Book Proposals That Sell

21 Secrets to Speed Your Success

W. Terry Whalin

• Publisher: Morgan James Publishing
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781631955112
• Topic: Filología
• Subtopic: Publicación

An insider reveals the secrets to pitching your nonfiction book: "Traditional publishing is shrouded with mystery. Terry Whalin peels back the curtain." —Michael Hyatt, New York Times –bestselling author of Your Best Year Ever In the beginning stages of writing a book, most people start with a blank page and write their entire manuscript. According to acquisitions editor, former literary agent, and author of dozens of traditionally published books W. Terry Whalin, this approach is backwards. He knows that about 80% to 90% of nonfiction books are sold from a book proposal. This mysterious document called a proposal contains many elements that will never appear in a manuscript—yet these details are critical to publishing executives who make the decision about publishing or rejecting an author's project. Book Proposals That Sell reveals twenty-one secrets to creating the kind of effective, impressive book proposal that can help an author make the sale.

Chapter One

A Little Background Story

AT A SMALL COFFEE SHOP, I MET Joe Leininger who had traded for ten years in the Eurodollar Pit of the Chicago Mercantile. In that incredible greed-centered environment, Joe thrived and made a million dollars every year for ten years and then retired. He had some strange and fascinating stories about his experiences on the Merc floor, which he began pounding out in a nonfiction book manuscript. While the writing experience was cathartic for Joe and lots of fun, he wanted a regular publisher to produce his book manuscript. Unlike the average author, Joe had a few personal connections with some book publishers. He thought this would give his manuscript an advantage for publication so he submitted it for their consideration. After several weeks, each package returned with a rejection note. Without professional guidance, Joe was unsure how to get his book published and into the traditional bookstores. Because of his personal resources, he could self-publish his book and have a garage full of his work, but he was wise enough to understand that, in general, book publishing is a closed system. For your book to be sold in the bookstore, it needs to go through a traditional publisher who has a distribution channel for these stores. To test this, pick any self-publisher, go into your local retail bookstore and search for any title from this publisher on the shelf. You will be hard pressed to find much (if any) of this type of product.

I met with Joe and he gave me a copy of his manuscript. From my reading, I could see potential but I also spotted a key flaw. Joe included fascinating stories about his experiences in the pit but these stories had no takeaway information for the reader. He missed passing along the lessons from his experiences to other people— whether they ever saw the crazed action on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile or not. Readers approach books from a selfish viewpoint. Every book has to answer the key question, “What’s in this book for me?”

With some prodding on my part, Joe produced a series of 16 lessons about life and success from his work in the Pit. These lessons became the backbone of the book proposal that I wrote. Eventually Broadman and Holman published our book entitled Lessons from the Pit. Each lesson became a single chapter in the book.

Every reader approaches nonfiction books with the desire to learn something for himself and take away some information or insight from their reading. The material has to be told in an engaging manner, but every sentence must be written with the reader in mind. The same approach is necessary when writing a book proposal. You are writing the proposal to attract an agent or editor, and eventually the publisher. If you focus the entire book manuscript on what you want to say without thinking of the reader, it will not be a book a publisher will want to print.

Always remember one basic lesson about nonfiction book publishing: In general, publishers buy book proposals for nonfiction— not book manuscripts. I know Joe has multiple ideas and hopes to write other books. The last time I checked, he was pounding out another complete manuscript. I trust he learned this basic lesson. Certain people are doomed through their stubborn persistence to repeat the lessons from the past. If you follow the advice in this book, however, you can benefit from my long-term experience in the publishing world.

Chapter Two

Why Publishers Prefer Proposals

WHEN YOU SUBMIT YOUR MATERIALS, EDITORS, agents and publishing executives prefer to read a well-crafted proposal instead of a full length manuscript. For several years, I’ve been an acquisitions editor or the first person to read the proposal or manuscript that comes into the publishing house. I’ve interfaced with the publisher’s existing authors and talked with them about new projects. I’ve also championed many first time authors’ proposals inside the publishing house, presented them to the publication board (the decision-making body in most houses), worked up the financial figures (an internal document which no one sees outside the publishing house), then negotiated with the author or their agent on the final contract. I have firsthand, insider knowledge about the consideration process and can give you a glimpse at how your proposal will be processed and handled.

As you think about approaching a traditional publisher, keep the following points in mind:

1) If the publisher has been in business for some time, a key and regular part of their acquisitions strategy is to return to their existing authors (provided these books are selling well) and ask these authors for additional projects.

If a publisher has a book with an author who has been consistently selling in the market, they have less risk to publish another book from this same author and sell it to the audience. Like many other businesses, publishing is about managing risk. To take a completed 60,000 word manuscript and produce it into a book will cost the publisher anywhere between $25,000 and $50,000. This number isn’t a typographical error. Recently I attended the annual conference of the American Society of Journalists and Authors in New York City. One of the participants on a panel about book proposals was Brian DiForio, a New York literary agent who is a former editorial director for some major publishers. He presented to the conference some even higher production numbers, saying, “Even with a modest advance of $20,000 to $30,000, the overall costs for the publisher are between $75,000 and $100,000. You are proposing a business decision like any proposal to a bank.” These numbers do not include marketing or advertising expenses nor do they account for a large advance for the author (which increases the risk for the publisher).The number is pure production costs, editorial expenses and design costs for the cover and interior pages of the book.

Publishers make this type of financial investment in an author with care, forethought and wisdom—especially if they want to stay in the book business for many years. If you are writing nonfiction children’s books, the above figure doubles. When I mention this information at a writers’ conference, I can hear the visible gasps in the room. Many parents have read stacks of 24- or 32-page full-color books to their children. They’ve seen few words on the page and probably believed they could have easily written a better book. They don’t realize, however, that the production numbers for these books can vary from $150,000 to $200,000. The reason for these costs is because when it comes to children’s books, the publisher normally purchases full rights from the artist to own the artwork in these books. In general, these artists/illustrators do not receive a royalty for their work, only a flat fee, and that price adds to the production expense.

Before I began working inside a book publishing house, I had written more than 50 nonfiction books, ranging from children’s to adult books. I had always worked through traditional publishers. However, I was unaware of the financial production numbers for book production and I found it shocking—and something critical for potential authors to understand. The author never sees these figures for their books as the publisher doesn’t reveal them throughout the contract negotiation process. A publisher will produce these financial calculations as simply a part of good business practices. As an author, understanding this helped me see publishing as a business. Authors have huge amounts of time and emotional investment in their words. When I saw these production numbers, I understood that the publisher, not the author, has the largest out-of-pocket cash investment in a book.

Inside the publisher, the editor will gather a sales projection about how many copies the sales department believes they can sell of your title the first year. That sales figure will be used to calculate the production costs of ink, paper and binding for various amounts of printing (5,000, 10,000 or 15,000 copies). As the initial print number is raised, the cost per book decreases. You may ask, So why not print a large volume each time? The answer is, if the publisher prints a large number of copies, then he has to store those copies in their warehouse (read cost and expense), plus make sure they actually sell those copies within a year’s timeframe. The cost of tying up financial resources in storing and warehousing books can become expensive. Also the federal government taxes publishers on each copy in storage. These tax rules have forced publishers to think long and hard about how many copies of each book to print.

Inside my former publisher, we calculated the overall printing details of the book (paperback with general publishing look or hardcover with jacket) and the number of books to print before offering a book contract. In short, publishers pour a great deal of work into their books and financial projections before they call you and offer a book contract. Understanding this process helps you see some of the reasons it takes such a long time for an author to receive a publishing contract.

I know this section took a brief aside to explain about the inner workings inside a publishing house. Now let’s return to my original point about book acquisition. Often the publisher returns to an author with whom they have already published a book. If the publisher takes a second or third book from the same author, they are investing in that author’s career and trying to build that author’s audience and market. If the author’s books are selling well, then the publisher will be eager for another project. Each week, publishers monitor sales numbers on their books to see if particular authors merit another book contract.

Many writers focus only on the creative aspects of writing a book and getting it published, but the executives inside a publishing house are business people who want to sell books and turn a profit at the end of the day. It’s a delicate balance between creating the best possible product and assuring that each product has the best opportunity to sell into the market and reach the target audience.

2) Editors and agents do a great deal more than read unsolicited manuscripts.

As an acquisitions editor, I didn’t passively sit and wait for these projects to land in my in-basket. Rather, I made it a daily goal to be proactive in looking for the right manuscripts. Because I’ve been involved in publishing for many years, I have a series phone numbers and other contact information for these bestselling authors and their agents in my address book. Actively I telephoned and emailed these authors to see what they were working on and to discover if anything new might be appropriate for my publishing house. While these authors might not have published with my publisher, each one had a successful sales track record. I understood my publishing house might have to pay higher advances and royalties for these projects than they would have to pay for a first-time author. At the same time, I understood these published authors already had an established group of readers who followed their writings and purchased new books. These authors involved less business risk and gave us a greater chance for success.

It’s not easy to acquire these published authors because their schedule is often filled for several years. In my conversations or emails, I would try and suggest possible projects for them to consider. Sometimes during the conversation I would see a spark of interest. On one occasion, I was talking in detail with a bestselling fiction author but I was talking with her about a nonfiction book project. In the early days of her career, she wrote nonfiction but now her writing schedule was filled with fiction and storytelling. “I know a nonfiction book would allow different kinds of media possibilities than my fiction,” she said. I could hear the passion in her voice about the topic we were discussing for this nonfiction book. I also knew this author’s agent was discouraging her from talking with me or placing a project with my publishing house. I understand that authors will listen to the perspective of their agent but ultimately they are in charge of their writing schedule. This story gives you a glimpse into the type of proactive acquisitions activity an editor can take.

Another tactic I took when I talked with published authors, was to see if their files contained an unsold book proposal. Often there is a good reason why this proposal is unsold. Maybe it needs reshaping for the marketplace or audience, yet from a published author, it’s worth the time and consideration from an editor. I also looked for out-of-print books which could be repackaged with a new title and updated information to bring this author to my publishing house. Sometimes an author has a book project for which they have considerable passion but it quickly faded out of print with another publisher. A book goes out of print for many reasons, some of which have nothing to do with the content of the book. Maybe the book had a terrible cover or a weak title. Possibly because of personnel changes within a publishing house, the book sold poorly and was taken out of print in a short amount of time (less than two years).

It was rare for our publishing house to take these out of print books. but in certain cases, these books were contracted. If I could create a new package, new title, different content or possibly a different emphasis and it was a better fit for our publishing house than the previous publisher, we then contracted the book for publication. With one of these books I acquired, I know the publisher is going to get endorsements from high profile authors, including an eye-catching foreword, because they repackaged an out-of-print book. I used a variety of different strategies in the acquisition of books rather than taking books from new and unpublished authors.

As a reader who wants to get your book published, why do you care about these acquisitions strategies? As you increase your understanding about the ways publishers operate and make decisions, you will be able to shape your book proposal in a way that will meet their expectations and needs. Never forget that knowledge is power.

Through proactive prodding of bestselling authors, I would often find a book valuable for my publisher to consider. When I spent this type of personal energy grooming established authors, I was not reading or actively looking at manuscripts from unknown authors. What this means to you is that an editor is not spending all their time working on manuscripts from unknown authors.

It is challenging for unpublished authors to receive constructive feedback from an editor. Because of the volume of material coming across my desk, occasionally I would see a nonfiction proposal which had a nugget of potential. But maybe the nugget was buried on page 5 of the proposal, plus it lacked a number of essential elements to build a complete proposal. If the project was about 80 to 90 percent of what I needed, then I would correspond with the author and get what I needed to build that final 20 or 10 percent. And what if I read an unsolicited nonfiction book proposal which contains only the nugget and needs a greater percentage of work? Unfortunately this proposal is returned with a standard rejection letter. Because of the sheer volume of proposals, I’m unable to add a personal note of encouragement. There aren’t enough hours available for this type of detailed critique work on unpublished proposals. I’m honestly trying to help you understand the editor and the type of pressures in every day editorial work.

Please don’t despair about the shape of your idea, manuscript or book proposal. In the pages that follow, I’m going to give you a series of tips to catch the editor (or agent’s) attention. It’s important that you understand where the editor is coming from—to lessen your own frustration at their slow response or lack of response.

Besides continual networking with established authors for projects, acquisitions editors have other events crowding their daily schedule. These events don’t happen on a single day but often editors are in meetings—lots of meetings—which may include:

• title meetings (to discuss and select the title for a contracted book—and these meetings can take many hours)
• editorial planning meetings (weekly and several hour events at my publisher discussing procedures and other mundane but necessary things)
• concept meetings (where the title has been selected and you need to talk about the contents with your colleagues in the marketing and design areas—for example, what the cover could be for a particular book)
• cover design meetings (several of these meetings where the editors, designers and marketing people look at first covers, then another meeting to look at the covers as they are closer to being in final shape)
• editorial meetings (meetings with fellow editors to determine which projects move to the publishing leadership)
• publication board (the leadership of the publisher who determine which books are contracted and published)
• marketing meetings and
• sales meetings.

No matter what job title an editor has within a publishing house, they handle a plethora of duties and are often overworked and short on time.

Beyond the regularly scheduled group meetings, individual meetings about major and minor aspects of publishing are common. If a current author calls or emails about something, sometimes the only way to answer the request is to hold another meeting. My responsibility was to serve the publishing house and serve my authors (any author with a published book with my publisher). The acquisitions editor is often the public face of the publishing house. If an agent or an author calls with a problem, I actively worked on connecting with the people to solve this situation. Each one of these incidents takes time away from reading proposals and processing unpublished authors.

Another common event inside publishing houses that can stir many meetings is an acquisition of another publisher or another line of books from a publisher. If you read Publisher’s Weekly (which I hig...