Publishing your first book?
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EricGjerde
- Junior Member
- Posts: 80
- Joined: July 31st, 2005, 5:43 am
- Location: Strasbourg
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This is a really big topic! there's a lot of different components to this conversation, all of which go off in separate directions... (self publishing, low-cost book publishers looking for set-fee work, publications with royalties, etc.)
As far as traditional publishers go, what the publishing house wants will vary widely depending on who they are and what their focus is. Often they might decide that on some given year, they wish to do 10 craft books, and maybe they want something with origami butterflies. Therefore they'll review proposals they might already have, chat up authors they have previously published or worked with before, and then if nobody bites they'll start looking around for existing folks who might be interested in doing a book on the topic.
My recommendation, drawing only from my personal experience, is to GET YOUR WORK OUT THERE. Post images online in a way that's easily searchable by anybody. (My favorite still remains- Flickr.com!) Don't stuff it all into forums (sorry origami forum) or hidden away in some facebook photo album that people can't get to easily. Make your own website with beautiful pictures of your work. Get things out there and on display so that anyone looking for "someone to do origami butterflies" finds your work and connects with you to find out more.
Of course, you should also send in proposals for a book project, especially if you've got some good work put together already and can provide a nice outline of what it would look like- or perhaps you even have the entire project "done" already. This is all good too, although depending on what you're looking to do for a book it might be putting the cart before the horse. Your 200+ page collection of insect diagrams might not be all that appealing to a publisher who really wants 64 page paperback of simple origami for kids. So bear in mind that with most publishing houses, they usually have something relatively specific in mind and your work will get sliced and diced every which way until it fits with what they want. (and believe me that's often a moving target.)
That said, doing the legwork of putting together a large collection of diagrams is a good start. keep versions of your work, keep each step as a separate work file. Use a proper vector graphics program. Almost all shops are going to be using InDesign or Quark for their layout, so you'll want to be able to provide either Illustrator files or good EPS files for them. I almost guarantee that your diagrams are going to need a LOT of clean-up work done by competent graphic artists to make them production-ready. (this isn't a slam on anyone here- my diagrams were all horrible, too. Most origamists don't have the experience to know what is necessary to make diagrams ready for CMYK offset printing, etc.)
Your writing will also need a lot of editing. Writing origami instructions is hard- it's like writing out how to tie a shoe, for people who have never tied a shoe before... we're all comfortable with our own origami creations and so it's very difficult to think about them from a newcomer's perspective. It's important to get a lot of feedback and proofing on your instructions, and your publisher will no doubt do a lot of re-writing of all your written content. This makes it a better book. (Yes, really.)
Once you've made all these diagrams, gone through rounds of editing on those with the illustrators, written and re-written all your text, there's still photos to be taken. Lots of photos. Lots and lots of photos. With very high resolution digital cameras, taken by someone who knows what they're doing, and complying with directives from the art director assigned to work on your book project. You may or may not like how they take the photos. This is not really something you control, as with the rest of your book- once you signed that contract, it's the publisher's book, not yours. They can call it whatever they want, add or remove content as they desire, and include that photo of your duck-billed platypus UPSIDE DOWN because they just like it better that way. This is the reality of the situation and you work with it as best you can. (A very good reason to try to get a sense of how your prospective publisher works with authors... before you sign anything, do your homework and talk to other authors that have worked with that publisher before!)
There's a lot more to the whole process, and I could babble on about it forever- no doubt giving lots of bad advice along the way :)
However my one piece of good advice is to ALWAYS READ THE CONTRACT and make sure you have it looked at by a lawyer or agent who DEALS WITH BOOK CONTRACTS. Seriously. you might think it's going to cost you a lot of money to do that but it probably won't and the boilerplate contracts from publishers are chock-full of pitfalls that keep you from making money from your book. Contracts are always negotiable. Make sure yours works for you- and if they aren't going to negotiate any terms on the contract and it stinks, then it's really not a publisher you want to work with in the first place.
-Eric Gjerde
(PS - I'd like to mention here how much I enjoyed working with my second publisher, AK Peters. They were a pleasure to work with and have always been very friendly and helpful. So there are good publishers out there who make the process fun and exciting!)
As far as traditional publishers go, what the publishing house wants will vary widely depending on who they are and what their focus is. Often they might decide that on some given year, they wish to do 10 craft books, and maybe they want something with origami butterflies. Therefore they'll review proposals they might already have, chat up authors they have previously published or worked with before, and then if nobody bites they'll start looking around for existing folks who might be interested in doing a book on the topic.
My recommendation, drawing only from my personal experience, is to GET YOUR WORK OUT THERE. Post images online in a way that's easily searchable by anybody. (My favorite still remains- Flickr.com!) Don't stuff it all into forums (sorry origami forum) or hidden away in some facebook photo album that people can't get to easily. Make your own website with beautiful pictures of your work. Get things out there and on display so that anyone looking for "someone to do origami butterflies" finds your work and connects with you to find out more.
Of course, you should also send in proposals for a book project, especially if you've got some good work put together already and can provide a nice outline of what it would look like- or perhaps you even have the entire project "done" already. This is all good too, although depending on what you're looking to do for a book it might be putting the cart before the horse. Your 200+ page collection of insect diagrams might not be all that appealing to a publisher who really wants 64 page paperback of simple origami for kids. So bear in mind that with most publishing houses, they usually have something relatively specific in mind and your work will get sliced and diced every which way until it fits with what they want. (and believe me that's often a moving target.)
That said, doing the legwork of putting together a large collection of diagrams is a good start. keep versions of your work, keep each step as a separate work file. Use a proper vector graphics program. Almost all shops are going to be using InDesign or Quark for their layout, so you'll want to be able to provide either Illustrator files or good EPS files for them. I almost guarantee that your diagrams are going to need a LOT of clean-up work done by competent graphic artists to make them production-ready. (this isn't a slam on anyone here- my diagrams were all horrible, too. Most origamists don't have the experience to know what is necessary to make diagrams ready for CMYK offset printing, etc.)
Your writing will also need a lot of editing. Writing origami instructions is hard- it's like writing out how to tie a shoe, for people who have never tied a shoe before... we're all comfortable with our own origami creations and so it's very difficult to think about them from a newcomer's perspective. It's important to get a lot of feedback and proofing on your instructions, and your publisher will no doubt do a lot of re-writing of all your written content. This makes it a better book. (Yes, really.)
Once you've made all these diagrams, gone through rounds of editing on those with the illustrators, written and re-written all your text, there's still photos to be taken. Lots of photos. Lots and lots of photos. With very high resolution digital cameras, taken by someone who knows what they're doing, and complying with directives from the art director assigned to work on your book project. You may or may not like how they take the photos. This is not really something you control, as with the rest of your book- once you signed that contract, it's the publisher's book, not yours. They can call it whatever they want, add or remove content as they desire, and include that photo of your duck-billed platypus UPSIDE DOWN because they just like it better that way. This is the reality of the situation and you work with it as best you can. (A very good reason to try to get a sense of how your prospective publisher works with authors... before you sign anything, do your homework and talk to other authors that have worked with that publisher before!)
There's a lot more to the whole process, and I could babble on about it forever- no doubt giving lots of bad advice along the way :)
However my one piece of good advice is to ALWAYS READ THE CONTRACT and make sure you have it looked at by a lawyer or agent who DEALS WITH BOOK CONTRACTS. Seriously. you might think it's going to cost you a lot of money to do that but it probably won't and the boilerplate contracts from publishers are chock-full of pitfalls that keep you from making money from your book. Contracts are always negotiable. Make sure yours works for you- and if they aren't going to negotiate any terms on the contract and it stinks, then it's really not a publisher you want to work with in the first place.
-Eric Gjerde
(PS - I'd like to mention here how much I enjoyed working with my second publisher, AK Peters. They were a pleasure to work with and have always been very friendly and helpful. So there are good publishers out there who make the process fun and exciting!)
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Julien Gritte
- Newbie
- Posts: 45
- Joined: February 27th, 2011, 10:49 am
- Location: paris
- Contact:
WOW Eric, this is a totally new perspective on this issues. THANKS! I had never thought about many of the things you mentioned.
As you know, I love reading the stories behind the books. I would love to read yours. Would you also answer the questions I posted at the beginning of this thread?... How hard was it to get your first book published? What did you do to make it happen? Where did you start? Did you consider it worth it and how come?
Thanks Eric.
As you know, I love reading the stories behind the books. I would love to read yours. Would you also answer the questions I posted at the beginning of this thread?... How hard was it to get your first book published? What did you do to make it happen? Where did you start? Did you consider it worth it and how come?
Thanks Eric.