Yesterday, I read this post suggesting a list of the most influential bloggers of 2010.

At first glance it seemed reasonable, but it set me thinking. A couple of years ago we were all reading the top bloggers, lapping up their wisdom and experimenting with thier ideas. But the world has changed. Today experts have sprung up all over the internet. Whatever your niche, you can now find plenty of bloggers offering direction and guidance.

Recently their has been some debate regarding the ‘get published’ space and the wealth of conflicting advice. Yes, some of it is rubbish, some of it is OK and some of it is pure gold. The point is that as a writer you don’t need Chris Brogan, you need your own guru (or gurus). You need to be listening to an experienced voice, which has achieved what you are looking to achieve and is consistent and trustworthy with their advice.

So, for 2010 I would suggest you forget the ‘top 10 influential bloggers’ and instead construct your own list of experts who speak your language. Yes, read the big boys but be prepared to look beyond. Go out of your way the find the smaller blogs and focus your attention on these. Leave comments, engage with them daily, stalk them on twitter.

You never know they might actually be offering the advice you really need!

Forget your preconceptions!

The following list of comic books (graphic novels) will inspire new and exciting ideas. All have great illustration, but most importantly, all have those superbly written, twisty plots that make you say, ‘this is gooood!’

What comic (graphic novel) would you add?

Anecdotal evidence suggests that as few as 15% of the books published each year sell more than 5000 copies!

Publishers know this and have adjusted their business model accordingly. Instead of expecting all books to sell well, they rely on the few bestsellers that emerge to make the bulk of their profit. However, these bestsellers are impossible to predict, locking publishers into an inefficient system

This is bad news for published writers who, looking at the figures, have just a 15% chance of selling enough books to make their time investment in writing a novel financially worthwhile.

This said the growth of digital media and the development of online book stores, such as Amazon, has opened up a new route for writers.

This is the route of the Proactive Writer.

It is now possible for writers to make a living from publishing books (or dare I say the C word – content) online. This is far more than self-publishing.

Here’s the idea…

• A writer sets up a website and links to their three or four social media channels,
• The writer populates these channels adding value to any followers they pick up,
• Followers get value out of following the writer and become fans,
• Writer produces content and directs fans to blog/website,
• Repeat until writer has enough fans/followers that they are able to sell their content,
• Option: use fan base and sales to leverage a bestseller book deal with traditional publisher.

I didn’t invent this model, its being going full steam for the past few years. Here’s some examples of Proactive Writers who have built a career using this system:

Scott Sigler
Sigler released his novel EarthCore as a free podcast and built such a fan base that he was able to sell a paid version via iTunes. This led to a book deal and a string of bestsellers.

J.C. Hutchins
Hutchins ‘podcasted’ his Sci Fi trilogy 7th Son ending up with “over 40,000 listeners worldwide and over 2,000,000 downloads.” This led to a traditional book deal.

Chris Brogan
Brogan is social media evangelist. He spent years building an online platform to voice his ideas and promote his business ventures. He leveraged this platform in 2009 to make his co-written book Trust Agents into an international bestseller.

37Signals
37signals is a technology company who sell online applications to help businesses collaborate. They have promoted themselves by building a popular blog that talks about their unique way of doing business. Regular guest appearances on podcasts and high profile writing has established them a respected platform. They leveraged this platform for make their recent book Getting Real a huge success. Not only was this book sold in traditional paper format, but also digitally off their site, together with a complete full copy that can be read online for free.

Thoughts? Is this really more than self-publishing done well?

70% of books published fail! However, the remaining 30% go on to become potential best sellers making so much profit that the sins of the failures are washed away.

The problem publishers face is that bestsellers are impossible to predict. So, in order to ensure they produce at least a couple of bestsellers, publishers publish many books, knowing most will fail but a few will succeed.

This business model is all based on a bookshop’s limited shelf space. Most books are sold through bookshops (though this is changing). These bookshops have a limited number of shelves and the shops tend to stock books that are most likely to sell in large numbers (they have to pay the rent, just like everyone else). This means that titles that don’t sell so well, who don’t earn their shelf space, are dropped and replaced with other, better selling, books. Only the bestsellers survive.

However, this model is changing and digitalisation is altering the marketplace.

Bookshops are still important but increasingly people are buying books online. Amazon is now becoming the first port of call for many readers, and the growing impact of ebook sales is accelerating this change.

But surely the decline of bookshops is bad for the writers and publishers?

It would be if readers were no longer buying books but they are, they never stopped, thay have just switched to online stores.

The key is that Amazon’s business model doesn’t depend on physical shelf space. Though they have to warehouse the books, this is not the limiting factor. In essence they have unlimited and virtual bookshelf space and this alters the book selling dynamic. Yes, Amazon love the bestsellers, but they don’t need them.

Online bookshops are able to depend on niche books to pay the bills. These niche books may only sell a couple of hundred copies a year, and this would have meant they could not be stocked by physical bookshelves. The book shops would have not had the luxury of stocking their shelves with titles that blocked essential retail space. Yet, Amazon don’t care, they have unlimited bookshelves. In fact, the opposite is now the case. Amazon want niche book titles, as many as possible. If they stock 10,000 niche titles, each selling just 100 copies per year, sales and profit soon add up!

This is excellent news for writers. You see, the main reason writers need publishers is for the publisher to pay for printing and to subsequent distribution of the book to bookshops. But what happens if we remove book shops from the equation, and the price of printing 100 titles per year drops to a level manageable by writers?

The answer is that the writer becomes the publisher. This new publishing model allows writers to write, print and distribute their own books. Add to this the fact that, with the publisher removed, writers can take a much bigger cut of the profit and suddenly we can shake of the depression off yesterday’s post and instead celebrate a recipe for success.

How much do you think a writer typically makes each year?

£400,000, £40,000? In fact, it’s closer to £4000…

But will this nugget of information stop you writing? Now you know that the chances are that you will make just a small amount of cash from all of that hard work, will you stop?

I am betting the answer is no.

So, why do writers, myself included, continue to tap away. I suspect if we can get away from the romantic images of legacy and artistic expression, the answer has something to do with R.K. Rowling.

You see all us writers know the J.K Rowling story. She gets an idea for a story whilst on a train journey, spends five years writing the first book, gets an agent, then a book deal and then…well…fame and fortune.

Yet, the J.K. Rowling story is not all book deals and big houses. Her success took hard work and a whole lot of luck. She struggled for five years to write the first book, her mental health suffering in the process. When her agent did finally place the book she received an advance of just £1500, which was not enough to live off and she had to rely on the Scottish Art’s Council for a grant to continue writing. Yet, in the end Rowling was staggeringly lucky, far more than any typical writer can expect. Rowling is well aware of her good fortune and describes herself as ‘extraordinary lucky.’

But it’s not just J.K. Rowling who is lucky, take any major bestseller and delve deeply into their story. You will find the luck, it might be hidden and polished for public consumption but it’s there – Stephenie Meyer, Stephen King, Dan Brown they all have it

So if this is true, if the vast majority of published writers make very little money. Why do publishers not offer a more realistic insight into the publishing world? Why do you they insist on moulding and promoting the image of the best selling author? The answer is that publishers need best sellers.

You see most books make a small amount of profit, or even a loss, perhaps as many as 70%. However, the remaining 30% make so much profit that they cover the losses of the other books. These are the best sellers.

The problem publishers face is that bestsellers are impossible to predict, as well as being rare. So in order to ensure they publish at least a couple of bestsellers each year they release lots of books, clearly aware that 70% will fail, but the remaining 30% will sell far beyond expectations.

So publishers need new books, they need new writing, they need writers to be blindly pass their work to agents in the hope that (fingers crossed) they will be a bestseller. Yet, the reality is that most writers will make just £4000 per year.

Are you still writing?

1. Not being amazing - The single most common reason for novels not being published is that they are simply not amazing. Publishers have an almost unlimited supply of writers looking to get their books in print, so why would they publish anything but the very best writing? Your novel being good is just not good enough.

2. Producing a rubbish pitch - Many writers spend years writing a novel and then look to knock out a book proposal in a matter of hours. Writing a book proposal is an art. In essence your query letter and synopsis are sales documents convincing the publisher that you are a serious writer, who understands the market place in detail and has written an excellent book.

3. Not doing any research - Failing to do the research needed to write your book, or find the website that offers you the best advice on writing a book proposal, or pick the most suitable agent, or pin point the ideal publisher or identify the competition all equal failure.

4. Not being differently different - Novels take a long time to write and the publishing industry moves (relatively) quickly. Churning out books that are the same as the bestsellers when you start writing is a recipe for disaster. Your book needs to clearly fit into a genre but still be differently different enough to give it a unique angle in the marketplace.

5. Giving up – Only by giving up will you ensure that your novel will never get published.

6. Crappy online presence – Publishers are looking to sell a product, and the writer is part of that product. Ask yourself which book you would published: a good novel from a first time writer with the only online presence being a personal Facebook page – OR – a good novel from a first time writer with an active blog, a sizeable Twitter following and a great Facebook fan page?

Successful cover letters are tough to write…

Rather than being a summary of your book, they are instead a sales document to convince agents/publishers to love your book.

I have had years of practice writing effective book proposals, both as a successful writer and co-founder of BubbleCow.

I am now putting aside some time each week to provide feedback on a few cover letters that have been submitted by writers. I will add my feedback to the letters and publish them the following day for all to see!

The rules are simple:

• Only submit with the form below,
• By submitting you agree that BubbleCow can publish your cover letter on our blog,
• Not all letters will be assessed – sorry.

Here’s last week’s cover letter assessment.

1. Publishers don’t want to publish your book

Book publishers are inundated with manuscripts. They get hundreds (if not thousands) of book ideas each week. They don’t need new ideas and more importantly they don’t need your book. So, when your book lands on a publisher or agent’s desk they are looking for a reason to reject. Rejection is easy, just a standard letter and the book is no longer their problem. As a writer you need to make sure you don’t give them a reason to reject your book. Make sure everything is the best it can be.

2. You are not writing the next Harry Potter

The book industry moves slowly. I mean really slowly. When a publisher takes on a new book it might be a couple of years before it hits the shelves. This means that a pitch today for the next Harry Potter is pointless. The only thing a publisher can promise is that when your book is launched Harry Potter will not be the next big thing.

3. Being good is not enough to get published

Good writing is a prerequisite for a publisher but it is not the deciding factor on whether a book will be published. Assuming your writing is up to scratch a publisher is then looking to see if your book fits their current range, if they think the market is big enough to make a profit, if they have the distribution to sell your book, if they have the correct editor to work with your book, to check you are not a nutter and so on. As a writer you need to make their job as easy as possible, you must pick the correct publisher and then you must make your pitch as up-to-date and as relevant as possible

4. It is not the best books that get published

It should be the best books that get published but it’s not. Most book deals are made with authors who the publisher and/or agent already know – proven writers are much less risky. Your job as a writer is to work hard to try and jump past the slush pile and become a ‘proven’ writer.

5. Most writers don’t make money

Most books sell less than a thousand copies. Most writers make almost no money – fact. If you are in this for the cash think again.

6. You need an agent

If you are in it for the cash then you need an agent – simple. Without an agent writers can’t get anywhere near the big publishers and it is the big publishers who sell the most books. So if you are a serious writer you are best spending your time researching and approaching the correct agent rather than wasting your time with smaller publishers.

7. You can sell your book without a publisher

The development of the internet has seen writers gain the ability to distribute and promote their own work. It is now possible for writers to produce thier own content and then sell it to thier fans, all without a traditional publisher. I think Scott Sigler and J.C. Hutchins would agree.

If you want to get your book noticed by an agent or publisher you need an excellent book proposal.

Book proposals consist of three parts:

1. 1. Cover letter,
2. 2. Synopsis,
3. 3. Extract.

This earlier post explains how to write a book proposal in more detail, but here I want to focus on one key aspect of the cover letter – your book outline.

The job of the cover letter is to demonstrate to an agent/publisher three things. The first is that you can write and have a good book, the second is that your book has a market and the third is that you can be marketed as a writer.

One key aspect to this is your book outline. This is a paragraph that summarises your book in to three or four sentences. You should include an outline of the plot with reference to the main characters. This is not an extended synopsis, just enough information to get the agent/publisher excited.

Outlines are tough to write and I found the best approach is practice and more practice. In the example below I have used a well known fairy tale:

This is a coming-of-age tale that sees three little pigs looking to make their way in a world terrorised by a serial killer known simply as The Big Bad Wolf! When the pigs leave home they face the immediate problem of finding accommodation, but below par building regulations and a ‘huff and puff’ quickly sees the first two pigs coming to a bloody end. The final pig is ready to put up a fight, but will a pile of bricks, a chimney and a hot fire really be enough to save the hair on his chinny, chin, chin?

Anyone else brave enough to summarise a well known fairy tale? Just pop it in the comments…

Twitter has become one of the pillars of any writer’s online platform. Yet, over time, the way people use Twitter has changed.

My (@bubblecow) approach is to try and add as much value as possible to my followers. I do this by using Social Oomph to send out regular tweets throughout the day. I also use Tweetdeck to keep track of my followers.

The past few weeks have seen me experimenting with private Twitter lists. My approach is to produce many small lists of people, each with their own theme. I then follow these closely, interacting where possible. The aim being to get as much out of a small number of key people as possible.

How do you use Twitter? Has it changed since you first signed up? How do you follow large numbers of people and still get value? How do you decide to RT?