If you ever wondered what the “S” in James S. Fell stands for, it’s Stanley. This was my grandfather’s name, and a more awesome dude I have not met.

Last fall I was studying for the CSCS, and I told my wife that it stood for Certified Sex and Cunnilingus Specialist. That actually got a small chuckle out of her.

If you don’t know, it really stands for Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist. I apologize, but this post is going to be more informational and less Nickelback sucks / my son kicked me in the nuts / the reptard can’t shit. In other words, you may find this boring, but if you’re actually interested to learn what is happening with my book and what my plans are for the future of getting it published, then feel free to keep reading.

Before getting into the details of the exam, I want to explain a little bit about the non-fiction book market and what it takes to get published. To contrast, in fiction writing all you need to do is be an awesome writer with a great tale to tell. Take J K Rowling: She was a complete nobody who is now a gazillionnaire because people love her stories and her writing style.

In non-fiction it is mostly about “platform.” Platform essentially means you’re either famous or a respected expert. For example, Dr. Phil wrote a bestselling weight loss book, even though he’s fat. The book sold a few million copies because, well, because he’s Dr. Phil. He could write a book about dog grooming and it would sell a million copies.

I’m not Dr. Phil. Therefore, I need to pursue the route of becoming a recognized expert.

In non-fiction writing the overnight success story is exceedingly rare. Like so many other career choices it takes a lot of time and effort to achieve success. One interesting parallel I can make is the band No Doubt. Many people think they were some kind of overnight success who exploded onto the music scene in 1995 with their album Tragic Kingdom, but in reality this was their third studio album and the band had been toiling as nobodies for a decade before they finally hit it big.

What I’m saying is, I am expecting this whole publishing thing to be a long and arduous process, but I intend to stick with it.

The majority of non-fiction books are actually written by people for whom writing is not their career. An example would be a well-known computer programming expert who decides to write a book about, you guessed it, programming computers. Even Dr. Phil is much more TV personality than he is author. For a lot of people, writing non-fiction is an add-on to their careers and a way to share their expertise. The majority of these people only ever write one book.

I’m one of those people who intend to make writing my career. Body for Wife is only the first book. I intend to write several more. For my numerous female fans, the second book will be for you.

I should note that I didn’t know all this when I started writing and launched my website a year ago. After I got my website up and had written 80% of the book I started looking for an agent to sell it. I sent out about 20 queries and got three agents asking to see a proposal and sample chapters. Two of the agents were well-respected with proven sales, but they both told me I need to work on building up my platform. Essentially, a publisher wants to know that you are well-known enough that your name will sell books; they want the writer to be able to do most of the promotional work. The quality of the content and the writing in non-fiction seems to take a distant second in the publisher’s eyes.

Incidentally, the third agent said she would take me on as a client, but I ended up turning her down because I didn’t think we’d be a good fit.

That was all last spring. I decided to put the whole agent / publisher search on hold and work on platform. One such step was to become certified as a personal trainer. I chose the CSCS because it is considered by many to be the “gold standard” of fitness certifications. It requires you to be a university degree holder and is brutally hard. Even though all those who write it have degrees, 35% of them still fail the exam.

I had to fly to Vancouver through a nightmare snowstorm to get to the exam last December 5^th. My flight was delayed a couple of hours due to weather and I made it to the testing center with frayed nerves and not much time to spare.

There are two parts to the exam and a passing grade is 70% for both sections. I got 90% on the scientific portion and 82% on the practical / applied. So, yes, I am now a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist. Yay, me.

Actually, the course was awesome. I learned a great deal. I intend to make a number of changes and additions to the book based on what I learned. Don’t worry, the information that is up there now is still very solid, but because I took this course it will be even better.

Having my wife as a co-author adds to our platform, being that she is an MD who has been a practicing family physician since 1997. She doesn’t do any of the writing, but she vetted the scientific content and helped my poor MBA brain understand a lot of the academic journals that I read through to create this book. Her input has been substantial. I’ve also got my peer review committee of experts.

So, that describes the expertise portion. Now I need to be famous.

This is what all the freelance writing is about. People seem to like my blog and I keep writing there because it draws more and more people to my butt-ugly website. I also enjoy writing that kind of stuff. Writing in various fitness magazines and getting a regular column at AOL’s That’s Fit have done a great job of getting my name out there. I’ve also sold two fitness-related humor stories to a major international franchise that will be published in the first half of this year, and that’s going to be big exposure for me.

I think I’m getting closer to having enough of a platform to start looking for an agent / publisher again, so I’m beginning that immediately. However, it’s a subjective assessment and I don’t like having to rely on the opinions of others regarding the marketability of this book for my success. I get a lot of fan mail from readers, and I know this book strikes an important chord with many people. They like the humor and the no bullshit / focus on gradual lifestyle change kind of approach (surprisingly, women seem to really like this book even though it’s written for men). Top literary agent and “how to” of the non-fiction industry author Michael Larsen asserts that the one thing that sells books more than anything else is word of mouth, and that word of mouth is generated more by a book being funny that any other attribute.

What this means is that while I’m going to be looking for an agent / publisher, I’m also taking steps towards self-publishing. Either way, I intend this book to be ready for sale by the middle of summer 2010.

At first I never thought I would self-publish, because it is often synonymous with crap. There is no quality control; people can essentially puke all over a page and self publish it, but if I’m going to do it, I’ll do it well.

I’m hiring a professional photographer for the how to photos in the book as well as for the cover, along with a professional editor, and a graphic designer to lay it all out. I want this thing to be indistinguishable from a book created by a top publisher. It will be available both in print and as an ebook. I figure the print copy will be available in the $20-25 range, but don’t hold me to that. It could be more, or it could be less.

And regarding the butt-ugly website: that will get an overhaul as well. I used a crappy free template to do this myself, which you can probably tell. This spring I’ll hire a professional web designer and make it all pretty. Just as a word of warning, the majority of the free content on this site will disappear by the end of spring, although the blog will stay.

It is going to take a lot of work to get this book ready for self-publishing, so I may not be blogging too much in the next six months. Instead I’ll be finishing the book, editing the shit out of the book, writing my biweekly column for AOL, and hopefully getting more freelance gigs in some big US magazines. Also, I’m going to be querying agents and publishers.

If I happen to find a publisher prior to self-publishing, then that will be the route I take. I don’t know what the odds are, but considering the state of the publishing industry right now I’m not going to hold my breath.

The good thing about self-publishing is that it can lead to getting traditionally published by a respected house. The rule of thumb is that if you can sell 5,000 copies of a self-published book in a one-year period then this is enough of a proof of concept to publishers for them to agree to take you on.

This is where you come in.

I’m going to do my part and make this book the best I possibly can, and then I’ll sell it for a fair price. Then you buy it, and you tell everyone else you know to buy it too. You get a great book that gets your ass in shape and I get money and hopefully a publishing deal. Everybody wins.

One of my favorite quotes is by Field Marshall Helmuth Carl Bernard von Moltke: "No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy."

In other words, this strategy is subject to change.

Thanks for reading.

James S. Fell, MBA, CSCS