By hook or by book: Fledgling writers fishing for publishing contracts

Wednesday, June 12, 2002 | 8:24 a.m.

You spend years toiling at the typewriter or computer.

You sweated blood as you worked on a novel or a nonfiction book that has consumed your life and caused you to abandon family and friends.

Every day you write, edit, rewrite and rewrite some more until you have a manuscript you can be proud of one that will set the world on fire, bring you millions in royalties and movie deals.

Now the real work begins:

You must get it published.

"It is a different publishing world than it used to be," Douglas Unger said.

Unger has written four novels, including "Leaving the Land" (Harper & Row, 1984), which was a runner-up for a Pulitzer Prize. Besides being a novelist, Unger has been an English professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, since 1991.

He teaches classes in modern and contemporary literature for graduate and undergraduate students and conducts workshops on creative writing. He oversees the curriculum development for the international master of fine arts in creative writing degree program.

In this age of corporate mergers, Unger says the book-publishing world is dominated by five giants: AOL Time Warner Book Group, Viacom, Bertelsmann, HarperCollins and Pearson.

"They publish about 90 percent of the books," Unger said.

Today major publishers are less likely to gamble on unknown authors.

"In today's world there's not a chance in hell of a new author being published by one of the major publishers, unless they have personal contact with an editor that works there," Unger said.

Unger described the publishing world as "very strange now."

"What's happened is conglomeration, which really is no less than a leveraged buyout of world culture," Unger said.

Major publishers look for mass-market authors, such as John Grisham and Stephen King, who sell millions of books.

"Corporate mentality is influencing the business," Unger said. "They (corporations) are cutting out the literary novel. They're only interested in books that sell 30,000 to 40,000 or more."

Unger teaches students how to write books, not how to sell them.

"The most important thing (in selling a book) is to have the work ready," he said. "The worst thing a writer can do is send their work out before it's finished. There is a rigorous process of rewrites, which often takes years."

He said the first step in selling a book, especially a novel, usually is to find an agent. There are thousands, who may be found on the Internet or through other sources.

Before submitting work for consideration, he advises young writers to join a writer's club.

"Find a group of like-minded readers," he said. "Find good readers who can tell you what your manuscript is missing."

If a writer knows an editor who works for a book publisher, it may be easier to have a manuscript read.

"The place to meet editors is at writers' conferences," Unger said.

There are dozens of conferences and workshops for writers. Among the most well-known are Bread Loaf in Vermont; Idaho Writers' League Writer's Conference; Aspen (Colo.) Summer Words; the Southwest Writer's Conference in Arizona and the Writers at Work Conference in Utah.

"These are places where writers go to meet other writers and the occasional editor or agent and develop a relationship," Unger said.

Robert Cawley teaches creative writing at Community College of Southern Nevada.

While most novelists focus on selling work to print publishers, Cawley says modern technology has expanded writers' options. More first novels are beginning to appear online via e-publishers and on audio tapes.

Cawley has written several novels available online, including "In Search of La Dura," "Components of Murder" and "Target Tayopa."

He sold "In Search of La Dura" to Books in Motion, based in Spokane, Wash. Books in Motion puts manuscripts on audio even before they have been published in hardback form.

"There is no difference in writing an audio book and a printed book," Cawley said. "You write it like you would write a normal book.

Print publishing

Huntington Press in Las Vegas is a traditional publisher, but a small one. It publishes about 10 titles per year, most of them non-fiction dealing directly or indirectly with gambling.

Publisher Anthony Curtis said the company also publishes guidebooks to Las Vegas, as well as crime books also related to Las Vegas.

Although it is rare, the company does publish fiction. When the company first began publishing books, writers were solicited.

"We thought no one would want to come to a little publisher," Curtis said. "When we opened up to the world at large in 1997, we immediately began receiving dozens of submissions per month. Now we're down to five to 10 a month."

Curtis says it is not necessary to use an agent to submit a book to Huntington. What will pique the interest of the publishing house is the expertise of the author.

"The best way an author can have a shot at being published by us is to get a copy of our guidelines and follow those instructions as closely as possible. Most publishing companies have the same sort of process."

E-world

E-publishing (or, electronic publishing), while snubbed by some writers, is beginning to come into a world of its own.

Authors may publish their books online for readers to read on computers. Some e-publishers provide a service called "print on demand." A customer orders a book and then the book is printed and shipped.

One of the top e-publishers in the country is 1st Books Library, based in Bloomington, Ind.

Brian Jones, spokesman for 1st Books, said e-publishing has opened doors for new authors.

"If you have an author with a large fan base, regardless if the author is better or worse, he gets published first (by large publishing houses)," Jones said.

In 1999 1st Books began publishing print-on-demand books.

Books printed on demand are in paperback form and cost around $13. The publisher charges the author an initial fee of almost $600 to put the book online.

Jones said e-publishing is great for new writers. They don't have to worry about agents or rejection slips.

Writer on writing

Las Vegan Parley Cooper has written more than 30 novels in the past 35 years, many of them of the mystery-horror genre.

"The publishing industry has drastically changed from the '60s," Cooper said. "At that time the literary editors were excellent. Now, young girls just out of college are doing the editing."

His first novel, "The Devil Children," was written in the late '60s.

"I went door-to-door to publishers with no response," Cooper said. "I finally got an agent who submitted it for me. Eleven publishers said to change the protagonist from a male to a female. I finally did it and Pocket Books, a division of Simon and Schuster, bought it. It went through 21 printings."

Ten years ago Cooper decided to take a break from writing. He is currently finishing a new book to send to his agent. "A Man of A Thousand Faces" is about a woman and her two children who have been placed in a witness protection program after seeing an organized crime leader commit a murder. The mob finds her and she goes after the mob boss.

Even with his experience as a novelist, it is not easy to find an agent, he said.

"The agent I had for years died," he said. "I finally found a new one, but I know it is difficult to get an agent."

Cooper said people are always asking him for advice about writing a book.

"Everyone thinks they have a book in them," he said. "I agree. Everyone does. You can turn your life into a book."

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