This blog doesn’t work that way. I look at every comment. But if your blog does, be forewarned.

No.You.Don’t!

I don’t want to sell my book on Amazon. They want to much money. I’ll just sell it on my website.

It’s very rare for any experienced publishing pro to encourage newbies to expect any of the things above. And there are many ethical professionals in the publishing community who routinely turn down would-be clients when the project is just not going to go where the client wants it to go.

And yes, most of the manuscripts in the world shouldn’t be read by anyone unrelated to the author. I choose to speak and write for the authors of the ones that are ready for primetime, and for the publishers who choose to work outside the boundaries of one of the tiny handful of large publishers. I happen to think that this is where the intersection of individual taste, energy and professionalism can change the world.

you sit here and laugh at newbie authors
because of their unrealistic expectations,
and then you egg them on elsewhere by
telling them to start their own company,
so you can sell them your services…

-bowerbird

Why are there more/fewer pages in the book than in my original MS Word file? I even changed the margins to make it the right size! — I use a different font and a different type size and a different leading (line spacing) than what you used. I don’t just take what you’ve done and put it into book form, I choose fonts and sizes and leadings that work better for books than for manuscripts to make the book more readable for your audience.

“I really like everything about the cover concepts you presented. Here’s what we need to do next…”

“I LOVE the back cover copy you wrote. Can we change it around some?”

“We’re going to ask several people to send cover concepts, and then we’ll pay the person who did the best job.”

“But I WANT the text to be set in 16 point with 2 inch margins so it’s easy to read.”

“My book doesn’t need to be proofread. It was already edited.”

“I understand that curly quotes are correct, but I think straight quotes look more modern and MY readers will understand.”

“I know a title should be short, but MY book is different, and people won’t understand my topic unless I’m very specific.”

“I really need to use caps, underlines, boldface, AND italics in my text [on every other line] otherwise the reader won’t understand what I’m saying.”

And my all-time favorite:

“I’d do the job myself, but I don’t know how. This should be a simple job for someone who knows what they are doing.”