Overview
With $1,000 and a borrowed electric typewriter, and no experience in editing, typesetting, advertising, marketing, or the dozen or so other skills needed to succeed in publishing, I founded -- literally at our kitchen table -- Sophia Institute Press in 1983. In my subsequent almost three decades as Publisher and nearly four decades as Senior Editor, Sophia has published over 500 titles and sold more than 3 million copies of them.
At various times over the years, I've mastered and had to perform every single task in the company, from answering the phone to designing jackets and writing the copy that goes on the back of jackets. I've acquired hundreds of manuscripts, worked on them with authors, edited the final works line-by-line, written, designed, and typeset ads for them, migrated the company from paper catalogs to an all-internet company, created and pioneered eblasts to millions of on-line customers, managed personnel, worked with accountants and printers, and did just about everything else that needs to be done in this very complicated business.
If it has to do with publishing, I can do it for you.
Services
Non-Fiction
Languages
Certifications
- Publishing School of Hard Knocks
- School of Editorial Boots on the Ground
- Stanford Publishing Course - 1986
- Huenefeld Publishing Course - 1985
Work experience
Sophia Institute Press, Manchester, NH
Herebelow are just about two dozen of the more than 500 books whose production I've been involved with intimately in one way or another. My estimate is that I edited about 350 of them, generated the titles and subtitles for about 400 of them, and wrote the jacket copy and ad copy for nearly 450.
Although most of the books have, in one way or another, some relation to religious or ethical topics, note the wide variety of topics covered by them and the variety of approaches taken to those topics, ranging in style from scholarly to popular prose and in subjects from the Coronavirus and Christianity, through the Von Trapp family (the Sound of Music folks), sports, science, art, history, psychology, business, and a even book by Gabriel Amorth, the world's most famous exorcist.
When it comes to editing, I've done almost everything . . . and want to do more! (And with my Ph.D. in literature and philosophy, plus years in the military, training in electronics, extensive travel, and decades of voracious reading books on most any subject imaginable, I'm qualified and eager to take on topics I've not edited before.)
Now you mustn't get irritated about what I admit next, and even claim to be a reason for you to want to work with me: over the decades, I've probably rejected tens of thousands of book proposals, most of them after I've read hardly more than the first paragraph -- not only because most are so poorly written but also because most prospective authors have no grasp whatsoever of the financial constraints that bind most publishers in a deathlike grip.
What I know too well (and from very painful experience) is that, whether you or I like it or not, publishing is a business, and for most publishing companies these days, a desperate one at best. Regardless of its topic, if your proposed book is not crafted in such a way that your prospective publisher can conclude in just a minute or so that it is likely to earn the company money, she's got to reject it and turn to the next proposal among the dozens that have come in that day.
And not only does your manuscript have to do earn money; your Query Letter must show that it will -- convincingly -- and in its very first paragraphs.
What does that have to do with you and me?
If you work with me, I'll:
1) help you hone your topic so it is marketable,
2) structure your manuscript so that it will be well received by readers,
3) help you give it a title that will grab, in the first place, the attention of your prospective publisher and then the attention of readers and reviewers, and finally
4) help you draft for it a Query Letter that, if you persist in knocking on publishers' doors, is almost guaranteed to win you a contract.
One final point: these are not four separate steps that, taken one after another, can ever win you a contract. They are a unity, one effort that needs to be consistent and sustained from the instant you conceive your book all the way through to the moment you finally sign the contract -- and even thereafter, for surely your publisher will want changes to conform your manuscript to his audience.
I can help you with all of this, from the beginning to the end, guiding and helping you step by step.
As you might expect, and as I've learned in my forty years in publishing, it can't be done quickly and it will not be cheap.
But it's the only way finally to achieve your dreams and become a published author.
How about it? Do you want to work with me to accomplish that goal?
Hey!
Before you turn away, consider not only the fact that in these few paragraphs I've already taught you some critical truths about publishing that, if you abide by them, will significantly improve your prospects; I've also demonstrated my own skill at persuasion -- skills that I would like to teach you so that together we can get you published.
I look forward to hearing from you!
John Barger
Portfolio
