Interview With Emily
A. Vander Veer
Interview by Jenna Glatzer
Ms. Vander Veer has published several books on Web-related topics,
including the best-selling JavaScript For Dummies and its companion guide, JavaScript
For Dummies Quick Reference. Her nonfiction articles, features, and columns
have appeared in online and offline publications as varied as Byte, Salon,
WEBTechniques, Dallas Observer, SF Week, CNET, Digital Music Weekly, and the
Austin American-Statesman.
A veteran of electronic as well as traditional publishing, she presents
workshops on e-publishing, online author promotion, and electronic
self-publishing at writers conferences across the country. She also runs
the bimonthly e-newsletter "Writing for the Web."
What inspired you to become a writer?
I live for the printed word, and aways have. My earliest memories are of books -- the smell of them, the feel of
them, the triumph of sounding out a word I actually recognized. When I was young I lived in the rural
Pacific Northwest, where it rains almost constantly, so I spent most of my free time
holed up indoors devouring everything I could get my hands on.
I grew up in a blue-collar family that didn't view writing as "real" work, so it never occurred to me that writing
was an achievable profession like accounting or plumbing. (I imagined that all writers were fantastic,
rarefied beings who married money and lived in garrets, whatever the heck a garret was!) So when I put myself
through college I chose to major in business, and subsequently landed gigs as a software developer,
consultant, and marketer at several high-tech companies.
The jobs paid the bills, but I always felt like a square peg in a round hole. It was starting to make me crazy,
but I couldn't think of anything else to do that would pay the bills.
Then I got a call out of the blue one day from an aunt I hadn't seen in thirty years, who said, "Say, are you still
writing?" Everything clicked into place that day as I recalled my childhood dream. Before I'd hung up
the phone I'd decided to pursue a career as a writer. It's the best decision I've ever made.
How did you get your first book published?
I found a book that described how to put together a nonfiction book proposal and followed it to the letter.
From my background in business and marketing, I understood how to conduct market research, how to
propose a title that would fit a specific niche, and all the other components that
shape a good proposal. I pitched it to an editor at IDG Books Worldwide (the "For Dummies" folks) because in my job I had to read
a lot of tech/business books, and frankly, I thought most of them were *horrible*. I
wanted to write a book that real people -- intelligent people, but people without computer science degrees -- could read, enjoy,
and benefit from. And I figured that my background in the software field would make it easier
for me to break in with a technical title than with any other.
I pitched the editor instead of an agent, since I was fairly unknown (with a total of three articles published
under my own name) at the time and figured I didn't stand a snowball's chance in hell of interesting an agent.
Was I ever surprised when IDG bit! They turned down my original proposal (they already had a book in the
works on the topic I'd pitched) but offered me an alternate title.
What was the process like from contract to publishing?
First, I did a ton of research to make sure that the contract I was signing was reasonable in terms of
advance, royalties, and other provisions. IDG sent me a huge packet of guidelines, which I kept in mind as I
researched and wrote the book. I'd included a full table of contents as part of my
proposal, so the structure was already in place; all I had to do was "fill in the blanks."
After I submitted the final quarter (manuscripts are typically delivered in portions), my project editor
returned the edited chapters with suggestions for improvement -- everything from style to grammar to
technical suggestions. I combed through the manuscript a chapter at a time, making
changes, rewriting, tweaking -- and then, in a few months, it was all over. A month or two after that, and had my first book in my
hands.
From that point on, there was no going back to a day job, I can tell you! I was hooked.
How much of your own promotion did you have to do?
The books I've written for publishers to date have all been "series" books, like the ...For Dummies series. In
these cases, you're not required to do much author promotion; there's a well-oiled machine in place that
promotes the entire line, and your title in particular. I did, however, do a bit,
just to get a feel for it -- everything from online chats to booksignings, sending
my book out to reviewers, and giving presentations on my topic.
How does that differ from self-publishing/e-publishing?
When you self- or e-publish, you need to be prepared to do *all* of your own promotion. And that's quite a
job! I recently published "What Every Writer Must Know About E-Publishing," and I can tell you that it's
an uphill battle. But it's also a lot of fun when you believe in what you've written.
Does writing for the web lend credibility when you want
to approach a print publisher?
It depends on the pub. I've written for some online-only pubs like Salon and CNET, and those are great clips --
but they're great clips because they're respected pubs with strong editorial, not because they're online.
If you place a piece online with a professionally edited, for-pay market, that's absolutely going to give you
credibility. It's not the same if you place a piece with one of these unedited, anybody-can-get-published
sites, like Themestream.com.
If an e-publisher tells me that I retain all rights, does that
mean I can sell first rights to a print publisher later?
Absolutely not. Whenever your piece first appears, that publication constitutes first rights -- and you can never
resell first right. Depending on the contract you signed with your e-publisher, you might be able to sell
reprint rights, but only if your e-publisher hasn't made your manuscript available in an insecure format like HTML,
Word or PDF. (If your work is copied from an e-publisher's site and turns up archived on some
content aggregator's site -- which is what's been happening a lot lately with companies like Contentville
-- you'll likely have a hard time selling reprints. After all, few editors want to pay for something their readers
can get for free elsewhere.)
What do you think of "pay-per-click" sites?
I think they're a clever way for the site owners to get free content, to be perfectly blunt.
I've heard of a few companies doing this, but I've yet to hear of it actually paying off for writers. Professional
writers can't afford to crank out quality work and then "maybe" get paid, so the writers attracted to
these sites are typically amateur writers.
And there are all kinds of problems associated with the "per-click" side of the equation. As a former tech-head,
I can tell you that there are five ways from Sunday to calculate (and generate) hits that have nothing to do
with reality. For example, how do you keep people from creating scripts that spoof IP addresses and
reload a specific page (in other words, "hit" a page) continuously, around the clock? How do you keep sites
from fudging on their stats? (There's currently no such thing on the Web as standard stats
or third-party auditors.) The list of technical problems with this approach go on and on.
But I think it's flawed from a conceptual standpoint, as well. If someone's going to be benefiting from an
author's work -- whether they're using the content to land venture capital, generate ad dollars, go public, or
whatever it is these dot-coms have up their sleeves -- I believe they're morally
obligated to pay the authors up front for value received, just like they pay their ISPs and phone bills.
Do you think that e-publishing has really "arrived"?
Not by a long shot! It won't have "arrived" until there's a way to distribute manuscripts securely. Right now, the
only formats available are insecure -- meaning that if I e-publish a manuscript, it can be stolen and
archived somewhere in the blink of an eye without my even knowing it. (My
copyrights, in this case, are meaningless -- unless I catch the plagiarist and happen
to have the money and time required to file a lawsuit.) That's why the big publishers haven't jumped online en
masse just yet; they, like the software and music industries, are grappling with the best way to
protect their property rights.
Most e-publishers out there today don't have strong editorial, don't do any title promotion, and don't really
have a good grasp of digital marketing or copyright issues. If e-publishing was a feline, I'd say it was still in
the adorable kitten stage.
How can I determine whether an e-publisher or print on demand
publisher is legitimate/credible?
Ask a few tough questions. Do they understand copyrights and how to protect them, or are they saying
things like "You retain copyrights" without acknowledging the very real threat of online plagiarism?
Do they have a background in publishing or bookselling? Does their site look professional?
Will they tell you how many hits (and sales) their site is generating for their authors? If they offer promotional
services, can they describe them in detail? If they demand exclusive electronic rights, do they pay an
advance?
Some benchmarks to look for: most e-publishers offer 40% or more royalties (of net, not gross) and no
advances; most require either exclusive or non-exclusive electronic rights. A big red warning flag is
if the e-publisher demands money from the author up-front -- a tip-off that you're
probably dealing with a vanity publisher who has no intention of selling your book.
What's one thing you wish you'd learned earlier about the publishing
business?
That it's accessible. That you don't have to live in a garret to get published!
Anything further you'd like to add?
A lot of people see the Web as the beginning of the end for professional writers, since there's so much free
content out there. (The old "Why buy the cow when the milk's free?" argument.) I disagree. The Web has
changed a lot of things, but one thing I don't think will ever change is that good
writing -- good *thinking* -- will always be in demand.
Visit Emily's site at http://www.emilyv.com.
You can also visit the archives of her "Writing for the Web"
newsletter at http://www.topica.com/lists/writingfortheweb/read.
