As I meet with people, I am often asked the same questions. I thought I would put together some answers so that aspiring authors can refer to these answers at their convenience.
Q1.) What kind of publishing did I use?
A1.) Well, I used the self-publisher, createspace.com, to help me set up the interior design of my book, create a cover, make sure the book was perfect and ready to be sold…really just to physically create my book. Createspace also handles book order fulfillment and shipping.
Then I used a small publishing house to help me print and distribute the book to stores and websites. My publisher provided my ISBN’s. (Search bowkerlink.com for more details on ISBNs)
Q2.) What type of publishing should you use? Self-publishing or a traditional publishing house?
A2.) That is a question I cannot answer for you. Both have advantages and disadvantages, strong points and weak points.
Self-publishing is good because you have the most control over your book: you pick where it gets sold, what the cover and interior design look like, how many you’re going to print, etc. You can’t get rejected and you’re in charge of your own success. It can be highly expensive, though, costing several thousands of dollars to print and distribute the books. You do get more money for every book you sell, but there’s so much work involved in selling your book; if you do it improperly, your book will fail.
Traditional publishing is good because you are paid a sum of money up front for the manuscript of your book. You will likely receive many services from the company, such as a literary agent and a marketer to do all of the work for you. They will cover everything, from cover design to printing to placing it in which stores. However, you get very little money from the books you actually sell, and it can take months or even years for a publishing house to pick up your manuscript and actually decide to publish it. You will face many rejection letters from publishing houses – it’s not that your writing is necessarily bad or they just don’t like you, it’s because they want professional authors who have had continued success in the past. They want to be absolutely 100 percent sure your book will make them millions of dollars in sales. They rarely will publish someone who isn’t already famous.
Q3.) What are some recommended teen publishing houses you can submit a manuscript to?
A3.) Some publishers include Scholastic, Random House, Penguin, Simon&Schuster, HarperCollins, and Poppy. I recommend doing a ton of research to ensure you submit your manuscript to the right publisher. You may also want to look into niche publishers as well if your book falls into a specific type of book.
Q4.) Where is my book sold?
A4.) “The Last Summer” is currently being sold on amazon.com, on Kindle, on barnesandnoble.com, and Kindle. I am currently working to get in sold and available on other sites, such as in the iBooks store, on a Sony eReader, on a Nook, and on Kobo.
Q5.) What awards have you won?
A5.) I won a USA Best Book award for the category Best New Fiction eBook. I was also nominated for a Newbery Award and a Children’s Notable Award.
Q6.) How did I get my book published?
A6.) Through a lot of hard work. It took a long time, but after I wrote “The Last Summer”, I told my parents I wanted to publish it. I was 13 at the time. They decided to do it because I had tried to get previous books published and all had fallen through (my first attempt at publishing was at age 9 or 10). I worked with an editor to fix up my story and make it perfect (my parents paid for the editor) and then we went to Create Space to help with the publishing (my parents paid for that, too). I now owe my parents like $6000 (that’s not an exaggeration, I’m not even kidding) and so I’m paying them back through book sales currently.
Q7.) How long did it take you?
A7.) From putting pen to paper in January of 2010 until May of 2012. It took me from January until August of 2010 to write the whole story down in a notebook. Then I began typing it and sent it to the editor at the end of June of 2011. I got it back from the editor at the beginning of August and sent it to him again in the beginning of September. By December of 2011 I was working with Create Space to design the cover and interior design of the book. I got a few “proof copies” of the book from January 2012 until May so I could make sure everything was perfect, and I received my first shipment of books on May 19th, 2012.
Q8.) How does it feel to be a published author?
A8.) To be honest, there’s no good answer. At first I was jumping up and down, screaming for joy, smiling so hard my cheeks hurt. But then it wears off a little bit, and you really only get excited about it when you have other people around you who are excited about it (don’t expect to gain popularity at school, I found that most high schoolers DO NOT CARE). You almost feel bashful and shy about it because some people make it into a huge deal while others really don’t give a crap. Overall, I just feel like writing has become my life and that it is a really huge accomplishment.
Q9.) How did you pick out your cover? Is it just something from Google?
A9.) I actually had a professional cover designer create it for me using images legally purchased off of iStock Photo or similar resource. I plan on having future book covers of mine made by photos I’ve taken myself. This way you give the rights to the proper owner of the photos.
As for downloading a picture from Google, well, it’s not legal because you need permission from the source of the photo, and also you need to pay to use the photo and give credit to the original owner (basically it’s a copyright issue).
I hope these answers are helpful to you. Feel free to include other questions that you would like answered and maybe I’ll be able to answer them in the future.
