Book Publishing: Proposals and Permissions,

1
Book Publishing Proposals and Permissions,
Lessons from the Trenches

• Estimated Completion Date
• When do you think you can have a complete draft
  ready? Be realistic.
• Competition (aka Similar or Related Works)
• What existing books will your work be up against?
  If youve found an empty niche, good for you! A
  table format is an effective way to convey this
  information
• Include columns for title, author, publisher,
  publication date, price, and intended audience
  (if discernable).
• Include a column to reflect how the other books
  compare to yours in intent, e.g., textbook,
  reference book, self help, novel, etc.
• Market Readership
• What (and how many) people are likely to buy your
  book? To convince the publisher to take you on,
  try to show that your work will have either broad
  appeal, or if your audience is specific, try to
  show that your book will be a must have for
  every member of that audience. Some demographic
  research may be in order, or book publishing
  statistics. Make an effort show that youve done
  your homework.
• Sample Chapters
• The publisher wants a sense of your writing
  ability and style. Requirements vary usually the
  publisher will want to see at least two,
  sometimes three chapters. (They can be from
  anywhere in the book.) You may also be asked to
  supply a Preface or Introduction.
• About the Author
• What makes you the best person to write this
  book? Youll usually need to convey this in just
  a paragraph or two. If you include your CV (as an
  appendix), edit it down, keeping only the
  elements pertinent to the matter at hand why you
  are the person to write this book.

The Proposal How do you start? Find the
publishers Instructions for Authors usually
available on the publishers website. Write your
proposal using the headings they request follow
the directions! Typically what they are looking
for is Overview (aka Scope Purpose, or
Synopsis) A broad paragraph that encapsulates
what the book is about may include your
motivation for writing it, or the goals it will
achieve. One of the hardest parts of the proposal
to write. Needs to immediately capture the
publishers attention. Revise it as the proposal
nears completion. Tentative Title Dont expend
too much energy here the title is not actually
that important at this point. But it expresses
something about your book and the publisher is
interested in what you have in mind. Table of
Contents Its understood that this is
preliminary. Provide subheadings as well as
chapter titles. Basically, create an outline for
the book, and use the top two heading levels as
your TOC. Content Overview A chapter-by-chapter
description of the books content, in paragraph
form. Dont be pedantic group similar chapters
into one paragraph, keep it brief but
informative. Presentation (aka Methodology) Are
you planning to include graphics, screen shots,
tables, charts, sidebars, ancillary CDs,
websites, answer keys, or other teaching aids?
Try to describe any approaches you intend to use
beyond straight text, or that differ from
existing works. Estimated Length You will be
asked to give an estimate either in terms of word
count or page count or both. This may be hard to
predict, but the TOC, sample chapters, and a
preface or introduction, will help. If you intend
to use a lot of graphics in some chapters, draft
one of those, along with a mainly textual
chapter. Average the number of pages of the two
and multiply by your total chapters, then add in
the TOC, acknowledgements and dedication (if
using), references, and index. Err on the high
side its easier to cut than to add. The
publisher needs this to draft a budget for your
project.
Permissions Once you have a contract, if you
plan to use screen shots of commercial products,
or major portions of text from another source,
you need to get going on obtaining permission to
use the material. Do Start as early as
possible. Get an official permission request
form from the publisher. Map out your material
enough to determine the exact set of materials
you intend to use. If possible, create an
electronic file showing the screen snaps,
graphics, charts, etc. Get on the phone call
the vendor, and ask for the Legal Department (may
also be called Rights and Permissions). Keep
digging until you get to a specific person to
whom you can send your form and list of requested
items (suggest sending them as attachments to
email). Beware! If you are featuring a database
whose content is produced by one body (an
association, for example) but offered via another
(FirstSearch or Ovid, for example), you will need
to get permission from BOTH organizations. If you
want to reprint material from a commercial
publication, such as a newspaper or weekly
magazine, be ready to insert money. They charge.
Dont Try to work through the vendors sales
rep, no matter how well acquainted you are with
him or her (which makes it seem like the easy
way to do this). They are wonderful people, but
this is not their usual territory. Unfortunately,
for about half the vendors I had to get
permissions from, working through the sales rep
was a huge mistake, and seriously slowed the
process down. Again, dont make up your own form
get something that looks official, that has the
publishers logo on it. To reiterate do not
leave this process until the last minute! Even
saying yes takes a long, long time in the legal
arena.
And if everything works out it may be the
beginning of a beautiful relationship!
Writing Tips Organize and outline Be organized
work at the outline level first. Its much easier
to see if your progression of ideas is logical
(and to move them around if not) when they are in
outline form than when they are buried in
paragraphs of text. If you can put together an
outline, you can probably write the book. Write
and edit Once you have an outline, start
writing. Dont approach it as if you have to get
it right the first time just write, and then
edit, edit, edit. If you feel blocked, write as
if you were telling someone about it orally. You
can always fix the tone when you edit. And dont
think you have to begin at page 1 and go
continuously from there begin wherever the
spirit moves you at the time. Seek input When
youve written and edited, give the drafts to
other people to read and mark up, and edit again.
Lose your ego the end result will benefit.
Photo credits Astaire dancing the musical
films. John Mueller. New York Wings Books
Distributed by Outlet Book Co., c1991, pp. 114,
299. Cinema year by year, 1894-2004. Robyn
Karney, ed. London New York Dorling Kindersley,
2004, p. 269.