BoxRec

As the title says....but without the actual writing it bit !!! lol

I dont think this is really the right place to put this but I want to know if anyone on here knows how to find a publisher and a ghost writer.

H is going to tell his story with a typical Howie twist so it needs to be A) A publisher that is interested in his world past and present. B) A ghost writer that can keep up with him !! ha

I have never had to do anything like this or had to find anyone like this, so I thought I would throw it out to the boards in the hope that someone would know something to help us get started.

Cheers Guys x

David Payne is the man for the job! A fellow Yorkshireman and all....

Hmm lets hope he gets in touch for a chat then

Lorn, that's a good call by Carlos. Look David up on here, do a search for his name.

Self-publishing should be considered if you can't get a conventional publisher interested - far more easy to do these days thanks to the internet.
In terms of ghost writers you've also got the likes of Ben Carey and James McDonnell on here... and while to the best of my knowledge Ian McNeilly hasn't done it before, he's got impeccable credentials for the role given his background as an English teacher and journalist. He's also based in Sheffield I believe, which has to be an advantage

Ian's a damned good call Deserter, top writer and very professional

Whoever writes this book it will be a best seller Howard is fuckin nuts Id write it Lorna but whatever goes on in his head is worse than what goes on it mine ha No all joking aside he is one of lifes characters and would make a great story x

LMFAO I agree princess !!!

If anyone is interested please PM me and well have a chat, I agree this that this book would be a best seller, he has lived three lifetimes has my man, climbing, boxing, training, physio, inventing. Well see how it goes but the self publishing sounds interesting, I will have a look into that !!

Lorn, I bore people senseless when I go on about Seth Godin, but to my mind he's a genuine genius (and believe me I don't use the word lightly). He's an American marketeer and author, and here's what he was to say on the subject. By the way, I'm not PM'ing it as I thought it may be of interest to a few others on here as well. Hope it helps:

Advice for authors
Always beware free advice. It is worth what it costs!

That said, I get a fair number of notes from well respected, intelligent people who are embarking on their first non-fiction book project. They tend to ask very similar questions, so I thought I'd go ahead and put down my five big ideas in one place to make it easier for everyone.

I guarantee you that you won't agree with all of them, but, as they say, your mileage my vary.

1. Please understand that book publishing is an organized hobby, not a business.
The return on equity and return on time for authors and for publishers is horrendous. If you're doing it for the money, you're going to be disappointed.

On the other hand, a book gives you leverage to spread an idea and a brand far and wide. There's a worldview that's quite common that says that people who write books know what they are talking about and that a book confers some sort of authority.

2. The timeframe for the launch of books has gone from silly to unrealistic.
When the world moved more slowly, waiting more than a year for a book to come out was not great, but tolerable. Today, even though all other media has accelerated rapidly, books still take a year or more. You need to consider what the shelf life of your idea is.

3. There is no such thing as effective book promotion by a book publisher.
This isn't true, of course. Harry Potter gets promoted. So did Freakonomics. But out of the 75,000 titles published last year in the US alone, I figure 100 were effectively promoted by the publishers. This leaves a pretty big gap.

This gap is either unfilled, in which case the book fails, or it is filled by the author. Here's the thing: publishing a book is really nothing but a socially acceptable opportunity to promote yourself and your ideas far and wide and often.

If you don't promote it, no one will. If you don't have a better strategy than, "Let's get on Oprah" you should stop now. If you don't have an asset already--a permission base of thousands or tens of thousands of people, a popular blog, thousands of employees, a personal relationship with Willard Scott... then it's too late to start building that asset once you start working on a book.

By the way, blurbs don't sell books. Not really. You can get all the blurbs in the world for your book and it won't help if you haven't done everything else (quick aside: the guy who invented the word "blurb" also wrote the poem Purple Cow).

4. Books cost money and require the user to read them for the idea to spread.
Obvious, sure, but real problems. Real problems because the cost of a book introduces friction to your idea. It makes the idea spread much much more slowly than an online meme because in order for it to spread, someone has to buy it. Add to that the growing (and sad) fact that people hate to read. Too often, people have told me, with pride, that they read three chapters of my book. Just three.

5. Publishing is like venture capital, not like printing.
Printing your own book is very very easy and not particularly expensive. You can hire professional copyeditors and designers and end up with a book that looks just like one from Random House. That's easy stuff.

What Random House and others do is invest. They invest cash in an advance. They invest time in creating the book itself and selling it in and they invest more cash in printing books. Like all VCs, they want a big return.

If you need the advance to live on, then publishers serve an essential function. If, on the other hand, you're like most non-fiction authors and spreading the idea is worth more than the advance, you may not.

So, what's my best advice?

Build an asset. Large numbers of influential people who read your blog or read your emails or watch your TV show or love your restaurant or or or...

Then, put your idea into a format where it will spread fast. That could be an ebook (a free one) or a pamphlet (a cheap one--the Joy of Jello sold millions and millions of copies at a dollar or less).

Then, if your idea catches on, you can sell the souvenir edition. The book. The thing people keep on their shelf or lend out or get from the library. Books are wonderful (I own too many!) but they're not necessarily the best vessel for spreading your idea.

And the punchline, of course, is that if you do all these things, you won't need a publisher. And that's exactly when a publisher will want you! That's the sort of author publishers do the best with.

By the way, I should add that Glyn and/or Ian should think about having Howard as a columnist - his thoughts on the fight game, training methods etc would be compulsive reading and could act as a useful precursor to any book project. Think of it as a 'toe in the water' - gets to work with a shadow writer, build a bit of a following to increase demand etc...

Hmm so what your saying Desserter is, and correct me if I am wrong here.

Writing a book is bloody hard wrk with very little financial return ? Hmmm sounds about what H has been doing for years, working his bollocks off and not getting to much back for it D

LOL Sounds ideal, it is something he really wants to do so well have to have a go ey. The columist thing sounds great, he loves talking to people about his ideas and latest techniques, they will have to talk to him about that one for sure babe. I will PM you our number

xx

Lorn wrote:Hmm so what your saying Desserter is, and correct me if I am wrong here.

Writing a book is bloody hard wrk with very little financial return ? Hmmm sounds about what H has been doing for years, working his bollocks off and not getting to much back for it D

LOL Sounds ideal, it is something he really wants to do so well have to have a go ey. The columist thing sounds great, he loves talking to people about his ideas and latest techniques, they will have to talk to him about that one for sure babe. I will PM you our number

xx

What he's basically saying is do it for love rather than money, and so Howard's motivation for doing it is the right one. I just agree with Godin that a good way to 'ease' into it/explore the waters is to write a regular column (or have it ghost-written) as it will give him a feel for it all and allow him to develop a following at the same time. Think of it as acting in the same way a trailer works for a movie - it gives people a taste of what they can expect.

Many thanks for the recommendations from Carlos and Glyn. Very kind. Ian is a terrific nomination I must add.

Regards to all (I haven't been here for months).

DavidPayne wrote:Many thanks for the recommendations from Carlos and Glyn. Very kind. Ian is a terrific nomination I must add.

Regards to all (I haven't been here for months).

Aye, David would be spot on.

I'd be happy to meet Howard and/or Lorna for a chat and a bit of guidance but couldn't offer anything beyond that. Full-time job, two little kids, website to edit, bits and bobs for BM...I'm at full capacity 8)

But thanks for the votes of confidence - appreciated.

James McDonnell very successfully ghosted Charlie Magri's autobiography but he's in London.

Andrew Wake (Wake Up Call) would also be a great choice - he knows his onions and is Yorkshire-based.

I agree, both Ian and David write extremely well.Another suggestion would be:

Richard Coomber, who is a freelance sports journalist in Yorkshire, whose previous books include Give Me a Ring, the autobiography of boxing referee Mickey Vann, and King John, a life of John Charles.He also wrote Johnny Nelsons biography.A very good read it was too.

I'd love to read Howard's book.I bet it would be a belter.

That is a book I'd like to read

Howard comes down to my gym now and again and is as dry as they come,a good guy and has some great tales,id buy 2 and read it twice lol

Thanks guys, Its not really an Auto. Its about something Ive been working on for years Muscle conciousness. Guys at the uni told me to do it. With a few storys thrown in to elaborate . It will be interesting.

Not sure if your still in touch, but would David Matthews be able to help you with contacts?

Ian 'Mr' McNeilly wrote:

DavidPayne wrote:Many thanks for the recommendations from Carlos and Glyn. Very kind. Ian is a terrific nomination I must add.

Regards to all (I haven't been here for months).

Aye, David would be spot on.

I'd be happy to meet Howard and/or Lorna for a chat and a bit of guidance but couldn't offer anything beyond that. Full-time job, two little kids, website to edit, bits and bobs for BM...I'm at full capacity 8)

But thanks for the votes of confidence - appreciated.

James McDonnell very successfully ghosted Charlie Magri's autobiography but he's in London.

Andrew Wake (Wake Up Call) would also be a great choice - he knows his onions and is Yorkshire-based.

Cheers for the recommendation Ian. Not sure if I'm correctly qualified at this stage but this sort of thing is certainly something I intend to move into the future. Payne would be a good choice though as would Ian if he had the time.

Dont think Dave who still keeps in touch, is what Im looking for. This is serious , Ive been promised help from the uni, they seem very keen to beinvolved, theres some interesting stuff on conditioning in there.

There are so many interesting stories and characters in boxing but far too often we get the same dull recycled nonsense published.

Couldnt agree more Orb.

Howards a boxing legend - i'd love this- he's got some greats stories.

& he looks like the cookie monster D