Hello everyone! Today I’d like to share with you an interview with with nationally-published author, Wesley Hyatt.
Wesley is eager to share his experience and advice with all of you, and contribute to our conversation regarding first-time authors. He is the proud author of, “The Encyclopedia of Daytime Television: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Daytime TV but Didn’t Know Where to Look!” “Emmy Award Winning Nighttime Television Series, 1948-2004,” and “Kicking Off the Week:A History of Monday Night Football on ABC Television, 1970-2005.”
Tell us about yourself. Where are you from, what activities/groups are you involved in, etc.?
I am a North Carolinian, born and bred, and have lived here in the middle of the state known as “the Piedmont” most of my life, with stops in Miami and Atlanta. My main activities include reading (of course), working out (trying to get in bodybuilder shape, but alas still have a good bit to go) and finding and collecting rare TV series. As far as groups, I’m basically an introvert, although I have great family and friends across the country.
When did you begin writing? What genres and topics are you interested in writing about?
I have been writing personally since I was a child (I still have copies of little stories I did outside of school before I was 10), and professionally since college, beginning as a reporter with a weekly newspaper in Jamestown, N.C., near High Point in 1988. I’ve always found it much easier to write nonfiction than fiction, and I found that I have a particular affinity with what might be termed as pop culture reference – TV, movies and music. For some reason, I’m able to remember details about people involved in these productions and how they fared commercially and critically rather easily.
What was your first published book?
“The Encyclopedia of Daytime Television,” published by Billboard Books in 1997. It took me two years to research and write it, the longest by far of any of my books.
What challenges did you face while writing?
When I started working on the book, the Internet was in its nascent form with the general public, and many old daytime series were hard to watch if not impossible to find – the networks used to throw out or record over videotapes of game shows and soap operas, even into the early 1980s when videotape recorders were available in many homes. So, I had to make an effort to work with TV show collectors to buy copies of old programs to view as well as read as much as possible about the shows themselves from the trade publications that covered them (I read every issue of “TV Guide” from 1954-1996, as well as “Variety” from 1946-1996). There were several books on TV history and specific genres such as Saturday morning cartoons that I used, making sure to check their details with the original shows wherever possible (and finding plenty of discrepancies and omissions in each that I corrected). I also looked up the names of series and their major performers in the “Readers Guide to Periodical Literature” from 1946-1996, which gave me some useful information, and also checked out some autobiographies by actors, producers, directors and writers involved in the series too. The latter tended to be either wonderful resources or virtually useless for my purpose, depending on how well written they were. I am happy to say that at least one author claimed my book was better researched than two other reference books on TV history – and both of those had been through multiple revisions.
Tell us about your work that has been published.
After the daytime book, I wrote “The Billboard Book of Number One Adult Contemporary Hits” because (a) it fit the series the publishing company had in profiling the #1 records of various Billboard charts, (b) I wanted to expand and show that I could write about more than just TV, and (c) I wanted a chance to talk to the singers, writers and producers of music that I liked. Following that, I found that though I did what I and several others thought was a great job on the book, my real forte lies in being a TV historian, so I followed it with “Short-Lived Television Series, 1948-1978″ (a period when short-lived meant a year or less rather than the two or three airings and you’re canned atmosphere you found a lot thereafter), “A Critical History of The Red Skelton Show, 1951-1971″ (a profile of what is still one of the most successful TV series ever based on combined longevity and ratings, but it lacked a lot of good research and perspective on its place in the medium’s history), my beloved “Emmy Award Winning Nighttime Television Series, 1948-2004” (I had some of the last interviews with the creators of and participants in some of TV’s best shows sharing their memories with me – how can you beat that?), and finally my most recent work, “Kicking Off the Week: History of Monday Night Football on ABC Television, 1970-2005.”
What was the publishing process like for you?
The publishing process was surprisingly less intimidating to me than I thought it would be. Having worked as a writer and then editor for weekly newspapers virtually nonstop for six years, I was pleased to learn that I could have a year or more to reach my deadline, and I basically had to rely just on myself. The hardest part was trying to collect photographs the first time, which the publisher insisted we needed to make it more appealing. Luckily, I found a wonderful photo supply company in New York City, Photofest, that gave me reasonable rates along with incredible photos to use. The hardest part the first go-round was dealing with the reality of the word count limiting what I could do – I wanted to include more trivia and appendices to the encyclopedia, but things like the cast lists for long-running soap operas ate into my ability to do that. I also had an editor who was very supportive of me and my project as well, which was nice considering that the one who first approved it left to go write his own books and forced the second editor to take my book on in his place.
What advice would you offer to those who are thinking about publishing a book?
First, know as much as you can about your subject and care passionately about it so that you can sell it to an editor. That is basically what you are going to do anyway – promote what you are offering so that they will buy it. You must show how it is not unique but fits the need of the marketplace they handle, which is my second point: Know what publishing companies are interested in publishing your genre. For example, it will do you no good to push a cookbook to my most recent publishing firm, McFarland and Co., as they publish primarily reference and scholarly books.
Also, with most publishers now having their own Web sites, read their guidelines for book proposals. Most major companies will not accept any solicitations except via a book agent. I should note that I have written my books without an agent, and that it takes a lot of time and effort to impress one, particularly for a first book. So, good luck to you if you want to try to snare one in hopes of getting a bigger contract, but frankly, the odds are against you. Many fine publishers thankfully do not work through agents, but you must follow what they want to the letter if you want a reasonable chance to break through the crowd. Amazingly, some would-be first-time authors actually think the instructions apply to everyone else but them. They’re wrong.
Most publishers will want to see at least a query letter, basically a one-page (if possible – they prefer it no longer than that) summary about your project, as well as some relevant details about your own writing history. If you’ve written a blog or article appropriate to the subject, by all means mention it. You need to show you know your subject and anything relevant to it, which in my case meant pushing the fact that I had worked six years writing and editing weekly newspapers. I am sure that my background encouraged three publishers who received my query letter to offer me a book contract just as much as my pitch about the appeal of daytime television. (Yes, you can send multiple query letters to publishers at one time about a book unless they specifically refuse to allow it.)
Reiterating my first point, make sure what you are writing about is something deep within you that you feel you must share with other readers because you know the material better than anyone and you urgently want them to hear what you have to say. I find that the worst books I have read lack either one of these qualities, or both, and it made me wonder how bored or careless the writers were in creating them. There is enough mediocrity in our society as is – try not to add to it by writing a book that comes across as an author just going through the motions.
Oh, and prepare to promote it whenever and wherever possible. If you are not used to speaking in public, learn to do so. Very few authors get by without talking to radio or TV interviewers about their work, and chances are you’re not the next J.D. Salinger, so be prepared. Besides, it’s fun to talk about your work, or at least it is for me.
For more information about Wesley Hyatt, visit his new Website, http://www.tvhistorian.com.
