Leslie Rindoks of WayWord Books On How to Get a Publisher to Publish Your Book

An Interview With Teri Gault

Exercise patience. It takes a long time to read all these queries. Resist the urge to contact the publisher, agent, or editor who has your work. Don’t tell them you’ve got another offer unless you actually do. While you’re waiting, work on your next project; build your social media presence; beef up your author website.

Navigating the publishing industry can be a daunting task for many aspiring authors. From crafting a compelling manuscript to understanding the intricacies of book marketing, the journey to getting published is filled with important decisions and steps. As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Leslie Rindoks.

With 20+ years’ experience in publishing, Leslie Rindoks has witnessed seismic changes in the industry. She works both as a traditional publisher, first with Lorimer Press and now with WayWord Books, and also as a coach, guiding writers toward publication. She has garnered many accolades as editor, designer, and writing coach, and has published more than 80 books. Author Lee Smith says her work is “a feast for the eyes, the intellect, and the imagination.”

She studied at Iowa Writers’ Workshop, holds MFAs in design as well as Creative Writing, and writes fiction under the pseudonym Avery Caswell.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” better. Can you tell us a bit about you and your backstory?

My mother was a children’s librarian so I grew up surrounded by amazing, beautiful books. From Silver Pennies to Little Women, I read everything I could. I also loved to draw and filled notebooks with sketches of characters from plays that I’d read. Those notebooks signaled to a guidance counselor that I was destined to be a costume designer, and that is where my career began. After moving to North Carolina, I adapted my theatre design skills and worked in graphic design and later advertising. I honed my writing skills while crafting ad copy, and because billboard copy is ideally eight words or less, I really learned the art of editing. I founded my own agency and grew it to a staff of 17. When I needed to change gears, my key employees bought me out, leaving me free to pursue writing fulltime. I was commissioned to write several nonfiction books and “accidentally” started a new business, Lorimer Press, to publish them. After being accepted to Iowa Writers’ Workshop, I began writing fiction. Later, other writers sought me out to edit their manuscripts, some of which I published through Lorimer Press.

What inspired you to become an expert in the publishing industry?

I became a publisher by accident. After selling my advertising agency in 2001, I was approached by a former client who asked me to write their institutional history. At that time there were no niche publishers to handle the project and so I created Lorimer Press. Suddenly, I was a publisher. Since then, I’ve watched the industry undergo massive change as big box stores shifted the industry to a distributor-dependent publishing model, eroding publisher profits and subsequently author royalties. At the same time, technological advances made it possible for nearly anyone to publish a book.

Can you share a story of a client’s publishing journey that you guided from the genesis of an idea to the fruition of becoming a published author?

One of Lorimer Press’s most successful projects was a coffee table book that was reprinted four times and then adapted as a PBS documentary. The author had taken photos of his college town when he graduated. Twenty years later, he was disheartened to see many of the once iconic places had closed or had been razed. Making it a mission to visit all 100 counties in the state, he photographed old general stores, gas stations, and the like, capturing them before they disappeared. Our challenge was to find a way to incorporate 20-year-old snapshots and slides along with 21st century digital images for a seamless look, along with editing the accompanying essays so the book was seen as a positive statement. The best thing about this book was that it had a built-in sales network: all the businesses he’d profiled.

Another project, at the other end of the spectrum, was a beautiful memoir completed just before the author’s passing. Her son read her the galleys as she lay dying. The success there was found less in the number of copies sold, but rather in the project’s timeliness.

Let’s break it down into steps. Based on your experience, what are 5 main steps that you would recommend for someone to get their first book published with a publisher?

1. READ! Read, read, and read some more. Read the news, novels, poetry, the label on your shampoo bottle. When you find a passage that takes your breath away, or makes you laugh out loud, write it down. Analyze it; learn from it.
2. Write with abandon. After completing a draft of your manuscript, put it away. Let it sit for a while and work on something else.
3. Revise with precision. After some time has passed, re-read your manuscript with a cold eye. Don’t expect an agent or a publisher to jump on a project that requires revision. Read it out loud, take note where you automatically change wording. Analyze your plot, your character development, your dialogue, and scene setting. Look for holes in your plot line. Are you asking the reader to make too big a leap? Does your dialogue sound natural? Are all the elements in your story supporting its theme?
4. Query smart. Look for agents and/or publishers who are interested in your type of manuscript. Do your homework; don’t waste time sending your steampunk fantasy to someone only interested in celebrity memoirs. Know what they’re interested in; read their blogs and follow them on social media. And when you query, follow their guidelines; they are there for a reason. Agents and publishers receive hundreds of queries each week, and consequently they each have developed methods for sorting through the deluge. If you veer off their query path, your work may not be read at all. Your cover letter and your synopsis are your first impression when you query, so make sure they shine.
5. Exercise patience. It takes a long time to read all these queries. Resist the urge to contact the publisher, agent, or editor who has your work. Don’t tell them you’ve got another offer unless you actually do. While you’re waiting, work on your next project; build your social media presence; beef up your author website.

What are your thoughts about the pros and cons of signing with a Literary Agent?

The chances of signing with an agent are slim if you haven’t established a presence in the literary world or don’t have the right connections. Build your platform, find ways to network, get small pieces published. Look for smaller, independent presses for your early projects. Establish a successful track record and agents are more likely to be interested in your work.

What are your thoughts on the pros and cons of self-publishing versus traditional publishing?

If the goal is simply to be published, or to share work with a select group of readers, self-publishing can make sense. It is also a great avenue for writers who are good at self-promotion and savvy when it comes to design and editing.

In today’s market, authors, regardless how they are published, are usually responsible for their marketing. Costs for an effective marketing campaign average between $1000 and $10,000. An author’s income from a traditionally published novel is ±$25,000, so some modest profit for a traditionally published book is possible. That profit disappears with independent presses because with this option an royalties average $450. With hybrid publishing (the author and publisher share production costs) authors end up spending $100 to $12,000 more than they earn through book sales, which average just under $3000. When it comes to self-publishing, an author can look to invest $2,000 — $20,000, and realize typically $9000 in sales. ( sources include: Authors Guild, New York Times)

Can you share a particularly thrilling moment you’ve experienced while helping a client get published? Was it when they signed with a publisher or received a box of their books? Something else? Please share the story with us!

One of our most successful and memorable books was written by our youngest author who, before even being old enough to have her driver’s license, wrote and illustrated a bi-lingual storybook for preschoolers. The project, conceived as a fund-raiser for L’Escualita, raised more than $100,000. The author, encouraged by her Colombian mother, began the project when she was in eighth grade. During the more than two years it took to see it through to completion we helped the young writer/artist overcome her fears of the blank page, of failure, and of drawing large, scary bugs. This young woman, now a rising senior at Duke University, is going places and I feel very privileged to have helped her at the start of her journey.

Thank you for sharing that fun story! Do you have any new or exciting projects coming up?

We are preparing to launch our third WayWord Books publication, The Lazarus Taxa by Theodore Archer Pope. This two-volume work will not be a typical book, but rather a poetry experience, and includes a quantum mechanics element like Schröedinger’s cat. In a more traditional vein, but no less thrilling, is recently released No Experience Necessary, a memoir by Nancy Murray.

Can you share some of the most surprising things you’ve learned about the publishing industry?

• The publishing industry still uses a business model that dates from The Great Depression, allowing retailers to return books at any time for any reason.

• Distributors charge sales commissions and fees for: inventory storage, shipping, returns, and inventory write off — reaping an ever-increasing share of the profits.

• Publishers, taking the biggest risks, face shrinking margins. As a result, authors are earning less.

What do you think are the most important qualities of a successful author?

Successful authors are patient, attentive, persistent, and resilient.

How do you advise your clients to handle feedback and criticism about their writing?

Find the right writers’ group or workshop, one that is supportive, yet candid.

Many authors experience writer’s block. Is there any particular book, quote, or concept that you recommend to help them overcome obstacles along the way?

Naomi Epel created a great toolkit for writers titled The Observation Deck; one of her tools is “Ribe Tuchus,” which literally means, sit down. Sit down and start writing; even if you only write over and over: “I don’t know what to write,” eventually you’ll tire of writing that and you’ll start writing something else, which nine times out of ten will be something you can use.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person or a memorable story about someone who helped you or your client achieve success?

Some of the greatest advice I ever received was at Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Someone had recently asked me to write a book about their childhood abduction by a traveling evangelist; I told my fellow writers there about this incredible opportunity I’d been given and they said, “Shut up!” They said the more I talked about it, the less likely I was to write about it. Talking about what you’re going to write signals to your brain that you’ve already told the story, so there is no need to write it. I stopped talking about it; I spent (a lot of) time learning how to become a better writer. Seventeen years later, Salvation, A Novel Based on a True Story was published.

You are a person of enormous influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

As a result of changes in the industry over the past 10–15 years, it has become increasingly difficult for authors to succeed. Published writers earn on average less than $7,000 per year, and that includes income from teaching and speaking engagements.

Inspired to change this paradigm, I launched WayWord Books in 2023. As a subscription-based publisher, we are breaking the mold by delivering quality, first-edition books directly to readers, eliminating the need for distributors, many of which earn far more than authors, and sometimes even more than publishers.

We venture off the beaten path to find new work by topnotch writers, and combine beautifully designed books with carefully curated gifts that complement the authors’ work.

We believe writers are worth more than warehouses and are working toward paying authors royalties that make them feel like royalty.

How can our readers follow your work online?

Waywordbooks.com

Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.

Thank you for helping us spread the (way)word!

About the Interviewer: Teri Gault is a published Author of Shop Smart Save More with Sheryl Berk, published by HarperCollins. As founder of The Grocery Game, Teri has been seen on Good Morning America, Today Show, ABC 20/20 and more. Teri is currently a Publicist and a Purveyor of Hope and Health at www.Unite2020Pandemic.com