How to Sell Your Life Story

Ever since I put down the phone call confirming my pre-empt book deal, what my agent called the ‘nuclear option’ that almost never happens to an unknown author, people have been asking me how I did it. And contrary to what you’ll often hear, “Oh, I just got lucky”, or “Oh, it’s impossible to reverse engineer,” I feel as though I did just that. While naturally, (and for legal reasons I must say), nobody can guarantee the results of any process, the one I mapped out and followed has worked out quite nicely for me so far — though not without its hills and valleys. If I explain it, it might help you. Also, I’m still going through it, so I’m learning every day.

This series will be about my process of turning my unique life experiences into a book deal (and hopefully a best-selling book). BTW, my book is called Uncultured, and you can add it to your Goodreads “Want to Read” list here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57290004-uncultured?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=rOpxP7eWlH&rank=4

Episode 1: Some Basics about Publishing

For episode 1, we’ll talk about literally how to get started, which is by understanding some things you should know about the publishing industry.

Some key things to know before you start planning:

— Difference between traditional book publishing, hybrid publishing and self publishing

These have entire explanations you can find and study forever online, but I’ll explain the way I understand it, others can comment, correct, or have emotional outbursts about it at will.

Traditional publishing: You quite literally “sell” them your story. You are also giving up approximately 85% of your overall profit, in exchange for their platform. You also probably will not get anywhere without an agent, whom you will have to ‘win’ over to represent you in some way, and to whom you will give an additional 15% of anything you earn. (BTW, that’s publishing standard, don’t try to negotiate, but also anyone trying to sign you for over 15% is not a legit agent — walk away.)

Before you think I’m saying bad things about traditional publishing — I went traditional, on purpose. Yes, you give up a lot of the profit (and the rights to the material) but you get things like their platform, their marketing (maybe, more on this later), their editing, cover design, and much more. You get a team. I’m writing about groups and teams, so, I like teams. Like almost any work team you can think of, you don’t do it alone. It’s still your book, but they get a lot of say. Knowing why you want to go traditional is important. We’ll talk about that in the next episode.

In traditional publishing, they have code language (like any good group with high barriers to entry) which you might not understand when you see people excitedly posting their book sale announcements. So here’s the breakdown. (this woman’s explanations are also hilarious: http://laurenmorrill.blogspot.com/2011/06/publishers-weekly-deal-jargon-key.html)

“nice deal” $1 — $49,000

“very nice deal” $50,000 — $99,000

“good deal” $100,000 — $250,000

“significant deal” $251,000 — $499,000

“major deal” $500,000 and up

So, those sound great, but also know that the majority of first time, unknown authors are getting “nice deals”, and usually under $25,000. Not bad, but considering you are probably working on this project for 4–5 years, just think on that. This is what is called the “book advance” and works out to, roughly, 10% of what the publishing house thinks the book will sell in the first year. Once you “out earn your advance” through selling lots of books, you will begin to receive royalties, but not before.

There’s also some terms to understand about the purchasing process, like auction and pre-empt, but we’ll talk about that when I get the episode where I sold the book. For the purposes of understanding here, my book, Uncultured, recently sold for a “good deal”.

Traditional publishing can be good for: Fiction of any kind, memoir that is likely to have a very broad audience, and books by celebrities or already famous business people (and more categories, of course).

Hybrid Publishing: This used to be called ‘Vanity Publishing’ and very much looked down on. That’s no longer true. Now, self-publishing is a thing (we’ll talk about that next) and paying money up front to produce a product (your book) is not looked down on. So, if this is for you, proceed without fear.

Hybrid publishing (Girl Friday, for example) are essentially smaller publishers with all the same services, but you pay a bit more up front. From what I understand about hybrid, which is not my area, you can pay about $10,000-$20,000 for a good book. This is all stuff you negotiate, but you can often get an editor (even a developmental editor — who helps you with the concepts), marketing, design and more for this fee. You’ll end up paying a little up front, and still giving up some of the profits (maybe about 50%) for their network and reach. Most people I’ve talked to who’ve been through the process think it’s a good deal.

Hybrid publishing can be good for business books, memoirs that might not have a giant audience, or smaller projects you’d like to work on.

Self-Publishing: Self-publishing is just what it sounds like, anyone can do it. I could literally type out this whole blog series (which will probably be novella length), upload it to Amazon or another self-publisher, and have a book, with an IBSN that people can purchase. Sometimes, they can go big. Usually not. 50 Shades of Gray was self-published. It shows. Also, she’s laughing all the way to the bank.

With self-publishing, you get to keep all your money (well, that’s actually not true, but we’ll talk about that later). The biggest thing with self-publishing is there are no gate-keepers. Zilch. None. That is both good and bad. It still comes down to ‘why’ you want a book (that’s next week’s installment). If it’s a goal you always had, go for it. If you want sales and to hit big numbers, check out one of the other routes, or plan to spend some of your own money marketing.

Important to understand that Amazon and other self-publishers still have fees and money they will take off the top. To my understanding, it’s almost the same fee as traditional publishing, but you don’t get any of the services. At Amazon, if you price your book for over $1.99 but under $12.99 (nobody will buy your ebook for more than this unless it’s already famous) then they keep over 70% of your profit (and they did literally zero work). So, that’s why you’ll hear people talking about Amazon being bad for authors, even those who self publish.

Because there are no gatekeepers, self-publishing has a bit of a bad rep. I think that it’s not because gatekeepers want to gatekeep (although I’m sure there’s some of that), I think it’s literally because of quality. In this way, it’s like blogs, podcasts or anything else — some are very good, some aren’t. People, if you write your book and publish it without anybody else reading it or helping you with the ideas, you might be doing it wrong. It is often said that publishing is one of the most collaborative art forms, so if you’re doing it alone, you’re probably not producing a quality product. There is an entire industry called “author services” that can help you (for pay) with any step of publishing. My friend, Bethany Kelly can help you, in fact. She’s the one who explained most of this to me. She can be found at: https://www.publishingpartner.com/

Now, because I was in the world of entrepreneurship for so long (future blogs will talk about how I applied entrepreneurship to the process of getting a book deal, and how well it worked, so stay tuned), I do have to say, I know TONS of business people and entrepreneurs who’ve self published their own books and are very happy with it. They say that writing a book can be a $10,000 business card. It really does make people take you more seriously, you can charge more for speaking engagements (like $10,000 more than someone without a book) and you have a product you can sell at the back of the room, or while you are sleeping. And, who doesn’t want to make money for sleeping?

Before you choose a route, check out and understand what the different routes are (a little route analysis for you military types (also, please note here, if you are new, that I’m a former US Army Captain, military intelligence officer type. There will be a quiz later.)

So:

How does getting a book deal change everything immediately. It’s like being a scientist who has tried 999 experiments, and the 1000th one finally works. Suddenly, your process has been validated, and you can immediately see where it might be replicable. Suddenly, others are interested in learning and dissecting your process (where they weren’t before) and they can show you potential holes or pitfalls to beware of the next time around. Suddenly, people take you seriously, and that’s what changes everything.

That’s the stage where I am now. And it’s taken me years, YEARS, of experiments, work, money, and talking to hundreds (maybe thousands) of people. Since I’m a systems and process person, I set about dissecting the process and recreating things I like. My goal is to be the Brené Brown of Culture & Culture-Change (Brené Brown is the Brené Brown of Vulnerability), and I’m going to do it. Stick around for the ride.

Next week, we’ll talk about figuring out ‘why’ you want to write a book. After route analysis, that’s the next most important stage. See you next week. Also, you can subscribe above, or just follow me on Twitter where I’ll post all future blogs on this topic and others: https://twitter.com/daniellamyoung. Cheers.

Daniella Mestyanek Young is an American author and TEDx Speaker. Daniella has been breaking through barriers and challenging authority figures since her earliest childhood memories growing up in the horrifying Children of God Cult and on through her service and deployment to war twice. Daniella served as part of the first group of women who integrated into deliberate combat arms missions back in 2011 and has since spent the majority of her time leading in veteran service organizations to try and help folks heal and find their own definition of success after their service.

Daniella is married to the world’s best special operations helicopter pilot and speaks primarily in Brazilian Portuguese with her daughter, who sasses her back in three languages. Daniella is currently at work on her memoir. She can be found speaking speaking truth to power, irritating vetbros and stamping out the kyriarchy on Twitter @daniellamyoung. She can be contacted at daniella.m.young@gmail.com