I sat down with Terry Whalin to debunk common misconceptions that trip up aspiring authors. Terry tackles the biggest misunderstanding among new authors, which is the belief that publishers will sell and promote your book for you. 

While publishers invest in marketing, they have hundreds of books published, meaning authors must take 100% responsibility. The person with the greatest investment in your book is you, not your publisher, making author-driven promotion essential regardless of whether you're self-published or working with a publisher. 

He also addresses the New York Times bestseller dream, which Terry calls almost like winning an Oscar in the book business. The New York Times list isn't purely numbers-based, but editorial, meaning you need approximately 11,000 copies sold in a seven-day period through their list of brick-and-mortar and online bookstores, plus editorial approval from Times editors who decide whether your book deserves the list. Terry knows authors who sold enough copies but didn't make the list because editors deemed it unsuitable. However, USA Today and Wall Street Journal lists are slightly more accessible. 

The key is consistency and perseverance in promotion. He warns authors against spending $30,000 on the wrong PR firm and emphasizes building assets you control like your own newsletter, blog, and website rather than relying solely on platforms like YouTube, LinkedIn, or Facebook.

Terry demolishes the myth surrounding the glamorous writer's life. Other common mistakes include pitching children's books "for all ages" and submitting 190,000-word manuscripts from first-time authors. Terry stresses that everyone needs professional editors providing developmental feedback, not just AI tools. He warns against using ChatGPT or Claude to edit books because AI-generated phrases slip into your work that you would never write yourself, becoming an immediate cause for rejection. 

Ready to write your authority-building book? Schedule a discovery call and take the next step to moving one step closer to writing and publishing your book!

Until next time, keep writing, dreaming, and creating—your book is waiting to be born!

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LYNN: Hi, friends and future authors. This is Lynn Liquity Smarges back for another week of Publishing for Professionals. I hope you all had a wonderful Valentine's Day and you celebrated it with your loved ones, whether that's your kids, your partner, your cousins, your brothers, your friends. I love Valentine's Day. We have such an awesome guest lined up for today. I'm super excited that he's here.

Before we jump into today's episode, though, I do want to give a big welcome back to my returning listeners. Thanks for joining again. And another big welcome to my new listeners. I'm glad you stopped by to check out the podcast. Please make sure to hit the follow button to get the latest episode of Publishing for Professionals dropped right to your podcast player every week.

Today, I have an incredible conversation lined up for you with my guest, Terry Whalin. And he is here to share the guest expert topic of some huge publishing myths you definitely want to know about that you may not know about. Terry is an acquisitions editor at Morgan James Publishing. He has written more than 60 books for traditional publishers, including "10 Publishing Myths," "Jumpstart Your Publishing Dreams," and "Book Proposals That Sell." Several of Terry's books have sold over 100,000 copies. You can get his free ebook, "10 Publishing Myths." And his blog about the writing life has more than 1,700 searchable entries. Terry's an active member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors, and has over 175,000 Twitter followers. He lives in Southern California. And you can connect with Terry on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. We will put those in the show notes below. But without further ado, Terry, thank you so much for joining me today.

TERRY: Boy, terrific to be here with you today. Thank you so much.

LYNN: I'm so excited that you wrote this book. Your book is called "10 Publishing Myths" because I get a lot of these with my ghostwriting clients. And if you're not in the business, I could see why people would believe these things because just like everything else, there's the romantic side and the practical side. So let's start off, and we can't unfortunately do all 10 during this episode. So I may have to have you back. But we have picked out four that we feel are some of the most prominent ones.

So we're going to start off with the one you have in chapter 2. Your myth number two is my publisher will sell and promote my book. I get this all the time. So Terry, tell us why this is a myth and not a fact.

TERRY: Well, the publisher will sell and promote your book. Don't get me wrong. But the focus of this chapter is to really understand that as a publisher, our enthusiasm about your book is really divided at the end of the day. Because like at Morgan James, we publish somewhere between 180 and 200 books a year. So sure, we're excited about your book. We're investing in your book, all that kind of thing. But the person that's really got the greatest investment in the book, and part of what I tried to emphasize in this chapter, is the author. The author has to really take their action and their enthusiasm for the book in order to be able to promote it, not count on some publisher doing it for you.

LYNN: Right, yeah. And that makes sense. And I think a lot of people have the myth that if they sign on with a publisher, that they're going to do all the work or that they're going to give them a ton of money for it. And that's not always the case.

So let's jump into myth five. I can't call myself a writer unless I publish a book. So why is that a myth and not a fact?

TERRY: Well, that's a myth. And I understand why people love books. I love books too. They're permanent. They sit on our bookshelves, all that kind of thing. But the reality is if your book sells 5,000 copies during the lifetime of the book, that's a good number. But in the magazine world, you can reach, it's easy to reach like 100,000 people, 200,000 people, maybe even a million people with your magazine articles. And you can really call yourself a writer if you do those, as far as I'm concerned.

I mean, my magazine writing's been in more than 50 publications. And I've been a magazine editor. And I know the challenge that these editors have of really getting the right submissions for their particular publication. In the magazine world, they put out their thing called guidelines. So if you read the guidelines and deliver to that editor what they're asking for, that's going to weigh up your possibility of actually getting published in those magazines. And at the end of the article, you can say Terry Whalin, author of "10 Publishing Myths." So you can lead people to your book.

And I love the magazine world because to write a magazine article, you learn how to have a good headline, how to have a beginning, a middle, and an end, how to write to a single point, how to write to an audience. There's a lot of basic skills that you learn doing that with like a 1,200-word piece as opposed to a 50,000 or 100,000-word book. You can do it with a smaller piece of writing. And I have friends that write similar articles on a similar topic. If you put 12 of those together, or maybe 19, they can be chapters of your book. So it's all a matter of looking at the material and seeing how you can get the greatest mileage from that. And one of the ways, I think, is by publishing in magazines.

LYNN: Okay, so I have written for magazines before. And I know some magazines are proprietary about the articles. Like if you write that article for them, you can't copyright it and put it in your own publication. So how would you go about that? Like how would you know which magazines do that and which don't if you do want to repurpose the content that you've written for a magazine?

TERRY: Yeah, typically in a magazine article, I would sell what they call first rights. And so I put that right on the beginning of my manuscript. And that's what I sell. Some publications, particularly the higher circulation ones, may want to take all rights. But that's not the norm from my experience. The norm is that you can sell first rights. And what that means is after it's published that first time, those rights return to you. And then you can reuse them in your book or send them out as a reprint. Or I mean, there's all different kinds of things you can do with your writing if you do that.

LYNN: That's interesting. And I know we grew up in a time where there were no digital magazines. And now digital magazines are everywhere. So is it better to do an actual paper magazine as opposed to a digital? Or does it not matter today? Because I know people still buy paper magazines. Obviously, I see them all over the bookshelves.

TERRY: Yeah, I think the standard in general is higher on the print magazines than on the digital magazines. But I think wherever you can get it out there, I'd go for it. It's what I do. There's opportunity all around us. That's what a lot of people don't realize. They think that it's just a scarcity thing that, oh, not me. People want my writing. Well, there's opportunity all over the place. Just be looking for those opportunities and then march forward with them. That's what I recommend.

LYNN: That makes sense. All right, so I think we will be able to get another one in here. But let's work on number nine. Myth nine is my book will be a New York Times bestseller. And absolutely, this one I laugh at. Because I know when people look at books, what we see a lot of in the media is New York Times bestseller. So it seems like it's pretty easy to get on because you hear about it all the time. But a lot of times, the New York Times bestseller people are A-listers or someone who already has a very prominent platform. And so that's usually why it's on the New York Times bestseller. So let's talk about, one, why that's a myth. And two, what are the actual requirements to get your book on as a New York Times bestseller?

TERRY: Yeah, that's a myth because it's really so hard to do. And the New York Times list is not just by the numbers. It's also an editorial list because I have friends who have sold enough books to get on the New York Times list but don't really get on there. Because those editors looked at that book and said, it's not really a book we want to put on the New York Times list. So you just have to understand that there's a lot of editorial subjectiveness involved with that as well.

My understanding, to get on the New York Times list, you really have to sell around 11,000 copies of a book in a seven day period through that secret list of brick and mortar and online bookstores that are reported to the New York Times. So in my view, it's almost like winning an Oscar in the book business. Very hard to do. But it is possible.

But I think it's a little easier, it's still hard, but it's a little easier to get on the USA Today or the Wall Street Journal bestseller list. Like at Morgan James, we've been on that list over 200 times. And it is possible if you do the right things as an author. It's all a matter of getting your stuff out there, doing the things that you need to do to be able to tell people about your book.

And that's a big deficit, I think, that a lot of authors have. They want to write. They don't really want to market their book. But at the end of the day, I think it's kind of like the great promoter P.T. Barnum said, "Without promotion, something terrible happens. Nothing." And it's true. We have to sort of rise up and climb out of our introverted shell as a writer and be telling people about our book. And if we don't, it doesn't get out there and it doesn't sell at the end of the day.

I had that wake-up experience myself with my own books. Years ago, I was a literary agent in Scottsdale, Arizona. And Mark Victor Hansen, the co-author on "Chicken Soup for the Soul," had this big event out in Los Angeles called "Megabook Marketing University." He invited me to go out there. So I took pitches throughout the event as an agent. But at that point in my life, I'd written about 50 books for traditional publishers. And when you write books like that, they'll send you a royalty statement maybe once a year, maybe quarterly. But all my royalty statements were in the red. They weren't making money. And so I knew I must be doing something wrong as a writer. I just didn't really know what it was.

So I sat there and listened to all these speakers. One of the speakers was Jack Canfield, who has this book I have on my shelf called "The Success Principles." He's really studied what does it take to be successful? Well, the very first success principle says that I will take 100% responsibility for my own success. Now, none of us want to take 100% responsibility. We want somebody else to do it for us. But I realized at that moment how little I was personally doing to be telling people about my book. Sure, I had a terrywhalin.com website. But I was doing little else in that area.

So I decided that I was going to take 100% responsibility for my own success. So back then, blogging was new. And so I started blogging. And I blogged every week. Well, I found an article a couple of years ago that said there's over 600 million blogs that are out there. But this article listed the top 27 content producers. And I was one of those 27 people. And it's not that I'm doing anything magical here, but I blog every week. So I have over 1,700 entries in my blog. And that's a great resource for writers to go there. But it's that consistency and that perseverance that really pays off. And that's how you get on the New York Times list and the USA Today and the Wall Street Journal bestseller list. It's by being consistent, persevering, finding the right path for you out there.

LYNN: Yeah, consistency is hard because you obviously always have to do it. And I know sometimes people, by the time they've written their book, they're so tired, they don't want to do any marketing. So that's a whole other aspect. But yeah, to your point, you definitely are responsible for your own success. Because that's one of the things that really gets me as a ghostwriter when I look at jobs. And I see people that are like, I want someone to write for me that's written for a New York Times bestseller. And it doesn't matter for ghostwriters or editors. You can have a perfectly highly qualified editor or ghostwriter that has never written for a book that's been on The New York Times. That is literally all up to the author.

So if someone does want to get into a USA Today list or something similar, Terry, what would you recommend for my listeners who are listening to this, who are obviously writing and publishing books? What would you recommend for them to do if they do want to pursue a USA Today list?

TERRY: Well, I would recommend that they hire a reputable PR firm. That's a big caveat there. I mean, I've had authors that have spent $30,000 marketing their book and didn't even sell any books or make any money because they hired the wrong person. So make sure you hire the right person that has the right connections to get you booked on radio and podcasts and all that kind of thing.

I mean, you and I met through Podmatch. That's a simple thing that almost anybody could do. So if you go to podmatch.com, those guys are connected to 90,000 podcasts. So you just have to start your own newsletter, build your own readership out there. That's really what I tried to emphasize throughout this book.

I mean, I talk to authors all the time. They'll say, well, my audience is over on YouTube or my audience is on LinkedIn or Facebook. Well, those are great platforms. Don't get me wrong, but I don't control those things. In fact, I could knowingly or unknowingly violate their terms and get kicked off of them tomorrow. So don't build your stuff over there. Build your stuff on something that you can actually control, like your own newsletter, your own blog, your own website, those things.

LYNN: Yeah, no good point. And it's also good to have socials, like you said, but you all need, everyone who's listening to this, your own website, because no one else can take that down and you own it. Because like you said, when I ask people, like I ask some business owners, what's your website? And they give me a Facebook link. I'm like, no, I don't want your social, what's your website? And they consider a Facebook page their website. I'm like, good luck with that. Because like you said, one of my friends actually had a rug cleaning business. And they showed how red wine spilled on the carpet. And then how their rug cleaner cleaned it up. And Facebook banned them because the AI thought it was blood and that they were showing a scene with blood. And they clearly weren't because there was a wine glass in it. But the AI didn't pick that up or it didn't make that connection. And so they had to fight to get their Facebook channel back. And if that's your whole business, you're just up a creek without a paddle because you have nothing at that point.

TERRY: Yeah, you just have to be wise and thoughtful about how you put this stuff together and get good advice and really think it through. That's why every chapter in "10 Publishing Myths," I include what I call a myth buster action. And it's a practical thing that every author can do, whether you're traditionally published, self-published, or whether you used a hybrid independent publisher. You can do these things because they're not hooked to some social or something like that.

LYNN: Yeah, no, that makes sense. All right, my friends, we're going to take a break right here. When we come back, we're going to talk more with Terry about some more publishing myths you definitely want to know and avoid.

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Okay, we're back with Terry Whalin, and I'm just flipping through his book. And so I'm actually just going to the end of your chapter nine, Terry, and I'm looking for that piece of advice that you had said. So you have that little action steps in each chapter, which are really great because not only do you pose this is the problem, but this is what the solution is.

So let's move on to number 10. The life of a writer is glamorous. I read that and I was just like, oh, my gosh. And people do believe that it's going to be glamorous. They're going to show up at book signings and have lines around the block to sign their books for them. That may be the case, depending on how you've promoted that book signing. But normally that is not the case.

The biggest book signing, one of the biggest book signings that I ever saw was from a novelist who wrote her first book on a rented typewriter on her kitchen table. She is a bestselling author. Her name is Debbie Macomber. And when she goes out on tour, one of the things that she does is she collects a lot of data from the people that go by her website. She doesn't want to just know your name and your email address. She wants to know where you shop, where you live, what your address is. And she keeps all that data. So when she goes out on tour, one of the things that she does is she sends a little postcard to people that are within 20 miles of where she's going to be. Well, when she shows up at a book signing, she has a mob scene because she has a fabulous idea.

LYNN: I've never heard of anybody doing that.

TERRY: Yeah, she's really very smart. That's why she's a New York Times bestselling author. She knows how to gather a crowd and get people there to sign books with her. So there's a lot of smart things like that. And every now and then a book signing will be a glamorous event. But most of the time it's a lonely experience of sitting there. It's not very glamorous, I guess is what I'd say at the end of the day.

So what I really tried to emphasize in this chapter is the actions that we as writers need to take every day to really get out there with our material and help other people out there. And sure, that may not be very glamorous at the end of the day, but it's amazing what you can do if you're working at it consistently.

LYNN: Right. And I know you hear about the writer who's off in a cabin and they lock themselves in the cabin for a month while they write their book, which I know people who have done that. And I've actually done that on a cruise where we had a week at sea. So I'm like, I'm just going to sit down and write the second edition of my book on my computer. I always had everything downloaded. So I wouldn't have to worry about internet because internet on cruises is super spotty, especially when you're in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. But anyway, yeah, and was that glamorous? Well, it was fun. I love writing and I got to sit by a pool and write all week. So I love that. And I was on a cruise. So I didn't have to make breakfast, lunch, or dinner. And I didn't have to make my bed and all that stuff. So that part was super fun. But I actually do like writing on cruises just because you don't have all the daily life things going on, like having to make food and take care of the house and blah, blah, blah. You can just literally sit by a pool all day and write. So I love that kind of thing.

So let's do one more since we have time for one more. And these are so interesting. Let's do number four, myth four, beginner writers have no chance to get published. And I'm assuming when you say that, you're talking about no chance to get published with a publisher, like a hybrid or a traditional publisher.

TERRY: Yeah, that's really what I'm saying. Beginning writers can get published. The key, I think, is that they have to understand that you only get one chance to make a good first impression. And so you have to really learn what's involved in doing a book proposal or a book pitch. How in the world do you do that? I've read thousands of them as a frustrated acquisitions editor. I wrote this book years ago called "Book Proposals That Sell: 21 Secrets to Speed Your Success." The book has over 155 five-star reviews. People have used it to get a $50,000 advance, to get an agent, kinds of things like that.

But I wrote the book out of my own frustration because as an acquisitions editor, I'd sit in these meetings and I really wasn't able to get a contract for somebody because it was missing some element. So now people can get my book completely free if they go to bookproposals.ws. That'll take you to a website where they can get the full version of my "Book Proposals That Sell" completely free. All they do is put their email address in there and get that.

Now, why do you think I'd give away my ebook? Part of the reason I do that is because we've learned at Morgan James that if you get my ebook and start to read that ebook, there is a high probability you're going to turn and buy the print copy of the book. So you lose nothing as an author giving away a free ebook. So we do that kind of thing to really help our authors.

But yeah, you're exactly right. First time authors need a lot of education. And so I encourage them to get to a writer's conference, meet as many people as they can, make those connections, and then find those people that really are looking for them and for their material to get published.

LYNN: And so you say you saw people make mistakes. I'm assuming you saw a lot of the same common mistakes over and over again when you were trying to acquire books.

TERRY: Yeah, it's very common, for example, people will pitch a children's book to me and it's for all ages. Well, the children's market is very segmented, as you know. Is your book for three to six? Or is it an eight to 12 year old book? Where does it fall into that range? Librarians, booksellers, they all have the children's market divided up into those categories. So if you say your book's for everybody, that's not going to work. So you've got to really figure out those kind of details because you have seconds when somebody pitches you, or when you as a writer pitch somebody, you have seconds for them to actually look at your material and say, oh, I see potential here.

LYNN: Right. What's another common book proposal mistake a lot of people make that just sinks their proposal pretty much immediately?

TERRY: I guess another common mistake is that there is no competition to my book.

LYNN: Oh, really, some people think that?

TERRY: My book is unique. It holds a unique place in the marketplace. I have heard that over and over and that's not true. Every book is going to compete in the marketplace. So you really have to do some thinking and some research to see what are the competitive titles. I mean, when I was an acquisitions editor at Howard Books when it was a part of Simon and Schuster, just to fill out our internal paperwork, we had to have a list of competitive titles. I want to get that from the writer. I don't want to have to make that up myself. So you really need that element in your proposal to get it to move forward.

LYNN: It makes sense. I think what people are thinking of is they have a new perspective on a current topic, but that's not to say that no one's written about that topic. It's just a different perspective on that topic.

TERRY: That's right.

LYNN: That sounds awesome. And then one other question for you, Terry, because I get this a lot as a ghostwriter and editor. People believe they can write and self-edit their own book and then pitch it to a publisher. Have you ever seen a self-edited book make it into a traditional or hybrid publisher? Or has a non-professionally edited book come across your desk and you're like, there's no way I'm going to publish this?

TERRY: Oh, I see a lot of those that come across my desk. I got pitched this week for a 190,000-word book.

LYNN: Whoa.

TERRY: They have no idea. I'm going to tell them, but really, that's four books. It's not one book. So people will pitch a 100,000-word book. Well, that's 400 pages from a brand new author. How's that going to go in the market? I mean, they just don't know. I mean, I totally, it's fair, but there's an education process that everybody has to go through. And we all need editors. We all need somebody else to go through our stuff. And I'm not talking about Grammarly here. I'm talking about a real physical editor to go through your book and give you some developmental ideas, some suggestions, some things to really help you shape everything so that it's going to work right at the end of the day.

LYNN: So I have one more question for you because this just popped into my head, as you said, not using Grammarly. And it's not related, it's sort of related to Grammarly because it's AI. I've heard some people lately, what they do is they put their book into Claude or ChatGPT and they're like, oh, tell me if my book is good or tell me if I have the prospect of this book being pitched to an editor or pitched to a publisher. So obviously, we can't trust everything AI says because it's only right some of the time. What would you say to people who are trying to do this to pitch to a publisher? So they're trying to use like ChatGPT or an AI to decide how good their book is compared to other books.

TERRY: I would say be cautious because there are phrases that slip into your book that have nothing to do with you. You would not write those things. They slip into your work when you do that. And I think that's pretty dangerous actually. That can be a cause for rejection just right there.

LYNN: Yeah. And there's some people that are like, oh, I put this in AI and AI said that it was really well written and blah, blah, blah, and that my story structure was good. But I'm like, but how does AI know that? I don't know. So kind of crazy.

TERRY: Oh my gosh.

LYNN: So Terry, this has been so enlightening and so valuable. I know my listeners have gotten a lot out of this episode today. And obviously we only hit five of the 10 myths. So you definitely want to buy Terry's book. So Terry, for the people on audio who can't see the banner on the YouTube video, where can people go to find more about you? Also your offer that you're doing today for listeners of the show.

TERRY: Yeah. The best place to get my book would be to get publishingoffer.com. That's PUBLISHING and then OFFER.com. You can get the print copy of my book for only $10 and that includes the shipping along with over $200 worth of bonuses. Now these aren't just funky bonuses. They are true value because, for example, I interviewed one of my friends who self published his book and he sold thousands of books to public libraries. Everybody forgets there's over 9,000 public libraries out there. And these guys have money to be able to buy books. They just need to know about your book. And that's what this author did. He made a plan and consistently called the right librarian, pitched his book, packed it up afterwards with an invoice, sold books. I mean, it's an idea that any of us can use whether you're traditionally published or self-published or however.

So I want people to go to publishingoffer.com to get my book. They can also go to terrywhalin.com to see some of my stuff. They can subscribe to my blog, thewritinglife.ws. I also have my personal email address in my Twitter account. And the reason I do that is because I want people to reach out to me. And if I can help you in any way, reach out and I'd be glad to do that.

LYNN: Awesome. Sounds good. Well, Terry, thanks again for coming on today. This has been so informational and educational to my listeners. We really appreciate it.

TERRY: Thank you for the opportunity.

LYNN: So remember my friends, until next week, this is Lynn Liquity, reminding you to keep writing, keep dreaming and keep creating. Your book is waiting to be born.

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