! Maybe a proposal. But only if you're willing to do the lion's share of marketing for the book.

Me: Me do that marketing? Well, okay. When the time comes tell me what to do and I'll do it. Now may I submit my manuscript--I mean a proposal for my book?

PI: Not so fast. As an unpublished author, you'd better have a darn good platform if you want to be taken seriously by our industry.

Me: Um, okay, I'll go off for a while and build a platform.

....

Me: I've got a blog.

PI: Not good enough, unless you've got thousands of unique visitors a week.

Me: I've had a little freelance success.

PI: Ha! Come back when you've got fifty to 100 articles in print magazines.

Me: Well, I've got close to 100 articles published with an on-line, royalty paying publisher, getting read at the rate of 95,000 times per year.

PI: On-line? Ha! Don't waste our time.

Me: How about a query? May I submit a query letter?

PI: Do you have a marketing plan?

Me: I've put a lot of thought into audience and how to reach them.

PI: A WRITTEN marketing plan?

Me: No.

PI: Have you been to marketing classes? Especially targeted to book marketing--no, actually to marketing your type of book?

Me: No.

PI: Don't waste your postage, or our bandwidth.