Publishing

What a world we live in today. I write novels and magazine articles. Sounds simple, right? Not so much! Not very long ago it was considered rather uncouth to be "self published". Other Novelists and Publishing companies tried to make you feel like dirt if you dared tried to go around them. They had a system set up that they felt worked for them, and no one dared cross the almighty. Even if it did take 2 years or so to even get you book out on the market.

But it got to the point that if you were not already famous, or infamous, or from a famous family, your manuscript, that you had most likely spent months, if not years on, went into what they lovingly (NOT) call a slush pile. And I can tell you, after you love and nurture something for that long, give it you finest - it's your baby. You Love it. How would you feel if someone just threw your Baby into a slush pile?

Plus, their time honored system takes forever! First you must grovel and plead to, also known as querying, Literary agents. If you research the best way to do this on the internet, you can find all sorts of interesting articles and tidbits telling you the exact right way to write the perfect query. And they all say something different.

It turns out there is a very good reason for this. It seems to me that they all want something different. Some say to show no personality or creativeness at all. THEY don't have time for that kind of CRAP. Do you know how hard it is for a story-teller to not be creative? And they want you to condense your baby - that you slaved over for months or years, into a small paragraph or two, that will tell them everything about the book. "Huh?"

Some of them want a synopsis. Some of them want the first 10 pages of your manuscript. Some want the first three chapters. Some insist it be in Times New Roman, 12 point font, double spaced, with one inch margins all around.

Others want it to be in 11 point, Ariel, single spaced, with the margins set differently on each side of the paper. And maybe there are others that want you to tap dance while singing Yankee Doodle Dandy while you are mailing it with a SASE!!! (self addressed stamped envelope) But Wait! Now days, some of them want you to help save trees and do it all electronically. But God forbid - don't add it as an attachment to your email, some of them want it in the body of the email because they're afraid of getting a virus. (Hello? Norton Anti-virus, anyone?)

In a nut shell, they make it as hard and frustrating as humanly possible to get your book published. Most publishing companies won't even glance at your work unless you have a Literary Agent. Most Literary Agents don't want to even glance at your work unless you've already had something published - or, like I stated before, you're already famous or infamous. I'm sorry, but at my age, I don't want to have an affair with a Politician or have 8 babies at one time. And like a lot of famous people and politicians, I don't want someone else (known as a ghost writer) to write a book that I take all the credit for.

However... I do write great books, and I have a pretty great website, with Reader Reviews, Book Trailer Videos, book excerpts and anything else you could want to know about me. I literally have thousands of friends from social networking (aka marketing) and have sold thousands of books on my own. But they don't care about that. They flatly refuse to take their precious time to visit our websites. And yet, we're expected to take our time (when we could be writing our next great book) to ply them with the dreadfully dull query letters.

And now --- the Good news! All of a sudden, some of the Best Selling Authors are deciding to cut out the middlemen, and - What? SELF PUBLISH! LMAO! So now they have a cool new name too, Indie-Writers. (Independent Writers) It's becoming cool to be an Indie Writer and Buck the system. I can't quit smiling. With the popularity of ebooks, the cost of printing is coming down. So why go through the trouble of all of the pain I described above. I don't know. On my own with paperback novels and ebooks, I've sold over 10,000 books all on my own. And I'm gearing up to release even more books. I have to admit - I am LOVING this!

And best of all, my Reader Reviews are awesome. I love it when people say they love my books. I post their comments on my website.

If you get a chance, look up articles about Barry Eisler. He is a famous Author that just turned down a huge offer from a well known publisher, cutting out the middlemen, so he can just do it himself. Go Barry! And if you want to, check out my site KTBanks.com and you'll see, I put my money where my mouth is. Nolan Ryan says "It ain't braggin' if it's fact!"

Those of you that have read one or more of my books, please leave comments below - along with anyone else that wants to leave a comment. I welcome them all with my Rebel Yell!

Drive Safely,

KT Banks