January 28, 2025 • 24 mins
In this episode we spoke with Ted Savas (Managing Director) of Savas and Beatie (https://www.savasbeatie.com/). Ted spoke to us today regarding what it takes to pitch a idea regarding a history subject matter.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Hello everyone, and welcome to the Ernie Pile World War
Two Museum Podcast, your podcast of Ernie Pyle, the voice
of the American soldier during World War Two. My name
is Doc HEAs and I am the co host of
this podcast with my son Drew. And if you're tuning
in to the Ernie Pile World War Two Museum Podcast,
what we do on this podcast is share with you
(00:36):
pieces of piles life from this humble beginning on an
Indiana farm to becoming a post surprise winning American journalist
and war correspondent who is best known for his stories
about ordinary American soldiers during World War Two. You can
find out more information about Ernie Poe on our Facebook
page at Friends of Ernie Pyle, or follow us on
Twitter or Instagram at Ernie Powle Legacy. Again on Twitter
(00:58):
and Instagram, that is Earning Pile Legacy. Hello everyone, and
welcome back to another edition of the Earning Power World
War Two Museum Podcast. And today we have a very
special guest with us today, Ted Savas, and he is
a publisher and author, and what we thought we'd do
a little today on this episode of the Earning Power
World War Two Museum Podcast is really talk about publishing
(01:22):
in journal in general. And I know Ted here is
a big history buff, and he's going to talk to
us a little bit about, for lack of a better word,
how the sausage is made when it comes to getting
a book published. And so Ted, first of all, welcome
to the Earning Power World War Two Museum Podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Yeah, Doug, thanks, thanks very much for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Well, thank you for agreeing to spend just a few
minutes of your busy time to come on board and
really talk to us about, like I said, publishing. And
you know, when we hear the word writing a book
or publishing, sometimes people think it's it's pretty easy and
all you have to do is a typewriter or a
word processor and crank something out and wall wall the
(02:06):
next thing you know, you're going to find it. Barns
and Nobles are on Amazon. But it's really not as
easy as that.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
No, it's really not. It's it's quite an endeavor. And
you know, publishing is there's an old saying that everybody
is a frustrated rock star or author, and there's a
certain general want of truth to that. But you know
a lot of people, you know, we read, we love books.
(02:35):
We love the concepts of a book, and how does
it something like that start and get created, and what
kind of time and effort does it take? And you know,
there are some estimates there are something like three million
or four million finished or mostly finished manuscripts just sitting
rubber banded up in closet somewhere because people, you know,
(02:56):
take on more than they can chew. They realize it's
a task that's just so difficult, and then they finish
and they can't get books published because it's very hard,
you know, to do. It's easier today in the sense
that you can self publish right and go out Amazon
in different places and and pay people to publish your book.
But then generally you end up with you know, ten
(03:18):
cases of books in your in your house and sell
you know, twelve copies. It's because you're not marketing, you're
not doing everything else, so it's very difficult. But yeah,
I'm really looking forward to your questions on this and
I'd love to love to answer them for you and
have some fun with it.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Yeah, it sounds great. So, Ted, I know you've been
you know, a publisher and author, you've been an editor
and in all those different hats. But really, from a
publisher standpoint, what are you looking for when somebody pitches
you an idea?
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Sure, so I run. I'm a founder and run Savas
Beaty Publishing Company s A V A S B E
A T A E dot dot com. People can find
us online and it's you know, we're primarily we're a
military and general history publishing company. We focus on American
Civil War, Revolutionary War, and then we do some World
(04:11):
War two things. And as an agent, I've agented a
lot of World War two books out there to different publishers.
And you know, what we're looking for has changed over
the years, Doug, because it was easier in the past
to sell certain books and it's harder today to sell
(04:32):
different kinds of books. So, for example, today you're really
looking and most this is true of most publishers. They're
looking for authors that are well connected in terms of
social media. They have an online presence, They're willing to
do podcasts, go sign books, post on Instagram, post on X,
(04:53):
post on Facebook, and interact with audiences. And the reason
that's so critical today is because bookstores are dying, right,
So you used to find a lot of these books
by walking around bookstores and you'd see a cover you
like and you pick it up and you flip through it.
And most books today are found online, and so it's
(05:16):
really important to find an author with a topic that
is interested and has a built in reader base and
have those merge in sort of a unique way that
makes it much easier to get that book out there
through the noise and into the hands of buyers.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
You know, Tanna, I think you're spot on, because I
can tell you from my experience doing this podcast in
another podcast, is that I won't say a lot, but
every book, once in a while I will get an
author that will pitch me an idea. And I think
that's kind of what you're referring to about coming on
podcasts and promoting yourself on X and then a lot
(05:52):
of times I'll be at night just kind of scrolling
through the different types of social media and that's where
I found some authors as well, and I invited them
on the show, and they've been very gracious to be
able to come on and really talk and want to
promote their book as well.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Sure, well, you know it's interesting and I don't want
to go, you know, too fright down this track because
it's a little down their habital. But it is interesting.
When the Internet first started, you know, in the in
the mid nineties, and it really sort of started cranking up,
it really wiped out a lot of small and mid
sized publishers because they didn't get ahead of the digital
book curve, and it get into the Internet fast enough.
(06:33):
Sales started dropping in certain ways, and prices started coming down,
and it became a difficult market to navigate. And when
that happened, the Internet became sort of in amazons and
then the discounts eBay. Then everybody knew what was in
everybody else's closet and you could sell a book for
(06:54):
five dollars that before people had to go out and
pay more money for and it really hurt publishers. And
so now it's sort of that still exists. But something
else has happened that's very unique, and a lot of
people are a lot of publishers have been slow, I
think to realize it. We've been really working it hard.
(07:15):
And that is is that readers and interest groups have
self segregated into topics. So it used to be really hard.
You'd buy a mailing list and you'd have to blast
catalogs out there and hope, hope it got to somebody's mailbox.
You can go on to Facebook and find a group
that's interested in World War two, American tanks, yes, or
(07:37):
interested in Gettysburg, or interested in the Western theater of
the Civil War, whatever it is, and they'll have two
thousand members, five thousand members, twenty thousand members. And you
can put one post up there a week and hit
thousands of people.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Free right now.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
And the people see and the people Doug are the
ones that are really really interested in the topic. And
so that has made it easier to take the right
titles and the right authors and market books today. But
that's it's something that a lot of people don't yet realize.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
I think, Yeah, now, you know you were talking about
the Civil War, world War two, and do you find
that you get.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
A lot of.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
People wanting to publish on the same topic over and
over again and not really trying to spread their wings
and explore different opportunities or topics within say the Civil War,
world War two.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
So you mean like you'd be taken author author X
and he stays within the Civil War, keeps writing on
that instead of going beyond it.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
No, I guess what I'm saying is sometimes when somebody's
pitching you an idea, it's always about the main like
generally or grant instead of topics that maybe need to
be told that are not as familiar to the public.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
With yes, I mean, you'll you know, you see that
in you see that in every topic. Right in World
War Two you get the same four or five types memoirs,
and then here's another d Day book, and right, and
here's another book about the paratroopers, and but there's all
these different things to you know, to cover. It's the
same thing in the Civil War and a little less
(09:24):
so in the Revolutionary War. But but yes, I see
that all the time. And if people go to our
website and start looking around, they're going to see books
on a lot of different topics because we really go
out of our way, you know, to find something that's
very well researched. First thing I ever looked at is
the bibliography of a manuscript, very well research on a
(09:47):
topic that we think we can sell. Because we're trade press,
we have to profit with the right author and then
have it be a little off the beaten path, and
so it could be a regimental history. We've got a
a logistics study coming out on feeding Roberty Lee's Army,
which is a completely unique, very interesting book. You know,
(10:09):
we're doing Atlanta campaign stuff, and you know, in the
World War Two we do some you know, U boat
stuff that's off the beaten path, different kinds of things. So, yeah,
that's a really good point you're making. And I can't
tell you how many times we turned down managements because
there's been thirty books on that same topic and there's
nothing new that you have to say because looking at
(10:29):
a bibliography and I know the sources and there's nothing
new that you're gonna say.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
Yeah, it's already been said. It's not that it's not
well written book. It's just that we've already read that
thirty times, like you said.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Yeah, exactly. And I just don't you know, my customers
know me real well. I've got a big social media presence.
I interact with all of them. We do meetups where
we meet personally with well, we'll have like one hundred
and twenty different people in about thirty of our authors
and we'll do two or three days of battlefield touring
and meetings and and and it's free and we have
(11:01):
a lot of fun and so they know that I'm
going to publish books that are cutting edge and new
and fresh, and it's not going to be the same
thing over and over. It's a good point you're making, Doug.
It's a very important one.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Yeah, Ted, what are some of the biggest mistakes that
you see when somebody is trying to pitch you an idea?
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Yeah, that's that. That's a great question too. So let
me answer that by going backward just and I'm not
really trying to promote it, but if you go to
our website, top of the website savas Baty dot com,
you'll see a link to a series of classes. They're
called right Now w R I t e like, write
(11:47):
a book right now. And I started those classes and
I run them. There's like seven of them in a
row once a week, and I run them every so often,
and you can check on there and see when and invariably,
I mean, there are anywhere from thirty to one hundred
and thirty people in these classes, and they're by Zoom
and they're all about exactly what you're talking about, the mistakes,
(12:10):
seeing the gears behind the machine of publishing, what's really
happening during a submission process. How to really choose the
right title for you, what it really takes to write
a book, and the questions you need to ask, and
how you need to begin so you don't waste two
years of your life, those kinds of things. And so
one of the things not to get back directly to
(12:31):
your question. One of the things about the mistakes I
see when somebody pitches me a book is they don't
realize that a big part of the submissions process is
a filtering process to get rid of you. Wow. So
we ask, as do all publishers, we'll say specifically, this
(12:54):
is what we're looking for, this is what we're not
looking for. I don't want your manuscript in full. I
want to query, and here are the six questions I
want you to answer in the letter to help us,
you know, wead through and try to figure out whether
we're interested and if the author can't follow basic directions
at the beginning and want to say, well, and we
(13:16):
have authors, those potential authors who will say, well, you know,
I read what you wanted, but really that's not what's
really important. Let me tell you what's really important about
my manuscript. Well, that's an immediate deletion because if we
can't work with you at the very beginning, and you
can't follow directions to work within a system. It's going
to get to get harder as we go on and
(13:37):
you deal with editors and designers and such. So it's
a filtering process. And so I tell every potential author,
when you're writing a book, regardless of the topic, find
a similar book, figure out who the publisher was, figure
out what their submission guidelines are, figure out how your
(13:58):
book is different, and then follow their submission guidelines mm
hmm exactly and fit in. Don't get filtered out right.
That's the first step.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Uh. And that's probably one of the most important things.
And I think you make a great point is if
you can't work with the author at the beginning, like
you said, how are you going to work with them
through the next six months, year, or whatever it takes
in order to get a book through the process.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Yeah, because you know, we're going to pass them on
to our author liaison, and that person's going to set
up you know, events and media events, and and our
marketing director is going to work with them to set
up you know, the formatting of the of the digital
stuff for books and information and and there's a process
and a system to do it. And if you're going
(14:51):
to come in and you know, think that you're going
to do it just your way, and then it just
doesn't work. And and so it's everybody's got to work
to get as a team. And then that's just really
really important. That's what I tell all potential authors. Be
a part of the team, not not to somebody who's
going to tell the successful publisher how to do with
the job.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
Sure well, and Ted, maybe talk a little bit also
about I'm certain that you probably get a lot of submissions,
and maybe talk about the ratio between the number of
opp requests you get to look at the manuscript compared
to the number that you actually pick and publish within
(15:33):
a year.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Sure, we get anywhere from one to five submissions a day, wow,
And so it's not unusual at the end of the year.
You know, let's say there's three hundred and sixty five
days a year, you know, we could have you know,
a thousand manuscript submissions, more small trade press, and so
(15:56):
I think we'll publish you know, twenty some books in
the spring cycle and probably twenty five in the fall cycle.
So you know, you're talking say forty ish books a
year and from a thousand submissions, and so it's a
pretty low success ratio. But I also take you know,
(16:19):
submissions out of there. And if I think I can
help an author and we can't publish it, I'm also
an agent, and so if I really think something is
really good but we can't run with it, I've got
you know, contacts with other presses, and I'll help agent
a book or I'll give people advice on how to
get it published somewhere else. And so I try to
help people. I try to give back that way, and
people help me, and you know, I try to pass
(16:41):
that along. But it's hard to get published. It's not
it's not easy. And if you want to get traditionally published,
it takes it takes time. It's just it's it's you're
in the no business. People are going to tell you
no a lot, right, and so you just have to
be to be in a no business. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
Well, and I I guess my point to the listeners are,
if you're thinking about submitting a topic for a book,
like you said, you may get a thousand, but you're
only picking forty of those thousands, so the odds are
against you.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Yeah, And it's even less than that because out of
those forty, I'm constantly working with authors all the time
in developing topics that never go through our submission guidelines.
So I mean probably fifty or eighty the books we published,
maybe more have been books that I've ideas that I've
come up with that I've pitched to different authors and
(17:37):
have developed over the years into finished products. And so
it's even less than yelling you yeah, yeah, oh.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
That's great. Well, ten, I know we're getting closer here
on time. But one thing I wanted to ask you is,
you know, how did you get into I know you're
an author and you've written some books yourself, but maybe
kind of tell a little bit about your story about
how you got into some of these topics that you've
written about. You mentioned earlier in the podcast that you're
(18:08):
really big into U boats and me kind I talked
a little bit about how that all came about.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Sure, I've always had an interest in submarines and U
boats and that kind of thing, And I remember my
dad paddled my hide and when he found me trying
to put a couple of barrels together to make a
submarine for the local pond and he thought I was nuts,
and I was nuts, and me and my twelve year
old friend got a butt lash and back in the day.
(18:35):
But yeah, I'm a history graduate, so I've always had
an interest in history, and I got most of the
master's that went on, got a law degree of practice
law for a long time as as a lawyer.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
But the.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
My interest in U boats has always been present submarines.
I grew up, you know, knowing some people that were
in American submariners and and and back in the ninety
I had a deep interest in German U boats and
I went out and searched out and formed a relationship
(19:08):
with Eric Topp, who was the third leading tonna jase
for the Germans in his boat five five to two,
the Red Devil boat. And I got to know top
very well and met him several times, and stayed with
him in Germany, and went to a crew reunion with him,
and I had him write he was going to write
(19:30):
a foreword for a book I was putting together with
a bunch of different U boat experts called Silent hunters,
German U boat commanders in World War Two. And I
had these experts pick a U boat commander who had
done something really extraordinary, but it was it's underreported and
most people had never really heard of it in depth.
And so we published this book Silent Hunters in the
(19:52):
late nineties and Eric Topp gave me an article in German.
He was going to write the forward, but he said,
I've got something else for you. And he sends me
this article in German and I'm looking at it and
I could read military German passibly, and I'm reading it.
I'm thinking, oh my gosh, I think this is what
I think it is. It was rumored that back in
(20:15):
during the war he had written an essay or written
an article about his best friend uh uh Engelbert Dross,
who was a knights crossholder who was sunk off Gibraltar,
and that Top had written this very personal, deep article
about him and their relationship and their friendship and all that,
(20:36):
but it had never been seen or published. And that's
what he sent me, and and so I had it
translated and footnoted by Eric Rust, who was a real
U boat expert down at in Waco, Texas, and we
published that as the as the first essay in Silent Hunters.
It's magnificent, and Topp also wrote the ForWord for my
(20:59):
second book, which had many of the same contributors, and
that was called Hunt and Kill U five O five
and the U Boat War in the Atlantic. I had
met Hans Garbler, who was one of the U boat
crewman on U five oh five, and he did every
cruise on U five oh five. Of course, that's the
boat in Chicago today. That's magnificently interpreted. And so you know,
(21:25):
I did that book as well, and so I got
to know the community. I got to know a lot
of different people in the community. Uh, and I just
find it deeply fascinating and endlessly interesting. Excellent.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
Yeah, well, Ted, I know we're out of time, but
one last question before I let you go is hopefully
we have some aspiring writers listening and any advice that
you would care to give them as we wrap things up.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Yeah, sign up for the Right Now class at the topic.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
I love it. It's it's nearly free and truly it's
nearly free, and and it's uh, it's they're a lot
of fun, but they're really really insightful. Yeah. The biggest
thing is in the beginning is make sure you understand
what you're biting off you're going to write a book
because it's a lonely endeavor. You're going to alienate yourself
(22:19):
from your family. If you're married, your wife or your
husband's not going to be real happy at certain times
because you're always alone. And it takes a long time.
And most authors who start writing never finish. But they'll
put in weeks or months or years of labor and
work and money, uh, and never finished because they end
up picking the wrong topic. So picking the right topics
(22:42):
really important. I've got an entire class on that. But
that's my best My best advice is be dedicated to it.
It's something you have to do even if you don't
get published. That's a key that you want to finish it,
even if you don't get published, because then you'll know
whether or not you'll love the product enough, the topic
enough to finish absolutely.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
Yeah, maybe one last time, give everybody your website address
so they go out there and find more information about
the right class.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Yeah, I'd be happy to do that. It's Savus Batty
one word Sabasbaty dot com. It's s A v A
S b As and boy e A t I. E.
Batty was my ex partner he's sadly passed away Savasbaty
dot com. And at the top and one of the links,
you'll see the right now class link and you can
click on there and you'll see all the information what
(23:36):
the classes are about, and pretty soon I'll be announcing
the start of another set of the classes.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Excellent, Well again, ladies and gentlemen, go out there sign
up for Ted's class, especially if you're thinking about writing
a book. Ted, thank you so much for spending a
few minutes with us today and letting us know what
goes on behind the scenes, if you will, because I
think a lot of people they just know somebody who
wrote the book, and then they see it at a
bookstore or on Amazon, they kind of pick it up, and
(24:06):
a lot of people don't know all the hard work
and frustration that goes in between the beginning and the
end of that process.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Oh it is, Yeah, it absolutely is. And by the way,
my email is on the website and so if under
the about us contact us. So if anybody has a
question on any of this, I am more than happy.
I like to give back to the community, and if
you have a question, shoot me a question. I'd be
happy to answer.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
All right Ted again, thank you so much for spending
a few minutes with us today. We really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
Yeah, Doug, thanks for having me. I appreciate it very much.
Hello everyone, and welcome to the Ernie Pile World War
Two Museum Podcast, your podcast of Ernie Pyle, the voice
of the American soldier during World War Two. My name
is Doc HEAs and I am the co host of
this podcast with my son Drew. And if you're tuning
in to the Ernie Pile World War Two Museum Podcast,
what we do on this podcast is share with you
(00:36):
pieces of piles life from this humble beginning on an
Indiana farm to becoming a post surprise winning American journalist
and war correspondent who is best known for his stories
about ordinary American soldiers during World War Two. You can
find out more information about Ernie Poe on our Facebook
page at Friends of Ernie Pyle, or follow us on
Twitter or Instagram at Ernie Powle Legacy. Again on Twitter
(00:58):
and Instagram, that is Earning Pile Legacy. Hello everyone, and
welcome back to another edition of the Earning Power World
War Two Museum Podcast. And today we have a very
special guest with us today, Ted Savas, and he is
a publisher and author, and what we thought we'd do
a little today on this episode of the Earning Power
World War Two Museum Podcast is really talk about publishing
(01:22):
in journal in general. And I know Ted here is
a big history buff, and he's going to talk to
us a little bit about, for lack of a better word,
how the sausage is made when it comes to getting
a book published. And so Ted, first of all, welcome
to the Earning Power World War Two Museum Podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Yeah, Doug, thanks, thanks very much for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Well, thank you for agreeing to spend just a few
minutes of your busy time to come on board and
really talk to us about, like I said, publishing. And
you know, when we hear the word writing a book
or publishing, sometimes people think it's it's pretty easy and
all you have to do is a typewriter or a
word processor and crank something out and wall wall the
(02:06):
next thing you know, you're going to find it. Barns
and Nobles are on Amazon. But it's really not as
easy as that.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
No, it's really not. It's it's quite an endeavor. And
you know, publishing is there's an old saying that everybody
is a frustrated rock star or author, and there's a
certain general want of truth to that. But you know
a lot of people, you know, we read, we love books.
(02:35):
We love the concepts of a book, and how does
it something like that start and get created, and what
kind of time and effort does it take? And you know,
there are some estimates there are something like three million
or four million finished or mostly finished manuscripts just sitting
rubber banded up in closet somewhere because people, you know,
(02:56):
take on more than they can chew. They realize it's
a task that's just so difficult, and then they finish
and they can't get books published because it's very hard,
you know, to do. It's easier today in the sense
that you can self publish right and go out Amazon
in different places and and pay people to publish your book.
But then generally you end up with you know, ten
(03:18):
cases of books in your in your house and sell
you know, twelve copies. It's because you're not marketing, you're
not doing everything else, so it's very difficult. But yeah,
I'm really looking forward to your questions on this and
I'd love to love to answer them for you and
have some fun with it.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Yeah, it sounds great. So, Ted, I know you've been
you know, a publisher and author, you've been an editor
and in all those different hats. But really, from a
publisher standpoint, what are you looking for when somebody pitches
you an idea?
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Sure, so I run. I'm a founder and run Savas
Beaty Publishing Company s A V A S B E
A T A E dot dot com. People can find
us online and it's you know, we're primarily we're a
military and general history publishing company. We focus on American
Civil War, Revolutionary War, and then we do some World
(04:11):
War two things. And as an agent, I've agented a
lot of World War two books out there to different publishers.
And you know, what we're looking for has changed over
the years, Doug, because it was easier in the past
to sell certain books and it's harder today to sell
(04:32):
different kinds of books. So, for example, today you're really
looking and most this is true of most publishers. They're
looking for authors that are well connected in terms of
social media. They have an online presence, They're willing to
do podcasts, go sign books, post on Instagram, post on X,
(04:53):
post on Facebook, and interact with audiences. And the reason
that's so critical today is because bookstores are dying, right,
So you used to find a lot of these books
by walking around bookstores and you'd see a cover you
like and you pick it up and you flip through it.
And most books today are found online, and so it's
(05:16):
really important to find an author with a topic that
is interested and has a built in reader base and
have those merge in sort of a unique way that
makes it much easier to get that book out there
through the noise and into the hands of buyers.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
You know, Tanna, I think you're spot on, because I
can tell you from my experience doing this podcast in
another podcast, is that I won't say a lot, but
every book, once in a while I will get an
author that will pitch me an idea. And I think
that's kind of what you're referring to about coming on
podcasts and promoting yourself on X and then a lot
(05:52):
of times I'll be at night just kind of scrolling
through the different types of social media and that's where
I found some authors as well, and I invited them
on the show, and they've been very gracious to be
able to come on and really talk and want to
promote their book as well.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Sure, well, you know it's interesting and I don't want
to go, you know, too fright down this track because
it's a little down their habital. But it is interesting.
When the Internet first started, you know, in the in
the mid nineties, and it really sort of started cranking up,
it really wiped out a lot of small and mid
sized publishers because they didn't get ahead of the digital
book curve, and it get into the Internet fast enough.
(06:33):
Sales started dropping in certain ways, and prices started coming down,
and it became a difficult market to navigate. And when
that happened, the Internet became sort of in amazons and
then the discounts eBay. Then everybody knew what was in
everybody else's closet and you could sell a book for
(06:54):
five dollars that before people had to go out and
pay more money for and it really hurt publishers. And
so now it's sort of that still exists. But something
else has happened that's very unique, and a lot of
people are a lot of publishers have been slow, I
think to realize it. We've been really working it hard.
(07:15):
And that is is that readers and interest groups have
self segregated into topics. So it used to be really hard.
You'd buy a mailing list and you'd have to blast
catalogs out there and hope, hope it got to somebody's mailbox.
You can go on to Facebook and find a group
that's interested in World War two, American tanks, yes, or
(07:37):
interested in Gettysburg, or interested in the Western theater of
the Civil War, whatever it is, and they'll have two
thousand members, five thousand members, twenty thousand members. And you
can put one post up there a week and hit
thousands of people.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Free right now.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
And the people see and the people Doug are the
ones that are really really interested in the topic. And
so that has made it easier to take the right
titles and the right authors and market books today. But
that's it's something that a lot of people don't yet realize.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
I think, Yeah, now, you know you were talking about
the Civil War, world War two, and do you find
that you get.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
A lot of.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
People wanting to publish on the same topic over and
over again and not really trying to spread their wings
and explore different opportunities or topics within say the Civil War,
world War two.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
So you mean like you'd be taken author author X
and he stays within the Civil War, keeps writing on
that instead of going beyond it.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
No, I guess what I'm saying is sometimes when somebody's
pitching you an idea, it's always about the main like
generally or grant instead of topics that maybe need to
be told that are not as familiar to the public.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
With yes, I mean, you'll you know, you see that
in you see that in every topic. Right in World
War Two you get the same four or five types memoirs,
and then here's another d Day book, and right, and
here's another book about the paratroopers, and but there's all
these different things to you know, to cover. It's the
same thing in the Civil War and a little less
(09:24):
so in the Revolutionary War. But but yes, I see
that all the time. And if people go to our
website and start looking around, they're going to see books
on a lot of different topics because we really go
out of our way, you know, to find something that's
very well researched. First thing I ever looked at is
the bibliography of a manuscript, very well research on a
(09:47):
topic that we think we can sell. Because we're trade press,
we have to profit with the right author and then
have it be a little off the beaten path, and
so it could be a regimental history. We've got a
a logistics study coming out on feeding Roberty Lee's Army,
which is a completely unique, very interesting book. You know,
(10:09):
we're doing Atlanta campaign stuff, and you know, in the
World War Two we do some you know, U boat
stuff that's off the beaten path, different kinds of things. So, yeah,
that's a really good point you're making. And I can't
tell you how many times we turned down managements because
there's been thirty books on that same topic and there's
nothing new that you have to say because looking at
(10:29):
a bibliography and I know the sources and there's nothing
new that you're gonna say.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
Yeah, it's already been said. It's not that it's not
well written book. It's just that we've already read that
thirty times, like you said.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Yeah, exactly. And I just don't you know, my customers
know me real well. I've got a big social media presence.
I interact with all of them. We do meetups where
we meet personally with well, we'll have like one hundred
and twenty different people in about thirty of our authors
and we'll do two or three days of battlefield touring
and meetings and and and it's free and we have
(11:01):
a lot of fun and so they know that I'm
going to publish books that are cutting edge and new
and fresh, and it's not going to be the same
thing over and over. It's a good point you're making, Doug.
It's a very important one.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Yeah, Ted, what are some of the biggest mistakes that
you see when somebody is trying to pitch you an idea?
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Yeah, that's that. That's a great question too. So let
me answer that by going backward just and I'm not
really trying to promote it, but if you go to
our website, top of the website savas Baty dot com,
you'll see a link to a series of classes. They're
called right Now w R I t e like, write
(11:47):
a book right now. And I started those classes and
I run them. There's like seven of them in a
row once a week, and I run them every so often,
and you can check on there and see when and invariably,
I mean, there are anywhere from thirty to one hundred
and thirty people in these classes, and they're by Zoom
and they're all about exactly what you're talking about, the mistakes,
(12:10):
seeing the gears behind the machine of publishing, what's really
happening during a submission process. How to really choose the
right title for you, what it really takes to write
a book, and the questions you need to ask, and
how you need to begin so you don't waste two
years of your life, those kinds of things. And so
one of the things not to get back directly to
(12:31):
your question. One of the things about the mistakes I
see when somebody pitches me a book is they don't
realize that a big part of the submissions process is
a filtering process to get rid of you. Wow. So
we ask, as do all publishers, we'll say specifically, this
(12:54):
is what we're looking for, this is what we're not
looking for. I don't want your manuscript in full. I
want to query, and here are the six questions I
want you to answer in the letter to help us,
you know, wead through and try to figure out whether
we're interested and if the author can't follow basic directions
at the beginning and want to say, well, and we
(13:16):
have authors, those potential authors who will say, well, you know,
I read what you wanted, but really that's not what's
really important. Let me tell you what's really important about
my manuscript. Well, that's an immediate deletion because if we
can't work with you at the very beginning, and you
can't follow directions to work within a system. It's going
to get to get harder as we go on and
(13:37):
you deal with editors and designers and such. So it's
a filtering process. And so I tell every potential author,
when you're writing a book, regardless of the topic, find
a similar book, figure out who the publisher was, figure
out what their submission guidelines are, figure out how your
(13:58):
book is different, and then follow their submission guidelines mm
hmm exactly and fit in. Don't get filtered out right.
That's the first step.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Uh. And that's probably one of the most important things.
And I think you make a great point is if
you can't work with the author at the beginning, like
you said, how are you going to work with them
through the next six months, year, or whatever it takes
in order to get a book through the process.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Yeah, because you know, we're going to pass them on
to our author liaison, and that person's going to set
up you know, events and media events, and and our
marketing director is going to work with them to set
up you know, the formatting of the of the digital
stuff for books and information and and there's a process
and a system to do it. And if you're going
(14:51):
to come in and you know, think that you're going
to do it just your way, and then it just
doesn't work. And and so it's everybody's got to work
to get as a team. And then that's just really
really important. That's what I tell all potential authors. Be
a part of the team, not not to somebody who's
going to tell the successful publisher how to do with
the job.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
Sure well, and Ted, maybe talk a little bit also
about I'm certain that you probably get a lot of submissions,
and maybe talk about the ratio between the number of
opp requests you get to look at the manuscript compared
to the number that you actually pick and publish within
(15:33):
a year.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Sure, we get anywhere from one to five submissions a day, wow,
And so it's not unusual at the end of the year.
You know, let's say there's three hundred and sixty five
days a year, you know, we could have you know,
a thousand manuscript submissions, more small trade press, and so
(15:56):
I think we'll publish you know, twenty some books in
the spring cycle and probably twenty five in the fall cycle.
So you know, you're talking say forty ish books a
year and from a thousand submissions, and so it's a
pretty low success ratio. But I also take you know,
(16:19):
submissions out of there. And if I think I can
help an author and we can't publish it, I'm also
an agent, and so if I really think something is
really good but we can't run with it, I've got
you know, contacts with other presses, and I'll help agent
a book or I'll give people advice on how to
get it published somewhere else. And so I try to
help people. I try to give back that way, and
people help me, and you know, I try to pass
(16:41):
that along. But it's hard to get published. It's not
it's not easy. And if you want to get traditionally published,
it takes it takes time. It's just it's it's you're
in the no business. People are going to tell you
no a lot, right, and so you just have to
be to be in a no business. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
Well, and I I guess my point to the listeners are,
if you're thinking about submitting a topic for a book,
like you said, you may get a thousand, but you're
only picking forty of those thousands, so the odds are
against you.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Yeah, And it's even less than that because out of
those forty, I'm constantly working with authors all the time
in developing topics that never go through our submission guidelines.
So I mean probably fifty or eighty the books we published,
maybe more have been books that I've ideas that I've
come up with that I've pitched to different authors and
(17:37):
have developed over the years into finished products. And so
it's even less than yelling you yeah, yeah, oh.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
That's great. Well, ten, I know we're getting closer here
on time. But one thing I wanted to ask you is,
you know, how did you get into I know you're
an author and you've written some books yourself, but maybe
kind of tell a little bit about your story about
how you got into some of these topics that you've
written about. You mentioned earlier in the podcast that you're
(18:08):
really big into U boats and me kind I talked
a little bit about how that all came about.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Sure, I've always had an interest in submarines and U
boats and that kind of thing, And I remember my
dad paddled my hide and when he found me trying
to put a couple of barrels together to make a
submarine for the local pond and he thought I was nuts,
and I was nuts, and me and my twelve year
old friend got a butt lash and back in the day.
(18:35):
But yeah, I'm a history graduate, so I've always had
an interest in history, and I got most of the
master's that went on, got a law degree of practice
law for a long time as as a lawyer.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
But the.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
My interest in U boats has always been present submarines.
I grew up, you know, knowing some people that were
in American submariners and and and back in the ninety
I had a deep interest in German U boats and
I went out and searched out and formed a relationship
(19:08):
with Eric Topp, who was the third leading tonna jase
for the Germans in his boat five five to two,
the Red Devil boat. And I got to know top
very well and met him several times, and stayed with
him in Germany, and went to a crew reunion with him,
and I had him write he was going to write
(19:30):
a foreword for a book I was putting together with
a bunch of different U boat experts called Silent hunters,
German U boat commanders in World War Two. And I
had these experts pick a U boat commander who had
done something really extraordinary, but it was it's underreported and
most people had never really heard of it in depth.
And so we published this book Silent Hunters in the
(19:52):
late nineties and Eric Topp gave me an article in German.
He was going to write the forward, but he said,
I've got something else for you. And he sends me
this article in German and I'm looking at it and
I could read military German passibly, and I'm reading it.
I'm thinking, oh my gosh, I think this is what
I think it is. It was rumored that back in
(20:15):
during the war he had written an essay or written
an article about his best friend uh uh Engelbert Dross,
who was a knights crossholder who was sunk off Gibraltar,
and that Top had written this very personal, deep article
about him and their relationship and their friendship and all that,
(20:36):
but it had never been seen or published. And that's
what he sent me, and and so I had it
translated and footnoted by Eric Rust, who was a real
U boat expert down at in Waco, Texas, and we
published that as the as the first essay in Silent Hunters.
It's magnificent, and Topp also wrote the ForWord for my
(20:59):
second book, which had many of the same contributors, and
that was called Hunt and Kill U five O five
and the U Boat War in the Atlantic. I had
met Hans Garbler, who was one of the U boat
crewman on U five oh five, and he did every
cruise on U five oh five. Of course, that's the
boat in Chicago today. That's magnificently interpreted. And so you know,
(21:25):
I did that book as well, and so I got
to know the community. I got to know a lot
of different people in the community. Uh, and I just
find it deeply fascinating and endlessly interesting. Excellent.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
Yeah, well, Ted, I know we're out of time, but
one last question before I let you go is hopefully
we have some aspiring writers listening and any advice that
you would care to give them as we wrap things up.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Yeah, sign up for the Right Now class at the topic.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
I love it. It's it's nearly free and truly it's
nearly free, and and it's uh, it's they're a lot
of fun, but they're really really insightful. Yeah. The biggest
thing is in the beginning is make sure you understand
what you're biting off you're going to write a book
because it's a lonely endeavor. You're going to alienate yourself
(22:19):
from your family. If you're married, your wife or your
husband's not going to be real happy at certain times
because you're always alone. And it takes a long time.
And most authors who start writing never finish. But they'll
put in weeks or months or years of labor and
work and money, uh, and never finished because they end
up picking the wrong topic. So picking the right topics
(22:42):
really important. I've got an entire class on that. But
that's my best My best advice is be dedicated to it.
It's something you have to do even if you don't
get published. That's a key that you want to finish it,
even if you don't get published, because then you'll know
whether or not you'll love the product enough, the topic
enough to finish absolutely.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
Yeah, maybe one last time, give everybody your website address
so they go out there and find more information about
the right class.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Yeah, I'd be happy to do that. It's Savus Batty
one word Sabasbaty dot com. It's s A v A
S b As and boy e A t I. E.
Batty was my ex partner he's sadly passed away Savasbaty
dot com. And at the top and one of the links,
you'll see the right now class link and you can
click on there and you'll see all the information what
(23:36):
the classes are about, and pretty soon I'll be announcing
the start of another set of the classes.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Excellent, Well again, ladies and gentlemen, go out there sign
up for Ted's class, especially if you're thinking about writing
a book. Ted, thank you so much for spending a
few minutes with us today and letting us know what
goes on behind the scenes, if you will, because I
think a lot of people they just know somebody who
wrote the book, and then they see it at a
bookstore or on Amazon, they kind of pick it up, and
(24:06):
a lot of people don't know all the hard work
and frustration that goes in between the beginning and the
end of that process.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Oh it is, Yeah, it absolutely is. And by the way,
my email is on the website and so if under
the about us contact us. So if anybody has a
question on any of this, I am more than happy.
I like to give back to the community, and if
you have a question, shoot me a question. I'd be
happy to answer.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
All right Ted again, thank you so much for spending
a few minutes with us today. We really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
Yeah, Doug, thanks for having me. I appreciate it very much.
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