Interview with the Fabulous Erika Napoletano
The interviews in the Independent Writing series here at Smiling Tree are usually with authors who have self-published their work. Though today’s guest did not self publish she is most certainly independent! Erika Napoletano is the Chief Redhead at Redhead Writing, and has written a business book is titled The Power of Unpopular, and co-authored a book on egg donation called The Insider’s Guide to Egg Donation.
Authors have more options than ever before when deciding how to take their work to the market. It is fascinating to learn about the decision making process behind individual writers’ choices. Erika was kind enough to answer some questions, despite an insanely busy schedule. Take a look at her web site, her Facebook page, her Twitter stream, and her YouTube channel to learn more from this successful, funny, entertaining business-owner and writer! (Note: if profanity offends you, be forewarned – Erika cusses better than most sailors!)
One of the things that fascinates me about watching the changing world of publishing is the number of choices that authors now have. Would you talk about how you arrived at the decision to go with a traditional model?
I’ve always had the dream of being an author and I wouldn’t have done my first book any other way than through a traditional publisher. Call me old fashioned, but I love the model — a pitch, a team, a project, a shared goal. Both of my nonfiction books followed a pretty traditional path. I sent a query letter to a shortlist of 6 agents, my preferred one replied with a request for the proposal in under 6 hours, and she ultimately became the agent for both my writing partner on the egg donation book and me for my business book.
Your two books are on wildly different topics. Do you find that you need to use wildly different tactics to sell them?
Well, actually selling the books is your agent’s job. They match book proposals up with publishers/editors they know and that’s how a book gets sold. I’ve always seen my responsibility as a writer to give my agent the best possible tool to sell my book: a well-crafted proposal. That, in turn, gives an acquiring editor ammunition when they go into a quarterly sales meeting. See, this is where they compete against all of the other acquiring editors at their publishing house, each of whom is fighting to get their titles into a slot for the upcoming publication calendar. Keep this in mind if you’re looking for traditional publication — you want to make your book a must-have on the company’s slate and give your now-unknown acquiring editor a powerful tool to pitch your book by. That’s a GREAT proposal.
Very often, writers who choose to take a more traditional route to publication do so because they feel that they gain more credibility. Did that play into it at all for you?
Honestly, I never thought about the credibility piece. I don’t know much about self-publishing, but can tell you that — by and large — the overall quality of self-published pieces I’ve read are much lower than a traditionally-published book. Why? Editing, formatting, copyediting, developmental editing, cover design — all of those things that you’d get with a traditional publisher become budget line items when you go the self publishing route and many people skip them. Kicking those things to the curb is what kills your credibility — not respecting your audience and readers enough to give them a well-edited and formatted read. And y’know, most books that hit the shelf have a typo or two in them. It’s the truth. But the key to credibility is not wasting your audience’s time and delivering a coherent, useful read that does exactly what you say it’s going to.
If you decide to write another book, do you think you’ll do things much differently, or maybe much the same? I don’t mean JUST the method by which you publish, but the entire process.
I’m having a quandary with my desire to traditionally publish in the future with the resources I’ve been given from my publishers on these first two books. We’re working to improve these relationships, but let’s face it: I’m a publisher’s worst nightmare. I’m a marketing and PR professional for a living and want to know my publisher is holding up their end of the bargain on getting my book (and me) out there. The bottom line is that no one will ever be a bigger advocate for your book than you will, so if you have a platform and are willing to invest in publishing your own book, you might find (as I might) that the self-publication route might serve you better. Lord knows, it will likely be more profitable when you consider the average royalties on a hardback are in the 10-15% of sale price range. And that’s not cover price. It’s the price the book sold for.
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I’m completely turned off by all the hoops authors are expected to jump through to get into “traditional publishing.” I realize I’m one of the few on this but the language, expectations, and “guidelines” espoused by publishers regarding submissions comes across as sounding arrogant, insulting, and entitled on their part. It’s as if they don’t understand that authors are in essence their bosses. Without authors, they’d be nothing. While it’s a symbiotic relationship for sure, it begins with the author and ends with the publisher.
I do understand the need for publishers to be picky and to have rigid methods and guidelines. However, there is an air of snobbery coming from nearly every single publishing house: “You need us, we don’t need you. Tread lightly if you approach us, if we even allow you to do so.”
I chose self-publishing for the opposite reason of Ms. Napoletano. I despise the model of traditional publishing. It feels like a “guilty before proven innocent” type of system. While this may be out of necessity due to the number of submissions coming at a publisher at any given time, that doesn’t make it any easier of a pill to swallow when you’re an author and you’re faced with attitude of traditional publishing houses.
I imagine as self-publishing becomes more and more prevalent their tune will change and suddenly–magically–they’ll be a tad bit more author-friendly. It will be nice if and when that time comes and be able to witness them become so humbled.
One of the most interesting aspects of the writing/publishing landscape today is the number of options and choices available to authors. Erika had a strong platform before she wrote The Power of Unpopular, so her perspective is especially interesting to me. A great many self published authors write books, then struggle to build an audience, whereas Erika had the audience, but chose a different route to publish (sell) books.
There are writers who choose hybrid models, and others who begin as self publishers then sign on with publishing houses, and still others who choose to remain completely independent. The fact that success is possible regardless of the path one chooses is amazing.
Thanks for your comment and for offering your perspective!