Naima B. Robert – Advice for Muslim Women Writers Becoming your publishers favourite author Najiyah Maxfield
AI: Summary ©
The importance of self publishing is discussed, with emphasis on clear ideas and polishing one's manuscript before submitting it for review. The speaker advises finding a personable and comprehensive method, being open-minded, and building a brand. The importance of social media and the success of books in the industry is emphasized, along with the need for flexibility in communication and sharing ideas. The importance of building relationships with publishers and readers is emphasized, as well as the need for personalizing and collaborating with readers. The speaker offers an author coaching program for marketing and emphasizes the importance of building relationships with publishers and readers.
AI: Summary ©
Now today is day 3, and on day
3, we have talked a lot about publishing
and the publishing side.
We've heard about self publishing. We've looked at
independent publishers,
but we also know that the relationship between
a publisher and an author
is really important. And so today, in this
session, we have a very special guest. The
editor of Daybreak Press,
editorial director should I say, of Daybreak Press
from the US
teaching us how to become
your publisher's
favorite author, sister Najia.
Thanks for inviting me. I'm so excited to
be here and make great relationships between all
of us writers and publishers.
Yes. Insha'Allah. So I know that,
I know your colleague, my sister Tamara Gray,
she's
indicated to me that sometimes
authors can be
a bit of a pain. Is that true?
It's true. I'm sure that authors believe the,
the opposite of that as well. And I
think that those tensions
can definitely
be improved upon.
Like, there are several ways that authors both
authors and publishers because I'll I'm gonna hit
both sides of this coin. Oh, nice.
There are there are ways that we can
kind of eliminate those tensions and,
and alleviate the pain. Fantastic. Sis,
take it away.
Alright. So,
I am going to begin I'm gonna go
kind of chronologically through the process of submitting
your manuscript,
and,
we'll hit I'll hit about
10 or so major,
milestones along that way where tensions can crop
up and give you some ways to kind
of,
head those off at the path. We'll do
author's perspective first, or I mean, publisher's perspective,
how to be a great author for your
publisher,
and then we'll do a little bit about
being a great publisher for your authors.
Because I know that we do have some
people who have registered who are publishers, so
and who people have lots also who are
self publishing. And even if you're self publishing,
some of this information might be helpful to
you because it deals with the things that,
you know, even internally you'll have to address.
Okay. So the first thing that you need
to know before you submit to a publisher
is what you really want.
You need to have
clear ideas of what you envision for your
book. Because, for example, if you envision a
book that's gonna be available next month,
traditional publishing is not probably the way that
you want to go.
We say that traditional publishing is
not slow, it's a glacial.
A lot of times
authors become really frustrated, especially now it feels
more glacial. Like, when I first published my
my book, it was pretty much, like, expected.
It was par for the course that it
would take 18 months or longer.
Whereas now,
with so many options and the democratization
of being able to publish and that great
opportunity for people to get their work out
there,
traditional publishing feels very much slower.
So remember those kind of I know that
you've talked about the different methods and the
different ways hybrid publishing and
self publishing and traditional.
So remember that while you're considering
which way is best for you, that time
frame is something to consider.
And, also, don't let the time frame intimidate
you.
If you really feel like you want the,
that relationship, that help, that whatever it is
that makes you feel like you have more
check marks in the pro column for
for traditional publishing, don't let the time frame
intimidate you because,
those advantages might outweigh the fact that it'll
be a little bit slow. I say a
little bit slow.
So that's that's the first one point is
know exactly what you want.
And we'll get to a little bit of
flexibility in what you want later. So foreshadowing.
So when you're actually sitting down to do
your submissions
and you open your computer, you the first
place you wanna go is not submission guidelines.
The first place you wanna go is what
else have they published?
You want to know what kind of publisher
you're submitting to.
You want to look at maybe even, like,
you know, read the synopsis, maybe look at,
their mission statement,
Look at their whole entire website.
Like, tell yourself you don't get to go
to the submission guidelines until you have completely
done your homework on this entire,
publishing house, then you can reward yourself with
going to the submission guidelines if they match
your
book. Daybreak Press is a press that is
very women centric
and very,
and Muslim.
And I've gotten manuscripts from male non Muslims,
about books,
you know, for, like, how to change the
oil in your car or random, you know,
like,
just hello?
Are you just spamming the whole publishing community?
That wastes your time and the publisher's time.
So make sure that the peep the person
that you're talking to wants to hear from
you
before you submit that that query or that
manuscript.
Then, also, what you want to do is
make sure that when you submit, you submit
whatever exactly what they say.
Submission guidelines
often like, usually,
as a general rule of thumb,
nonfiction
requires a query letter
and maybe a a couple of chapters, and
fiction doesn't necessarily require a query letter, but
we do at Daybreak Press.
So and your your cover letter, even if
you just submit a manuscript, you consider your
cut you can consider your cover letter for
that as
as a query as a query letter.
So
that query letter is not
a drudgery. It's not something that you just
have to get through. It's not something that,
you can take lightly.
It's a golden opportunity.
Your query letter is a golden opportunity to
build that relationship with your publisher from that
moment.
If you write a query letter that is
personable
and comprehensive
and tells the publisher
why the world needs this book
and how it fulfills their mission
and does it in a in a very
open and friendly way
that will get your manuscript not your menus
well, your manuscript or your chapters
read. That will get you to the next
step, whatever the next step is.
If you write a query letter that just
says, attach, please find my manuscript,
I mean, they might look at the manuscript,
but they're not turned on and they're not,
you know, they're not
feeling you at all.
And if you write a query letter, which
I received some of these kind of query
letters as well that says, you know, I
wrote this,
I got the idea for this when I
was blah blah blah, and it took me
5 years to write this, and it's my
dream to be an author, blah blah blah.
That is telling the publisher what they can
do for you
and what, the world can do for you
by reading your book. Yeah. It's not telling
them what your book can do for the
world.
So what you have to think of your
book as a service. Your book is going
out into the world to fulfill a need,
and you have to, like, draw the the
publisher's attention to what that need is and
how your book is an awesome way to
fit it.
The third step,
polish your manuscript.
Polish, polish, polish. By which I do not
mean
you polish your manuscript.
I mean, you polish your manuscript until you
think it's shiny,
and then you give it to someone else
to edit.
There's a cardinal rule in writing, which is
that
you really can't edit your own work. And
that goes for me, a professional editor.
Wow. Wow. You can't edit your own work.
Why? Because when you read your own work,
you see what you meant.
You just gloss you you it's so easy
to gloss over mistakes because or or, you
know, like, typos or
misplaced words or whatever the situation may be,
you miss them because you see in your
but with your eye what your mind meant
to write. Yeah.
So, make sure that you get someone else
to give it a good go over. Doesn't
have to be a professional.
It'd be nice if you could get a
professional, But if you're not in a position
to be able to do that, like, if
my first book I wasn't,
get somebody that you know is
good with the old keyboard
and the English language to to go over
it
for you and give it a good once
over,
at least for proofreading. You know, like, they
don't you don't have to have somebody, you
know, like, do content editing or anything like
that, of course. But for proofreading, you need
to have a good proofreader.
Make sure that you have enough beta readers.
So you send it to enough people that
they can catch
congruency mistakes and things like that. For example,
when I wrote Sofia's journal,
I sent it to several
people, and a couple of them gave me
very good, like, oh, for example,
there's a dog in the first scene, and
then he never comes back.
You know, like, the pea the family has
a dog, but then the dog never shows
up again, or the the timing is x
y z. 1 of them
was 12 years old.
Wow.
And she told me, listen. You have a
timing mistake
in in, you know, in this part blah
blah blah. And I was like, yeah, Latif.
No. None of the grown ups picked it
up. Wow. So have a diverse group of
beta readers
and, and take their take their advice to
heart. You can take all of it, but
respect their opinions. Yes. Yes.
If a publisher receives
okay. If a publisher
reads your first chapter and it's full of
all kinds of mechanical errors,
they may not read any further
because
they can see
not only the level of writing, but also
they can see the amount of time it's
gonna take for that. They can see where
this is going.
Yeah.
They can see where this is going.
And if a publisher likes your story,
but but it does need a lot of
mechanics work, they may go ahead and, you
know, and take you on, but it is
gonna take a lot of extra time. So
just kind of keep that in mind and
get it's like it's like labor. Like, you
wanna do as much of your labor at
home as you can if you're having a
hospital birth before you go to the hospital.
So you don't have to,
you know, suffer through all of that
stuff that you could have done at home
there where you're tied to a bed and
you're on a monitor and you're telling having
2 people tell you what you can do
and you can't eat and you blah blah
blah, whatever.
Right? So it's much easier to labor at
home. It's much easier to polish your manuscript
before you send it.
That doesn't mean there won't be polishes later,
but, you know, do your best. Just as
a caveat, you know, just in case you
thought that it was perfect, this remains important.
Because people get they take it personally, don't
they? When the editor comes back with something,
so I've done everything. Like, it's polished. Why
are you telling me there's more stuff? But
Yeah.
Yeah. Indeed.
At Daybreak Press, we have been so blessed
to work with so many wonderful authors who
are
open, completely
open to,
you know, to those kind of, you know,
flush this out,
change this a little, you know, like, those
kind of content things. And then we've had
a a client or 2 who like like,
you may have. Like,
a client or 2 who who who really
came
to a traditional publisher
when they really should have self published Right.
Because they were emotionally attached to that. It's
not bad to be emotionally attached to what
you've written, but if you're really strongly emotionally
attached to every comma,
you should self publish because that way you
get your way,
and you don't drive your publisher up a
tree.
So you have to look at your book.
You know, like, people say a lot of
times my book's my baby.
But you have to look at your book
as
if you wanna look at it as your
baby, fine, but babies aren't ready to go
out into the world when they're born. That's
a really good point. Yes. Yeah. Right? True.
Yeah. I see my students. It's not a
baby. It's a book. Okay? Yeah. Yeah. It's
not a baby. It's a book. Right. Realize
that it's a book. It can be improved.
There will be aspects that need working on,
you know,
to try to have that detachment. The sooner
you get that, the the easier it will
be for you to actually bring it to
the the best that it can be because
that's what editors are there for, isn't it?
To punish Exactly. Or to bring out this
your story.
The the sooner you see it as a
book, the sooner you become a professional author.
I like that. That's going on Twitter, by
the way. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Also,
the sooner you see it
as a as a as a book, the
sooner you can also realize that it's a
business.
There are aspects to, for example, cover design
that your publisher knows
because
they understand what's selling right now. They understand
color scheme. The they, you know, the professional
designer,
a designer which we have a superb one
named Rehana Ismael.
I do happen to know who that is,
by the way. Thank you, Michelle. That's what
I go for.
Dear
dear Rey.
Oh,
she
served us all well. Bless her heart. She's
just so awesome.
Yes. So
true. But,
she she knows what she's doing and to
to you know, if you have a specific
cover design that just then then publisher tells
you, for example, it just doesn't work for
x, y, or z
reason, you have to be open to that
because you have to remember that it's a
business and they have more experience in knowing
what will sell. The goal is to sell
the book. If the goal is for you
to love the book, then make it a
diary.
If the goal is to sell the book,
you know, be flexible in these, in these
kind of things.
And remember that most contracts will say,
that the publisher has final
artistic
control over those things as well. So,
so remember, if you're using a traditional publisher,
you're entering you're entering into a realm where
just like you go to the doctor, you
wouldn't tell the doctor how to do his
exam.
You don't tell you don't, fight to the
teeth. And I have personal experience in this
because my first book,
Sophia's journal, the publisher wanted to wanted to
change the title,
And she eventually got her way even though
I fought, and you can fight. I'm not
saying don't fight. I'm not saying don't, like,
really hash it out. That's part of a
good relationship is the ability to be able
to hash these things out
without hurt feelings.
But
but I did eventually give in and, I
I eventually have the title that she wanted.
And the reason she wanted the title that
she wanted was so that young readers would
know immediately that it was a time travel
adventure.
So the book that the title that she
wanted was Sofia's journal
colon
time warp 18 57.
Mhmm. And so in the first edition, it
had that title. And later when,
when
I got the rights back and we and
I and it was republished,
I took that part off. I I went
ahead and took that part off. So there
can be
there can be give and take in these
things,
but remember that
what the publisher is giving
is more than is more experience than you
have. So just saying like that.
The next one is okay. Are you ready
for this?
Everybody sit down.
Because this one is
come with an audience.
Yes.
Okay. Don't hear me say it right. Y'all
hear me say it okay.
Okay.
Yes.
Bring it.
I've been telling my people this. It's like
they don't believe me. Carry on. Come on.
Bring it. Yeah. Yeah. Here it comes. Here
it comes. Come with your own
audience.
And this is something that I did not
do when I was, you know, when I
when I had my first book. None of
us did. None of us did. None of
us did. Anything about that. Wow. Yeah.
Yeah.
And some of us have done a much
better job of cultivating an audience in the
interim. Like, you've done a much better job
than I have. I will say right now,
I'm weak.
I'm weak in this department, and I'm and
I'm I'm trying to up my game because
I know that it's important. I know that
it's important. Yeah. If you are familiar with
the Salafi feminist, Zainab Bintiunis
Yes.
We're publishing a book for her this coming
year.
And one of the big selling books
at selling points, and it's an awesome book.
You guys are gonna love it. It's about
the history of Muslim women. I know.
And learning from them. Right?
Yes. We worked with her on it. Yep.
I cannot tell you
what big what a big selling point it
was that she already like, we knew her.
Yeah. We knew her. She didn't come to
us as JoBlow off the street. Yeah. She
came to us as somebody that we knew
on social from social media
and who already had an audience on social
media.
And it really, really helps,
it really helps you and it helps the
it helps the publisher. This is a win
win game changer
if you already have an audience. So when
you're thinking I wanna become a writer, I'm
writing a book.
Don't think I'm writing a book, tunnel vision
book.
Yes. Think I'm writing a book. I'm creating
myself. I'm creating a brand. Yes. I'm creating
Yes. My own
I'm creating my own
brand. I'm creating a brand. Yeah. So people
are not gonna say, oh, necessarily, I want
to read blah blah whatever book. They're gonna
say, oh,
so and so has a book out? Yeah.
I have to read her book. She's cool
on social media. I love her Insta.
Yeah. You know,
like
Yeah. That's how you sell your book. Yeah.
That's how you sell your book. Everything is
social media. You know, like, in the old
days, when it was the big five,
publishers,
they would put they would pour money into
marketing campaigns
for,
for their authors, especially their big authors.
And they would, you know, send you on
book tours, and they would do billboards, and
they would blah blah, magazines, and yadayadayada yada.
Even they don't do that anymore. Yep. Unless
you're Stephen King. On the a list. Yeah.
Except for the authors. Yeah. Exactly.
They do not do that. So don't sit
there and think, oh, I went with this
little indie publisher, and they're not, you know,
like, no. No. No. They they don't do
as much mark.
Even the big houses don't do that anymore.
Yeah.
And the reason, because everything is democratized. There's
social media. There's you know, like, you have
so many avenues,
opportunities,
not responsibilities and the grudges. I mean, things
the burdens that you have to bear. Opportunities.
You have so many opportunities
to market your book. Yeah. And the way
you do that is set yourself up before
you
even send your book to the publisher.
Hey. That's fine. Before you write word 1.
Thank you. I think that's it's I I
think I'm really excited about this this whole
this this whole,
group of sessions actually all to do with,
you know, working with publishers and marketing, etcetera,
because I think that this is information that
we didn't have. You know? Nobody told us
Yeah. About the whole the whole author journey
or the writer's journey because I like to
see it as sort of phase 1 and
phase 2. So phase 1 Yeah. The creative
process, and phase 2 is about finding that
audience.
It's about marketing. It's about selling. It's about
building your brand. It's about earning the love
and trust and loyalty of the people who
will eventually read your book. So I'm so
excited. I'm so excited. I think people are
hearing stuff. All of you who are out
there, this information is literally stuff that even
some of us who've been in the industry
for years
are only clocking on to now. So if
you
get this information and you implement the things
that we're telling you and take the time
out to build what we're telling you to
build, Insha'Allah, it's gonna you're going to see
the effects of it, in the rest of
the afternoon inshallah. I believe that. Jazakam Absolutely.
Thank you so much. You'll be entering at
you know, you'll you'll be entering at the
halfway point. You know, like, you you you
just can't imagine how much it saves you
and how much
yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. And, you know, when we
were coming up, there just wasn't anywhere to
get this information.
So this is like a treasure.
You know, not not like I'm bragging on
my own self, but, like, when I was
coming up, what I wouldn't have given
for
somebody to tell us these ins and outs
and these little
these little business side things, you know, and
to tell us that once the book is
written, the work begins.
Yes. It's like, oh, I'm done. Yay.
Yes.
Preach.
Preach. That's what I'm trying to tell you.
Okay. Carry on.
Okay. So
Okay. So once you've, like, signed on and
you have a, and you have chosen a
publisher or a publisher has,
found you chosen you and found you like
a great match, which by the way, I
wanna throw something in here.
And that is that if 850,000
publishers
reject you,
don't even take it personally.
Don't take it don't even say my book
is not worth it.
It's it's because my book isn't good enough.
It's because whatever blah blah blah.
I'm gonna tell you as a publisher,
I have rejected books
that
I loved,
that I was dedicated to seeing them publish.
Like, I these this the world needs this
book. It's important.
It's well written. It's whatever, but it did
not fit in my publishing calendar.
My calendar for that space of time was
already filled, or it didn't fit with our
mission,
or it didn't fit with whatever was going
on at the time. There are so many
other business y variables that are sitting on
your head as a publisher
that cause you to have to reject books
for your company.
That doesn't mean that you're rejecting the book
as a piece of art or as a
piece of work.
Don't. Like, even,
JK Rowling's
Harry Potter was rejected 27 times.
So
it has nothing to do with the quality
of your book if if you
get rejected. I mean, it can, but not
necessarily. If you've got a good polished work
and you, you know, you've done your crossed
your t's and dotted your i's,
keep going. Keep going. Because as a publisher,
it's broken my heart to reject some of
the books I've had to reject because of
business,
you
know, considerations.
Remember that it costs
an exorbitant amount of money to to publish
a book, and so only so many can
be published in a given publishing year.
So if they are if, like, from my
situation, like, I've had I just the other
day, I had a good one, really good
one come in, but we already had a
book in that genre for this publishing year.
Mhmm. So
just be aware that those are the kind
of things that publishers are considering. Publishers are
not sitting on high going, I'll judge this
book to spark.
And then rejected. You know?
They they they're not saying, you know, they're
not sitting on high judging. They're really, really
they really aren't.
They're just,
you know and if if you get, like,
several rejections,
ask for feedback.
Ask for feedback. If they don't provide it
in the rejection letter, which I always do,
but if they don't,
ask for ask for feedback. You know?
Was it something in internal or do you
have any idea how I can improve? Don't
expect that they may have read the entire
manuscript.
But let's say you sent the first three
chapters
and they read or they'll tell you how
much they read and just, you know, the
what's the worst they can do? You know?
Just not reply.
Big deal. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Then you just
keep going, plug on to the next.
Okay. So the next,
wonderful piece of advice I have is
please, please, please
communicate
in the method that your publisher prefers.
Don't say I can't get WhatsApp or I
don't do email or I whatever.
You know?
If your publisher prefers like, we operate
almost entirely on WhatsApp,
and it's extremely difficult for me to deal
with
We have one we have one author. I
have,
had an experience with an author a while
back, like, you know, a couple years ago
who
wouldn't communicate on WhatsApp
and then also complained because I didn't answer
her emails right away.
Oh, right. So I'm like,
I I don't operate best by email. I
only check my email once a day. So
if you want if you want an immediate
response, you have to communicate the way I
prefer to communicate.
So,
whatever your your publisher prefers,
that's the way that you're going to get
their attention. That's the way that you're going
to engage them and get their responses.
You know, so it's really important to be
flexible about that.
The next so now we're entering phase 2,
which is okay. Now the work on the
actual
manuscript begins with the with the publisher.
My first
plea
is
enjoy the marketing.
Enjoy it. Make it creative.
Make it your make it a part of
your baby. You know? Like, this is your
baby in high school.
Aw. You know? It's like, you have to
you you don't, have those little sweet oh,
you don't have those little sweet hugs anymore,
and you have to drive them to, gymnastics
and drive them to this and that, and
I don't know what. And the role changes,
but you still have that relationship, that core
relationship.
So enjoy the marketing. It's just another phase.
Don't think of it as like, I wrote
my book. My creative,
process is over, and now I have to
do this drudgery
and stupid business side that I hate and
blah blah blah.
Change your perspective.
Change your perspective into seeing marketing as something
that's
relationship building
and,
creative.
And that way, you and your,
you and your publisher both will have will
be embarking on a successful,
fun,
phase of work
rather than, you know, like, trying to pull
teeth.
Yeah. Yeah.
We already talked about, thinking of yourself as
a brand and billing, building your name.
So building your name, guys,
is not just your social media presence, which
is kind of what I meant before when
I was talking about it. You know, build
your name, have a good social media presence.
It also means
write articles,
join other,
join other people in their endeavors,
join the writing community,
Be be a literary a citizen of the
literary world. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah. So that
people you can help others,
public, you know, promote their work and they
can help you promote your work and you
have a place to go when you need
help with something. And, you know, being a
part of that world is the camaraderie that
you miss as a as an author when
you're sitting just behind the keyboard by yourself.
And
and it also,
it also helps you to have, like, for
example, a blog
or,
you know, any kind of way that you
can participate
in writing. It may be doing book reviews.
It may be, you know, writing articles for
Muslim matters or another outlet. It may be
blogging, whatever.
But especially the blogging community, they also have
a really good community,
sense of community. They do blog tours where
they link to each other's blogs, they interview
each other, they promote each other really, really
well.
So and your blog doesn't even have to
be about your book or about writing. It
can be about something totally different. Like, you
could be, for example,
somebody who likes to do crochet and knitting,
and you have a blog about that.
A, you're getting writing experience,
and, b, you have plugged yourself into a
brand new audience for your book
that wouldn't necessarily normally hear about it. So
even if you have another interest, blog about
that interest, and then when your book comes
out, you'll be like, yo, crocheters.
I wrote a book. Check it out. And
you have like a whole new universe open
to you. Yeah.
Lovely. So,
yeah. So keep yourself out there and join
hands with your sisters.
Okay. So,
when when it also comes to marketing,
these the
these kind of blog tours and things like
that,
also presentations,
school visits, those kind of things, those are
going to be
not just not just okay.
Let me correct my verbiage.
They will be necessary
and expected of you from your publisher,
and they will be
golden opportunities
to
connect your book to people.
But nobody wants to hear you come in
and read 2 pages and then sign your
book and sell your book.
That's, like, so 19 forties.
It's you have to offer
something to them. Of value. Yes. Yeah. Something
of value, like, value added. Yeah. You have
to you have to interact with them in
a genuine way. Yeah. So, like, for example,
Tayba, she has her book blessed bananas,
and it's a children's story book. And when
she goes to school, she doesn't just go,
look, I'm gonna read my book.
She has a puppet show.
And she does her puppet show and she
interacts with the teachers and the students in
a way that
really enamors them to the book and gets
lets them get to know her, right, as
a person. Yeah. Right? And that's invaluable for
kids coming up too, that they know an
author. Yes. Especially with,
I'm gonna say it, especially with all the
stem emphasis,
the humanities are getting left behind. We got
we got steam. We gotta get steam, not
stem.
Because we're we're raising a generation that doesn't
know history, doesn't know,
you know, doesn't have a creative
event, doesn't have that
ability to connect on a human level.
Okay. Yeah.
Enough soapbox. Okay. So,
anyway,
it's important for kids for the audience, and
it's important for you that you give them
something that they need. Yeah. So,
say that you have a book that's for
that's for students, you could offer along with
it a writing workshop, which is what I
do. Yeah. Or you could write offer and
does those as well. You can offer along
with it training for teachers.
Yes.
What I like to do with Sofia's journal,
this has been my dream, and I'm just
now
in a position where I can start to
make that dream happen next year
is to offer,
you know, like, Sophia's journal
as, you know, like, an author visit, but
also do a teacher training
about teaching Islam in the public schools.
Nice.
So,
so there are all kind of different ways.
Just think about what your what is the
subject of your book and what interests you.
And it's not just for schools. You need
to do that even if you go
to a university or even if you go
to another venue. Sometimes a bookstore,
they'll be okay with a reading. Although, even
they would appreciate something else. Yeah. That's fine.
Yeah. Do what you can. And make sure
that you kind of tailor each one to
whatever the to whatever the audience is, you
know.
Make sure that you ask ahead of time,
You know, will there be youth in the
audience? Will there be kids in the audience?
What's your usual number of audience? You know,
so that you kind of
pardon me, so that you can you can
really fulfill
your role as
not just somebody who has a book, but
somebody who's a role model and somebody who
has somebody who can help them with something
they need help with. Yeah.
Also remember
that your publisher
has spent lots of time and tons of
money
on publishing your book.
And so
marketing is a part of that bargain.
If you self publish, of course, you know
you have to market yourself. But but if
you publish with the traditional pub press, especially
a small indie press, especially even a big
house if you're
a small, you know, like a a an
emerging writer,
You need to understand that that is that's
an amenity.
That's a commitment. And that's another thing that
I didn't understand when I first published when
I first published, I lived in Syria and
there was hardly any Internet and there was,
you know, in especially in Syria, there was,
like, legit hardly any any Internet.
And so I missed that train,
and my publisher was frustrated with me and
expressed that frustration because, like, then I went
back to the states, and I still was
like, I don't know what to do. You
know? Because there was no information.
So,
now I'm seeing that from the other side
as the publisher, and I'm doing my best
as a publisher to help with that and
to provide ideas and to provide, you know,
but just remember that if you sign on
with the publisher, that doesn't mean, yay, I've
signed somebody to do a service for me.
That's not what that means. It means, yay,
I've signed up and created a partnership in
work.
So yeah. So just remember,
just remember that. And,
my my sincerest sincerest apologies
to my dad, Linda Delgado
of Muslim Writers Publishing before,
for not being able to carry my end
of the bargain marketing wise in the beginning.
Okay. So now let's flip it and see
a couple of things that publishers can do
and things that you can request or expect
expect. And if you don't get request from
your publisher,
if you're an author that's just signed on
with someone. The first one is good communication
and updates.
And,
I will be the first to admit that
in the early years of of Daybreak,
we we were so we were so frantically
learning
the ropes.
And so,
on such tight deadlines
that updates did were not forthcoming in the
way that they should have been. But we
are absolutely
dedicated now to, you know, to that. It's
so so so so important. You know, like,
if you think of your book as your
baby or even your book, you just you
don't want it to just be out there
in the ether somewhere and you don't know
what's going on.
So updates and good communication.
Number 2 is collaboration on things that are
important to
you. So if there is a specific,
concept for cover or title or
passage in the book or whatever,
expect collaboration. It's not
a publisher dictatorship,
but, if you have to have that. You
have to have that back and forth.
Your publisher may ultimately insist, but at least
you should feel a 100% comfortable to bring
any topic to your publisher whatsoever.
Any any question, any request, any anything,
you know, it should be it should be
a a mutual.
You have a mutual goal. You should be
working together side by side to reach that
goal.
And the third one is what we are
first, what we are getting nowadays. And actually,
I wanna put in here that that part
about my title,
because there really wasn't any back and forth
about that. It was, you know, it was
like this is we have to have this
period.
And
and I, you know, like to this day,
I think that that did a disservice. Does
that mean I'm ungrateful to the publisher? Oh,
my goodness. No.
You know, she took that on. She took
the project. She saw the value in the
book. She auditioned all of that work. Of
course, we had this one disagreement,
and
that that's okay.
That doesn't have to ruin the relationship.
You know, like, I don't hate her. I
just hate that title.
Right? So,
yeah. So the third thing that we're provide
that we're beginning to provide now and that
I'm so
I I feel so blessed to be able
to provide this. And Tayba is working closely
with us on this. She's heading up this
project or this part of the project
is author coaching.
I'm so I feel so blessed to be
a publisher that will offer author coaching for
marketing.
Because
as far as I know,
no one else does.
And if there are, there there are very
few. Because, like, I know authors who have
had personal experiences with other publishers
and they get like the book is published
the end.
Wow. Yeah. Like, yeah, there are some people
that are in the business just to publish
that book and then,
you know, all the rest of it is
on you. So,
make sure that you talk to your publisher
about that going in as well. That's a
good one. Really important. I know it kinda
slid in here as like an after thought,
but it's really important, so don't let it
slide by your brains y'all. Write it down.
Make sure that your pub what your publisher
look at your contract. Read your contract. Read
your contract. Read your contract. Read your
contract.
Read your contract. Find out what is your
publisher willing to commit to the marketing, and
what do they expect from you
from the you know, in the marketing department.
We're we're going to have a WhatsApp thread
with all of our all of our authors,
and we will have 1 on 1 contact
with our authors to,
you know, to give ideas and to work
on getting things published
or sorry. Getting things marketed in a way
that's the easiest for the author and the
way that gets the most
promotion going. And,
I'm really excited about offering this as part
of our service.
So,
yeah. So
I I really feel
that the core of publishing
in all of its facets is relationships.
Yeah.
Yeah. You don't see that when you have
the book in your hand. Mhmm.
You don't think about that when you're thinking
I'm gonna write a book.
But that's what it is. It's all about
your relationship with your publisher, your relationship with
your readers, your relationship with your, your sister
writers, and the whole community of the whole
literary community. Men men, girl, men, women. Oh
my god. Did you see what I just
did?
Not men.
Girls. Men and girls.
Not your community. Remember, you only publish
books by women. Yes. Our community, we only
publish books by women. Yeah. But I mean,
you but that doesn't mean you don't have
to be a member of that larger literary
community.
That includes men and includes secular publishers.
You know, go to, go to conferences. Yeah.
Go to, you know, meet, mingle with the
people.
Don't sit on a, you know, on a
throne and say, well, those are non Muslims
or those are men or those are whatever.
Yeah. Yeah. No. No. Be a part of
that community because that's where that's where a
lot of the Dawah comes in.
Your your Dawah as a writer is not
just the book that you put out. It's
also all of the interactions that you have
with,
non Muslim and Muslim writers out there.
You're you're carrying that message of Muslim Muslims
as creative, normal,
contributing members of society who are fun and
love their work and are supportive of others.
So
so there you go. So keep up your
relationships on all fronts
starting with before you write word 1. And
if you're already written, no. It's not too
late. Ladies and gentlemen and ladies, ladies,
ladies,
I
my fur my book was first published in
2008,
and I'm I've been spending my interim time
publishing others' books. And this year, I'm dedicated
to getting another book out and getting my
my my my social media and my,
articles and my enter contest. Oh, yeah. Don't
forget enter contest too. Enter contest. Ask your
publisher to enter your book into contests
and ask you and and yourself enter into,
like, essay contest or whatever. I'm doing one
for talking writing right now. You guys talking
writing is having a
they're a a literary journal, and they're having
an essay contest about home. The theme is
home. And the deadline isn't till October, so
jump on it. We'll put the link in
the description Insha'Allah. Definitely. Yeah. Definitely. Yeah. Well,
I just think that it's been so, so
beneficial for us to get the the other
side of the story if you like, you
know, especially from a more traditional publisher.
And a lot of what you mentioned, you
know,
you know, some things have been mentioned, some
things are gonna be new to people,
but I totally, like, I'm I'm with you
and I'm just, like, cosigning on every point
of time,
especially about the collaborating, especially about the platform
building,
especially about the not seeing your book as
a baby. Like, I'm just with your girl.
Okay?
So
we're gonna have links for Daybreak Press, in
the description of this talk,
and any other goodies. I'm sure you've got
more goodies for our listeners, so those links
will be there. Your bio will be there.
And I and I think I have to
remind all the listeners that when you do
go and follow that link to the Daybreak
Press website, remember,
you are not allowed to go to the
submission guidelines.
You have to go through the whole website
to see what kind of books they're publishing,
who are they publishing, what kind of topics
do they seem to be interested in, what
do they say about themselves
before you go to check out the submission
guidelines, Insha'Allah.
Amen.
Sister Nadia, it's been an absolute pleasure
for joining us and teaching us and preaching
to us. I'm so glad we're able to
to do this. And here's to many, many
more collaborations
across all fronts
for the sake of
Amin Amin to that.
And both, I really, really appreciate
everything that you do, Naima. I follow you
closely on your wonderful platform that you created.
And,
I really I really appreciate the services and
support that you're providing for writers, and I'm
so happy to be a part of this.
May Allah accept all our efforts.