Reflections on seeking a publisher 4: On writing proposals

In my experience, proposals are more difficult and nerve-wracking than writing the book. When I work on my book, I think about the strengths and about what I can offer to people through my writing. When I work on a proposal, it’s hard not to think about the possibility of acceptance and rejection, which is rather more stressful.

In writing, I find it crucial to hold on to my ideas as a foundation and focus first, before considering other people’s interests. But for a proposal, especially, I have to speak to someone else’s interests. It’s all well and good for me to believe that I have great ideas and that everyone could benefit from reading my book, but, realistically, the editor at a publishing house doesn’t much care about me; they care about their job and about finding books that will sell, and who knows what else?  If I want that editor to do something—like read my proposal, or offer me a contract—it’s important to know what they want, because that knowledge gives me a better chance of writing something that will suit that editor.

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Reflections on seeking a publisher 3: Write the proposal before the book?

Before I started the proposal process for my book, I had written a complete draft (as well as two almost-complete early drafts), and also hired an editor to check that draft. I had, in short, a pretty mature draft. But the questions publishers ask about the completeness of the draft, led me to wonder whether that was the best plan for seeking publication.

Common proposal questions ask: “When do you plan to finish the book?”, and “When can you deliver the manuscript?”, which seem primarily relevant for proposals written by people who have not yet completed their book.

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Reflections on seeking a publisher 2: A lengthy process

The process of proposing and publishing takes a long time, so patience is important. I started the proposal process nine months ago, and there’s a chance I may be working on a new proposal soon. There are ways that I could have saved time in the process, but even if I had been maximally efficient, I would still have been looking at a process of several months.

In February, I sent my first proposal to an agent who specifically requested sole consideration, which was fine with me, given that part of why I was trying an agent was to avoid doing multiple proposals. (I will discuss the question of giving publisher sole consideration in a future post.) The agent’s website said if I hadn’t gotten a response within six weeks that I should assume that my proposal was rejected, so I waited (and avoided the difficult task of preparing another proposal).  When I hadn’t heard within five weeks, I started to work again, thinking about to whom to send my next proposal.

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Reflections on seeking a publisher 1: Introduction

For most of this past year, I have been in seeking a publisher for my book for graduate students about using scholarly literature. As I write this, my proposal is scheduled to be discussed at a publication meeting a few days from now, and by the time this blog post gets published, I will either have a contract offer or another rejection.

In this and the following posts, I reflect on some of the issues that have come up in my process—issues that might be of interest to writers who are not yet experienced in proposing books to publishers. Those with more experience might view my reflections as naive (and if so, feel free to comment), but those with less experience might at least find comfort in someone else struggling with similar issues, even if they don’t find useful suggestions.

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How to develop a great webinar to promote your book

A webinar is an excellent promotional tool for your books, work, and services. Combining PowerPoint slides and audio on a subject to which viewers/listeners plug in on the Internet, a webinar delivers valuable information and shows you’re the one to deliver more. But to accomplish this purpose, you’ve gotta do it well. As the proud veteran of one webinar (I blush to admit with some excellent feedback), here I’ll share some points about designing and delivering an excellent webinar.

For the webinar on my book Trust Your Life: Forgive Yourself and Go After Your Dreams (Unity Books, 2011), I had wonderful help and structure from the publisher’s promotion director. But you can achieve similar results alone or with a few seasoned colleagues. In any case, the steps are similar.

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Scholarly Kitchen founder Kent Anderson to keynote at 2018 TAA Conference

Kicking off TAA’s 2018 Textbook & Academic Authoring Conference this year is keynoter Kent R. Anderson, CEO of RedLink, a past-President of the Society for Scholarly Publishing, and the founder of “The Scholarly Kitchen” blog. In his keynote, Anderson will discuss how scholarly practices are of critical importance as we face an information economy that has become increasingly overwhelmed with self-interested distortions of fact presented on an equal footing with facts and research findings. As the current environment evolves, scholars who seek to express and share findings based in observable reality are increasingly challenged or, worse, dismissed. He will argue the need for new approaches, governance, and practices by researchers, educators, and publishers in order to preserve quality information, the relevance of science, and the ascendancy of objective reality.

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