Published: Tip #2--Truth About Publishing

One of you wrote that the title of my blog covers too many topics.

Well, to tell you the truth, you won't get much advice on getting thin because I rarely lose weight--I just talk about it. When T.V. producers ask me to send in a photo of myself before an interview, I make sure to stretch it lengthwise so I look thinner!

One classmate I saw at my 30-year high school reunion looked as skinny as I remembered her senior year. I asked, "How do you do it?"

"I don't eat anything and I exercise all the time," she said matter-of-factly.

Finally, somebody stated the real, ugly truth that no one wants to hear.

Now I will tell you why the word "famous" is in the title of this blog--and it's another ugly truth:

The Truth About Publishing

You have to be famous to get published by a major publisher. Unfortunately, I’m not kidding. Or at the very least, the magazine or book publisher needs to know you personally or know your best friend or agent personally to consider your manuscript. One intern at a major, glossy magazine finally told me what I always suspected, “We never read unsolicited manuscripts.” So, if you’re not famous, or somehow “in” with a major publisher, you’ll have to start with a small one.

The reason you have to be famous? In book publishing, it costs a lot of money to promote a title and the profits on books sold in stores are slim. It is only worthwhile to the publisher if you already have a large following they can count on to buy your book. So that’s why it was a lot easier for Paris Hilton’s dog to get published (remember The Tinkerbell Hilton Diaries: My Life Tailing Paris Hilton by Tinkerbell Hilton?) than many great writers. Now that’s depressing!" [This is an excerpt from my free e-book, How to Get Published. See button to the right under "My Books."]

Published Tip #2

Aside from sharing what has worked for me, I will also post the best advice I've received from others (if you have advice to give, please post it as a comment below). Since I started my life as freelance writer during the Stone Age (before the Internet), I'm not always up to date. This tip was posted as a comment to my first blog entry:

"To start getting more notoriety, one thing new authors can do is to do radio shows or even start one of their own! There are numerous shows out there and if you have an interesting book topic and are willing to dispense good, helpful info to the listeners you could be a guest. If you don't want to do that, just do your own podcasts and post them on your site/blog and send to your email list. It helps would-be readers of your books to start to get to know you. Plus, you can talk up your books as much as you please!" K. Moehr, Success in 30! Marketing http://www.moehr-associates.com/

Me again: I would love to hear from you when you find success using some of these tips!

P.S. If you see a typo in this blog and you don't mind taking a moment to tell me, I'd really appreciate it! Since I'm trying to get famous in order to get on Oprah, I want her folks to take me seriously. Readers, especially editor-types, hate typos and will use it as an excuse to stop reading and move onto the next desperate writer trying to get published. So, please feel free to point out my short-comings as a "comment" to my post (as long as you're not too mean and hurt my feelings like one copy editor did on a discussion board for all the world to see--"No one is going to take you seriously as a writer with a misspelling like that!"). Of course I ran a spell-check on this, but even that is no guarantee!