Posted on - No Comments on More terms you should know

More terms you should know

Last week, I started a glossary of terms that every book-loving, agent-seeking aspiring writer should know, phrases that are tossed about in writer-oriented publications with a blithe disregard of whether those new to the field might not know them. (And not just the newbies: I have been a professional writer and editor for over a decade, and I still run across terms I do not know from time to time.) So it’s time to bite the bullet and learn what those phrases mean.

 

Again, if there is a term that you were really hoping I would define here that did not make the list, please send me a message via the COMMENTS function, below, now or at some point in the future. I am always happy to track down definitions for my readers.

 

My apologies to readers of my last posting: alphabetically, the first listing of today’s should have been in last Friday’s. However, someone suggested over the weekend that I include it, and I’m not about to let the tyranny of the alphabet deprive my dear readers of a necessary definition.

 

ELEVATOR SPEECH, n.: The three-minute version of a book, designed to be spoken aloud while in transit, containing the essential PREMISE, the target MARKET, and hitting all of the MARKETING POINTS of the book. All too often, aspiring writers walk into conferences with a PITCH (the three-sentence version) all prepared, but neglect to develop this longer selling tool. As a result, authors often run out of steam a minute into an all-important first meeting with an agent. The essence of a good elevator speech is knowing when to stop talking. (The more I define this, the more I think it deserves a blog of its own – watch for it in the coming week.)

 

JACKET BLURB, n.: The short synopsis of the book typically printed inside the flaps of a hardback’s dust cover. Generally runs about 100 words. (Not to be confused with BLURB, defined last week.)

 

LITERARY FICTION, n.: (1) Another ambiguous category of prose. Depending upon whom you ask, it can mean either character-driven fiction where the writing style is more important than the plot or character-driven fiction that assumes its target audience has a college-level vocabulary. (The average book published in North America assumes a tenth-grade vocabulary, by contrast.) If you want to start a lively controversy at any literary gathering, start asking people whether they consider John Irving’s work literary or mainstream. (2) Any work of fiction that contains a semicolon.

 

MAINSTREAM FICTION, n.: The vast majority of fiction sold in North America. Conforming to none of the standard genre classifications, mainstream fiction appeals to readers from across demographic groups. When mainstream fiction is well-written, or when it receives either a significant prize or critical adulation, it tends to be categorized as literary fiction. If you want to start a lively controversy at any literary gathering, start asking people whether they consider Alice Walker’s work mainstream or literary.

 

MANUSCRIPT, n. (often abbreviated MS): An unbound, single-sided complete draft of a book, for submission to editors and agents. Manuscripts differ from published books in a number of important ways: for instance, they always have at least 1-inch margins, are double-spaced, and are in 12-point type. For other ways in which manuscripts differ from published books, see STANDARD FORMAT.

 

MARKET, n.: (1) The demographic group most likely to buy a specific book, as in “Wow — your book would do really well in the YA market.” You should know the target market of your book, and why your book will appeal to that market, BEFORE you start pitching your work. (2) The current selling environment for books, as in “I can’t place this book in the current market.”

 

MARKET, v.: To present work to people who might buy it. Thus, a novelist markets his work to an agent; the agent then markets it to an editor; the editor markets it to the rest of the publishing firm, and the publishing company markets it to the public.

 

MARKET ANALYSIS, n. (also known as a COMPARATIVE MARKET ANALYSIS): A semi-objective view of the other books currently available on your topic AND an examination of the demographics of who might buy your book. For nonfiction, this is a formal section of the book proposal; for fiction, it’s just a good idea to for the author to conduct. In a conversation about your work with a publishing professional, under NO circumstances should you EVER admit that you have not performed a market analysis, because from the point of view of an agent or editor, the FIRST thing an author should do upon coming up with a great idea is to find out who else has written something similar.

 

MARKETING POINTS, pl. n.: Any facts about you or your book that will make it easier to sell. Make sure that your query letter AND your pitch both include the major marketing points for your book.

 

OUTLINE, n.: For nonfiction, an outline is essentially an expanded table of contents: a list of chapter or section titles, with each title accompanied by a 2-3 sentence summary of what that chapter or section will contain. Generally, when discussing fiction, the person using this term actually means a SYNOPSIS. Double-check.

 

PACKET, n.: An array of materials about a proposed book, used to attract interest within the publishing community. For fiction, this might include a synopsis, a bio, and the first chapter of the novel; for nonfiction, it would include the BOOK PROPOSAL and a cover letter.

 

PITCH, n.: (1) Verbally, your 30-second synopsis of your book. Frequently, agents and editors at conferences will prefer to hear pitches from authors, rather than reading any of the author’s work. (2) In writing, the three-sentence teaser for a book. (3) The second paragraph of most query letters to agents. (See my earlier postings about how to write query letters, if this is news to you.)

 

PITCH, v.: To recite your pitch to an agent or editor. If you are really doing your job at a conference, you should be pitching at least several times an hour, to anyone who will listen. It’s great practice.

 

PLATFORM, n.: For nonfiction, the array of credentials, expertise, and life experience that qualifies you as an expert on the topic of your book. Generally, the first thing an editor will want to know about a prospective NF author.

 

PREMISE, n.: The underlying logical proposition of a piece of fiction; often synonymous with the HOLLY WOOD HOOK. Usually, the premise is easier to identify for genre fiction (“hardboiled detective with a soft spot for curvy dames gets embroiled in city hall intrigue”) than for MAINSTREAM or LITERARY FICTION. In the latter case, the premises of, for instance, THE REMAINS OF THE DAY (“A butler butles for years on end.”) or THE ENGLISH PATIENT (“A severely burned man lies still and has flashbacks.”) must have required considerable embroidery upon the underlying premise to pitch successfully.

 

PRESS KIT, n.: An array of materials used to convince newspapers, radio stations, and television stations that you and your work deserve attention. It used to be that publishing houses put these together for authors, but now, most authors need to assemble and distribute their own press kits. (Don’t worry; it will be the subject of a future blog.)

 

That’s all for today – I should be able to finish the rest of the alphabet tomorrow.

 

But while I still have your attention, I am going to digress from my very serious subject matter to pursue the shade of the lovely and talented Ralph Fiennes. This weekend, I took a MUCH-NEEDED break from manuscript revision to see THE CONSTANT GARDENER and CORPSE BRIDE, a double feature with a whole lot of dead women in it. Has anyone but me noticed that, cinematically speaking, the mortality rate of any female character that gets romantically involved with a Ralph Fiennes character in a movie is 100%? This film, THE ENGLISH PATIENT, THE END OF THE AFFAIR, SCHINDLER’S LIST… What’s next, ANNA KARENINA? I’m sure women worldwide would have much happier fantasy lives if his love interests were occasionally allowed to survive the final frame. If I met him in a dark alley – or, still worse, in a desert – I would instantly run in the opposite direction.

 

All right, there is your dose of serious career-building information AND total whimsy for the day. Go out and enjoy the first days of autumn.

 

Keep up the good work!

 

– Anne Mini

 

Posted on - 12 Comments on How to Write a Book Proposal, Part V: The rest of it

How to Write a Book Proposal, Part V: The rest of it

Here at last is the final segment of my ongoing series on how to avoid the most common pitfalls menacing the first-time NF book proposer. I have just spent the weekend running a garage sale, which is an apt metaphor for today’s set of advice: it is well worth the effort to take the time to set out your book’s wares thoughtfully and attractively. If you don’t set the sweaters and old plates out where prospective buyers can see them, but instead leave them in poorly-marked crates, buyers will have to expend a lot of energy to dig through the dross and packing material to get to your treasures.

If, however, you polish your silver vases and arrange Great-Aunt Matilda’s rhinestone jewelry where it can glint in the sun, even a prospective buyer casing your wares at a dead run will notice them. Heck, once we had our goodies displayed beautifully, one sharp-eyed woman bought our chest of drawers by the simple method of slamming on her SUV’s breaks and shouting a bid for it out the driver’s side window. Marketing is marketing.

Agents and editors, alas, tend not to have the time to dig through the boxes at the back of your garage, intellectually speaking — you need to make sure your book’s top selling points are not buried in the middle of 27 pages of exposition. Even if your book is the best marketing idea since THE PETER PRINCIPLE, if the presentation is not competent and professional (not synonyms, in this instance), chances are the ultra-fast skim most proposals are given will not make the market potential so obvious to you leap out at an editor.

I bring this up now, because by the time most newbie proposers reach table of contents section of the book proposal, they are so exhausted that they put the barest minimum effort into it. Please don’t make the pervasive mistake of simply reproducing the table of contents you expect to see in the finished book, where only the titles of each chapter are listed, with perhaps some impression of corresponding page numbers. All such a submission tells an agent or an editor is whether you are talented at coming up with chapter titles, which misses the point of this section: your goal here is to give a chapter-by-chapter overview of what will be in the finished book.

The key phrase to keep in mind here is ANNOTATED table of contents. Each chapter heading should be accompanied by a 2 – 3 sentence description of what will be in that chapter. Keep it concise, but do provide enough detail that a reader can see how one chapter’s argument leads naturally to the next. Yes, you will have already presented the overall argument in the overview section, but here you are showing what plank of your platform, so to speak, falls in each chapter.

In accordance with the advice of my marvelous agent, I am honor-bound to add here: don’t go to town. Limit yourself to a couple of sentences per chapter, and try not to have the whole table of contents run longer than two pages.

The next piece of the book proposal is the sample chapter (s). The rule here is simple: it should be absolutely your best writing, polished to the nines. If the chapter is less than about 20 pages, consider submitting a second sample chapter as well.

Contrary to popular belief, the chapter submitted need not be Chapter 1 – and that should come as a relief to you. In most NF books, the first chapter carries the heavy burden of summarizing the rest of the book, and thus is often the most difficult to write. If you have an interior chapter that is already in apple-pie order, include that instead. Don’t bother to provide an explanation for why you chose that chapter – everyone concerned will understand that you felt it was your best work.

In selecting your sample chapter, bear in mind that the object here is to show that you can execute in elegant, readable prose the promises you made in the overview and annotated table of contents – and do so in a style that will appeal to the target market you have identified. If your favorite chapter does not meet ALL of these criteria, consider choosing another that does.

And please, please promise me that the chapter will be in standard manuscript format, in the same typeface as the rest of the book proposal. No fancy fonts, no funky spacing, nothing that will make your work seem anything but rock-solid professional. (For those of you not familiar with precisely how standard manuscript format differs from the format one sees printed in books, hang onto your proposal for a few more days. I’ll do a write-up on standard format later.)

After your chapter, include an author bio. Basically, this is a slightly longer version of the biographical blurb we’ve all seen on the back inside dust jacket of hardcover books. No need to start with your birth or go into superlative detail — your bio should be 250 words, max, so you will only have room for the high points.

I know that it may seem a trifle redundant to include in the book proposal, given that you will have just written extensively in the overview about who you are and why you should be hired to write this book, but you need to include a one-page summary of your life. This isn’t like P.E., where you could fake massive cramps to get out of playing volleyball — yes, this is an annoying requirement, but there’s no getting out of it. Sorry.

If you prefer, you may write a single-spaced half-page, and include an author photo on the top third of the page. (The expense of this is less massive than it sounds: a good color copier will enable you to reproduce the photo page en masse for the 20 or so copies of your book proposal that your agent will eventually want you to produce.) I would highly recommend this route if you have a nifty recent photo of yourself engaged in an activity related to the topic of the book: if you are writing about firefighting, by all means let the photo show you in a firefighter’s uniform or surrounded by flames.

The tone of the bio should echo the tone of the book, if possible – not all bios are deadly serious. Mention in the last sentence what your next project is (you should ALWAYS say you are working on your next book; it brands you as a professional writer, not a one-shot author.)

In our bio, make sure to include your educational background, any awards won (ever, for anything), what you do for a living, etc., even if you think these aspects are neither representative of who you are as a writer or even remotely relevant to your topic. Don’t be afraid you will sound pompous if you list your credentials at length here — potentially, they are all selling points. Personally, like many graduates of Ivy League colleges, I tend not to mention in casual conversation where I went to school: as the old Radcliffe joke goes, the fastest way to get rid of a lecherous man in a bar is to tell him you went to Harvard. But is it prominent in my bio? You bet.

Also prominent in my bio is the fact that I grew up on the top floor of a Napa Valley winery, literally in the middle of a vineyard. Zinfandel, to be precise. Is that relevant to my book? Only marginally, but it is undeniably memorable — and part of the object of the bio game is to make darned sure that some aspect of your personality sticks firmly in the mind of everyone who reads it. I’m pragmatic: I don’t mind editors referring to me as the winery girl, as long as they are passing my proposal from hand to hand while they are doing it.

Make yourself sound interesting; you wouldn’t believe how dull and businesslike most bios are. If you have a wacky hobby, definitely mention it. Part of the point of the bio is let agents and editors know that you are a fascinating person with whom they might like to have a conversation in future. Remember, you are not just marketing the book you are proposing; you are marketing yourself as a contract employee of the publishing house.

“Yeah, right,” I can hear you scoffing. “Like they’re interested in me as a human being.

Bite your tongue, oh ye of little faith, for I have an anecdote to share. The bio in my book proposal presented me, if I do say so myself, as a pretty darned interesting human being. I am one of the world’s leading authorities on a minor political theorist, for instance, a fact appreciated by about five worthy souls scattered around the planet, and I once spent a summer running away from wild animals whilst researching for an impecunious travel guide. Oh, and I mentioned that I was working on my next book, a humorous novel about the adult lives of kids who had grown up on a hippie commune, because I went through grammar school with quite a few commune kids.

None of this had even the vaguest relationship with my memoir, which is about my relationship with a science fiction writer in my youth. Scarcely a grapevine mentioned. Yet when my agent was shopping my proposal around, an editor who passed on my memoir called her up and asked to see my novel. Why? Because, the editor said, she had liked the voice in my sample chapter –and my bio had intrigued her.

I just mention.

At the end of your proposal, include a sampling of your clippings, if you have any. If you have ever written anything for a magazine, especially a nationally-distributed one, photocopy it and include it here, even if the topic and tone have absolutely nothing to do with the proposed book. Ditto with any credited newspaper articles, short stories, and book excerpts.

This is a stumbling block for a lot of new authors, and rightly so. If your book is about thermonuclear war and your most recent clipping is about rose husbandry, it may seem disproportionate. After all, having written a few newspaper or magazine articles doesn’t necessarily mean that you can write a book, any more than having written a good short story means that you can instantly write the Great American Novel. However, including clippings tells an editor two things: you can meet a deadline, and someone else has taken a chance on you before (if you have been trying to find an agent for any length of time, you may already have noticed that nobody in the publishing industry likes to be the first person to recognize a new author’s work — but they love being the second).

If you don’t have any clippings, don’t worry about it. A good proposal will speak for itself. But you might want to consider, for the sake of your future projects, volunteering to write a book review or two for your community paper, or offering to write an article gratis on some item of local interest, so you have clippings later on. Even a small venue is worthwhile, and it doesn’t matter a particle whether you were paid to write the piece in question: what matters is that it saw print.

Are you rolling with laughter yet at the picture of me trying to scrabble all of this together in under three weeks? I believe I speak for my family, my friends, my neighbors, and my pets when I say: for everybody’s sake, take a little more time.

One last thing: proposals are not bound in any way, so do not stick yours in the kind of three-hole punched folder you used for reports in high school. Use a folder with pockets, and nestle your work inside. And make sure the folder is either black (the safest) or dark blue.

Yes, your work will stand out more on a cluttered desk if it is in a tiger-striped magenta and silver folder. But in the conservative publishing industry, which equates standardized presentation with professionalism, standing out in that way is a drawback. Believe it or not, a non-standard proposal folder will seldom even get opened.

Please feel free to ask me follow-up questions about any of this, via the COMMENTS feature. And keep up the good work!

– Anne Mini

Posted on - No Comments on How to Write a Book Proposal, Part III: The Marketing Plan

How to Write a Book Proposal, Part III: The Marketing Plan

I have already gone through the overview and the target market in previous postings. Now on to the marketing plan, the part of the book proposal that both strikes the greatest fear into the hearts of first-time proposers, as well as the part that most often gets a cursory treatment. Agents and editors see a LOT of rather lame marketing plans, ones that make it absolutely clear that the author deeply resents having to do this vital research at all.

In practical terms, this is a mistake, because today, even a very enthusiastic reception from an editor and a big advance do not necessarily equal a publisher’s commitment to promote a book. Most potential authors still assume that their publishing houses will set up personal appearances and readings for them. Many small houses still do, but nowadays, most large houses only set up tours for their top sellers. So you need to demonstrate that you are perfectly capable of marketing this book yourself, if they cannot spare you any publicity resources.

So what is a marketing plan? At its most basic level, it is a few pages that explain how the target audience of readers could be reached. For most first-time proposers, this section is largely guesswork, but you need to do it anyway. Don’t think of it as yet another instance of telling publishing professionals how to do what they already do so well: think of it as your single best opportunity to demonstrate to prospective agents and editors how VERY committed you are to this project.

The most direct way to demonstrate that commitment is to fill your marketing plan with activities that YOU intend to perform just before and just after the book comes out. Yes, you want the publisher to book you into speaking engagements and book signings, but what will you do on your own? Editors love writers who will commit to spending serious time on book promotion. Are you a member of any large organizations that might allow you to send promotional postcards to their mailing lists, or allow you to write a piece on your topic in their newsletters? Are there magazines that you could query with articles broken out of book chapters? If so, which chapters? Does your college alumni magazine publish book reviews? Remember, every clipping counts toward sales, in the long run.

Some standard means that don’t get mentioned much in proposals are:

• — Contacting regional independent bookstores yourself to arrange readings and signings.

• — Giving seminars at regional writers’ conferences or other gatherings devoted to either writing or your subject matter.

• — Creating a column for a magazine or newspaper (tell them this is already in the works; it sounds better). Even if you do this gratis, it’s good promotion.

• — Meeting with book groups to discuss your work.

• — Establishing a website to promote your work.

• — Creating a professional press kit and sending it to potentially interested news sources.

Make sure that in addition to standard marketing techniques (such as author readings and signings), you list at least a couple of means of reaching your target group specifically. Mention any regional or national groups to which members of your demographic belong. If you are pushing a book on bass fishing, will you speak at organizations of bass fisherfolk? Name these organizations, and say how many members they have. Will you haunt independent bookstores, accosting anyone who smells of fish? Tote copies of your opus to fishing holes, and give away free flies with every copy?

Think broadly and creatively. Don’t be afraid to be a little wacky; ideally, you would like your dream editor to chuckle while reading this section, murmuring, “Wow, that’s a great idea.”
Do be aware that the publishing house will actually expect you to perform what you promise here, however, and whatever you do, don’t make the common rookie mistake of limiting your marketing plan to pointing out to publishers the astonishing fact that bookstores occasionally allow authors to give readings. I promise you, they are already aware of that phenomenon. Tell them something they don’t already know, such as the fact that you have been a teacher for the past 26 years, so you have a wealth of public speaking experience, or that you belong to an organization where the members lunch together every Thursday nationwide, listening to speakers like you.

Be creative: what do you have to offer as a marketer? This is the place to mention, for instance, if you have given a magnificently successful reading at one of the PNWA’s The Word Is Out events. (Plug, plug.) You’d be astonished at how few prospective authors are bold enough to read their work in public – it’s invaluable experience that will serve you well at book signings down the road.

If you feel that this section looks a little thin, pull out the stops and tell them you are willing to hire a professional publicist yourself, if necessary. This is becoming a more common practice than you may think. And even if you ultimately decide not to hire a professional, remember, paying a high school student to stuff envelopes for you on a Saturday is technically hiring promotional help, if push comes to shove.

Tomorrow, we move on the comparative market analysis. In the meantime, keep up the good work!

– Anne Mini