http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/members/billstephens/ Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of- but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards. Robert Heinlein en-us 2008-05-09T16:57:00+00:00 Publishers Marketplace Bill Stephens hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00:00+00:00 http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/images/PM_rssimg.gif http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/ http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/members/billstephens/index.html#20080223132429 A requirement for any nonfiction book proposal is a marketing plan. In this plan, you, as the author, must convince an editor there is an eager audience ready to pounce on your book idea once published. Additionally, you must show how you will market the book to this audience. Trust me, proposing review copies and a book tour featuring readings and signings will not get it done these days. My agent is currently pitching my novel, Vamonos!, and she hit on the idea of offering a marketing ... Bill Stephens 2008-02-23T18:24:29+00:00 http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/members/billstephens/index.html#20080219121814 "Vanity Press!" That is the pejorative term for self-publishing I knew years ago. Granted, things have changed in recent times, and today the number of books published by the trade press and by individuals is about equal. But "Vanity Press" still hangs in my mind. If you have the personality and marketing expertise to sell your self-published books, you can make much more money than you ever will on royalties paid by a publisher. The cost of a trade paperback (+/- 300 pages) self-published ... Bill Stephens 2008-02-19T17:18:14+00:00 http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/members/billstephens/index.html#20071216102208 The statement made to my agent last month by a publisher's editor explaining how, in these difficult times for fiction, she determines which manuscripts she carries forward, forced me to again address this issue. "I have to just love it!" was her criteria for accepting fiction manuscripts. This leads me to again ask, "Why do You just have to love it?" Wouldn't it make more sense if the reading public "just loved it?" Which editor does their publisher and the reading public the best ... Bill Stephens 2007-12-16T15:22:08+00:00 http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/members/billstephens/index.html#20071031084213 A friend of mine wrote a screenplay based on the book, Tuscaloosa, by W. Glasgow Phillips. The book was published in 1994 by the Plume imprint of Penguin and received massive literary accolades, went into translations, and got a film option. A writing grant was awarded to Phillips who spent the next two years at Stanford University, ostensibly writing. Phillips was 24 years old at the time the book published and after his stint at Stanford and a short stay in Austin, Texas, he disappeared ... Bill Stephens 2007-10-31T12:42:13+00:00 http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/members/billstephens/index.html#20070827115601 Dear Friend, I realize that some may consider the content of this letter indelicate. For this reason I apologize in advance to those who find it so. But as you will read, I am unable to restrain myself from making this inquiry. For several years a bar of soap in our bathroom went unused because of it's decorative value. It was a medium sized single bar unadorned with any wrapping or bindings. It was a mottled, darkish blue color and shaped for ease of holding with a curved, ... Bill Stephens 2007-08-27T15:56:01+00:00 http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/members/billstephens/index.html#20070301202413 My agent, Nancy Ellis, a Californian, is in New York the first two weeks of March, pitching my second novel. I learned also today that a friend had moved to New York to take over a public relations firm. The combination of these two migrations sent me reeling back through my New York Memories. A couple of decades ago I was in New York for a dinner meeting with the Food and Beverage Director of a potential airline client for my airline catering business. I finished dressing early and picked ... Bill Stephens 2007-03-02T01:24:13+00:00 http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/members/billstephens/index.html#20070107224649 I started writing about wine, and later about food, for two reasons. The editor of The San Antonio Light, Hearst's local newspaper, was a regular at my restaurant. He stopped me in the restaurant one night and asked me to consider writing a weekly column about wine. The second reason was the problem my dad had keeping his ego intact after retiring as the CEO of a sizeable company. I decided this would not happen to me. I would become a writer as a continuing activity to shore up my ego at ... Bill Stephens 2007-01-08T03:46:49+00:00