Green-Light Your Book: How Writers Can Succeed in the New Era of Publishing

by Brooke Warner

Overview

Green-Light Your Book is a straight-shooting guide to a changing industry. Written for aspiring authors, previously published authors, and independent publishers, it explains the ever-shifting publishing landscape and helps indie authors understand that they’re up against the status quo, and how to work within the system but also how to subvert the system in order to succeed. Publishing expert and independent publisher Brooke Warner is fearless in her critique of an industry that’s lost its mandate, and in so doing has opened the door wide for indie publishers to thrive. While she does not shy away from calling out the bias against indie authors, she also asserts that it’s never been a more exciting time to be in book publishing—and her passion and enthusiasm are contagious. “If you’re going to green-light your work, you have to wow,” Warner writes. But to surpass expectations, you also need to be a student of publishing and to be able to hold your own with book buyers, event coordinators, librarians, wholesalers, distributors, and reviewers. Green-Light Your Book seeks to equip authors and publishers with the language, knowledge, and skill sets they need to play big.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781631528026
Publisher:	She Writes Press
Publication date:	06/14/2016
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	264
Sales rank:	1,080,579
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Brooke Warner is the publisher of She Writes Press, president of Warner Coaching Inc., author of What's Your Book? and How to Sell Your Memoir, and co-author of Breaking Ground on Your Memoir. She is also a regular Huffington Post blogger and a master teacher of memoir who co-leads the popular course “Write Your Memoir in Six Months.” Her expertise is in traditional and new publishing. She sits on the boards of the Independent Book Publishers Association, the National Association of Memoir Writers, and the Bay Area Book Festival. Her website has been named by The Write Life as one of the Top 100 Best Websites for Writers. Warner lives and works in Berkeley, California.

Table of Contents

Introduction 9

Chapter 1 The State of the Industry 17

Chapter 2 The Indie Revolution and Your Role in It 41

Chapter 3 The Five P's of Publishing Success 69

Chapter 4 How to Be Successful in Your Genre 99

Chapter 5 Your Book: Baby or Product? 119

Chapter 6 What You Need to Know about Data and Distribution 147

Chapter 7 Subverting the System While Working Within It 179

Chapter 8 Discoverability 205

Chapter 9 Community and Connection 227

Chapter 10 Green Light, Go 241

Acknowledgments 253

About the Author 255

Editorial Reviews

In Green-Light Your Book, Brooke Warner makes an argument for indie authorship that helps legitimize the field. Her voice is an important one in the conversation about what matters when it comes to modern-day publishing.”
—Angela Bole, CEO and Executive Director of the Independent Book Publishing Association

“Green-Light Your Book is a roadmap to what’s really happening inside the publishing industry right now. This is an invaluable book for both aspiring and previously published authors who are brushing up against a changing industry and feeling upended. Brooke Warner is on a quest to level the playing field for authors everywhere—and this book is a first step toward rallying writers to make that happen.”
—Grant Faulkner, Executive Director of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month)

“For those of who have struggled with the myriad red light warnings that flare up here and there on the journey to publishing, this book will give you the courage to green-light your work. Green-Light Your Book is a veritable indie publishing workshop that can fit in the palm of your hand. Warner reveals realistic and viable alternatives to the elitism often practiced by traditional publishers. The grace note that makes this book truly sing is the author’s insight that the key to indie success is not to wait to publish, but to fully embrace your spirit of independence and celebrate the creation of a book you will be proud to call your own.”
—Phil Cousineau, author of The Painted Word, Wordcatcher, and The Oldest Story in the World

“Green-Light Your Book is an ideal resource for all aspiring authors, regardless of the path they’re pursuing to getting published. Brooke Warner has the insight, passion, and commitment necessary to help authors grasp what it takes to be successful in today’s publishing environment. Don’t publish your next book before you read this one!”
—Richard Nash, entrepreneur and publishing expert

“Consider Green-Light Your Book a crash course on publishing for new authors. It's a perfectly balanced package of practical basics and kick-in-the pants encouragement to get any new author on their way to a published book.”
—Dan Blank, founder of WeGrowMedia

“With experience in the worlds of traditional, hybrid, and indie publishing, Brooke Warner provides a refreshingly clear-eyed view of a writer’s many options in this friendly guidebook that reads in parts like an insider confessional. She pulls no punches as she exposes the decisions, big and small, that happen behind the scenes to determine an author's success—or lack—and empowers writers to take control of their writing careers with eyes wide open.”
—Dana Beth Weinberg, PhD, professor of sociology, Queens College and the Graduate Center, CUNY, and author of The Author-Publisher Relationship in a Changing Market

From the Publisher