Author House Society
Daily Agenda
The order of these activities might change to better serve our customers. Due to time some days some of these activities will be omitted for group B, but those activities will be distributed on designated days to make up for it.
1. Email one chapter a day to three authors for multi proofreading.
3. Write 3 to 4 pages of something you want to start working on or have already been working on.
4. Sit silently and critique and proofread in Microsoft Word the 1 to 3 chapters a day emailed to you at the beginning of the class. We are looking at critiquing from an English composition in fiction writing perspective. Such as, sentence structuring, organization of paragraphs, word choices, grammar, punctuation, spelling, etc. You will fix these problems and make suggestions to them of revisions and self-editing their future chapters before they send them to you. Revisions and self-editing will be done in this group on a daily basis. So then will be the time for people to polish their manuscripts as best they can before submitting them to others to proofread for them. Keep in mind, people might not want to take your advice on having them to revise or self-edit their work. For instance, if their sentences are too wordy, they might not want to trim them for whatever reason. They might be happy. If they have way too many misspelled words, grammar and punctuation problems that the spellchecker should have defiantly picked up on, you need to let them know that they need to make sure that they run a spell check at least three times before submitting their work to you. If they should have caught errors on their own, let them know this and let them know that they need to be careful and read each sentence word for word to make sure that there are no unnecessary errors that they should have corrected. But you will still be responsible for proofreading their works within appropriate reason, which are grammar, punctuation, spelling, (the basic proofreading). The proofing marks you make in peoples chapters using Microsoft Word is private, and will not be discussed with the rest of the group nor in person with another member. Save the changes you've made to peoples chapter and email the chapters back to those people. Because once people have been writing everyday, a lot of these problems will diminish. You will then be able to just read through their manuscripts with ease. You might see a misspelled word or something on a couple of pages, correct it quickly and keep on reading through the rest of the chapter.
5. There is a discussion with the group about the chapter or chapters that you've read for others. This will be from a Creative Writing perspective. This is about peoples ability to tell the story in an organized way, to write a well-rounded story and to entertain readers. Keeping them turning the pages to where they do not want to put the book down. We will discuss on a chapter to chapter basis, getting readers hooked, characters and developement, plot, sceen and structure, dialoug, voice and style, tension, conflict action and suspense, emotions and point of view, description and setting, showing and telling, beginnings, middles and ends in chapter as well as the over manuscript, religion, spirtuality, orgainzed crimes, killers, unsolved murder, forensic, evidence, spies, romance, mystery, science fiction, bullies, background, history, westerns, literary, etc.
6. Revise and self-edit 1-3 chapters in something you have already finished or are working on. You are aiming to have these chapters ready to be proofread by others and then to be published. One you have been writing everyday for at least thirty days, you will not be slowed down by having to revise and self-edit that much. At this level, in whatever you have been working on and writing in everyday, you will self-edit at least 10 chapters a day.
7. Being a writer is a business. At this time writers will write out a business plan for their business as an author. Without a business plan, your business will probably fail. Business plans must be at least 70 pages. This might not be completed in your first 3 months in this group, but you must have at least 30 pages at the end of each three months writing workshop. After you have finished your business plan to run your business as an author, then you will write a business plan for every book that you write. These book business plans will have to be at least 25 pages at the end of every three months writing group.
8. Before writing a new book, write out a book proposal. This includes a chapter outline of the whole manuscript; which is one paragraph per chapter. A synopsis, query letter and/or cover letter and the first three chapters and an Author bio.
9. This will be the time to search for literary agents and/or publishers. If not successful, vanity, subsidy, print on demand, and/or self-publishing is options too. You shouldn't need a copy editor if you revise and self-edit appropriate and have at least 3 proofreaders to proofread your chapters. If interested in publishing through a vanity and/or a subsidy publishing company, this activity is where you take your time and read their contracts and pay close attention to their fine print. Because if you publish through them and you use their artwork for your book cover, use their editing services, layout, and then decide that you want to take your book some else where they might not let you take their artwork for your book cover, their editing marks, layout, and nothing else with you after you have paid them for these services. I have seen complaints on the internet, so make sure you take this time to carefully read their contracts. These kinds of publishers have a distribution page for authors to publish their works on their bookstore pages, but these publishers are not bookstores; although they call themselves that. These kinds of publishers use Print on Demand printing companies. They don't stock your books. They wait until people one by one order your books and then the Print on Demand printing company prints the books out and ships them to customers. If the Print On Demand Company charges $8.00 to print your book out, the total sell of the book to your customer will be $16.00. The Print On Demand Company will get their $8.00 upfront and then the subsidy and/or vanity publisher will duke the $8.00 profit with you. You can cut the subsidy and/or vanity publishers out and do everything yourself that they can do for you and then go directly to a Print on Demand printing company. If you go this route and the printing and binding fees are $8.00, the Print on Demand company will set the total cost of your book to each customer to be $16.00 and you get the $8.00 difference all to yourself, unless you tell the Print on Demand company that you want to charge your customers another price, but that will be their suggested price for you to charge your customers. Another option if you can afford it is to purchase the books at the Print On Demand Company in bulks. The more you purchase together in bulks the cheaper they will be. They will ship your books out to you and you can store them somewhere and price them at the price that you want them to be and then sell them yourself and then ship them out to your customers or you might be able to get a real bookstore where people walk in and shop for books to stock your books. You can give free copies away to Libraries too or if you purchase Library catalog numbers for your books, your books will be in the library catalogs and the Library might buy copies of your books and stock them in their Libraries. Coffee shops and other appropriate business might even stock your books, so that customer can buy them. If you want to sell your books on-line, make sure you go to a real online bookstore such as, Amazon, Books-a-Million, Barnes and Nobles, Borders, and other bookstores and direct all your potential customers to these real bookstores. Bookstores focus and specialize on selling books, not on getting your books ready for the world to read like publishers do.
10. Plan your marketing and advertising efforts, by joining at least 3 book reading groups where people meet and sit and discuss the kinds of books that you write. Most reading groups meet only once or twice a month. This will help you promote and sell your books. Find as many reading groups like this that focus on reading the genre of books that you write and you can promote your books ahead of time in their groups. This way, you will give them the option to reserve books before you put them on the market. They will get copies of your books first and word of mouth is powerful. You can also invite them to purchase your books at book signings and book readings as well. This will help you get in touch with your audiences a lot better. Get into the habit of reading a lot for this very sake. The sake of marketing and promoting your works. For instance, if you write romance, then people who read romance will be your targeted market, etc. If you write science fiction, then people who read science fiction will be your targeted market. Get in touch with what bookstores, book catalogs, websites and places that specialize in selling the types of books you write. Plan your book signing, book reading, etc. Set a limit on how much you will spend on advertising per book. Set a limit on how long you will spend on promoting each book before you move on to the next book. There are all sorts of places where you can promote your book. Newspaper, radio, TV, etc. Take this time to really research other authors who write the kinds of books you write and are successful and do what they do. Pay per view on the internet, reading groups, writing workshops websites and writing conference websites are good sources to promote and advertise your books at.
11. Read one to four chapters of a self-published, vanity, subsidy or print on demand author book from the publishing company of your choice or on self-published authors’ websites. This is where we will read books from a reader’s perspective. See list of self-publishers above to purchase books by self-published authors. Each participant will choose their own books and discuss them with the groups. If at any time you cannot afford to purchase books, there are lots of self-published authors who will let you read their books for free. But if you can afford to pay for these books, then do so, because we want to support self-published authors, because they are trying to get their careers started as authors too. This might be the only step for people who want to eventually land a worthwhile or giant book deal with a Literary Agent or Publisher. A discussion of books by self-published authors will follow after book readings. We will talk about the theme of books, what did you like most about the book? How is the writer educating society? Did you like the ending? Was the story easy to follow? Who are the targeted audiences for the book? Was the author imaginative enough? And so forth.
12. Read 1-3 newspaper article a day to help stimulate your imagination and plan for your next book or book you are currently working on.
The order of these activities might change to better serve our customers. Due to time some days some of these activities will be omitted for group B, but those activities will be distributed on designated days to make up for it.