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12 Parts of a Perfect Pitch for a Nonfiction Book: Exciting Agents and Editors About Your Proposal

February 27, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Pitching your nonfiction book to an agent or editor takes less than thirty seconds. The goal: generate maximum excitement in as few words as possible. Without being self-serving, you must capture the essence of your book, why it will appeal to book buyers, and what’s most impressive about your platform, promotion plan, and credentials.

Books are either prose-driven or promotion-driven. Promotion  and platform–your continuing visibility, online and off. on the subject of your book with potential book buyers–aren’t as important for certain kinds of books such as reference books. They’re also not as important for academic presses, or for small, niche, or midsize houses outside of New York. So you have to be clear about your publishing goals for your book and what it takes to achieve them.

Half of the twelve parts of a pitch are optional; you may not need them. Here’s how to excite agents and of editors at Big Apple houses:

  1. A sentence with the title (and subtitle, if needed) and up to fifteen words that prove your book is unique and salable.
  2. The model(s) for your book: one or two books, movies, or authors–“It’s The Tipping Point meets The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.”
  3. (Optional) A narrative nonfiction book, such as a memoir, requires two or three sentences about the time, setting, and the story.
  4. The most important thing about your platform: what you are doing to give yourself continuing visibility on the subject, online or off, with potential book buyers, and if the number is impressive, how many of them, and where. Wrong: “I give talks.” Right: “I give X talks a year to Y people in major markets.”
  5. The most effective one-to-three things you will do to promote your book, online or off, and if the number is impressive and appropriate, how many of them. Your promotion plan must be a believable extension of your platform.
  6. The length of your proposal.
  7. (Optional) The length of your manuscript, if it’s ready to submit.
  8.  (Optional) The names of people who will provide a foreword and cover quotes, if            they’re impressive.
  9. (Optional) Mention if you’re proposing a series.
  10. (Optional) Information about a self-published edition that will help sell it.
  11. Your most impressive credentials: your track record; experience in your field; years of research; prizes; contests; awards.
  12. (Optional) Anything else that will impress agents or editors.

            Like the parts of your proposal, these elements are the building blocks of your pitch. Arrange them in whatever order will give them the most impact. How to Write a Book Proposal discusses platform and promotion.

 

The 5th San Francisco Writing for Change Conference

Changing the World One Book at a Time

October 12, 2014 / www.sfwritingforchange.org/ sfwriterscon@aol.com

The 11th San Francisco Writers Conference

A Celebration of Craft, Commerce & Community 

February 13-16, 2014 / www.sfwriters.org / sfwriterscon@aol.com / Mike’s blog: http://sfwriters.info/blog @SFWC / www.facebook.com/SanFranciscoWritersConference

San Francisco Writers University / Where Writers Meet and You Learn / Laurie McLean, Dean / free classes / www.sfwritersu.com / sfwritersu@gmail.com / @SFWritersU  

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Helping Writers Launch Careers Since 1972

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The Holy Trinity of Creating Communities for Writers: Content, Service, Visibility

January 15, 2013 By Leave a Comment

For your work to be read, you need to build communities of fans. The holy trinity of community—the three elements you need to build community are content, service, and visibility:

  • Because content is king, you need to keep producing work of different lengths and in different media. You have more ways to serve your readers than ever: more media and devices for reaching them faster, less expensively, more easily, and in more places than ever.
  • Making a book succeed requires a holy trinity of acts by your readers:

–They have to buy your book.

–They have to finish it; 57% of books aren’t finished.

–They must like it enough to use word of mouth and word of mouse to tell their communities they must read it.

  • Readers have to find your work. Timing, the President descending from his helicopter with your book, and other forms of luck can make a book take off, but there are two basic ways books succeed:

–Magic: the simpler, faster way is word of mouth and mouse. Fans online and off enable a book to go viral, a rare phenomenon.

–Communication: consumers have to hear about a new product seven to ten times to convince them to buy it. Communication is queen. The faster you want to build your readership, the more effectively and frequently you have to use all of the ways you can to serve your readers so they remain engaged members of your community of fans.

Becoming a successful author usually takes more than one book. Agent Don Maass, author of Writing the Breakout Novel, believes it takes five books for authors to build an audience. Make creating fans for life your mission. They’re waiting for you, and they want to help you succeed. Why not let them? The aces are the writers who create content and communicate about it best. Finding them is easy: look at any bestseller list. Starting dealing yourself a winning hand now.

 

The blog aspires to help us both understand writing and publishing. To make the blog as helpful as it can be, please respond with your questions and suggestions for changes. I hope you find it worth sharing.

Do one thing every day to make the world better.   –John Perkins, Confessions of an Economic Hitman

The 10th San Francisco Writers Conference / A Celebration of Craft, Commerce & Community / February 14-17, 2013 / www.sfwriters.org / sfwriterscon@aol.com /

Keynoters: Bella Andre, Anne Perry, and R. L. Stine

http://sfwriters.info/blog /@SFWC/ www.facebook.com/SanFranciscoWritersConference

San Francisco Writers University / Where Writers Meet and You Learn

Laurie McLean, Dean/free classes/www.sfwritersu.com/sfwritersu@gmail.com/@SFWritersU

415-673-0939 / 1029 Jones Street / San Francisco, 94109

The 5th San Francisco Writing for Change Conference / Changing the World One Book at a Time

September 2013 / Unitarian Universalist Center / Geary and Franklin

www.sfwritingforchange.org / sfwriterscon@aol.com

 

 

 

 

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New Year New You: A Golden Age for Writers

January 1, 2013 By 5 Comments

You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want.
–Author and speaker Zig Ziglar

In publishing, the beginning of the year is “New Year New You” time.  People use gift cards, exchange gifts, atone for holiday excesses, or start fulfilling their New Year’s resolutions by buying self-improvement books. E-books can add other media to them and make them social and interactive.

The new year is a time for taking stock of where you are and for deciding if you can get where you want to go faster. My wish for you is that 2013 be better than 2012, that you write better and get more of the help and visibility you need to succeed.

Technology has made this a golden age for all writers. The relative ease of writing, sharing, and profiting from your work on a worldwide Web of eager readers should be all of the inspiration you need to serve your readers as well as you can. You control your career. Your future is at your fingertips, on your tongue, and in your ability to speak, and build your visibility and communities to help you.

The essence of the challenge you face, whether you publish your books or Random House does, is that you have to balance being a writer and publisher, artist and merchant, creator and communicator, student and teacher, and being online and off.

You have to keep creating content that satisfies your readers’ need for information, entertainment, guidance, or wisdom so well they become lifetime fans of whatever you create and tell their communities to read your work. Content is king, but communication is queen. I call this passion for writing and service contentpreneuring: enterpreneuring for writers.

My brother’s unexpected death on December 28th brought home once again that my only salvation is service. As Lao Tzu said: “He who obtains has little. He who scatters has much.” So my resolution for 2013 is to serve you as well as I can. This is both an opportunity I relish and one of the greatest challenges I’ve ever faced, one reason I’ve neglected you.

Writing as well as I’d like is as hard for me as turning out your best work is for you. Finding something to say that will have lasting value for you is even harder. I live with the frustration nothing I write will ever be as inspiring, insightful, humorous, life-changing, or even just as well written as I want it to be. Knowing this doesn’t make me leap to the keyboard. Knowing that you need all the help you can get prevents me from stopping.

You need and deserve the best ideas, insights, and information I can give you. I will use posts from others and encourage you to send posts, yours and those of other writers that you think worth sharing. I’d also like to learn your writing resolutions and hope you’ll share them.

Two reasons this is a golden age for writers:

More readers than ever, everywhere on this aching planet, want to read your words.

It’s easier than ever to get your share of the gold.

I hope you will have a productive and prosperous 2013.

 

The blog aspires to help us both understand writing and publishing. To make the blog as helpful as it can be, please respond with your questions and suggestions for changes. I hope you find it worth sharing.

Do one thing every day to make the world better .   –John Perkins, Confessions of an Economic Hitman

The 10th San Francisco Writers Conference / A Celebration of Craft, Commerce & Community / February 14-17, 2013 / www.sfwriters.org / sfwriterscon@aol.com /

Keynoters: Bella Andre, Anne Perry, and R. L. Stine

http://sfwriters.info/blog /@SFWC/ www.facebook.com/SanFranciscoWritersConference

San Francisco Writers University / Where Writers Meet and You Learn

Laurie McLean, Dean/free classes/www.sfwritersu.com/sfwritersu@gmail.com/@SFWritersU

415-673-0939 / 1029 Jones Street / San Francisco, 94109

The 5th San Francisco Writing for Change Conference / Changing the World One Book at a Time

September 2013 / Unitarian Universalist Center / Geary and Franklin

www.sfwritingforchange.org / sfwriterscon@aol.com

 

 

 

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Creating a Literary Ecosystem: The 10 Essential Elements of a Successful Writing Career

December 18, 2012 By Leave a Comment

You can create a literary ecosystem: a balanced, organic, evolving, sustainable, inter-dependent, international, environmentally sensitive community. Your system will be unified by two holy trinities and by passion, interest, service, connection, and commerce. The ten circular, integrated elements of your literary ecosystem will be

  • Passion—your love for creating and communicating your work
  • Purpose—literary, publishing, and community goals that inspire you to achieve them
  • Professionalism

–knowledge about writing, publishing, and your field

--the holy trinity of craft: reading, writing, and sharing

–the holy trinity of commerce: communities, a platform, and test-marketing

–using the technology you need to succeed

  • Perspective—understanding that developing your craft and career is a long-term process
  • Products and services—being a contentpreneur by producing a steady stream of work in your field in different forms and lengths that you re-purpose in other media
  • People—win-win relationships with engaged, committed, growing communities of people you serve who want to help you, because they know, like, and trust you
  • Platform–your continuing visibility, online and off, on your subject or the kind of book you write with your communities and potential buyers   
  • Pre-promotion–test-marketing your work in as many ways as you can
  • Promotion— serving your communities by using your passion and platform to share the value of your work  
  • Profit—what you need to achieve your personal and professional goals and maintain the system

The importance of each element will vary, depending on what you write. Promotion and test-marketing will be more important for a book than a blog post. 

Your ecosystem has to keep learning from and contributing to your communities, the hyper-connected human family, and the planet. Your system will continue to build synergy as long as you sustain it by enriching its soil with content and communication. Make cultivating your ecosystem a lifelong quest. You will accomplish more than you can imagine.

 

The blog aspires to help us both understand writing and publishing. To make the blog as helpful as it can be, please respond with your questions and suggestions for changes. I hope you find it worth sharing.

Do one thing every day to make the world better .   –John Perkins, Confessions of an Economic Hitman

The 10th San Francisco Writers Conference / A Celebration of Craft, Commerce & Community / February 14-17, 2013 / www.sfwriters.org / sfwriterscon@aol.com /

Keynoters: Bella Andre, Anne Perry, and R. L. Stine

http://sfwriters.info/blog /@SFWC/ www.facebook.com/SanFranciscoWritersConference

San Francisco Writers University / Where Writers Meet and You Learn

Laurie McLean, Dean/free classes/www.sfwritersu.com/sfwritersu@gmail.com/@SFWritersU

415-673-0939 / 1029 Jones Street / San Francisco, 94109

The 5th San Francisco Writing for Change Conference / Changing the World One Book at a Time

September 2013 / Unitarian Universalist Center / Geary and Franklin

www.sfwritingforchange.org / sfwriterscon@aol.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

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August 24, 2012 By 4 Comments

Creating Your Literary Ecosystem: The 6 Elements of a Fulfilling Writing Career

After forty years as an agent, here is the essence of what I believe you have to have for a fulfilling life as a writer:

Gaia, the Earth, is an ecosystem—a unique, miraculous, self-sustaining combination of elements that evolved out of each other. You can create a literary ecosystem: a balanced, organic, evolving, sustainable, inter-dependent, international, environmentally sensitive community. Your system will be unified by passion, interest, service, connection, and commerce. The six circular elements of your literary ecosystem will be

  • Products and services—as much scalable, first-rate work in your niche as you can generate in different forms and lengths that you re-purpose in other media
  • Pre-promotion–test-marketing your work in as many ways as you can
  • People—win-win relationships with engaged, committed, growing communities you serve who want to help you, because they know, like, and trust you
  • Platform–your continuing visibility, online and off, with your communities and potential buyers about your work   
  • Promotion—using your platform to share your passion for your work with your communities
  • Profit—what you need to achieve your personal and professional goals and maintain the system

Your ecosystem has to stay open to what it needs to learn from–and can contribute to–your communities, the human family, and the planet. Your system will continue to build synergy as long as you keep enriching the soil by producing content that sustains it. The importance of the six elements will vary, depending on what you write. If your mission is using words to create change, make cultivating your ecosystem a lifelong quest. You will accomplish more than you can imagine.

 

The blog aspires to help us both understand writing and publishing. To make the blog as helpful as it can be, please respond with your questions and answers. I hope you find it worth sharing.

 

Do one thing every day to make the world better .   –John Perkins, Confessions of an Economic Hitman

The 4th San Francisco Writing for Change Conference: Changing the World One Book at a Time

September 15, 2012 / Unitarian Universalist Center / Franklin & O’Farrell, San Francisco

Keynoters: Paul Hawken, Natural Capitalism, and Dan Millman, Way of the Peaceful Warrior

The 10th San Francisco Writers Conference / A Celebration of Craft, Commerce & Community / February 14-17, 2013 / www.sfwriters.org / sfwriterscon@aol.com /

http://sfwriters.info/blog /@SFWC/ www.facebook.com/SanFranciscoWritersConference

San Francisco Writers University / Where Writers Meet and You Learn

Laurie McLean, Dean/free classes/www.sfwritersu.com/sfwritersu@gmail.com/@SFWritersU

415-673-0939 / 1029 Jones Street / San Francisco, 94109

 

 

 

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4 Keys to Guaranteeing the Success of Your Book

May 1, 2012 By 1 Comment

On publication day, because your book is new, it’s news. Books are on bookstore shelves, reviews start to appear, and you begin carrying out your promotion plan, which includes arousing media interest. Writing, publishing, bookselling, reviewing, and marketing are migrating online, but publishing is a hybrid business that requires your best efforts online and off.

Depending on your publisher’s commitment, your book may have a launch window as short as two weeks, after which your publisher will focus on the next book on its list. Your goal is to help generate enough sales momentum for your book to sustain the interest of booksellers, the media, and your publisher. You need to be visible in as many ways and places as possible, online and off. Visibility is not a spigot you can turn on because you need it. You have to prepare for your book’s launch window by maximizing its value before you publish it or sell it to a publisher.

Here are four simultaneous, overlapping ways to guarantee the success of your book that you must integrate for maximum impact:

  1. Write the best book you can. Only books that fulfill their promise succeed.
  2. Test-market your book  in as many ways as you can to prove it works, including a blog, videos, podcasts, a website, talks, teaching, articles, self-publishing, and media interviews.
  3. Build your platform–your continuing visibility with potential buyers, online and off, on the subject of your book or the kind of book you’re writing.
  4. Crowdsource your success by building win-win relationships with engaged communities of people who want to help you, because they know, like, and trust you: writers, fans, mentors, techies, bloggers and other media people, reviewers, booksellers, and key people in your field.

Technology forces publishing to reinvent itself. Before the Internet, books were the beginning of the information stream. Writers wrote them; publishers published them; and whatever happened–usually nothing–happened. Then writers wrote their next book. Because it keeps getting harder for publishers to launch writers, for new authors, the system is broken.

Now, books have to be the end of the information stream. The only time to publish your book, or sell it to a publisher, is when you have met the four challenges above as well as you can. This is only way to get the best editor, publisher, and deal for your book or ensure it sells, if you keep  publishing your edition. Sell enough copies, and publishers will find you.

Although a publisher can add great value to a book, technology empowers you to control as much of the process as you wish. If your book delivers enough value to your readers, social media guarantees bestsellerdom no matter who publishes it. If you’ve got the goods, technology makes it faster and easier than ever to become a successful writer. Good luck!

 

The goal of the blog is to help you and me understand writing and publishing. Rants, comments, questions, and answers most appreciated.

Just Announced: The 4th San Francisco Writing for Change Conference

Changing the World One Book at a Time

September 15, 2012 / Unitarian Universalist Center / Geary & Franklin, San Francisco

The 10th San Francisco Writers Conference / A Celebration of Craft, Commerce & Community / February 14-17, 2013 / www.sfwriters.org / sfwriterscon@aol.com /

http://sfwriters.org/blog /@SFWC/ www.facebook.com/SanFranciscoWritersConference /

San Francisco Writers University / Where Writers Meet and You Learn / Laurie McLean, Dean/free classes/www.sfwritersu.com/sfwritersu@gmail.com/@SFWritersU /

415-673-0939 / 1029 Jones Street / San Francisco, 94109

 

 

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Filed Under: Getting a Book Published, San Francisco Writers Conference, Writing Fiction, Writing for Change, Writing Nonfiction
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