With the rise of the web, new ideas are not enough. Today, publishing is all about story telling, and that applies to serious nonfiction--yes, even a work of history and science has to tell a story--self-help, memoir, and virtually every other publishing genre. Many people fail to understand that a book can be the story of an idea or a time, as well as the story of an individual or group of individuals.
So, my advice to would-be writers just starting out is this: Ignore what is happening in publishing. Concentrate instead on doing whatever can be done to make your submission package as effective as possible. There are many published books affording such advice (including ours). But I would stress the following:
You are your own first story. Who you are and how you present yourself in regard to your writing matters. Most important, there must be a tight connection between you and the book you want to write.
Let's take, for example, two submissions, both espionage novels. The first comes from someone who has worked, no matter how briefly or peripherally, in espionage. The second comes from a high school English teacher who has long believed that espionage is a dirty game. Agents and editors will all read the first submission. They may even overlook a weak story line in the first submission because the promotional hook (an insider story) is strong.
Many fewer agents and editors will read the second submission, because the connection between the story the book tells and the author's story is nonexistent. Does that mean that all English teachers should stay away from espionage novels? I won't go that far. But I will say the following.
If you want to write a book about espionage, figure out a way to connect espionage to your own story. Let's play out one possible scenario to give you an idea about finessing these things.
High school English teacher asks permission from his department chair to teach a class on espionage novels to a group of troubled male freshmen. The class is a hit. To his delight, these young men start to improve not only academically. They come out of themselves as they talk about what honor and duty mean in the world of spies. Your book becomes:
HONOR AND DUTY IN THE BARRIO: How teaching espionage novels saved a bunch of students from dead-end jobs and taught one teacher what it means to give students belief in themselves. And if that first book works, then you are well-positioned to write that espionage novel next.
Proposals are mini-opportunities to demonstrate your skills with narrative. So, write your proposal as a story, even better, as a good mystery. And the best way to begin a mystery, any mystery, is to shake up what we believe to be true with a picture that suggests that the truth may lie elsewhere.
Readers don't care about your life. They care about their lives. Tell us why your life has something to say to the rest of us. Many, many writers are interested in memoir, even though most of these writers do not understand that memoir is not biography. But setting that aside, the problem with most memoirs is that I find myself writing back to the author, "I understand why you want to tell your story. But I don't see why others would want to read it."
In writing biography, consider the following: It's your subject's life, but it is your story. Get control of your story. Of course, we want a biographer who has done stellar research. But research alone is not enough. There has to be something you want to say about the subject that the subject would not necessary say about himself for there to be a justifiable biography.
I never knew that a writer doesn't actually need a finished book in hand to contact a publisher. In fact, publishers don't want it. They want that all important book proposal. Why is that? What is a book proposal exactly and why are so many of the ones editors receive subpar? Very good questions.
A manuscript is the execution of a vision. A proposal is a statement of what that vision will be. What do I mean by "vision?" A way of getting at a topic that will be both fresh and compelling to readers, either through fiction or nonfiction. The proposal forces the author to define the vision and defend it in a way that allows agents and editors to evaluate both the writing and thinking skills of the author, and also, frankly, the personality of the author.
But the proposal is only one part of a "submission package." These days, the table of contents is getting much more attention because that's where the agent or editor gets an opportunity to examine how much thinking has gone into the narrative execution of the project.
The writing sample is also getting lots of attention because it tells the editor if this author has the writing skills to pull off the intended project. Editors will edit reasonably skilled writers. They will not sign on books by authors whose knowledge of language and grammar may be perfectly fine but whose understanding of how to tell a story is limited.
The author's CV and publicity profile establish the creds of the author to write this book.
It's the role of the agent to make sure that these documents are sharp and focused. Nothing frustrates an editor or agent more than wandering through material that doesn't know what it was meant to do. So, pick your agent carefully and don't fight an agent who makes you revise.
In general, a proposal to an agent should begin with who you are (relevant to the proposed book only), the topic you want to write about, why you want to write about this topic, what it is you want to say (not talk about) and why you want to say it. Then give us some highlights of the story you will tell and do so in a way that suggests you are an interesting thinker with good narrative skills. This entire process should take no more than 20 to 25 pages, double-spaced. Read our book for information on what to say and what to avoid saying in your section on competition and about marketing.
In fact, read our book carefully to ground yourself in the thinking that needs to go into all the pieces of the submission package. It will not only help you write a better proposal but also write a better book.
I read your book and found it clear and really well put together. That's what led to this interview. Did knowing the publishing business from the inside make it quick and painless for you in terms of your own book proposal? Do editors and agents who write also make silly mistakes when crafting their book proposals?
Unlike my co-author, I struggled long and hard before I found the "vision" for how to take what I knew about publishing and turn it into a useful book for would-be writers. Initially, I tried interviewing other editors, figuring the aggregate of what each had to say about his or her own experiences would provide a body of information I could work off. But I quickly discovered that many of the editors I interviewed were seat-of-the-pants editors, people who had been doing what they were doing so long and so well that they could no longer articulate what they did or even why. They kept saying, "Send me a proposal and I'll just know if I want to sign it up." Or "send me a manuscript and I'll figure out how to edit it."
So, in desperation (now five years late in delivering our manuscript), I did what I tell my own authors to do--come back to me . So I imagined Susan Rabiner, the author, on one side of the desk, and Susan Rabiner, the agent, on the other side. Susan Rabiner the agent asks Susan Rabiner the author, "Can you tell me what is distinctive about your view of publishing?"
Susan Rabiner the author thinks a minute and then answers, "Me conducting one of my rambunctious, anything-goes editorial meetings in my old job as editorial director, grilling the sponsoring editor on why the house should extend an offer of publication."
And then I knew the angle of vision through which we would tell the story of publishing--that of the editor. Hence the title: " Thinking like Your Editor."
Within a couple of minutes, I was ready to write. I titled the chapter It's the Audience, Stupid and was able to write the first draft of that chapter in about two hours. I showed it to my husband, who, for the first time (after having suffered with me through my many false starts), said simply, "Now, you're really saying something fresh and new."
Now, let me address your other question. Did my knowing the industry help? Absolutely. But most authors know their subject matter. The trick in successful writing is figuring out which aspects of your broad knowledge of a subject (in my case an industry) will be of interest to your intended audience. I have said to authors many times, "Your readership does not want the entire course."
Finally, editors have a great deal of sympathy and respect for authors because they understand that writing is much more difficult than editing. But, there is also a degree of frustration that is rarely talked about between author and editor. What I am about to say may seem a bit controversial. But it needs to be said. There is a huge disconnect between what writing programs, including university programs, teach students about writing and what editors define as good writing.
The majority of writers who want to be published seem to have been taught little about how to write character-driven narrative, even though this is where the industry is firmly positioning itself. As a result, editors can't find enough books to acquire while, at the same time, most authors can't find a good agent to take them on, let alone a publisher to publish them.
We spend a great deal of time at the agency trying to teach authors how to transit to this new way of writing because that seems to be, for the present, the key to getting published. But, there needs to be a much more frank discussion between educators and editors about writing.
To do a book proposal properly is neither quick nor easy; it demands a great deal of introspection and careful analysis. You say that anyone unwilling to be flexible or listen carefully to what editors are looking for might want to think twice about going this route. On the other hand, have you seen dramatic Before and After book proposals? Mais oui! Every day. And the results can be the difference between no offer of publication and lots of offers or between a small contract with a weak house and a weak editor and a major contract for major money with a major publisher. We've had authors come in with fully developed proposals, only to sit down with us and discover that they have a much better book in them. Others have come in with one vision for a book and, through their answers to a series of questions, realize the advantages of tackling the same topic but from a very different angle. Finally, we've had authors determined to focus on one aspect of a topic when, in fact, what the public wants is an examination of another aspect of that same topic.
Pick your agent carefully. Very helpful, Susan. What's your take on self-publishing using Amazon/Kindle or any of the other self-publishing tools? Is self-publishing an effective alternative? Are you worried that it might put conventional publishing houses out of business? Self-publishing is a very effective alternative. Indeed, so effective that both agents and editors are trolling the self-published lists on Amazon looking for projects that deserve commercial publication. The benefit of self-publishing is that you skip the publishing gatekeepers--people like me and the editors--and go right to the reading public.
I think the trick in effective self-publishing is to keep your costs very low, so you can charge very little for your book. Ideally, publish it solely as an e-book and price it at $1.99 to $3.99. You want to make your profits through volume, not a high mark up.
Joan Brunwasser is a co-founder of Citizens for Election Reform (CER) which since 2005 existed for the sole purpose of raising the public awareness of the critical need for election reform. Our goal: to restore fair, accurate, transparent, secure elections where votes are cast in private and counted in public. Because the problems with electronic (computerized) voting systems include a lack of transparency and the ability to accurately check and authenticate the vote cast, these systems can alter election results and therefore are simply antithetical to democratic principles and functioning.
Since the pivotal 2004 Presidential election, Joan has come to see the connection between a broken election system, a dysfunctional, corporate media and a total lack of campaign finance reform. This has led her to enlarge the parameters of her writing to include interviews with whistle-blowers and articulate others who give a view quite different from that presented by the mainstream media. She also turns the spotlight on activists and ordinary folks who are striving to make a difference, to clean up and improve their corner of the world. By focusing on these intrepid individuals, she gives hope and inspiration to those who might otherwise be turned off and alienated. She also interviews people in the arts in all their variations - authors, journalists, filmmakers, actors, playwrights, and artists. Why? The bottom line: without art and inspiration, we lose one of the best parts of ourselves. And we're all in this together. If Joan can keep even one of her fellow citizens going another day, she considers her job well done.
When Joan hit one million page views, OEN Managing Editor, Meryl Ann Butler interviewed her, turning interviewer briefly into interviewee. Read the interview here.
While the news is often quite depressing, Joan nevertheless strives to maintain her mantra: "Grab life now in an exuberant embrace!"
Joan has been Election Integrity Editor for OpEdNews since December, 2005. Her articles also appear at Huffington Post, RepublicMedia.TV and Scoop.co.nz.