By Jennifer S. Wilkov, host of the “Your Book Is Your Hook!” Show on WomensRadio
www.yourbookisyourhook.com

Click Here to listen this interview any time after 9:00 am EST Tuesday July 27th, 2010 on the WomensRadio Network.

This week on the “Your Book Is Your Hook!” Show, Deborah Brody, Executive Editor of Harlequin’s Nonfiction Program, will talk with radio personality and host Jennifer S. Wilkov about Harlequin’s successful foray into nonfiction after a long, successful history of publishing novels loved by women everywhere.

Ms. Brody will discuss her own experiences from her successful career in the publishing world and how she came to lead this program for Harlequin a few years ago. She talks about the realities of the industry along with her perspective of its future. She will also provide sound advice for authors wanting to publish nonfiction material today and guidance for how to best work with an editor at a publishing house.

Staness Jonekos will talk about her book, The Menopause Makeover: The Ultimate Guide to Taking Control of Your Health and Beauty During Menopause, with radio personality and host Jennifer S. Wilkov.  Ms. Jonekos will reveal how she came to write her book as a result of her own true life experience with menopause while planning her wedding. She will discuss what it took for her to write and prepare herself and her book for the publishing industry as well as how she came to Harlequin and Deborah Brody as Executive Editor. She will also talk about how she is now using her book as her hook to transform the lives of women everywhere and empower them during this unavoidable life event.

Click Here to listen this interview any time after 9:00 am EST Tuesday July 27th, 2010 on the WomensRadio Network.

By Jennifer S. Wilkov, host of the “Your Book Is Your Hook!” Show on WomensRadio
www.yourbookisyourhook.com

As authors and writers, we’re always learning about resources and industry tools that we can use to improve our book project performance and the enjoyment of our writing and marketing experiences.  Today let’s talk about the truth about where books come from.

You know, it’s like “the talk” about where babies come from. After all, our books are our babies, aren’t they? And subsequently don’t they also become the babies of our literary agent, publisher, editor and publicist?

But they have to start somewhere and that somewhere is with someone – like you.

Books are born from aspects of our life experiences – from our “story.” They emanate from our fascination with life, creativity, imagination and our humanity.  They are seared into our hearts and bubble up in our souls as something we become determined to write about and share with others.

Many books these days are coming from these real life stories. In fact, as Deborah Brody, the Executive Editor at Harlequin Nonfiction said during her interview on the “Your Book Is Your Hook!” Show this week, something like 60% of books being published these days are nonfiction.

Like Staness Jonekos, Harlequin author of the book, The Menopause Makeover: The Ultimate Guide to Taking Control Of Your Health and Beauty During Menopause, authors are experiencing life and looking for resources when life events strike because that’s what we do. We look for a book about what’s happening to us. We figure someone else must have written about that so I could use their guidance. Like Staness, when we find there is no such resource or book, we have to live through the situation and circumstance first, find the answer and then dig down deep and make a huge commitment to humanity that we will write and share it with others. That way when they go to the book shelf, they’ll find what we were originally looking for and find the book we wish we had found there.

I know this journey personally as an author myself. That’s what I’ve done: provided good books that I saw were needed by myself and others to support individuals living through a situation or circumstance that I had had myself. In my most recent book, Boys Before Business: The Single Girl’s Guide to Having It All, I lived through the process of really finding Mr. Right after feeling like I had read all the books about it and still found myself alone. That journey alongside my co-author opened up a whole world of insights and information for us that we felt compelled to share with the other women in our lives that we knew who were successful in business like we were but that were also alone with no one to share their lives with, just like we had been.

It’s not important that there are other books in the category and subject matter on the shelf. It doesn’t matter if you’ve never written anything before resembling a book or even an article. It’s not required. What is required is you and your desire to write it.

Even fiction and children’s books burble up from the course of our lives. Just look at bestselling novelist Nicholas Sparks, who writes about his own life and shares it with others through fiction that resembles what he’s seen, heard and felt himself.

And when an adult takes on a fascination for the love between a child and her fluffy stuffed animal toy, he writes about it even when he’s been an engineer all his life. That’s what Mike McRitchie did with his first book entitled, Best Friends, a self-published book that he wrote after watching a little girl in the airport drag her stuffed bunny everywhere with her and subsequently asked his 11 year old daughter, Cathleen, to illustrate the book when he was done writing it.

We often say that life imitates art. In the book world and as an author, art imitates life.

Think about your life and the last time you went looking for a book about something you were experiencing or were interested in. Was it there on the shelf? Did you wish there was another book that was more in the style and structure you’d like to read? Were you willing to write it when it wasn’t there or did you settle for what you found and left the thought of writing a book behind?

It is the authors that have the courage and fortitude to take on the challenge of sharing that aspect of their story after they’ve lived through it and who invest their time and energy to craft the solution they wish they’d had. They stay the course, put their hearts and souls into learning the process and follow the path to get it published so you, the next person in the same predicament, can find it.

John Steinbeck said: “The writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world. And he must hold to this illusion even when he knows it is not true.”

Contrary to John Steinbeck, who I love and have admired for years, what you are writing could very well be the most important thing in the world – to your reader.

And so… that’s where books come from: the hearts, souls, spirits and, more often than not, the real lives of the authors.
The next time you find yourself staring at the bookshelf in the bookseller or online and can’t seem to find the book you’re looking for, remember that it could be a sign that it’s your time to become an author and that your baby, I mean book, is about to be born.

By Jennifer S. Wilkov, host of the “Your Book Is Your Hook!” Show on WomensRadio
www.yourbookisyourhook.com

As authors and writers, we’re always learning about resources and industry tools that we can use to improve our book project performance and the enjoyment of our writing and marketing experiences. Today let’s talk about the past, present and future of your book.

Wherever you are with your project, your book has a past, present and future – just like you do.

If your book is published, remember when your book was just an idea you had? Look how far you’ve come and what you did to get right here right now with it.

If your book isn’t published yet, know in your heart that all of us who are published authors have been where you are right now. Whether you are the executive producer of a long-running daytime drama like Ken Corday is for Days of Our Lives or if you are a first-time author who is choosing to self-publish, we’ve all been faced with the stages and steps that you’re taking during our book’s journey to get published and to get to its present day status.

Sometimes as a community of authors, we forget the courage it takes to write, market and publish our books. We look at what we want to do next and learn new ways to move our project forward, often without acknowledging how far we’ve come and perhaps forgetting all of the people, publishers and companies who have helped us to succeed. Sometimes, we even take it for granted and think to ourselves: why doesn’t everyone else have a book? We may not even realize groups like the Book Industry Study Group exist which are constantly discussing the future for our books and our publishing dreams of the most effective ways to get them into the hands of our readers.

The publishing industry itself has a rich past, a tumultuous present and a big, bright future. It has come all the way from the first printing presses and book producers who wrote on scrolls with ink and feather pens to today’s great big digital presses and digital books. The future of publishing lies somewhere between continuing to produce the hardcover and paperback books we love to hold in our hands and the digital age that is rapidly and rabidly overtaking the traditional publishing methods as we’ve known them. From cellphones to iPads to the Kindle from Amazon, the Nook at Barnes & Noble and Sony Readers and beyond, today’s readers are apt to be able to access our books in whatever form at whatever time is just right for them.

As we write our books, keep in mind that just like you and just like the publishing industry, your book has its own past, present and future. Whether you are writing a memoir or an amazing novel, or if you are thoughtfully constructing your next cookbook or non-fiction masterpiece, and if your children’s book is one page shy of the 32 pages you set out to write, be gentle with yourself.

Take a moment now and take stock of where you are with your book. Acknowledge how far you’ve come and what lies ahead for you. Think of all the people, companies and support communities you’ve worked with to get to where you are right now.

Commit yourself to taking the next steps and to taking your book boldly into its future – and yours.

By Jennifer S. Wilkov, host of the “Your Book Is Your Hook!” Show on WomensRadio
www.yourbookisyourhook.com

As authors and writers, we’re always learning about resources and industry tools that we can use to improve our book project performance and the enjoyment of our writing and marketing experiences.  Today let’s talk about why your book is your hook and reasons to write it.

Books are one means of expressing yourself about what you love, what you are passionate about, what you’ve figured out or what you’ve dreamed up.

Fiction writers capture their wildest dreams and fantastic imaginations in their novels which we love to read. Some create characters that reoccur – and become their hook –
like James Patterson’s Alex Cross.

Others become the hook themselves – as the author – like John Grisham, Nicholas Sparks or Jodi Picoult.

Nonfiction writers promote their passions and what situations they’ve solved in an enjoyable way of conveying solutions and systems to the voracious reader.

Their hook could be their take on the topic or the book cover, their title or the author’s credentials. Other reasons people may read these books could be based on their recognition of the author themselves such as Dr. Mehmet Oz or Jillian Michaels.

Young adult writers hook their readers with sagas, soap operas and slang that speaks to this audience. There are books like Kody Keplinger’s coming-of-age novel, The DUFF – meaning “Designated Ugly Fat Friend” – where the title itself is the hook, which has now hooked Hollywood and is being made into a film. Even recognizable stars are taking a stab at the YA market like Hillary Duff whose first YA novel, Elixir, will be the start of a series of books when it is released in the Fall.

Children’s authors often hook their readers through great illustrations, subject matter and the title. A child’s eye is attracted to what looks like a fun read. Oftentimes, children’s authors forget that pictures do speak louder than words with this audience – and usually there is a limit to the words you can write for these books based on their age. So your hook has got to serve the market – and so does your book.

Whether you are Anthony Bourdain, renowned chef and author of both cookbooks and novels, or Neil Sedaka, who stole our hearts singing and now delights our kids with his children’s books, there’s room for you and your book.

But to capture their interest and candidly said, you’re going to need a hook.

Regardless of which writer you are, remember to consider the hook for your book and strengthen it inside your manuscript and in your marketing plan, platform and efforts.

It’s one of the most attractive parts of your book that could win you contracts, customers and kudos.