Page 151 - WritingMadlyV3

Nicholas Boothman
use their brand power to attract authors who are
willing to pay for that level of exposure. It’s called
“riding a brand.” You want a Random House? If
they’re happy with what you’ve written, you’ll
probably have to pay them to have their imprint on
your book. It’s just more credentials. If Random
House publishes you, the online and brick-and-
mortar stores will take you seriously.
Making the choice to go with an agent or to self-
publish may not be up to you for a few reasons.
First, it gets tougher every year to find an agent or a
publisher—unless you come up with something
remarkable.
Second, with traditional publishing, it can take
two or three years for a finished manuscript to be-
come a published book. Third, you might find, as I
did with this book, that your new book conflicts
with one already in your publisher’s catalogue.
At the beginning of the book, remember that I
mentioned I wrote the first version of Writing Madly as
a workbook to accompany a Master Class on writ-
ing a self-help book? And for sure you recollect my
banging on about the power of a killer title with a
benefit. And do you recall the power of word-of-
mouth marketing I talked about a few pages back?
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