[Writerpreneur OS] Lesson 0401: The Sole Reason and Use For Editors

The gatekeepers for your writing still exist - to help you on your journey. It's not all just self-publishing. And these editors are looking for damn good writing...

They are the intermediary between you and their public. And they continue to hold their job as long as their circulation increases.

Magazine editors and book editors have this in common.

Magazine editors work on much shorter time frames, since they publish several times a year. Book editors have a staff of people who push your book into and through their chutes and filters.

Editors have been described as the gatekeepers. But essentially, you can find out what they want and deliver that.

The alternative is to self-publish into the glut of ebooks out there – most posted by untrained or still-training authors. Often with a few typo's left in for good measure.

Where you want to publish is through editors. And to get in front of them, you need to figure out what they want and then deliver that. Getting accepted by magazine editors is a way to start earning income from your published writing quickly. Book editors, if you're accepted into their short queue, will add a year to whenever you turn in that finished manuscript.

The process of finding out what they want is some really valuable training you'll need.

W. S. Campbell lays this out for selling your stuff to magazine editors:

• Get several recent copies of what they published.

• Dissect for style, length, format, model, etc..

• Write an article or short story that is like the ones you've read, but with better craftsmanship.

• Then submit it.

Yes, there's a lot more detail than that. (An upcoming book, actually.)

But the same also applies to book publishers. See what they are publishing that you'd like to write.

In those cases, you may want to submit a book proposal instead of investing a lot of time in a book they won't want.

The other main alternative for book sales is the online marketplaces.

The best research for this is through K-lytics.com, who has in-depth research updated regularly (with monthly spreadsheets). It’s about Amazon, but applies more broadly.

Here you get what's selling where, what their keywords are, what their covers look like, and their blurbs. All in one spot. Plus, he does seminars on the top categories. A good investment if your churning out content on a regular basis.

And you can do your own research when you invest in getting his spreadsheets. (Your specific non-fiction category, for instance.)

I pair this insight with Publisher Rocket to get an overview of the keywords for those specific niches. These two simple interfaces save you time in market research..

This isn't a choice between editors and marketplaces. More frequently these days, a decently-selling series of books in the marketplace will be picked up by book editors. You should be on every possible marketplace while you also pursue magazine and book editors. Because no one platform has all the audiences.

Either way, you need to really train yourself to write "Damn Good Books". And that's where this post, this book, and this course come into play.

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