Paula Rizzo, a former media producer turned author, walks through publishing basics: writing proposals, finding agents, and marketing your book. She recommends The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published, Writer's Digest, and experts like Jane Friedman and AJ Harper, plus her own free checklist and paid training program.
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Hey there, welcome to Inside Scoop. I'm Paula Rizzo. Authors and those of you who want to be authors, listen up, this one is for you. I get a lot of questions from authors saying, how'd you find out so much about publishing and being an author and how to promote your book and all of the above? Well, my background is as a television producer for many years. I was a senior health producer, uh, and an Emmy Award winner, so I know from the media's perspective what we're looking for in experts. I'm also the author of two books about productivity, Listful Thinking and Listful Living. So I know this game from both sides, uh, to be able to understand what it takes to promote something, but also then to do it yourself, to be the one who has to talk about the book that you wrote when you just really want people to read it, but you have to be your own best advocate. You have to put yourself out there and, and talk about it. So I do a lot of, uh, media training for authors, and today I'm going to talk all about my top tips and resources for authors, because I do a lot of research. I have to say, it's not that I, you know, know a lot of people in the industry. I mean, I do know some, but this is much more about really doing my homework and sharing the best possible resources. And one of those resources is one that I actually created myself, and I would love for you to check out. It is my 10 questions that every author should be able to answer. So if you go to paularizzo.com/10q, the letter Q right there, uh, you will get this freebie whether you're a nonfiction writer or a fiction writer, because one of the most important questions you'll ever be asked is, what is your book about? And so often we freeze and we say, well, I don't really know how to answer that question. I don't want that to happen to you. And so this is a freebie that I created from working with one-on-one clients, authors in all different genres on media training and getting them ready for their book launches. And I've used it on myself too. I have to say, I road test these things quite a lot. I also am working on fiction right now, so I'm really interested in how the nonfiction and fiction worlds are a little bit different. If this conversation is something that you think, oh my gosh, my friend would love to hear this, I would love for you to tag them below. Please let them know that we're, we're chatting about this right now and leave your questions here. If you're watching the replay or you're forwarding this to someone else, leave questions below in the chat boxes and I will be sure to get back to you on those because I know this stuff is important and exciting too. Congratulations on wanting to write a book or writing a book. It is an exciting journey, but one that is a little bit confusing. So I want to be able to help you out here and give you some of my top, top tips and resources. So when we first start at the beginning, it's all about Publishing 101, right? You need to know a little bit about the industry. You need to understand what goes into it, the dos and don'ts. For me, I mean, it's completely different than working in TV. TV is so immediate and to the point and fast, and publishing is none of those things. It is very slow and takes a very long time. Although things have changed now with self-publishing and that kind of thing. One of the best resources that you will ever hear about is this book, which is called The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published: How to Write It, Sell It, and Market It Successfully. This is one of the very first books that I ever bought to learn about the publishing industry. And I have to tell you, it is soup to nuts. It is like the Bible of publishing. Definitely buy the actual physical copy as opposed to the Kindle version, because you're not going to need every last little bit of it all at the same time. You're going to want to, you know, go to this page, go to that page, jump around a little bit. But I give this to so many people as a resource because it really is comprehensive from writing the book, finding a publisher, finding an agent. It teaches you everything that you need to know. So that absolutely should be your first stop if you're just getting started and you're interested in being published and you're not really sure what the industry is about. Please read that book. It is amazing. Secondarily, I really love magazines. I know they're kind of, you know, going away, but Writer's Digest has been such an amazing resource for me as an author and as somebody, you know, learning the industry too, because I've I've learned this myself. And, uh, you know, there's a QR code there to sign up for a subscription. Of course, I think you can, you know, get a copy here or there in Barnes Noble, um, and just check it out. But I subscribe and I get it, you know, every— I think it's every 2 months that they send it, or, you know, whatever it is. Um, and I always look forward to it. It always has really, really great information in there. And again, you get to start to see— start to see sort of about the industry. You get to understand what other authors are doing. They do a lot of interviews with authors in different genres. So you want to know what's the industry up to? What are they doing? How does this work? So start to do your homework there as well. And of course, LinkedIn Learning is a great, great place to learn anything. I have many courses myself on LinkedIn, but none on book publishing. That— this one here is by an author. Her name is Jessica Brody and she has written 17 novels. I can't imagine writing 17 novels. I'm having a hard enough time writing one. But look at her, there she goes. Good for her. I've taken this course and learned a bit about how to query agents because it's different if you're in nonfiction versus fiction. So this course I found to be very, very interesting, very comprehensive. And there's tons of stuff you can learn about publishing and writing books and things on LinkedIn Learning. So I would say absolutely check that out for sure. Okay. So the next piece of the publishing puzzle is about a book proposal. All right. Now, a book proposal is necessary if you're writing nonfiction. So the way that it works with nonfiction is that you're going to write a proposal, which basically outlines what the book is about, what other titles are out there that are similar, how you would promote the book. And then you give a couple of sample chapters of the book. You do not write the entire book. Isn't that exciting? I know. So for nonfiction, so I did that for both of my books, was to write this proposal, and then you use the proposal to get an agent. That's the next stop, right? Because the agent then helps you get a publisher if you're looking to be traditionally published. You have to go in that, in that way. Okay, so how do you write a book proposal? Interestingly enough, I have a very good friend actually who I worked with when I was a television producer. She, uh, had worked at Hay House, which is a huge publisher, and she was their head of marketing and PR, and her name is Rochelle Fredson, and I've had her on my show Inside Scoop to talk about amplifying your work with books. There she is right there, and there's a QR code if you want to check out that episode, because she is a wealth of knowledge, but on everything publishing, but specifically on writing a book proposal. And she actually has an insider's guide to doing this. She, she teaches a class called Book Proposal Blueprint, which really takes you through everything that you need to know about writing a proposal, how to, you know, send a letter a query letter to an agent, how to make sure it has all the information. And the best part about Rochelle is that she was on the receiving end of a lot of this because as working for a publisher and working in the marketing department, she would look and be part of the acquiring process. When one of her editors was looking to bring a book on board at Hay House, she would look at it and say, "Is this marketable? Can we get PR for this? Are we going to be able to get this out into the media? Will they be excited about it?" So it's really important to get information from people people who have done this before, who have had some part of the publishing process at some point. And Rochelle is the real deal. So definitely check her out if you're looking to write a book proposal for nonfiction. If you're doing the fiction route, which now I've switched over to, so now I'm learning quite a lot about, you have to write a query letter. Okay. So the query letter is an outline, you know, of what the book is about, who you are, and why people should care. Basically, it's a short little note. And with fiction, you gotta write the whole thing. So the whole book has gotta be ready, perfect, exactly the way that you want it. Don't think that, oh, I'll just send it like this, this is good enough. You want it to be as good as you can possibly get it before you send it to an agent. To write a query letter is really, you know, the last piece of the puzzle to be able to get somebody, an agent, on your side to be able to get that book published. One of the best experts I found teaching this is Jane Friedman, who teaches many, many things about publishing. I had her on the show. There's a QR code there if you want to check it out, but it's called, uh, we talked about The Business of Being an Author because that is actually the title of a book that she wrote. And she talks all about all aspects of publishing. She had been an editor for many years, um, you know, in the publishing industry, and works now with authors and publishers. And she had written for Writer's Digest, which is the publication that I mentioned before. And I'm pretty sure that's how I found her because I saw that she wrote an article there and then I started following her. And she is a wealth of knowledge. And I actually took one of her classes. This is it here, the Query Letter Masterclass, where it is very comprehensive. She usually teaches it in June. So if you're watching this on the replay, you should check it out. But she also shows a replay and you can, you can buy the replay as well, or you can go through the live class, but I highly recommend it. I actually took the class 2 years ago, 2 years before I was ready, basically, because now I'm at the point where I'm— I need to start really working on a query letter. But I always like to know what's ahead for myself, to understand the whole process and to know, okay, this eventually will be the next part of this that I need to do. That's the planner in me. I like to be able to see, like, where are we going here? What are all of the steps that are involved, right? Writing the book is only one piece of it. There's so much more to this that you want to make sure that you save time and mental energy for because it's a long road to get to publishing, to get to publish a book. Okay, so once you write your query letter or you write your book proposal depending on if you're fiction or nonfiction, the next step is finding the agent, right? Getting the agent. So you want the agent to be really excited about whatever it is that you're putting in front of them. Obviously, you want them to be your biggest champion and someone who is excited about your work and will really sell it to a publisher. And the best resource that I've found for this is a woman who I, who I've known for years. She's a literary agent. Her name is Lucinda Halpern, and I had her on the, uh, the show as well talking about the keys to getting your book published. And there's a QR code there because, you know, she's very much in and out on all of the details and the, the latest and greatest on fiction and non-fiction through her agency, which is called Lucinda Literary. And she also, during COVID she started to teach some classes online because she saw that people were interested in how to get an agent, how to get signed. And that is the name of her course. It's called Get Signed, and you can check out the QR code there. Um, but it's also going to become a book. She's, uh, practicing what she preaches, and it's actually at some point she's turning this into a book as well. So that will be something that you can physically hold in your hand. But for now, there is a course there, and it's really, you know, It talks all about what agents and publishers look for in authors, what they look for in book ideas, the best practices for researching and contacting agents. You know, she does get into also the query letter and the proposal as well. And then what do you do when you find an agent, hopefully many agents who are interested in your project? How do you interview them? How do you decide who to go with if, you know, you are blessed with the good fortune of having multiple people who are interested in your work? So she walks you through all of that as a person who has done this many, many times. So I highly recommend that resource. So writing the actual book, you would think is like the only thing you have to do, but it's not, right? We've gone through many other steps. But once you have acquired your agent, you then get the publisher, hopefully. If you're writing nonfiction, this is when you write the book. Okay, now fiction writers, you've already written the book before you've gotten to this process, so it's a little bit of a different road. But there are great resources out there no matter where you are in the process of being able to then write the book. One of the great ones is AJ Harper, who I found, uh, years ago. Uh, she is a great expert publishing, um, you know, connoisseur of all things publishing and, and She was on the show talking all about how to cross write book off your bucket list. You can check out the QR code there because she really dives into all aspects of publishing. She does talk a lot about self-publishing as well. She's also a self-published author. So she has a new book since that episode came out. It's called Write a Must-Read: Craft a Book That Changes Lives, Including Your Own. She had been a ghostwriter and now is a co-writer with Mike Michalowicz. Who is a very successful nonfiction writer, business books. I mean, when I started my business, I read many of his books, The Pumpkin Plan, uh, Profit First. He has a lot of great ones, and she was his writing partner on those. And so she writes about, uh, in this book their formula, basically her formula for how to write a must-read. She also has a class that she teaches several times a year, and I've been, um, been on as a guest expert talking about media and media training and, and how to get media attention. It's called Top 3 Book workshop, and there's a QR code there. And it, you know, it's really a comprehensive class that takes you through the writing process. So if you need some support and you need some help to be able to get your words on paper and fully form your ideas, I would absolutely say check out AJ, check out her Top 3 Book Workshop, because she is the real deal. She has helped many, many agents, uh, and many, many authors find people who will be interested in their books and get them out in the world, for sure. And, you know, I— we've shared, uh, clients, you know, I've gotten a lot clients, people who are interested in doing media once their books come out, then come to me. So it's a very nice, uh, relationship that way. Another, another great resource for writing the book is the wonderful Suzanne Kingsbury, who is my writing coach. Uh, she was on my podcast slash LinkedIn slash, uh, livestream show, and we talked about carving out time to be creative. Now Susan is an absolute hoot. She is so fun and she is very creative and a little bit woo-woo, I will say. So for someone like me who is very used to lists and having, you know, here's what I do next and here's how I do this and this is— I'm going to write in this order. That is not how Susan is. She is very much all about, you know, finding your muse and being able to get creativity flowing through you. I needed that kind of energy to write this novel. Because writing a novel is not like writing nonfiction. It's not easy. It's not linear. It's not, you know, something that you're like, okay, I'll start here and I'll end there. It doesn't work that way. So we do talk a lot about the process here. And she also has what's called her, uh, her— the Academy, um, the Gateless Writing Academy. She has writing retreats and she does developmental editing. You can check out all of that information on her website if you go right there to the QR code. And, you know, I've worked with her in all of these capacities. I, um, first went to a writing retreat with her. We actually went to one in Paris, which was fabulous. And I went to another one in Connecticut where I first started writing this novel. And it's very nice to be in an environment with other people where you're sharing creativity. Um, and, and she does things in a very different way. She calls it the Gateless Method, which is very much like there's no judgment of your writing in the beginning. In the beginning, it's all about finding the most wonderful, beautiful parts of your writing so that you can continue to thrive and continue to write. Later, when you're editing, that's when criticism will come in, you know what I mean? That's when we'll be able to say, all right, well, maybe this should move here, and maybe that's not the best word choice, and whatever. That will happen afterwards. But in the creation process, in the beginning, it's all about let it flow. Because so often in a lot of writing classes people just tear down everybody's work, and then it really gets inside your head and you say, well, I guess I'm terrible at this, and I guess maybe I should just stop writing. And people stop writing. So she very much nurtures the creative spirit within you, which I find to be very, very helpful. She also has a— I think it's about 9 months or 10-month program called the Academy, which I was also a member of. And it's wonderful because you have— you're put into a little pod of people, other writers, all working on different things, and you're able to share each other's work and talk about what you really love in the work. And so it helps you to have deadlines because every 2 weeks you have to give them something to look at, but also it really does help to motivate you and to have other people sort of, you know, you're on the hook for them every week, week after week, because you want to give them feedback as well. And she also does one-on-one developmental editing. She's helping me with my current book right now. And I just can't say enough wonderful things about Suzanne. So definitely check her out for sure. Now, when we talk about marketing of the book, that is very interesting too. So this is sort of like where I come into play, sort of understanding how you can get a book out into the world, how you can get the media to be interested, how you can start your own show, how you can do all of those things. I understand this, but even someone who has worked in this capacity needs to know the ins and outs of this industry. And so I found an expert. Expert. His name is Rob Eager. I actually found him through Writer's Digest. There we go again, through that magazine. He had written an article many years ago. I got on his email list and I was like, you know what, he knows his stuff when it comes to book marketing. And I have followed him ever since. I had him on the show. There's the QR code right there where you can check out the show. And, you know, he really knows all of the ins and outs on how to market your book. I took his masterclass, which is a one-on-one class that you can take with Rob. There's the QR code there that'll take you to the link there. And if you're interested in doing it and you want to talk to Rob about it, you can tell him that I sent you. You can email him at rob@startawildfire.com. But I found this to be very helpful because we were able to go through even the Amazon pages of my book because you have a lot of control over what's written on Amazon. That you might not think that you do. You might think, oh, well, the publisher put the copy there, so it's— it is the way that it is. But that's not true. He has a lot of secrets and a lot of ins and outs and a lot of interesting ways to launch your book, to talk about, you know, how, how to keep people engaged throughout your book launch, how to create a VIP launch team so you get people involved who are interested in the book, so you're not the only person talking about your book all the time. You have people who are basically marketing for you through word of mouth. It's really some smart stuff and things that I would not have thought of on my own. So I highly recommend him. And if you just want to check out his stuff, he's got some great freebies on his website. It's startawildfire.com, or you can go right there to the QR code and get his free ebooks. He has 3 free ebooks that are really, really fun, quick reads that will give you a lot of information right up front. And I highly recommend that you check him out and get on his email list at the very least. Because he has a lot of really great things to share for sure. And I would be remiss if I did not add one more to the list, one of my courses. It's called Media Ready Author, and this is a media training course for authors that I created to help people speak in soundbites, to set up your virtual studio, and to sell more books. I've had many authors go through this course and really enjoy it and get themselves set up for success with their launch because, you know, this book, is with you for life, you know, right? So you really need to be able to promote it and talk about it. You can use a QR code right there to enroll in the class. I would love to have you. It's an instant thing. So as soon as you enroll, you will get access and be able to check out the course itself. It's about an hour and a half long course where I take you through all of my methods on how to talk about what your book is about and how to put it in the best possible light, where to show your book, you know, how to talk about it when, when you're being interviewed and all of that.. So I hope that you check that out at mediareadyauthor.com or that QR code that we just showed. And if you have questions, I would love to hear more from you. You know, make sure to leave your questions below. And also, if you want to get that, that freebie that I mentioned at the beginning, I'll give you that one last time. If you go to paularizzo.com/10q, those are the 10 questions that every author needs to be able to answer. So you can check that out, and I hope to see you next time. Thanks for watching.
