Location: Books & Such Main Office, Santa Rosa, Calif.

Friday!

We made it!

I like to use my Fridays as reading days. I enjoy reading and look forward to it, so it’s a nice, end-of-the-week treat. I read manuscripts and proposals by authors that I’m considering representing, but I also read proposals and manuscripts by my current clients. Some agents don’t bother to put in the time to read over a proposal before it’s submitted, but my reputation is on the line. I like to be sure that everything is in place so the project has the best chance of selling.

While I read, I’m looking for a clean manuscript with tight writing. For fiction, I also want a smooth, believable plot that interests me and is likely to have broad appeal in the market. A proposal must have a clear statement of what the hook of the book is and a detailed author bio (including details about why this writer is qualified to write the project).

In nonfiction proposals, I also like to see a marketing section and a market comparison section. The marketing section shows how the author plans to help to distribute the book. The market comparison section is a compare/contrast with other books that are on the same topic. It’s important to show how a nonfiction book is unique.

In novel proposals, I look for a synopsis that covers the beginning, middle and end of the story. Yes, I want to know how the story ends.

Happy Friday, everyone! Take some time this weekend to read, too!

Location: Books & Such Nashville Office

Weather:  mid-80s

While it’s tempting to talk about the excess rain and devastating floods here in Nashville, I’m turning to things more bookish–due in part to several proposals I’ve seen lately. Authors often present their project as having potential to be a series. Aside from the quality of the writing, several considerations shape my response.

For nonfiction, it’s important to ask:

Does the topic lend itself to further exploration? If an author has a nonfiction manuscript that covers a decisive moment in a person’s life, the chances are good that it’s a one-book treatment. On the other hand, if that moment was the first of several that impacted later generations, there’s opportunity for a series.

Is the author an authority on the topic or have lengthy experience that could reasonable be extended to a series? Churchill’s four-volume set History of the English Speaking Peoples comes to mind, but there are countless others, especially political and war accounts. However, note that David McCullough wrote the single 1776 and did not extend it to a series–or hasn’t yet. The Ansel Adams’ three-book series, The Camera, The Negative, The Print, is a perfect example of an authority writing three detailed books on a subject that perhaps no other person had the public’s respect or the fame to write in the early 1980s.

Is the topic one that would interest contemporary readers? This may be the hardest to gauge. I wonder how many people would have guessed that a book about marriage relationships like Gary Chapman’s The Five Love Languages would be so popular and so needed as to spawn three more books. In this case, it’s not hard to guess that love and marriage are interesting topics, but the approach and the analysis were new, and the author had sufficient credentials to back up his content.

But making the decision about the aptness of creating a series is the combination of reading tea leaves and praying that makes publishing the fun enterprise it is!

Tomorrow, we’ll look at fiction series. Stay tuned.

Location: Books & Such Main Office, Santa Rosa, Calif.

Yesterday Gina brought up an excellent reason for why some multi-published authors might end up writing the “same” story more than once. She pointed out that authors often write on contracted deadlines. The books are to be written and turned into the publisher by a certain date. This does leave much less time for the rewriting and editing that can eliminate the “ruts.” (Thank you, Gina.)

An author’s first book isn’t usually written on a deadline. An author can take years to work over the manuscript. Then the book is published, does well, and the author is offered a new contract based on a synopsis and the first few chapters of a story. The new contract comes with a due date for the complete manuscript. Suddenly there’s pressure! Without a doubt the shortened amount of writing time can cause lower quality work.

Then there’s the “P” word. PROCRASTINATION! I’m guilty of it, are you? I’ve heard of many an author waiting until the last month before the deadline to write the contracted book. The publisher allotted the author 6 months to a year (typically) to write the book, but the author didn’t start until the last minute. Imagine what would happen if the author got sick during that month! Life happens, and it seems to “happen” all the more when you procrastinate. So, while writing on a deadline can affect the quality of an author’s work, procrastination always results in a rush job.

My advice to you: When writing on a deadline, set up a word count goal for each day or week and stick to it. Also leave a little time toward the end for feedback and revision. You owe it to your reader, your publisher and yourself to do your best!

Location: Books & Such Main Office, Santa Rosa, Calif.

Last week I spent most of my time working with clients in preparing proposals for submission to editors. As I interacted with various clients, I observed a truth I’ve seen time and time again–each of us has a preconceived notion about our projects that can make us intractable on certain points. And that inability to see a project with fresh eyes can keep us from finding a publisher for our work.

Two cases in point:

1. A client has a stunning idea with much potential. Tied to a key event in our country’s history, a book on this topic could make a significant contribution to the nation’s conversation. Yes, really. But the author is  convinced a publishing committee will understand the importance of such a book and therefore doesn’t  need to read the first two chapters of the book that set up the project’s importance. Instead, the author is submitting chapters starting with #3. May I just say that I have no confidence in an entire team at a publishing house “getting it”? My hope is that enough editors will ask for the first chapters to make my point. Wouldn’t it just be smarter to write those chapters?

2. Another client has a strong idea for a project, but the competition is stiff. I’m trying to get her to understand that she needs to more tightly focus her idea so it clearly is differentiated from books by well-known authors who have written on the same topic. But she’s so intent on her perception of her proposal that she can’t hear what I’m saying. It’s like deciding to open an ice cream shop but refusing to recognize that the three already established ice cream shops in town present a major roadblock to your success. Maybe you need to add clowns and free balloons to differentiate your shop. Whatever you choose, be smart about it; make your project stand out from a field crowded with celebs.

So what’s with this inability to listen? We all have blindsides, but these authors aren’t grasping that I’m pointing out significant issues that can make or break their next projects. It’s rather like the emperor who has no clothes. Plenty of folks will pretend right along with you that you’re regally garbed. And it can be dangerous to point out the, uh, naked truth, but somebody has to do it; wouldn’t you rather it be an astute critiquer or your agent–or even your mother–than an editor who chooses not to take your project to committee or a publishing committee that gives your project the thumbs down?

If you want to break out, you have to have a discerning ear: Whom should you listen to? Is it worth forcing yourself to put the brakes on your enthusiasm and refine your project? Or is the “naysayer” wrong, and you should barrel ahead full steam?

I’d say in the two examples I’ve just given that I’m not asking either writer to rethink an idea but to more thoroughly think about the idea. To take it to the next level. Now, that’s what makes a project one likely to break out–or break into a publishing.

Location: Books & Such Main Office, Santa Rosa, Calif.

Whenever I’m on the faculty of the Mount Hermon Writers Conference, I’m always on the lookout for a chance to chat with editors about how their publishing houses are doing. I’m usually surprised by a thing or two in these conversation.

Here’s what I heard at the conference that could be instructive for you. Most of these changes reflect the way the economic downturn has touched publishing. (I might add at this point that the downturn is past tense for publishers; they’ve made their adjustments.)

• Most publishers have lowered the amount of advances they can provide. Sales are down 30% post-economic downturn, and that means advance must be lowered as well.
• Smaller marketing budgets.
• Looking for authors who really understand how to use social networking to sell books and to build brand, not just to report what they ate for dinner.
• Opportunities for books that were unlikely to make money but seemed important to present to readers no longer exist in most publishing houses.
• “Risk averse” pretty much depicts every publisher’s stance.
• Looking for authors who put money and creativity into their marketing ideas.
• Publishing committees use the Internet during the meeting and are fact-checking what proposals state. So when you proclaim you have a certain number of Twitter followers and Facebook friends, those numbers are readily available. So be honest! Also, your web site needs to be in tiptop shape because it’s one of the first places the committee will go online.
• Most editors look at the writing first before they read the proposal–that’s for nonfiction as well as fiction. Yeah! Writing still bears a lot of weight on the decisions publisher’s make.
• Your marketing plan, which you included in your proposal, is considered part of your contract with the publisher; so you better be able to deliver what you promise.
• To be a success in the eyes of your publisher, all you need is an upward trajectory of sales, not a huge climb in sales with each release.
• Editors still love good writing and have a sense of sponsoring in-house each project they take on. They use words such as “It [a project] is my baby,” “I want to fall in love with a manuscript.”

So now, talk back to me. What’s your response to the info you’ve just read? What’s news to you? What’s old hat? What scares you? What challenges you?

Location: Books & Such Central Valley, California Office

Weather: Cloudy and 68º

Confession: All my life I’ve been a rule-follower. I obey all posted signs. I follow the letter of the law. I feel most comfortable with clear, unambiguous rules. I’m neither a maverick nor a risk-taker. There. In the interest of full disclosure, I’m glad that’s out.

When I was a new writer, I studied book after book, article after article about book proposals. I took at least a dozen different workshops on proposal writing —fiction, nonfiction, children’s. And you know what?  The more I learned, the more confused I became. When they say “table of content” in a proposal do they refer to the table of content of the book or of the proposal? (Hint: you’ll see both.)

Long before I became an agent, I cried “uncle” when it came to the rules of a good book proposal. For every carved-in-stone rule you’ll find, you’ll find an agent or an editor who’ll contradict that rule.

So what’s a writer to do?

Here are my common sense generic rules for creating a book proposal:

• If you are preparing a proposal for your agent, use the agency style sheet. If you are doing the proposal for a specific house, see if they have a sample proposal on their website to use as a guideline.
• Strip way all the voodoo that surrounds the proposal mystique. You are simply writing a business plan for the book. You’ll want to present the book in the best light and answer any potential question about the book or the author in advance.
• Don’t be annoying or cute. Be professional.
• Be distinctive. (This doesn’t mean fancy fonts or decoration.)
• Summarize the book succinctly. I like to see both a two or three sentence hook and a back-cover-copy-sized summary.
• Understand that the proposal for a novel and a nonfiction book will be different. The novel will need a synopsis while the nonfiction book gets an annotated table of contents, chapter by chapter.

The generic fiction proposal needs:

• Short Summary (Promo pitch—a couple of sentences)
• Longer Summary (Like back cover copy)
• Info about the book, including: Genre, Audience, Manuscript length
• Market Comparison
• Author Bio
• Synopsis (Not too long, a few pages—just enough to tell the story in detail.)
• Promotion Plans (This is a welcome addition in CBA, not so much in ABA)
• Three sample chapters

The generic nonfiction proposal needs:

• Short Summary (Promo pitch—a couple of sentences)
• Longer Summary (Like back cover copy)
• Info about the book, including: Catgory, Audience, Manuscript length
• Market Comparison
• Affinity Groups (Any markets or groups which will especially connect with the book?)
• Author Bio (including platform, if any)
• Annotated Table of Content, chapter by chapter
• Promotion Plans (Again this is a welcome addition in CBA, not so much in ABA)
• Three sample chapters

As for all the formatting rules—do the best you can to craft a clear, clean proposal. Most experts will tell you that the business part of the proposal is single spaced while the sample chapters are double-spaced in regular manuscript format (You can’t go wrong with Times New Roman 12 pt.).

Just remember, your goal is to give a clear picture of the book, the reason the bookstore will want to purchase the book, who the buyer will be, who the author is and what the author can do to partner with the publisher to make the book a success. Just like a business plan, the book proposal process will help you develop the book and keep you focused.

Now it’s your turn: What do you do in your proposals to give a clear picture of your book? Do you get so caught up in the dos and don’ts that book proposals become a chore? Got any hints for your fellow writers?