Sandra Wendel of ‘Write On’ On How to Get a Publisher to Publish Your Book

An Interview With Teri Gault

I always ask my authors what success means to them. Nobody says making tons of money. Their motivations are to help people, to entertain, to tell a story, to get this book out of their head. Those intrinsic motivators are success enough.

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 Sandra Wendel.

Sandra Wendel is a nonfiction book editor, college writing instructor, manuscript evaluator for a major NY publisher, independent publishing consultant, blogger on Medium with a column on editing called Between the Lines, and a book award judge. She is the author of the award-winning book, Cover to Cover: What First-Time Authors Need to Know about Editing, and coauthor with Edward T. Creagan, MD, of Mayo Clinic on two books: How NOT to Be My Patient and Farewell: Vital End-of-Life Questions with Candid Answers.

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

Expert? I may know more than most authors, but I am always learning. In fact, I returned to college under the Passport program at the University of Nebraska. Older learners can attend classes at no cost. I immersed myself in classes on nonfiction writing. I think I learned more from the millennials and Gen Zers than I expected. Lifelong learning is key to growth in the art of writing and editing.

I earned a degree in journalism from the University of Iowa during the turbulent days of the Vietnam War protests. My career path took me into the world of academic research as support staff where I honed my editing skills. I worked as director of communication for a national nonprofit and then launched my own editorial services company, Write On, Inc., and have assisted hundreds of authors to write and publish the books of their dreams. And now I mentor new editors to give them experience working with real authors and live book manuscripts.

I teach classes on how to write, publish, and market a book at our local Nebraska community colleges (Omaha and Lincoln), judge national book awards, and blog on Medium. I have presented at the Women in Publishing Summit and during Medium Day (videos are available on YouTube).

This isn’t work. It’s a passion.

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. Rethink why you want to find a traditional publisher or even a niche publisher (such as a university press or a small press) in the first place. The gatekeeper to entry is the literary agent, and their role has been evolving, although I have little good to say about them. The traditional publishing model is broken and archaic. Truth: There is nothing a traditional publisher can do for your book that you cannot do for yourself.
2. Consider the author/publisher (self-publishing) route. Set aside $5,000 to publish your book. That’s a ballpark number that can include a professional edit and a professional cover design and interior and ebook. Do not try this design work at home, even though you are tempted because of the software available to format. You will look amateurish. There is too much competition on Amazon among book buyers for you to skip a professional edit and design (two absolutely essential keys to success for indie publishers). Save more money for marketing. Remember, with author/publisher, you keep all the profit. You are not given a pitiful percentage in royalties that trad pub offers. Do the math. Don’t be tempted by a modest advance such as $10,000. You may never ever see another dime.
3. Write a compelling and quality book. Whether it’s fiction (find writing critique groups and other writers who can gently give you feedback) or nonfiction (try working with experts in your field to offer the “what’s new” that you know that others don’t, especially with business books). Work with a book coach or developmental editor who can guide you through the writing if that’s what you need.
4. Get smart about the KDP platform on Amazon. This is where you upload your book in all versions (use ACX for your audiobook), set the pricing, write the marketing description, choose keywords so your book will be found in SEO (consider using Publisher Rocket software to view actual Amazon searches to guide you), watch your rankings and sales on the platform (and order your low author-priced copies here for resale yourself). Then sit back and enjoy the ride.
5. No, wait, you can’t sit back. You must follow the marketing plan you developed for your book during the writing phase. Consider how you will find your target reader/book buyer. Look at podcasts as a guest, blogging, events (not book signing, yawn) such as a presentation on your topic and sell your book in the back of the room, speaker gigs (more signing in the back of the room), Amazon ads, and other promotions. Do something to market your book every day. Do just one thing. Every. Day. Write another book. Most people do.

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

Agents get in the way. Their role in publishing is changing. They used to be the gatekeepers for entry into the mysterious world of NY book publishing. Now they troll the self-publishing success stories and try to convince already successful indie authors to sign publishing contracts. Agents also can’t guarantee a book will be acquired by a traditional publisher. I avoid them like the plague. They are the plague.

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

Aha! Traditional publishing is broken. I tell my authors that a publisher cannot do anything for you that you cannot do for your book yourself. No one has a greater stake in your success than you do. Here are some truths:

• A bookstore is the worst place for your book. If you think a publisher is going to get your book into bookstores, and that you can’t, you are wrong. People are buying books on Amazon and online. Forget bookstores (the profit margin is too low) and just go there for a latte.
• Books in bookstores are there on consignment. Books not sold within a few months are shipped back and end up pulped and in landfills. It’s a terrible model for the planet. If you want your book in a bookstore, take it in, set it on the shelf, take some selfies, post on social media, and grab your book and a coffee and walk out.
• Publishers are only interested in what YOU can do to market your book. In other words, your marketing efforts benefit the publisher financially first, and then your pitiful royalty trickles down to you. They want to know how many social media followers you have and what time and money and effort you will put into marketing your book on Instagram and TikTok. Why not self-publish and make all the profit?
• Not every book needs to be published. Written, yes. But sometimes just writing a book-length memoir or family legacy history or children’s book just needs to be written and never shared. Or published on a copy machine and twelve copies are given to family members. Publishing for the commercial world is different.

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!

The unboxing of books is always thrilling for every author, and to receive that first shipment from Amazon of books ordered on the KDP platform can be emotionally overwhelming. But most exciting is to have a launch party with friends and family and maybe a tribe of followers on Zoom.

Candy Wood Lindley wrote her memoir about her medical journal that resulted in a facial disfigurement caused when doctors at Mayo Clinic saved her life by removing a baseball-sized cancer tumor from behind her eyes. Her face was literally peeled up to reach the tumor site. She wrote Face of Faith to document her journey of a medical miracle (as yet unexplained, she has survived decades, and doctors don’t know why). She credits her deep religious beliefs and talented physicians. When she received her first copy of her book that had taken years to write and months to produce, she curled up on the couch and cried for three days.

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

My publishing colleague, Lisa Pelto, and I acquired the rights to author Steve Fischer’s book When the Mob Ran Vegas. We had worked with the author in the writing and marketing of that book nearly 20 years ago. The book is among the most sold independently published books of all time because every casino gift shop on the Strip stocked it.

Because of the success of the book, we helped the author, a Las Vegas historian, draft a second book in the series that includes interviews with old showgirls (elegant and statuesque ladies who are now in their seventies and eighties, including the first nude showgirl). Boy, do they have stories. He also wrote about the biggest poker game that was never played but was perhaps a precursor to the World Series of Poker. He explored (for research purposes only) the legal bordellos in the Nevada desert and their enticing menus. And he wrote at length about Frank Sinatra and the many women (and wives) in his life, including a Rat Pack party girls who tells all.

Our dear author sadly died without publishing the second book. Lisa and I are reviving the two-book series to be launched on Amazon in September 2024 and sold in shops in Las Vegas as well. It has been a labor of love to curate the vintage photos of the showgirls and the casinos, the mobsters, the poker players, the brothels, and the celebrities.

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

Independent publishing (self-publishing, author/publisher) is thriving. Digital printing has allowed books to be printed, bound, and shipped within hours. Digital printing is not actually ink on paper on a printing press, but a copier-machine-like process in which one book (or hundreds) can be printed quickly at high quality. This is where the term “print on demand” came from. The digital process has allowed anyone who aspires to write and publish a book the tool (through Amazon’s KDP platform) to actually publish a book easily without a huge layout of money.

Ebooks have been steadily taking market share from paperbacks, and audiobooks, thanks to COVID, are gaining ground (I also think the Gen Zers and millennials are more into listening to books and multitasking too). That’s why authors need to make their books available in every version a reader can choose.

I’m surprised the traditional publishing world can survive in light of digital printing, the interest of people who never thought they could write a book, the fierce competition in the reading world for the eyes of the reader, the ease of digital printing, and the decline of bookstores.

If a publisher offers you a contract, they don’t think you wrote the next best literary masterpiece. The offer is not a judgment about quality at all. They evaluated your manuscript based on the number of social media followers you have and the likelihood those people will buy your book, on the value of your intellectual property to them as a product, and on the broken traditional model in which authors make a pittance (How much do you think Colleen Hoover or John Grisham makes on each book of theirs that is sold? Less than a dollar.).

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

I always ask my authors what success means to them. Nobody says making tons of money. Their motivations are to help people, to entertain, to tell a story, to get this book out of their head. Those intrinsic motivators are success enough.

But authors who measure their success in sales and dollars are often surprised that their marketing efforts pay off. Whether they are sitting in a booth at a farmers market or presenting a talk in a college setting or keynoting a business conference, when people line up at the table, your book in their hands, and ask you to sign the book, that’s pretty darned fun. The interaction with readers can be inspiring and exhilarating (and profitable).

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

One of my authors describes my editing/coaching style as “tough as nails.” I’m not in the editing business to be gentle or kind when it is not warranted. As the daughter of a WWII Marine drill instructor, you can imagine our dinner table conversation. I’ve tried to hone that toughness into a collaborative partnership when I help authors shape their stories and shepherd them through revision without drawing blood.

One of my military authors was put off by my criticism (my helpful suggestions for revision), and I said, “Hey, you parachuted into enemy territory during a war in Iraq, and you can’t handle some comments about your writing from an old lady? Seriously? We’re on the same side here.”

Even those trolls who leave one-star Amazon reviews (there is a place in hell for them) need to be ignored. Look for patterns in praise in those reviews and write the book you want to write.

But you may never know the impact your book makes on a reader. Be satisfied that you tried. Somebody somewhere read your book to the end, closed the cover, and smiled.

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?

I have been teaching how to write a book for more than a decade in the community college setting. People who want to write a book will find a way to get the words out of their heads through their fingers onto paper. But the most helpful suggestion I make to my classes is to figure out what type of writer they are.

Visual writers (visual learners) need to see the big picture, so I encourage them to make outlines, use Post-its on a whiteboard and move elements around, and draw mindmaps of the plots and chapters.

And for the audio writers (people who learn best by listening to podcasts and audiobooks, for example), they are captivated by the sound of words. So I encourage them to speak their story. Use a speech recognition app such as Rev or Speechy on your iPhone. Talk your stories. Let the app transcribe spoken words and produce a Word document to revise. This is amazingly effective and a real aha moment for many authors who love to tell stories.

I have one author, a Rear Admiral, who is the guy at the bar with a beer in his hand regaling the rank and file with Top Gun stories of flying F-14s off aircraft carriers, even the carrier he commanded. Some people just have stories.

How do you help your clients stay motivated and disciplined in their writing practice?

Many authors come to me and say they have been working on their book manuscript for years. It’s the bucket list project that kept coming back to haunt them to finish. If someone is not motivated to write, nothing I can say will get them on track other than, “I’m here when you need me.”

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?

My love of books and reading and writing started when I sat on my grandfather’s lap in his cigar-smoke-filled home study and he read me Alice in Wonderland. He was a lawyer. I still have his set of Harvard Classics and often open a book to recapture that cigar smell. I was the kid who read books in bed with a flashlight under the covers. The tooth fairy brought me Nancy Drew books instead of a dollar. And I was the high school editor of my student newspaper. My high school English teacher, Miss Barker, explained the rules of grammar, and maybe I was the only student at Central High School in Sioux City, Iowa, who loved a semicolon and an independent clause.

My real success is lived vicariously through my authors, hundreds of them who have written and published their stories. I like to say I am not an interesting person but I have met and worked with the most fascinating people in the world who have incredible stories to tell, such as three Holocaust survivors (what an honor to help them document history), a homicide detective, SWAT cop, DEA agent, Mayo Clinic doctors, a bank robber, psychologists, fertility specialist, air marshal, real estate agents, fintech managers, CEOs, military members, cancer survivors, FBI agent, professors, funeral home director, entrepreneurs, Disney voice host, crypto expert, Harley-Davidson exec, and ordinary people with extraordinary stories to tell.

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. :-)

Free books. Oh, wait, that’s what libraries are.

Our first house was located on a cul-de-sac. One day a monstrous bus chugged up the circle and stopped. Oh my god, it’s a Bookmobile. We were thrilled. Take those free books where people are. Let them check books out and keep them (or return them). Change the way libraries distribute books. Rethink check-out time limits (too much pressure on some readers). Ask authors to donate at least 25 copies of their book to local libraries for giving away and sharing.

Only half of humans read books. Make it easier to get books in the hands of everyone. Give them away in schools, at baseball games and rock concerts (like tossing out T-shirts). Install free racks in grocery stores. Promote more Little Free Libraries (one on every corner). I see too many books going into recycling bins or garbage when I volunteer to help my local library book sale. Oh, yes, give grants to schools to give every kid a free Kindle reader.

How can our readers follow your work online?

I blog on Medium in a regular column called Between the Lines. A recent presentation at Women in Publishing Summit is on YouTube and here is the Medium Day talk. Tim Hampton interviewed me for his webinar series here. I would love to hear from aspiring authors. Email me at Sandra@SandraWendel.com, and if you visit my website at www.SandraWendel.com, scroll down and find the link to a free ebook I offer titled Stuff Writers Write That Makes Editors Cringe. Keep writing.

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

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