Please forward this to any budding author in your life.
It’s the last week of December, so our inbox is filling up with queries – people who want to write a book and would like us to publish it. We don’t accept unsolicited queries (it’s right here on our “About Us” page where it has been for years). But that doesn’t stop the mighty digital flow of “Dear Sir or Madams….”.
On the one hand, I’m happy that woodworkers still want to write and publish books. Heck, the fact that anyone thinks books should exist is encouraging.
But here’s the deal. If you are a first-time author, a query letter is like telling all your friends about your hot Canadian girlfriend from band camp last summer. There’s a huge chance that you are simply full of deluded crap.
I wrote my first novel, “Fish Eye,” in the 1990s. I got to the end, realized it was a piece of garbage and burned it. I would be embarrassed – even as a desiccated corpse – if it ever saw ink. I wrote my second book (on workbenches) starting in 2006. I wrote it, paid people to copy edit it, laid it out in InDesign and had it press-ready before I told anyone it existed.
It was accepted by F+W Media about 15 minutes after I submitted it (and is now published by Penguin/Random House). Book editors are stressed and over-worked. If you have an article, series or book that is both 1) compelling and 2) ready to go, then you are probably going to receive good news.
Note that I am not talking about fiction writing here. That world is one Inscrutable 8-Ball, and I have no good advice for you.
In the world of non-fiction and technical writing, however, queries are worse than garbage. They are promises of garbage. Mere whiffs of garbage.
And so I implore you: Just write your damn book. I mean COMPLETELY write it: photos, captions, bibliography, forward, afterword, colophon (it’s not about colons), table of contents and author bio. You don’t need me or some other publishing imprint to validate you.
Yes, this is a test. Most authors who decide to write a book will never finish it. I know this; you know this. By writing the book, you are ahead of about 90 percent of the potential authors out there who are pitching their next book idea to someone in the next bathroom stall.
And when you are rejected by every publisher?
Publish the book yourself. There are dozens of places that will print your book “on demand,” where you can order one copy or 40 (heck, the Cincinnati Public Library will even do it). We use Lulu for some in-house skunkworks projects. The quality gets better every year (though still nothing like a casebound, Smyth-sewn book). Give away digital versions of the book for free to people on the internet. Try to build an audience for your next book. Do that, and you will have a track record that other publishers might notice.
But if you do all that, then you might not care when publishers come calling. You might have started your own publishing imprint.
— Christopher Schwarz
“Note that I am not talking about fiction writing here. That world is one Inscrutable 8-Ball, and I have no good advice for you.”
Speaking as a novelist (SFF variety), that’s putting it mildly. It’s an even bigger mess now than it was in 2020, hard as that may be to fathom.
John , Are you planning a follow up to Assassin’s Orbit ?
Tell them there a DIY publishing option on the internet, you pay the money and hey presto, you’ve got a book, it just won’t have the badge of honor that comes from a bonafide imprint like Lost Art Press
I’ve got this idea for a killer workbench book. It’s about a Roubo bench that kills woodworkers. He’s brought to justice by a Moravian – the bench jot the religious sectarian. What do you think 😉
I did that already. It did not go well.
https://blog.lostartpress.com/2013/12/10/toolmaker-killed-in-workshop-accident/
I had to go read that post, and the comment section gave me the best laugh I had this week. Some people are just way too high strung, they need a good laugh. I believe in laughing hard at lest once a day, thank you Chris for todays laugh.
Nevermind the workbenches; I’m writing the “Tammy Vangundy Story” for CourtTV.
Yeah let me get on that book, just as soon as i finish this low staked stool i started after buying ADB a couple years ago…
Funny this should come up. I’ve been thinking creating a book about lumberjack stools. One chapter on how “grain direction is your friend”. Another all about the choice of “branches on or branches off”. The ending, however, at this point has me stumped.
I have a feeling… I’ll be a more or a reader than an author. Please keep the great titles coming!
Man, amen to this.
I’d like to say I’d write a second book, but that shiz is real hard. Publishing other people’s books is tough enough.
It’s the last week of December. The choices are sending you a book proposal, or joining a gym.
This year’s title will be “Workbench Hermeneutics.”
I’m working on “Arboreal Ontology”
I spent a career writing such dry materials as technical manuals and governmental regulations (ugh)! Always dreaming of doing some REAL creative writing. But you are so right, the inertia to start is overwhelming – and life REALLY gets in the way. But your suggestions may just get me moving in 2024! Thanks!
Once upon a time, in a past life, I worked as a Beltway Bandit for the US Air Force, in the logistics field.
As part of preparing for an inspection, I came across a situation where I did not know what the required standard was, so I consulted the appropriate Air Force Instruction (AFI).
After reading through the relevant parts (and several not so relevant parts), I didn’t find what I was looking for. The AFI also had a comment to the effect of “for further information, see AFI xx-xxx.” So, I looked there; still no information that helped. This second AFI also had the “for further information, see AFI xx-xxy.” comment. And, I looked in the third AFI and still found no useful information to answer my question. It also had the “for further information, see AFI xx-xxz.” comment.
Guess where it directed me? That’s right! Back to the first AFI I had consulted.
I was quite “entertained” to see this bit of creative writing leading me around in a circle, like a dog chasing its tail….
Lots of words, not very much useful information, and no information on what I suspected was a pretty common question about the required standard.
To tell the truth, I much preferred the Army’s style of regulation writing:
“Task: [A description of the task to be performed].
Conditions: [A description of the conditions under which the task is to be performed].
Standard: Do it this way, this way, and this way.”
Short, to the point, and you know what you’re supposed to do after you read the relevant parts of the regulation. Much more useful, to say the least.
This made my morning, thanks Chris. I am writing a book, though not on woodworking and it would have never occurred to me to search for publishers before finishing it. So to hear you suggest the same thing gave me a nice boost.
Thanks for the Lulu link!
There’s a post like this once or twice a year and every time I understand why you’re doing it, but at the same time you definitely still publish books and/or plan to publish books by people who are by no means established names in the writing world (what happened to the Tage Frid book guy?). Like it’s objectively and demonstrably factual that you will publish someone’s first book and that in some cases you’ll entertain concepts and go as far as to announce those concepts before they exist in book form (the Don Williams finishing book, again the Tage Frid book).
So instead of this same post again and again, why not offer some kind of avenue for actual engagement? Why not charge a review fee and make people pay you for your time, and then give them some kind of actual feedback, even if it’s “this is a bad idea and was a bad idea the first ten times other people did it”.
It just seems like there is obviously some middle ground and maybe people on both sides of the “Dear Sir or Madam” could benefit from clarification on what that is.
It seems the books that are planned to be published may not be by established writers but they are established in their field… quite different from Some Guy on the internet submitting an unsolicited proposal.
We have done one book as a result of a pure query. I don’t ever want to do it again.
The way we develop books is the most difficult way possible. It is a collaborative process between us, potential authors and outside experts. We know what topics need research and we seek out people that are passionate in that area. And we develop the book idea with research from outside experts, our own research and the knowledge of the author.
The development process can take months or up to a year. We discuss these developing books on the blog to see how readers react. Sometimes their knowledge helps us in developing the book.
A couple times a book concept has come like lightning, however, so anything goes.
And rarely, a fully formed book arrives on our doorstep (“Cut & Dried” by Richard Jones is one of them).
I am simply trying to save people time and effort when do posts discouraging queries. Lots of books on getting published recommend queries, and it just won’t work with our process.
And I think that taking potential authors’ money to respond to a query is not compatible with how my brain works.
How to engage? It’s like dating.
If someone wants to write a book for us, they usually meet us in person at a woodworking event (we travel a lot). Introduce themselves and their work. Talk about how they are interested in writing. If we get along, we usually follow up and explore some ideas together. Sometimes it turns into a book. Most times it does not.
For people who say that’s too much to ask of an author, I have to disagree. If I’m going to commit $20,000 to $100,000 of our cash for the first press run and spend months to years working with the person on writing, photography, editing, design and production, I can’t commit based on a dashed-off 500-word email, a half-done TOC and a couple photos.
I hope this helps explain how we work.
“And rarely, a fully formed book arrives on our doorstep (“Cut & Dried” by Richard Jones is one of them).”
It just so happened that I was offered the chance of a publishing contract for what became Cut & Dried at an early stage of writing. I said ‘No’ because, rightly or wrongly, I thought if I agreed I’d then be under pressure from the publisher to work to their deadline which would lead to rushing on my part and too many omissions and errors. I, for want of a better description, had a ‘vision’ of what needed to be researched and discussed in the manuscript and I dreaded the idea of being under pressure to get the job done by a publisher nagging at me to get the manuscript in. So, I did it my way, write the thing, and when I’d covered every topic I thought was important for my fellow woodworkers I’d be done, and I’d then try and find a publisher. It took, roughly, a mere ten or eleven years (sic) between getting the idea to write the book and finishing it.
I can’t decide, even now, if my methodology in creating the manuscript first and then seeking a publisher was a form of madness, or maybe vanity, possibly bloody-mindedness, or somehow intangibly inspired. Whatever it was I’m very grateful that Lost Art Press like what they saw when I sent you the manuscript to evaluate.
Your post is full of frank advice. I’ve self-published a few books, had books published by professional publishers, and written a few that went nowhere. Having sat on both sides of the fence, I know the challenges and appreciate the struggles of publishers and authors. It’s not a field for weaklings.
“Ornithological Architecture”
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man would read his friend’s self-published novel.
Off topic but that’s a nice piece of artwork with this post.