C&T Publishing is a group of quilters and crafters dedicated to publishing products tailored to our audience. This blog is where we break away from book schedules and marketing campaigns to focus on what drives us to be creative and how this creativity manifests itself in our every day lives.
Tag Archives: so you wanna write a book?
Advice from Acquisitions: Part 8
This is the last in a series of eight blog posts where I hope I have offered some sensible advice for those who may be thinking of writing a book. Below, is my top ten tips:
Top 10 Do’s and Don’ts
#1 Don’t let concern about your writing skills prevent you from submitting. We have Developmental Editors to help with that.
#2 Don’t wait to complete the book before submitting your idea. At C&T, we just request a sample chapter, an outline and (Continue Reading...)
Advice from Acquisitions: Part 7
As part of an ongoing series on the acquisitions process, I am going to talk about what you can start doing today if you do want to submit but just aren’t ready yet. You can be working on some things to help you prepare.
First of all: Have a plan! Take the time in the beginning to really do a proper business plan. This doesn’t have to be a big formal 30 page document with 5 year projections of profit and (Continue Reading...)
Advice from Acquisitions: Part 6
As part of an ongoing series on the acquisitions process, I am going to talk a little bit about self publishing.
A lot of people are attracted to this, but self-publishing is a lot of work and very (very) few do this well with either patterns or with booklets. Lots of errors, long hours of fulfillment, and a lot of money up front. Much better to have a team to help you along the way, that have a reputation for quality (Continue Reading...)
Advice from Acquisitions: Part 5
As part of an ongoing series on the acquisitions process, I am going to talk a little bit about how to use a book as part of a business plan to start making a career from your craft.
One of the questions I received from the Etsy Virtual Lab was whether it was possible to make a living from writing craft books. While I comically responded that it totally depended on where you live, the reality is that the answer is (Continue Reading...)
Advice from Acquisitions: Part 4
As part of an ongoing series on the acquisitions process, I am going to talk a little bit about the money. I stress that every publisher works differently in this regard but there are a few things that are true of all of us:
When most people see that there is a book selling for $25 they think that the author is getting a big chunk of that. The reality is that the money an author sees is depends on (Continue Reading...)
Advice from Acquisitions: Part 3
As part of an ongoing series on the acquisitions process, I am including the two biggest issues regarding what you can expect from the publishing process so that you can choose the right time in your career to begin the submission process.
Writing a book takes about a year of your life. And it is a lot of work. C&T is very collaborative in their approach with first time authors with lots of little milestones in between so that it’s not (Continue Reading...)
Advice from Acquisitions: Part 2
I recently did a virtual lab for Etsy on the subject of getting a craft book published. I had already started a series of postings talking about the acquisitions process so, I’m using my notes from the lecture to highlight what are hopefully useful tips. In my first post, I encouraged people to try and put the negative thoughts aside that may prevent you from submitting a proposal in the first place. But perhaps you aren’t even there yet and (Continue Reading...)
Advice from Acquisitions: Part 1
Back in January, I did an interview for the Sew Mama Sew blog with a focus on the process of publishing a book.
I was so surprised to receive over 400 responses to my interview! Some wanted my job, some just enjoyed a view into the world of quilting, but mostly I heard from people who were intimidated about submitting a book proposal. As the Acquisitions Editor here at C&T, I thought it would be helpful to start a series of articles (Continue Reading...)
