I work with a lot of aspiring authors. Many of them have exciting and promising ideas. “Can’t the acquisitions editors at these publishers see the promise of my idea?”, they ask? No, they can’t. Editors who invested in the promise of books have been burned. A lot. Authors routinely fail to live up to that…
An author contacted me recently regarding his book proposal. His agent had accepted it and shopped it to some publishers; there were some nibbles, but no bites. This guy was well positioned: good speaking career, solid book idea, well-written sample chapter. Now he wanted to know if I could help him to improve the proposal….
Don’t try to sell an acquisitions editor. They hate it. To pitch a book to a traditional publisher, you need a book proposal that describes what’s in the book and how you will promote it. The audience for that proposal is the acquisitions editor at a publishing house: the person or group who makes the…
I see lots of book proposals. Somebody told a bunch of these writers to start with “Overview.” Those proposals leave me nodding off. They’re a lot less likely to sell, too. Your proposal should grab the editor by the throat from the first word. Your proposal should shout, “This person is an awesome writer!” with…
If you’re writing a nonfiction book, your proposal is crucial. It’s a complicated and diverse document. But for the acquisitions editor at a publishing house to make you an offer — or for an agent to represent you — you need only answer three questions: Is your idea a good idea? Can you write? Will…
Your agent has sent out your proposal. Now the rejections are coming in. This is typical. It’s the rare proposal that interests all the editors to whom it’s pitched. What you learn from rejections Here are a few insights that can help you make use of what you learn from rejections: Expect rejection. This is…
You finally got a literary agent to engage about your book proposal. Now they’re no longer getting back to you and things are stalled. How can you move forward? The first thing you need to accept is that, as friendly as agents may seem, they are transactional by nature, because they only get paid if…
So, you wrote a book proposal — maybe just a quick little query. You sent it to an editor at a traditional publishing house that somebody introduced you to. And they like it! Time to celebrate, right? Umm, no. You need to check your publisher-to-English dictionary first. The publisher-to-English dictionary Here are all the possible…
I made a pretty decent living as a writer this year, and I’m grateful — not many writers can say that. I thought it might help other writers and whatever friends and fans I have out there to peek into how I did it, so here’s a retrospective of a writer’s life in 2017. I…