How to publish a book (IIII): Literary Agent

As I mentioned in the previous post, about publishing a book with an editorial, we have the possibility to contact a literary agent. It is true that I have not worked with any, although I will try to comment a little on its operation.

The role of the literary agent is to represent you within the editorials, as well as a football agent, so common in football players. They have an extensive knowledge of the literary world and are able to see what will succeed and what will not, In addition to having their contacts that thanks to its reputation will be easier to be part of the publishing world.

Therefore, if they bet on you, they will have you publish with an editorial, Although as you imagine, it is not a free service and will carry a commission, which oscillates between 15 and 20%, If they ask you more percentage of the benefits is not advisable, although it depends on the need of each.

The problem is that it is almost as complicated as getting an Editorial to publish us on our own. That is, it will ease the way, but not everyone will accept us. When working by commission, they will not waste time on proposals that are not worth it. You have to go through your filter, just like you have to go through the editorials.

As I usually comment, Escritores.org is one of my favorite websites to consult all kinds of information about editorials, literary contests ... and there we can find a large list of agents of Spain and LATAM.

What steps should we follow?

Exactly the same as discussed in the previous article. Of course, you must have patience too, usually answer in one or two months and if you do not receive a reply means that they are not interested. As I always say, do not give up, your book is worth it and you will have your audience, no one will make you lower your arms, if you believe in your project, I guarantee you will go forward.

What is your experience with an agent? Will you try it? Could you add anything else? Do not forget to share your experiences.

How to publish a book (III): Editorials

In today's article we will focus on Editorials, it is true that we can choose two paths, for free (as we will comment today) or through a literary agent. Perhaps this second option is much better since they have Editorials with which they usually publish, although if you do not want more intermediaries, I recommend following the steps described below.

1. Cover Letter

The cover letter is very important, will be the first thing the publisher sees. Be brief and concise, there are busy people and if it is too long I doubt that they will listen to you. Explain how you are and why you fit into his editorial line.

2. Do not send the whole book

Never send the whole book, mainly because it is an unnecessary expense if you send it in paper and the publishers, unless they are interested they do not want the whole book. If they are interested, they will let you know and they will ask for the complete manuscript.

The model comes from the American market and is often used in novels that are not yet written or have few chapters, If anyone is interested, they continue to write. It is a way of not wasting time and not make it lose anyone.

3. Prepare an editorial proposal

As we mentioned in the previous point we do not have to send the whole book, but yes the information necessary for the editor.

The proposal should contain, in addition to the cover letter, the synopsis where to briefly tell the plot of the novel, with an extension of about two pages at most. In this case it does not matter to reveal the best parts, as well as the end, what matters is to get the editor's attention.

On the other hand, we should include a short biography of the author, adding all our achievements as writers, if any. Remember not to lie, everyone can know if it is real or not thanks to the internet. The next point is not mandatory but if it is to be appreciated, we must include the target for which the book is intended. There is always a target audience for each topic, we must do research and see where we fit.

An important point to add are personal data and a short description of the promotion and sales that the book would have. If you see it as necessary I can upload the editorial proposal that I make, usually have quite a few positive responses.

Finally we will add an appendix with several chapters of the work so they can see our style, in my case, I usually send the first chapter, one in the middle and the last one. Remember to take care of the presentation, do not have misspellings and above all letter to 12, Times New Roman or Arial and double spacing. That way make it easier for the publisher to read and is more pleasing to the eye.

4. Send with head

Never send to any publisher, think before seeing their editorial lines to ensure that you fit, Otherwise you will not get anything. It's like shooting arrows at the sky, they will never hit the target. In the web of the respective Editorials find his publications and you can get an idea, in fact, some already indicate the types of novels they want or in which they are not interested.

5. Physical or digital delivery?

It's almost the million dollar question. What is better? The physical presence of the paper or the immediacy of the email? The answer may vary depending on the Editorial and the budget. The normal thing is that they tell you the way of sending, in my case, I found that most asked for it in digital, although the editorials of Grupo Planeta request them in physical format.

6. You must have too much patience

You can wait sitting down, I do not want to discourage you but nobody answers in less than a month, does not mean that it is something bad, but we all want an answer as soon as possible. Perhaps most are rejections but do not stop fighting for your dreams, believe in your book and do not stop trying. If you want to get it you'll be able to.

Before finishing I would like to comment that you will encounter three types of editorials.
1- Classic Editorials: If they liked your work and want to edit you, they will take care of everything, obviously it is good that the author is involved as far as possible, it is your work after all.

2- Editorials with Crowdfunding: It is a good measure for small Editorials such as Tandaia or libros.com, so you can see if it will be profitable to publish or not, the only requirement is that you reach the figure marked in the process of presale/crowdfounding.

3- Editorials that charge: Yes, as you read, there are Editorials who will ask you for money to correct, print, advertise ... Are they reliable? That depends on each one, I personally would never work paying and in the end, if you want to dedicate to literature it will be a job so I do not recommend them also that usually make you pay between 2000 and 4000 € but almost all you gotta do. There could be some scams too.


Would you add anything else? Have you ever sent your works to any publishers? Have you thought about doing so in the future? Tell us about your experience.

What is the registration of intellectual property?

As discussed in the ISBN article, often they confused or are believed to be the same. Today we are going to give some more light on the subject.

The Registry of Intellectual Property is an administrative system established for the legal protection of copyright and rights related to copyright and is not mandatory.

The registration in the register serves as proof of authorship of a work, as well as the exploitation rights that the author reserves or assigns in favor of third parties.

The author who, once the work has been created, registers it has the testimony of protection of the registry (Digital certificate of registration), which proves that at a certain point in time the author claims to be the creator of a work, whose content can be contrasted through the copy that keeps the record.

In this way, if you begin distributing copies, models or the first copies of your work, someone tried to attribute the authorship, the author will have a proof of earlier date in which it is stated that he is the true creator.

If we want to register our work in Spain, we will have to access the web and from there download the following documents, depending on the type of work and author:

Being a novel in my case, I should submit from Authors 1 the application "Authors / Holders" and Authors 2 "Literary, scientific or dramatic work". It will always depend on the case.

The following fees are payable:

Do you think everything has been said about the registration of intellectual property? Do you register your works? Do not forget to leave it in the comments and share it with us.

What is ISBN?

In this article we are going to treat one of the great unknowns as is the ISBN which is often confused with the registry of the intellectual property.

What is ISBN?

The most obvious but the most accurate question, refers to the abbreviations of International Standard Book Number and performs the bar code function.

The number is unique for each edition, which means that if we get three versions of the same edition, for example hardcover, normal and ebook, we will need three different ISBN codes. However it may be the case of two editions with the same ISBN, how is it posible? Because in this case will be equal to the last comma of the book.

Having it allows us to consult all the information in the book, we could see its original format, the author, translator (If it has been translated), etc. As for the libraries , it is very useful to be able to catalog it in their databases.

Do all books have an ISBN?

As we mentioned in another article, it is not essential. Editors like Amazon do not use it, although they do relate them on the web if it have one.

How is an ISBN interpreted?

The ISBN is composed of five blocks separated by a hyphen, not necessarily the same length.

1. The first block designates that we are talking about a book with ISBN-13. Currently it is always 978. In the future, when the numbering is exhausted, it will go to 979

2. The second block designates the country and language of the book. It can have a variable length, some countries have two codes and sometimes several countries with the same language share code. For Spain is always the 84.

3. The third block designates the Publisher. It is a variable length number and the same publisher may have several codes.

4. The four number is put by the publisher and designates that book. Remember that whenever the content changes (another translation, a revision, another presentation, other illustrations) or the format (size, type of book, number of pages) must have a different ISBN.

5. The fifth number is a check digit. It is always a single digit and is obtained from the previous digits. Bar code readers or computer programs can recalculate this digit and check for errors.

Where to get an ISBN?

In Spain, the ISBN costs € 45, until 2008 was the state, we must thank the current government to privatize it and allow a user to pay that money, but a great publisher only 2.6 €.

We go to the website of the organism and after a few simple steps we can get our ISBN.

If before you want to see the rates, they are also available. As you can see if you intend to publish more than one book or take several different editions, buying a single ISBN will not go to your account since for 95 € you have 10 ISBNs.

What did you think of the article? Would you add anything else? Do you have a different opinion? Share your feedback with us.

How to publish a FREE ebook

As is normal, we are not to give away money, so I will try to explain how to publish an ebook without a Budget, yes, it's easy, most platforms do not make you pay to have it there but there are more things that make you invest money.

I can guarantee that it is viable, in fact before Tandaia contacted me I had everything ready without having invested money, was my idea because I could not afford to pay too much money.


What do I need and not, to create?
 There are two fundamental aspects that you can do them DIY (Do it yourself), Which are writing a book (It's an obvious point) and reviewing the text. True, you can now tell me that in this article I said that a philologist was necessary, but since we want to create it without a budget, we can not afford it. In that case we must be critical of our novel and read it as many times as necessary looking for errors and improved forms of expression. I recommend rereading it at least 3 times, leaving a reasonable amount of time between each one.

Now we will focus on the things we do not need, are several that we have also discussed before.

We will start by not using the ISBN, in our ebook it will not be necessary, all the information that is included is provided by the web itself. I know it seemed important, and it is, but if we do not have budget and it is not essential, it is not necessary.

On the other hand, we have the registration in the intellectual property, do not be afraid to pirate or copy the work, because in the end that is positive. In fact, you should never write a book just to sell or for fame, as Bukowski commented on one of his famous poems, because it is not worth it. Do it to contribute something, to fill those voids that cover your letters in the readers.

Finally, do not use an ebook Publisher, It's a job you can do it yourself. Things like the cover, margins, font and spacing, there are tutorials online that will explain you perfectly.

This way you will get your ebook completely without investing money, although a lot of dedication and effort. They have been very basic but necessary concepts to remember from time to time, now it is looking for the best strategy to reach readers.

Have you tried the strategy? Do you have other ideas? Share them and see if we can make an even better ebook.  

How to publish a book (II): Selfpublishing Second part

In today's edition we continue where we stayed yesterday.

The last point commented on was the price, to continue, we will talk about the distributors.

Of course you can go through the bookstores taking a sample of your book, Spending time and gasoline so that in the end, if someone has it, you can see it in a corner with hardly any visibility. On the other hand if you are a good seller (you could have been commercial and you know the subject) and you are determined to venture, Please tell me the experience and give ideas to those who, like me, do not have the right knowledge.

Returning to the topic and knowing that you are not going to venture, we can contact the distributors, which normally work by regions or communities, depending on each one. In the internet we will find the great majority with whom we can negotiate.

Each distributor has its points of sale and agreed conditions. Until now it seemed that the numbers were very favorable and it was not so unreasonable to publish itself in this way, but let's go for the numbers:

From the outset, I can tell you that if you expect to get rich, complicated,Of the book's total PVP (We talked about € 17 in the previous post) The author receives approximately 40% If the copy has a price of € 17 in bookstores, € 6.52 is for the author (17€ – 4% de IVA = 16,32€ x 10% => 6,52€). It is true that we take more than an editorial, as it is usually 10% for the author.

It should be noted that all numbers are variable, But it is the usual average, you can always negotiate different conditions, although they have the last Word.

The other part of the cake will be taken by the distributors and the point of sale. In this case the percentages are usually distributed to 15% for the distributor and 45% for the point of sale.

Seeing this, novel authors do not usually self-publish by this mode. It is a very large investment for such a low profit, that in the best of cases it will be able to amortize the invested capital.

Now, if we decide to self-publish in a digital version the expenses are reduced by almost 70%, We must bear in mind that the dematerialization of the product contributes to greater sustainability and allows us to take a greater risk.

In this case, by uploading the ebook to platforms like iBooks or Amazon, We can even access Smashwords that they themselves will upload them to all available platforms (Soon I will give an overview of the application). In this way, although the price will be lower, the benefit will be greater, since we take between 85 and 90% of the PVP of the book.

Do you think everything about self-publishing has been discussed? Are you missing something or do you think you can contribute better data? Do you prefer ebook or paper? Do not hesitate to leave it in the comments and share it.

How to publish a book (II): Selfpublishing First part

What do I need to self publish?

As I will always give my point of view on this, as self-publish is not an easy task and want to do it on paper costs soar.

If you are a novel author and want to self-publish, trust me and start editing in Ebook, That way you will avoid high economic expenses and your target audience will risk before making the decision, because you can sell it at a very low price. Let's not fool ourselves; no one is going to consume a product they do not know.

The steps we must follow are:

The first step is the most logical, we must write our manuscript. Although it is a first draft, it is always best to do it in the right format so that you do not have more work in the end.

We will be able to see the number of pages and it will facilitate the creation of the index.

The best thing is that the work is not large, not to give such a high responsibility to the prospective buyer. Imagine you have to choose a 1000 page book from someone you have not read, Would you buy it? I do not think so, it's a very big decision, because if you do not like it then it will not matter.

Give it a suitable and standardized format like Openoffice or Microsoft Word, This is to facilitate printing, If you give them more work to format also will be charged, No one works for free.

Secondly we will talk about the record, for me the most important step after writing. If you have decided to get it for sale, Publish some chapter so readers can browse, etc. It is very important to have it registered. There are people who can take advantage of your work without your consent.

In your city you have a registry of the property, you do not need to go very far. On their website you can consult the headquarters. The format they request is the one of all the life, DIN-A4 and bound.

Now you are looking insane so much security, But at some point, the work will pass through hands that are not yours.

In another article we will talk about the necessary documents, If you need more information do not hesitate to consult me.

Once registered, we can start with the third step. Improve that first draft, as discussed in “How to write a book”.

Once you believe that the work cannot be improved and corrected, I recommend that you speak with a philologist in the language in which you write your book, They charge about € 100 and we guarantee that there is no spelling error.

Fourthly, with our finished work ready to begin reading, we need the cover. This step you can do at any time before, Although it is always better to do it with the finished novel so that it has a correct meaning.

There are several ways to make your cover, if you have notions you can use programs like Photoshop or Gimp. However if you do not have much idea, do not worry, Amazon has an editor, canva is another option and searching the internet you will find thousands of programs and websites free and paid. In addition to being able to contact good designers.

Now that we have everything, We must check that we have filled in all the necessary information on the first page, which we will disaggregate in the following article.

Although not my recommendation, if you have decided to publish physically, You need to calculate the PVP, for this I have been fed by the information available in escritores.org. I did not want to touch the information of the article since it seems very complete, which indicate the following:

To do this calculation first you have to calculate how much it has cost each copy to you including all the expenses of production, Transport, as well as make a forecast of distribution costs depending on the size of the area that you intend to cover during the years in which this edition is in force so as not to end up catching your fingers.

You're not supposed to just place your books in the corner store, Although that would be your best option to start whenever the editorial line coincides with the genre that you offer and manage to capture the grocer.

It illustrates the calculation with a very realistic practical example. As long as you do not say anything else the prices we mention will be without VAT and this is 21% in Spain.

Suppose you have a 240 page book and the on-demand print service for an order of 30 copies leaves you at 6 euros plus 7 euros of postage which we will consider as 8 because the VAT on transport is 16%. We assume that you are charged 5 more books for legal deposit and you will spend another one for the registration of the property of the definitive version.

That is, they print 35 but you will have 29 to market. The expenses (transport + 6 books) will be (8 + 36) / 29 = 44/29 = 1.466. That is, each copy to you has cost you 6 + 1,517. Let's take a 7.52 euro total cost per book for that first run. The next rolls will be cheaper because you do not have to spend those 6 extra books but you have to work with those figures to avoid catching your fingers. If you make a new edition, a new legal deposit with its corresponding expenses is generated.

Now suppose that you conform with a minimum benefit for you of a few euros, We left another 3 as a margin to not catch your fingers with the expenses of distribution because what you can not do is to charge later a different amount to other stores based on a transport and distribution expenses that you will have to assume as part of the facet of Distributor of your own work. You must act professionally as another distributor and once you mark a PVD and a PVP you will have to maintain them indefinitely during that editionDoing it otherwise is not well seen.

You are not going to sell books one by one, so do not spend too much time for that concept. I think for a self-publisher and for a small-scale distribution 3 euros per book are enough. Do not accept orders of less than four copies at distribution price because a book-to-book order management would entail higher expenses.

In any case you must take into account the time of trying to place your work and give up the areas that suppose a higher expense than you have budgeted. That way everything you save in distribution, will also be for you. The real benefit would range from 3 euros for small orders to remote areas and 6 euros for the corner store.

That is, your PVD = 7.52 + 3 + 3 = 13.52 Euros.

Now you can leave a profit margin to the grocer of 30%

In other words, your PVP = 13.52 * 1.30 = 17.576 euros. That is about 17.55 euros. (The last two figures of the price try to be five or less than five)

All these are indicative figures so that you have a reference. I did in my first volume a very bad calculation, but nothing happens. You have to make the final calculation once you have the books in your possession. The price you will give to the ISBN agency can be varied and does not compromise you, but try to give an approximate price.

The PVP is a necessary data to fill the application of the ISBN in the national agency. It is a free essential procedure to be able to offer your book to the stores. Stores need to register the books in their catalogs and if they do not have ISBN they cannot do it.

You must do a commercial job in person to open the market. It will surely be the most difficult part of this whole business. Book fairs are interesting events to be able to contact many potential clients.

I think for today has been enough, more information in the second part.

Do you think something is missing? Do you have other methods for self-publishing? I await your comments.

How to publish a book (I): Literary Contests

We could be hours talking about how to publish a book, but when you already have a novel you do not feel that you have time to think about everything, you want it already. In that case I will try to explain the four most effective or best-performing results.

-          Literary contests: Will be described in the following article.

-          Editorials

-          Self-publishing: I will add everything you need (ISBN, intellectual property register, distributors, paper or digital ...)

-          Editorial agent

Source: formacionyestudios.com

I have always thought that the way that less headaches brings are the traditional editorials. We could say that we have three ways for an editorial to publish us, which are the literary contests, a literary agent or directly an editor.

Let's focus on the first series, it is true that it is very difficult to win, although to be honest, if we are starting we do not expect to win the contest Premio Planeta, which has a prize of about € 600,000, let's look for something simpler. Although nothing is lost with try.

From my point of view is the best way, since 'Jamás debimos volver' came from losing the literary contest of the Editorial Tandaia. They were interested in publishing my book despite the defeat.

The first thing we will do to start looking for a contest, I personally go to escritores.org (http://www.escritores.org/recursos-para-escritores/concursos-literarios). They are contests for Spain and Latin America almost all, although they publish some for USA. There you will find all or the great majority. Each year they are updated and you can select categories that interest you.

Once you have checked all the contests, keep those that interest you. I recommend having a Word file to point them out. Always check all conditions to make sure you have them.

The next step is to add them to the calendar, I usually use Google Calendar. That way, when the end date approaches (I scheduled it a week before), I check the manuscript and send it.

Now we are ready to send our manuscripts, remember to respect each of the clauses. It is important to ensure that you do not run into multiple competitions at once if one expresses clearly that cannot participate in another being still in force. In this case you must wait for the contest decision to come out.

The more you can participate, better. In this way increase your chances, I think that if they see your name at the end you can get a mention, Is not as rewarding as a victory but often they choose some contestants who have interested them to publish their novel. I was one of those chosen with the first one.

Finally, to be honest, it is very difficult to win a literary contest. You think that there are people with a high level participating and some are consecrated authors, But that does not take away the spirit, We all leave with the same possibilities. Much encouragement to future writer, I know you can with everything.

Do you think I left anything? Do you think the same as me? Do not hesitate to leave your comments to see the different points of view.