Hi again! OK, a few answers, then the next lesson.
In mentioning the competition, suppose you're submitting to that publisher? How does that change your proposal (if at all)?
It probably doesn't-- I'd just be extra-careful to make sure you haven't said anything insulting about books they've published. Publishers don't want to compete with their own titles, so you have to emphasize how your book is not going to steal sales from their "competing" book/s, but be a welcome addition to that audience's shelf-- or hit a slightly different demographic. Example: You know that Nomad has just published The Street-Smart Writer, so they're not going to publish another book on writing scams unless you can prove that it's different enough from mine that it won't take away sales from my book. So, for example, you might emphasize that your book about writing scams is a step-by-step guide to the small claims court process, which is just one tiny part of my book. (Okay, that's
really a niche book, but you get the drift, I'm sure.)
This is actually what helps me shape the idea for my books sometimes. I see what's out there, and I think about it from their publishers' perspectives: What can I add to this topic, or how can I cover it in such a way that it won't be too similar to what's already available to readers?
Jenna, what do you say about referencing Amazon?
In what way? When you're looking for competing books? Yes, it's certainly a good place to discover what else is available on your subject, but it's also necessary to check bookstores, for a simple reason: Many, many books on Amazon are self-published, vanity published, published by tiny presses that have no bookstore distribution, out of print, not technically out of print but no longer available in stores, etc. And you can't always tell by the name of the publisher-- some you'll immediately recognize as vanity presses (Xlibris, iUniverse, PublishAmerica, etc.), but there are many, many others with names you wouldn't recognize. So, chances are, Amazon will show you lots of results that aren't appropriate for your competition section because they aren't truly competition. Publishers don't count them. The ones you see on bookstore shelves are the ones that matter.
Of course, I could have totally misinterpreted your question, in which case, feel free to clarify.
Do non-fiction books need agents? Or should you just contact the publisher directly?
You really can do it either way, or both at the same time. As Dee said, there are certainly benefits to having an agent, but I don't always prefer using one.
If I'm writing a niche book and I know it's not going to interest a major publisher and garner a big advance, I'd probably rather negotiate the deal myself and have a publishing attorney review the contract. My reason is very simply financial: There's nowhere near as much leeway in advances with smaller houses. That is, an agent may be able to get me an extra $20 grand from Simon & Schuster, thus easily "earning her keep." That agent may not be able to get me one penny more from a smaller house than I could have gotten on my own, thus I've just "given away" 15% of all my earnings from that book, and the benefits to me aren't enough to justify that. (I'm speaking from a later point in my career, of course: you might want an agent just to have someone to talk to about the publication process and to do a little hand-holding. For me, though, about the only thing agents have ever done for me once the contract is signed is to deliver the checks. If they're late, the agent will bug the publisher for me so I don't have to. But that's happened only twice, and the checks were only two weeks late.)
But, going backward to the "making the deal" aspect, a good agent knows more about publishers' needs than you or I could. They talk to editors, they find out what particular editors are looking for, they get to know an editor's taste, etc. They can help you get read faster, and they can get you read at houses that don't accept unagented submissions.
I wrote a proposal 2-years ago and my book came out in mid-Dec.!
MAC! Great to see you here! Uh-oh, this could be confusing. I also call MacAllister Mac. Can I call you KMac?
CONGRATS on the new book! I'm gonna go check it out after I'm done with this.
Is it necessary to do the *first* 15 pages of the book in that order as the sample material. The reason I ask is because my book has three different parts.
Good question, and no! Not necessary for it to be the first (however many) pages. I'll address sample material more in depth at the end of the proposal tutorial, but in short, I've often written "sample material" that comes from more than one chapter.
For example, in the bullying book I'm co-writing with Joel Haber, we chose to include several pages from different sections because it was necessary to show his specific approach. If we had just included the first chapter or two, it would have been mostly an overview of what bullying is, the stats on bullying, the basic concepts. However, because there are many books about bullying on the market, that's not good enough to show a publisher what's going to make this book unique. To do that, we wanted to show some of the actual techniques, sample scripts for parents to use, case studies, etc., and those had to come from later chapters. Therefore, we pulled-- I think-- sections from three chapters.
The 15 pages comment did puzzle me a little. Is that something I said earlier? If so, it was definitely meant as an estimate and not as a solid number...
Most publishers ask to see 1-3 sample chapters. I tend to submit about 15-25 pages of sample material-- sometimes it's sequential and sometimes it's not, depending on what makes sense for the book. Like I said, I'll get more in depth on this later, but that's my quick explanation on it.
Next lesson coming soon.
