I'm an agoraphobic author

Hi, I worked hard at putting together a novel consisting of many stories that I have written in my journels. I named the book Driving in Squares; Dreaming in Circles. I found a Literary Agent online who took every cent I saved and some of my families' savings as well, for editing then hooked me up with a P.O.D, publisher who, wants me to sell and promote my own book. I really need some assistence. I'm very afraid to go outside of my home and face the world, but I really want people to read my book too. I haven't got a clue on how to get my book out there without having to buy copies, "which I can not afford to do" then sell them by myself. Can anyone point me in a direction on how to promote my book without money? Thank you, BabyDoe

The world is a huge puzzle and we, humankind, are the pieces of this puzzle. I wish we all could work together to find our proper places than the world would be a big beautiful masterpiece.

Hi Babydoe, and welcome to the board. It sounds like that literary agent is really a piece of work, eh. I'm sorry that he/she wasn't of more help about your book.

Good for you in writing one - that's hard work and quite an accomplishment.

I'm sorry I don't know anything about promotion of a book...

I do understand a bit about agoraphobia though - I have been/was agoraphobic for over 1 1/2 years. I do get out some now, but it took starting with really, (and I mean really), small steps everyday, until I was finally able to go to the gym down the street, which has become another 'safe place'. '

I then tried to build on the success of that, little by little. I am only now able to go to a dentist and a grocery store, and I was actually able to go out of state when the necessity became really great, and just yesterday downtown for a meeting, (although I was at all times 'accompanied' on these foreys except to the gym - I drive there).

I guess what I'm trying to demonstrate is that there is hope of recovery, although I have yet to have the anticipatory anxiety completely evaporate if/when I leave my 'safety zone'.

Can you go as far as a local bookstore? Maybe starting with stepping outside your front door, then the next day to the mailbox, etc.?

Have you looked into diaphrametic (sp?) breathing techniques and/or cognitive behavioral therapy techniques to help with the panic?

Just some thots that come to mind. Again, welcome, and I hope you keep posting.

Best regards, Peanut

<font color=blue>HI FROM PEANUT</font color=blue>

Oh, sweetheart ... I am an agoraphobic author as well (not a famous one, but still a writer) and I feel your pain! First, let me say that reputable *agents* NEVER ever accept money up front from their clients, except for very small things like postage, copying costs, etc. (Mind you, a "book doctor" will take your money and fix up your manuscript, but they are not trying to *sell* your manuscript, just make it better so that someone will want to publish it.) For a really good article on what agents should and should not do and how to deal with them, take a look at http://www.sfwa.org/beware/agents.html. (Unfortunately, their web site is under renovation at the moment, so for now, look at the cached copy at http://216.239.53.104/search?q=cache...hl=en&ie=UTF-8 .) Of course, since you have already paid the money, you are stuck with this course of action for the moment, but you should really read the article for future reference.

As for how to promote your work while dealing with your agoraphobia ... I have done some signings at places like Barnes & Noble, and all I can say is that drugs are your friend. No, I'm not kidding. Xanax has gotten me through some very tough places and times. For a long time I was very anti-drug, and I just got worse and worse. I finally started getting better after I combined using medication (Xanax) and MADE myself get out and expose myself to various situations (including the signings I was talking about). The drugs made it bearable, and apparently some itsy-bitsy part of my brain realized that I wouldn't die if I got out of the house a little bit! So I am much better than I used to be, though still not cured of everything.

So ... read the article. Get some drugs. Go to the signings in a nice outfit and wearing a smile. Get a different agent, if you can.

Good luck!!!

~ A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.... Emerson

Hi babydoe

First of all congratulations on the book, that is an incredible title!

As others have said, the "regular" way of getting a book published is to find and submit your book to an agent (the person you contacted is NOT an agent!) and then they submit your book to a publisher.

You are not supposed to spend money on getting the book published... that is the publisher's role. They take care (and cost) of printing, distributing, and marketing. In return they hope that many copies of the book will sell and that will make a lot of money for them and for you.

Since they are relying on book sales after the money for printing etc is laid out, obviously they are very choosy about what they will pick to take on. It has to be something that they have faith will sell well once it is on the market.

Publishers do not accept manuscripts to evaluate from authors for legal reasons. So the middleman here is to find an agent (a real one) and their role is to submit your manuscript to the publisher, in exchange the agent gets a cut of the profits. Because the agent is also relying on book sales to earn her profit, agents are also very picky about who they choose as clients. A reputable agent with experience benefits you and the publisher because the publisher knows anything the agent submits is "pre screened" and worth the publisher's time to read.

So to start out, authors will often submit their work to many many agents, hoping one of them will "bite". It is also possible to find agents that specialize in a specific area, such as children's books, self help books, or biographical journals like yours. That is not to say that you shouldn't submit your book to any agents you can find. You do have to be prepared to receive a lot of rejection letters, that goes with the course. But don't be discouraged, you just have to find the right agent who understands and appreciates your work.

So to start, you should find a list of agents to submit. I am not sure if they want you to jump in with your manuscript, they may prefer a synopsis and maybe a few chapters at first for evaluation, based on that they will either pass or ask for the full manuscript. You will have to contact them to find out what they want. As a clue to whether they are reputable or not, remember your experience with the one you tried already. Look for an agent that really works with publishers and gets books published, and they should never ask you for money.

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Having said all of that, there is also another legitamite course of action, which is indeed to publish the book yourself. I would take this only as a second option if you cannot find an agent or publisher and also only if you can afford it. This simply involves paying to have the book printed on your own, and then taking on the task of marketing it yourself.

Of course this is exactly where your first "agent" was pointing you towards, the scuzzy thing there is that they should have made that clear at the get-go and also not presented themselves as an "agent". In truth if you are getting the book printed yourself you do not even need their services, you just need to find a printer which you can do on your own. It is necessary to have someone set up your book in the proper format for printing... do the typesetting, pagination, etc. but many printers can do that in-house (for an extra fee) or at least recommend someone they work with to do it. Also a cover will have to be made, and like the typesetting, many printers have artists in house or can recommend someone for you to work with to generate the art.

Once the book is printed comes the hard part, which is marketing it. For the actually sales, it is not that difficult to do. Amazon.com has a program to sell it for you. All you need is the printed book, and you have to get an ISBN number for the book (that will usually be printed on the back cover). If you look at any book in your house, on the back near the bar code is the ISBM number. This identifies your book, there is an agency that takes care of these. Once you get the number, someone has to generate the bar code to print on the book, again the printer can likely take care of this for you.

I can look up the name of the amazon program for you, they have info on their website. They will ask you to submit somewhere between 2 and 5 books for initial stock (they are not going to keep a hundred books in their warehouse before they know if they will sell). They will ask you to send more copies after the originals sell. You don't get very much money at all from this, only a teeny tiny percentage of the book's retail value. If you are more interested in getting the book out there than on making money this is a good option though. Personally though I would want to do something that would at least make back my expenses even if I wasn't interested in a profit.

Getting the book for sale on amazon is very easy. The very difficult part of course is getting people to see and buy your book. You're book will come up on searches on Amazon but no one is going to search for it if they don't know about it. You can maybe get websites to promote it for you, or take out ads, or whatever. Obviously this is a very risky business, which is why publishers take on this role (they have the recources to lay out the costs) and why they are so picky (their company's success and profit depends on them choosing the right books to get behind.)

Also bear in mind that printing costs rely on volume. By far the large majority of the expense of printing are the costs to get it on press... press setup, burning the plates, etc. Once it is running on press running more and more copies is relativly easy. No one will print 5 or 10 copies of a book for you, it would cost way way too much. Business cards and letterhead for example, usually print shops will print a minimum of 500 for maybe 15 dollars, and a thousand for 17 dollars, 5000 for 20 dollars etc. To have them print ten they would have to probably still charge the 15 dollars or maybe 14.99 so it just doesn't make sense to do it. So even if Amazon is only going to take 5 copies initially you are still going to have to print and store a whole lot of copies of the book, and be stuck with them if they won't sell (you could give them out as gifts to people of course). You will have to check with the printer for costs and minimum quantities.

With new technology there are also now many digital quick print places around. Unlike a traditional printer or quickprinter (like minuteman press or sir speedy... these shops usually do traditional offset printing) these new places print digitally on what is similar to a very high quality, high volume copy machine. A place like this may be able to produce fewer copies. There is still traditional binding involved to make it a book so you would have to see if they can offer a better deal or not.

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Two last comments... the money you gave to the "agent" is probably lost but it wouldn't hurt to pursue some action there. I'm not sure if there is a standing on this but you can at least find out if there is some fraud involved with them presenting themselves as an "agent". There may not be if they since they made it clear there would be costs up front. And it seems they did provide a service... that of a typesetter or graphics firm, just not the services of an agent. At the very least a report to the better business bureau of rmisleading you. Maybe even get you're local newstations "helper" or "on your side" reporter or whatever you have locally. Can't hurt to try.

Second thing, although I don't necessarily recommend pursuing doing the printing and marketing yourself, simply because of the cost involved and the low chance of success, if you do decide to go that route at some point I can offer to set your book up for you at no charge, if you have a Word document or something you can send. I can set it up so it looks nice, table of contents etc if you want, and give you a PDF to proofread and ultimately to send to the printer. It is what I do. It may be more convenient to work directly with the printer on this but if the extra cost is prohibitive it is an option. Also bear in mind that depending on my current state, with my depression and whether or not I am working again, it may take me a little while to set up for you. It shouldn't be too long but it won't be overnight.

Also if the "agent" has indeed already done this then it may actually be all ready to submit to a printer. If they have, you have already paid for that so they should give you the file. Important though, even if they did a good job at setting it up, you may have paid much more than you would have paid by hiring a typesetter on your own, so I would pursue getting some money back from them first. Once you accept and make use of a finished document from them I doubt you would have any legal recourse.

-- The world is what we make of it --
-- Dave
-- <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.idexter.com>http://www.idexter.com</A>

I want to thank you all for responding to my post. My book, Driving in Squares; Dreaming in Circles was published by Publish America. I have a seven year contract with them. I just wish I could've had a better agent to tell me what I was getting involved with being connected to a P.O.D. "Vanity Press" publisher. I haven't stopped dreaming though, because my fictional stories, some day, might be #1 best sellers. "I'm wishing"
Driving in Squares was just a pipe dream that kept getting washed away until my neighbor read one of my stories. She commented on how terrifying it must be to have an illness that can strike at anytime, anywhere. She set me up with everything I needed to do to get the stories out into the public, but left me hanging when her world began to crumble. That's when I lost out on getting my book published the right way, however, I am not, nor will I ever give up on believing something good will happen out of all this confusion.
I had a dream the other night that made me realize something needs to be done so other people can see that having a mental illness doesn't mean life is over. In my dream I was in school. I had very good grades and strived to be the best so that I could grow up and become a successful adult with a wonderful job. But, in my dream, I had a dream. That dream let me see into the future. I saw what my life was like with my disease. I saw monsters and life with no respect. I saw abuse and lack of companionship. I saw all my hopes of becoming a successful Ameircan adult being stuffed into a garbage can. "You're a freak!" was what I heard, "why do you need an education if you'll never amount to anything but a worthless, mentally ill, Freak?" In my dream I gave up. I told the teachers that I didn't have to learn anything, because the world won't care. They will see me but they won't hear me.
Yes, I suffer from an illness that has no cure, but I am human, and I too, have a purpose. The world is cruel, but they can not destroy this Freak!
Forgive my rambling, I am a bit manic. Thanks again for the posts everyone, I have enjoyed the input.
BabyDoe "Driving in Squares: Dreaming in Circles"

The world is a huge puzzle and we, humankind, are the pieces of this puzzle. I wish we all could work together to find our proper places than the world would be a big beautiful masterpiece.

BabyDoe.....Since you have paid to have this published, this is my advice.....
1. Keep on them to ensure they make the book look good --typeface, layout, paper, etc.
2. Send the book free of charge to editors at every paper you can think of. Since you will likely have limited funds to do this, I would suggest you purchase enough copies to give to the following:
1. New York Times
2. USA Today
3. The largest paper in your area (eg for Austin, the Austin-American Statesman, for San Francisco, The Chronical, you get the idea)
4. Other highly regarded regional papers (eg San Jose Mercury News, Chicago Tribune, etc.)

With the book, include a letter personalized to each editor.

The letters to editors should include the following:
1. One or two very catchy lines about the book
2. Any local "angle" For example, if the majority of your stories take place in Pittsburgh, make sure the editor of the Pittsburgh news paper knows about it!
3. Common angle --why should their readers relate? eg being depressed after loosing a job etc,
4. Timely angle --eg, if your book has a story about loosing one job, but getting something better...it might tie into our "rebounding economy" Scan CNN for a few days and see if any major stories tie in to the subjects in your book.

That should be your letter---make it short but impactful.

Consider also sending a one page "overview" of your book so that the editor can decide which reviewer to assign it to etc.

Provide all of your contact information and offer to be available for interviews.

Send an email to the editor to let them know that the book is on its way. The email should say the same things as your letter (see my comments above).

This is a very good way for you to get lot's of free publicity for your book.

Hope this helps. I have a ton of experience doing public relations for very large companies, so these techniques are pretty sound.

T.

<font color=blue> "Is it any wonder that my mind's on fire, in prisioned by the thought of what to do? Is it any wonder that my joke's a laugh, and the joke's on you." Blue Oyster Cult </font color=blue>

Carphobe I like your way of thinking. Welcome to the boards.

It all depends on how we look at things, and not how they are in themselves. C.G Jung

Hi babydoe

since you are already locked into a contract with the publisher, i want to make sure you didn't overlook the amazon information in my very long post

it is easy to sell your book on amazon. Thelema seems to have the scoop on marketing and promoting your book, all of it sounds like an excellent way to get going. i don't know if what it takes to get a book into actual stores, but amazon is a practical and popular solution. you can set it up with them initially and put the link to it on websites and in any ads, so people who are interested from the marketing know how to go online and purchase it immediately.

As I said I have no idea of typical profit margins for books in stores so that may be the only practical way to go in order to really make your money back. OTOH it may be that the amazon way is a very good deal comparitively. You'll have to investigate that.

Let me know if you need more info on getting started with amazon.

also as thelema said, having the book look good is important, hopefully that is already fulfilled in the terms of your contract, but if you need help i may be able to help you out with that.

good luck with this!

-- The world is what we make of it --
-- Dave
-- <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.idexter.com>http://www.idexter.com</A>

For Dexter and all who have replied to my posts. I am truly grateful for the input and comments. Tes, Dexter, I have connected with Amazon and my book is on the sight, thank you. I wish I could go the route of getting my book more attention, however, I have no extra finances at the moment, but I am working hard at trying to gather some up. It might take awhile but I'll never give up. Thanks again everyone for your posts. They keep a smile on my face Have a wonderful day all.
BabyDoe

The world is a huge puzzle and we, humankind, are the pieces of this puzzle. I wish we all could work together to find our proper places then the world would be a big beautiful masterpiece.