how to write a book proposal - 4th edition

8/6/2019 How to Write a Book Proposal - 4th Edition

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART I: WHY THE BOOK? WHY YOU?

CHAPTER 1: Why Now Is the Best ime Ever to Write Books: wentyReasons or You to Be a Writer ............................................ 2

CHAPTER 2: McBook: Te Fastest, Easiest Way to Use Tis Book .......... 6 CHAPTER 3: What’s in It or You? Reasons to Use Tis Book .................. 8

CHAPTER 4: Pushing Your Hot Buttons: Choosing the Right Book or You to Write ................................................................... 10

CHAPTER 5: Getting Off the Pin: Te First Tree Stepsto ake With Your Idea....................................................... 13

PART II: STARTING OFF RIGHT:HOOKS, BENEFITS, AND TITLES

CHAPTER 6: Getting Paid to Write Your Book: Te Parts oan Irresistible Proposal ....................................................... 16

CHAPTER 7: Selling the Sizzle: Your Opening and Hook ....................... 20 CHAPTER 8: Naming Rites: Finding the Answers You Need

to Choose Your itle ............................................................ 28 CHAPTER 9: Your Selling Handle and the Models or Your Book ......... 41 CHAPTER 10: Bennies or Readers, Royalties or You: Listing

Your Book’s Benets ............................................................ 45 CHAPTER 11: Adding Value to Your Book:

Special Features ................................................................... 47

PART III: FOLLOWING THE MONEY: YOURBOOK’S MARKETS AND COMPETITION

CHAPTER 12: Following the Money: Four Kinds o Markets or Your Book ....................................................................... 55

CHAPTER 13: Sizing Up the Comps: Competing and

Complementary Books ....................................................... 66



PART IV: REACHING READERS: YOURPLATFORM AND PROMOTION PLAN

CHAPTER 14: Te Base o Your Golden riangle:Creating the Communities You Need ................................ 74

CHAPTER 15: Eyes Are the Prize:Building the Plat orm Your Book Needs ............................79

CHAPTER 16: Te Web as Synergy Machine:Building Your Online Plat orm .......................................... 85

CHAPTER 17: Laying Your Li e on the Lines: Your Bio ............................ 97

CHAPTER 18: Ushering Your Baby Into the World: PuttingYour Promotion Plan on Paper ........................................ 100

CHAPTER 19: Making Your Desk Promotion Central:Your Online Campaign ...................................................... 114

CHAPTER 20: Trowing Something in the Pot:Your Promotion Budget (Optional) ................................. 122

CHAPTER 21: aking the Guesswork Out o Publishing: Fourteen Waysto est-Market Your Book to Guarantee Its Success ....... 126

PART V: ADDING AMMUNITION: OPTIONALPARTS OF YOUR OVERVIEW

CHAPTER 22: Using Niche Craf to Create a Career Out o Your Idea:Spin-Offs ............................................................................ 136

CHAPTER 23: Star Power: Your Foreword and Cover Quotes ............... 139 CHAPTER 24: Your Call to Arms: A Mission Statement ........................ 144

PART VI: PUTTING MEAT ON THE BONES: YOUROUTLINE AND SAMPLE CHAPTER

CHAPTER 25: Chapter Choices:Finding the Best Way to Write Your Outline .................. 148

CHAPTER 26 Giving Your Outlines Structure and Hef ........................ 162 CHAPTER 27: No ime or Sophomores:

Strategies or Outlining Six Kinds o Books .................... 165 CHAPTER 28: A aste o the Feast:

A Q&A Session About Your Sample Chapter ................. 176



PART VII: ENSURING YOUR PROPOSALIS READY TO SUBMIT

CHAPTER 29: Making Your Proposal More Salable:Te Benets o Writing Your Manuscript First .............. 184

CHAPTER 30: Making Your Work Look as Good as It Reads:Formatting Your Proposal ................................................ 186

CHAPTER 31: Te Break ast o Champions:Getting Feedback on Your Proposal................................. 190

PART VIII: FINDING A HAPPY HOMEFOR YOUR BOOK

CHAPTER 32: Publishing on the Vertical Slope o echnology:Seeking the Right Publisher or You and Your Book ....... 197

CHAPTER 33: Get Published or Sel -Publish:Do You Need a Publisher? ............................................... 204

CHAPTER 34: Te Hook, the Book, and the Cook:

Write and Send Your (E-)Query Letter .......................... 206 CHAPTER 35: Te First Impression: Making Your Proposal

Look Like It’s Worth What You Want or It .................... 211 CHAPTER 36: DIY: Te Joys o Sel -Publishing ....................................... 215 CHAPTER 37: Pushing the Envelope:

How to Sell Your Book Yoursel ........................................ 218 CHAPTER 38: Meet the Matchmaker:

How an Agent Can Help You ........................................... 221 CHAPTER 39: Recipes or a Success ul Book and

the Best Publishing Experience ........................................ 228

PART IX: PLOTTING YOUR FUTURE

CHAPTER 40: Starting With the End in Mind:Setting Your Personal and Pro essional Goals ................ 231

CHAPTER 41: From Author to Authorpreneur:

Te Building Blocks or Growing From Small to Big ...... 234 CHAPTER 42: Spring Is Coming: Te Prologue ....................................... 240



APPENDICES

APPENDIX A: Resource Directory ........................................................... 242 APPENDIX B: Bringing in a Media Whiz:

Why Hire a Publicist? ....................................................... 257 APPENDIX C: Marketing Your Book With Other People’s Money: Te

Quest or Partners to Help You Promote Your Book ...... 259 APPENDIX D: Four Sample Proposals .................................................... 264

INDEX ....................................................................................................... 318



2 How to Write a Book Proposal

Now is the most amazing time ever to be alive and the best time ever to be awriter. I luck is ability meeting opportunity, you are one o the luckiest writ-

ers who ever lived. Here’s why you should commit your li e to being a writer:

1. You are the most important person in the publishing process becauseyou make it possible. I it weren’t or writers, agents and publisherswould have to do something else or a living.

2. You have more options or getting your books published, some owhich—e-books, print-on-demand, podcasting, blogs, and websites—cost little or nothing.

3. You can publish or distribute your work as an e-book, podcast, or print-on-demand book or ree or a small cost. I your book costs you nothingto write and publish, and only one person buys it, it’s making money.

4. Tere are more ways to prot rom your books, including spin-off prod-ucts, speaking, and subsidiary rights. Books in English, the interna-tional language o culture and commerce, and in translation are selling

in more countries. E-book sales are an additional revenue stream, andwith links to content on the Web that already exists or that you or your

CHAPTER 1

Why Now Is the Best ime Ever to Write Books:wenty Reasons or You to Be a Writer



Why Now Is the Best ime Ever to Write Books: wenty Reasons or You to Be a Writer 3

publisher create, they explode the potential or enriching how readersexperience your book.

5. You have more models—books and authors—to help guide your writingand your career. You don’t have to gure out how to write a how-to bookor build a career; you can use your avorite books and authors as models.

6. Tere are more subjects or you to write about.

7. You can sell your book by writing a proposal. A writer’s rst novel usu -ally must be completed be ore she can sell it, but 90 percent o nonction

is sold with proposals. Tese proposals usually contain just one chapteror 10 percent o the manuscript, in ormation about the book, an outline,and how you’ll promote the book and yoursel .

8. Finding an agent is easier. I you have a salable book, it’s easy to acquirean agent—and new agencies are springing up all the time.

9. Selling your book yoursel is easier. Most writers sell their books them-selves—without the help o agents. Chapter thirty-seven tells you how.

10. I you come up with an idea or a series o books you are passionateabout writing and promoting, you can create a career out o it. You canpractice “niche craf” and build your career book by book.

MASTER OF NICHE CRAFT

Jay Conrad Levinson self-published a book called Earning Money Without a Job: The

Economics of Freedom. I read a story about Jay in the San Francisco Chronicle, called him,

and sold the book to Henry Holt. Then Jay wanted to write a book called Secrets

for Making Big Prots From Your Small Business. But when I read his proposal, I saw the

phrase guerrilla marketing , and I knew that had to be the title. Guerrilla Marketing is

now in its fourth edition and has spawned more than forty spin-off books in what

has become a virtually endless series. Jay is a master at practicing niche craft.

11. You have more ways to test-market your books. You can maximize the

value o your book be ore you sell it by test-marketing it. Chapter twenty-one tells you how.




12. Writing is a orgiving art. You can write as many drafs as you need—only the last one counts. As long as you have knowledgeable readers,

and you learn rom mistakes, writing salable books is inevitable.

13. You can be an author without being a writer. Te two assets authors haveare a body o salable in ormation and the ability to promote their work.Tey can work with an editor or collaborator or hire a ghostwriter.

14. You can advance a cause or belie . A book can change hearts, minds,and the world.

15. You have access to an amazing array o resources—and some o themare ree. Finding the books, magazines, events, classes, organizations,publishing pro essionals, online resources, in ormation, and communi-ties you need is easier and aster than ever.

16. You will do a better job writing and promoting with each book you write.Tink o your career as a li etime endeavor with ten or twenty books init, each better and more protable than the previous one.

17. Becoming a success ul author is easier than becoming a success ul actor,artist, dancer, composer, or musician. Writers have an easier, aster pathto success than other kinds o artists. Only 1 percent o actors succeed;Writer’s Digest reports that 6 percent o writers make a living writing.

18. You don’t have to quit your day job. You can keep writing until you’remaking the income you need to devote your li e to your calling.

19. oday’s in ormation technology is the greatest tool or writers sincethe printing press. echnology will help you with every aspect obeing a writer.

20. You get to spend your li e browsing in bookstores and reading books,and they’re tax deductible!

Apart rom these reasons are the pleasures o

• nding the right words to express your ideas.

• nishing your books. • nding an agent and publisher you love.




CHAPTER 2

McBook: Te Fastest,Easiest Way to Use Tis Book

ime is your most precious asset, and I don’t want to waste it. Far more valuablethan the money you spent buying this book— or which I am very grate ul—will

be the time you spend using it. Te book has three levels o in ormation: • how-to in ormation

• key points• everything else that will entertain or enlighten you

Here are three ways to use this book:

• Te astest, easiest way: Simply ocus on the how-to in o as you write

your proposal.• Read the key points rst and then use the how-to in o later as you write

your proposal. • Te best way: Read it be ore writing your proposal and then use the how-

to in o as you write your proposal.

You can vary the way you read the book, depending on your degree o inter-est in what you’re reading, or you can experiment to nd the way the book

will work best or you. Agents and editors vary in what they like to see ina proposal, but this book will enable you to give anyone what she needs. I



McBook: Te Fastest, Easiest Way to Use Tis Book 7

you’re writing a proposal or a specic publisher, you can zero in on whatthe house’s website tells you it needs and then nd those sections in this

book to use as a guide.You’re welcome to write or call me with questions. For a quarter o a cen-

tury, I have been sustained in part by letters rom writers who sold their booksbecause o this book. I hope you will become one o those writers, and I look

orward to hearing about your success.Onward!




Based on thirty-eight years o experience as an agent, I guarantee this book isworth your time. I you disagree, send the receipt, and I’ll re und your money

and postage.• I’ve shortened chapters to make the book a aster read.

• Te book shows you how to make your proposal irresistible rom wordone, as ast and in as ew words as possible.

• Te book helps you use technology to write and sell your proposal andto promote your book.

• Tis books helps you start taking advantage o the tremendous opportu-nities awaiting you.

• Tis book provides an up-to-date model or you to ollow to become asuccess ul author.

• Te book helps you set literary and nancial goals that will determine • what you write.

• how you write. • how you build your plat orm.

CHAPTER 3

What’s In It or You?Reasons to Use Tis Book



What’s in It or You? Reasons to Use Tis Book 9

• your promotion plan. • the editor, publisher, and deal you get or your book.

• Te book has new sample proposals and parts o proposals.

• I’ve updated the book so you can meet the evolving challenges o writ-ing, selling, and promoting your books. I will continue to update thebook at www.larsenpomada.com. I you’re an agent or writer whowould like to post a proposal or part o one, please e-mail it to me [email protected].

• o try to make the book enjoyable to read, I use humor to help the medi-cine go down.

Following your passion is the subject o the next chapter.



Pushing Your Hot Buttons: Choosing the Right Book or You to Write 11

1. Your passion or writing it 2. Its potential or generating ame and ortune 3. Te timing or it 4. Its originality 5. Your credentials or years o experience in your eld 6. Your track record 7. Your ability to write about it

8. Your plat orm 9. Your ability to test-market it

10. Your ability to promote it 11. Its potential to be a series 12. Te size o the markets or it 13. Te communities you have online and off to help you

Finding the right ocus or your book—neither too broad nor too narrow—isessential. As one wag put it, “Don’t start vast projects with hal -vast ideas.”

I there is a book you really want to read but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” — M

Nobel Prize–winning author oni Morrison suggests one criterion or decid-ing to write a book: Would you buy it?

Here’s a scenario or you: Want a million bucks to write a book? You canpick the subject later. Does this sound like a antasy? It happened to BobWoodward, coauthor o All the President’s Men. Te catch: It happened aferhis ourth consecutive book hit the top o the best-seller list. Offering him themoney without a subject was a sa e bet. Woodward went on to have twelvenumber-one bestsellers and is stil l at it.

You can’t count on enjoying the spectacular career that Bob Woodwardhas earned, but writing a success ul book can trans orm your li e. I you havean idea or a book that will interest enough people, and i you can prove that

you can research, organize, and write a book—and then promote it—you canget published.




But this requires a shif in your thinking rom being a writer to being whatauthor Sam Horn calls an authorpreneur —a new model or becoming a suc-

cess ul author discussed in chapter orty-one. You must make your proposalirresistible be ore you submit it. Its ate is sealed with the e-mail or envelopein which you submit it.

What to do when lightning strikes is the subject o the next chapter.



A New Yorker cartoon by Mick Stevens shows Adam and Eve sitting together

under a tree in Eden, and Adam says, “I can’t help thinking that there’s a book

in this.” Someone once said, “Getting an idea should be like sitting on a pin;it should make you jump up and do something.” Te moment you can’t help

thinking there’s a book in your idea, take the ollowing three steps.

1. Find your models. For any kind o book you want to write, models abound.

Make yoursel an expert on your subject by reading the most important com-

peting books and browsing through the others. Read between the lines to see

what they don’t do so you can make your book different and better.Competing books will be models or yours. Tey will enable you to antici-

pate editors’ and readers’ expectations or books like yours. Tey will help you

visualize your book by establishing criteria or style, tone, eatures, benets,

illustrations, back matter, and the length o your book and chapters. Tey can

also serve as models and help sell your book by proving there’s a market or

such books. ry to nd one or two success ul books you can use as a model or

your book and can mention in your book hook. A publisher o competing orcomplementary books may buy yours.

CHAPTER 5

Getting Off the Pin:Te First Tree Steps to ake With Your Idea

Getting Off the Pin: Te First Tree Steps to ake With Your Idea 13




2. Test-market the idea on your communities. Practice convincing writers,booksellers, experts, and authors o books on the subject that there will be

enough interest in the book two years rom now, and afer, to justi y writing it.Teir eedback may help you ne-tune your idea.

3. Write your proposal ASAP without sacricing quality. Ideas are in theair because the raw material or them is in the media sphere that envelops us.Assume others have your idea.

When a subject is hot, publishers are hit with a deluge o proposals aboutit. Tey also mine their backlists or books on the subject. I your book is

about a breaking news story or a hot subject, you must write your proposalquickly, and sell it be ore another writer beats you to it or be ore interest inthe subject wanes.

However, i your topic isn’t time sensitive, consider writing your manu-script be ore you write your proposal. Chapter twenty-nine lists the advan-tages o writing your manuscript rst. In ormation about how to create anirresistible proposal ollows that.

HOT TIP

If you come up with an idea for a book that has never been done, it means one

of two things:

• You’ve created a great opportunity.

• There’s a reason it’s never been done before.

Taking the three steps explored in this chapter will enable you to gure out

which one it is.



15

PART II:STARTING YOUR

OVERVIEW RIGHT




Instant gratication takes too long.—C F

Some writers nd it easier to write the book than the proposal. For others, writ-ing the proposal is the most creative part o doing a book. Why? Because youhave the reedom to plan the book in the way that excites you most without

• bearing the responsibility or writing it. • changing your vision to suit your publisher’s needs. • being pressured by the deadline that comes with a contract and the

advance your publisher wants to earn back ASAP.

Tere are three rules or writing the novel. Un ortunately, no oneknows what they are.

—W. S M

Tere are many ways to write a proposal, just as there many ways to write a

book. My approach has evolved over the years, and the trans ormation o pub-lishing continues to change it.

CHAPTER 6

Getting Paid to Write Your Book:Te Parts o an Irresistible Proposal



Getting Paid to Write Your Book: Te Parts o an Irresistible Proposal 17

Most proposals range rom thirty-ve to fy pages. A proposal has threeparts in a logical sequence:

• overview • outline • sample chapter

Each part has to impress agents and editors enough to convince them tokeep reading.

THE OVERVIEW

Your overview must prove that you have a marketable, practical idea and thatyou are the right person to write about it and promote it. Te overview givesyou the chance to provide as much ammunition about you and your book asyou can muster. It should contain these elements:

• Te opening hook that will most excite editors about your subject • Te book hook:

• the title and selling handle (up to feen words o selling copy aboutthe book)

• the books or authors you’re using as models or your book • the suggested (or actual) length o your manuscript and when you will

deliver it • the book’s benets (optional) • special eatures (optional) • in ormation about a sel -published edition (optional)

• (Optional) A oreword by a well-known authority: I getting a orewordisn’t possible, include the ollowing sentence: Te author will contact[names o potential authorities and, i needed, their credentials] or a oreword and cover quotes.

• Markets: Te types o readers and retailers, organizations, or institu-tions who’ll be interested in your book. Te size o each group and otherin ormation to show you know your audience and how to write a book

or those readers. Other possible markets: schools, businesses, and sub-sidiary-rights markets such as lm and oreign publishers.



Getting Paid to Write Your Book: Te Parts o an Irresistible Proposal 19

A SAMPLE CHAPTER

You must write one or more chapters that will most excite editors by provingyou will ulll the promise to readers and make your book enjoyable to read.Include about 10 percent o the book, or twenty-ve pages—enough to giveeditors a solid slice o the content.

WHERE AND HOW TO START YOUR PROPOSAL

Tis list I’ve just given you is the what , not the how. It tells you what you needor your proposal, not how to write it. I you could just use the list to write your

proposal, the book would end here, and my job as author and agent would bea lot easier!

Tis book presents the parts o a proposal in a logical order. But you maywrite your proposal in any order you wish. I you want to start with the easi-est parts, try your bio, your mission statement, your plat orm, the markets oryour book, the back matter, and special eatures. As Henry Ford said, “Noth-ing is particularly hard i you divide it into small jobs.”

In Te Complete Idiot’s Guide to Getting Published , Association o Authors’Representatives (AAR) member Sheree Byko sky and Jenni er Basye Sandersuggest that you type the title page rst and put it on your wall to inspire you.

Consider ocusing on just one hook, one part o the overview, or one chap-ter outline at a time, and devote the rest o your time to getting ready to writethe next part o your proposal. Make writing your proposal and your book aseasy and enjoyable as you can while being rigorous about keeping to a time-line or completing it.

In Editors on Editing , Jane von Mehren says, “Te best proposals arethose that elicit the ewest questions. Why? Because you’ve anticipated andanswered them all.”

Let’s go step by step through the process o creating a proposal that willget you the editor, publisher, and deal you want. We’ll start with your rstchallenge: creating an enticing rst page.




THE GOLDEN RULE FOR CREATING YOUR OPENING HOOK

Excite editors about your subject.

Sell the sizzle, not the steak.—A

Your overview is the sizzle in your proposal. I it doesn’t sell you and your book,agents and editors won’t check the bones (the outline o your book) or try thesteak (your sample chapter). Ask yoursel : “What will excite editors who have

seen thousands o proposals?” You’re not selling just your book, you’re sellingyoursel . So, like your proposal, every word must help answer one o these twoquestions in as ew words as possible:

• Why this book? • Why you?

Te opening o your proposal must convince readers your book will have whatit takes to succeed in an increasingly competitive marketplace. Your overview

sets the standard or the tone, style, and quality o what ollows. Your proposalmust convince an editor o the ollowing:

CHAPTER 7

Selling the Sizzle:Your Opening and Hook



• You have a salable idea. • You can write it. • You can promote it.

Whether you are selling a proposal with a sample chapter, a complete manu-script, or a sel -published or previously published book, you need an over-

view. Te overview provides editors with the in ormation they need to writethe proposal they use to help justi y buying a book at their weekly editorialboard meeting.

YOUR OPENING HOOK

Begin hal way down the page and center the word Overview. Ten, as brieyas you can, hook editors to your subject with a quote, an event, an idea, a joke,a cartoon, or a statistic—the single most exciting thing you can write aboutthe subject that makes your book sound new, needed, and timely. A hook canalso be a compelling anecdote that supports a statistic.

For example, i you are writing a how-to book, consider starting with

an anecdote about how someone used your technique to solve a problem orimprove his li e. Ten provide a round, accurate gure or how many peopleneed your book.

For a business how-to book, the story might be about how the Wide-Open-Spaces Company in Wherever, exas, used your technique and increased itssales by 100 percent in six months. Your next sentence can mention how manyother companies can benet rom the same approach. You must convince edi-tors that your subject warrants a book. ry to make your hook grab readersthe way the lead paragraph in a magazine story does. I you’re writing a nar-rative book that reads like a novel and has a dynamite opening, start with therst paragraph.

United Press International tells its journalists i they hook readers withthe rst six words, readers will read the rst paragraph. I they read the rstparagraph, they will read the rst three paragraphs, and i they read the rstthree paragraphs, they’ll nish the story.

Editors vote with their eyes. Everything you write must make them voteto keep reading.

Selling the Sizzle: Your Opening and Hook 21




EXAMPLE: Climbing the Corporate Ladder in High Heels Kathleen Archambeau, a speaker, executive, and consultant, nailed the mar-ket or the book in her rst sentence. She then used other stats and compellingcopy to help sell her subject with admirable brevity. Here’s her hook:

Tere are 63 million working women in America. But only one percent are inthe CEO and Chairman ranks in the Fortune 500, and only ve percent are topearners. While women comprise nearly 50 percent o the work orce, they per-

orm more than 90 percent o the household and childcare duties.More than 40 percent o corporate pro essionals over orty never marry or

have children. So they ask themselves: “Has my li e become all work and no

play? Does having a success ul career mean losing out on a happy li e?” Teycan have it all, but not all at once.

HOT TIP

People like to read about other people. That’s why anecdotes are effective ways

to get your points across. Use ctional techniques to make anecdotes read like

short stories that pack a wallop by being as humorous, dramatic, inspirational, or

startling as possible.

Anecdotes humanize a book by presenting a slice of life readers can relate

to. They also make for more enjoyable, memorable reading than abstract ideas.

As Jack Caneld says, “Facts tell, stories sell.”

EXAMPLE: The Everyday Advocate:How to Stand Up for Your Autistic Child In Te Everyday Advocate , Areva Martin created a compelling blend o mem-

oir and advice. Being a requent guest on Dr. Phil helped as an autism expertsell her book, as did the quote Dr. Phil McGraw, also a best-selling author, pro-

vided. He hailed the book as the book on the subject. No wonder Laney Beckerat the Markson Toma Literary Agency was able to convince New AmericanLibrary to snap the book up.

OVERVIEW

I’m no stranger to hardship. You don’t go rom being a young girl, raised by adisabled grandmother and a night-shif janitor, to being a Harvard law honorsgraduate who runs a success ul law rm in LA, without a lot o sweat and



tears. Afer coming so ar, I assumed the toughest challenges were behind me; Ithought I could handle anything. Ten I had an autistic child.

oday, one out o every 150 children born in the United States has autism.Tat’s more than a 700 percent increase in the number o children diagnosedin the last twenty years. Te Center or Disease Control has declared autism anational health crisis—yet there is no central source o in ormation or this rap-idly growing epidemic.

While I searched or ways to help my son, Marty, most o the in ormationI ound was conicting and difficult to understand. Misin ormation, igno-rance and intolerance abound, even among the caregivers and experts we’veall learned to trust. As Marty grew older, I aced new, more complicated battles,including getting him the education and health care services he needed. Evenwith my legal expertise, learning to be an advocate or my own son was, andremains, the biggest challenge I’ve ever aced. I ound mysel thinking: I it’sthis hard or me, it’s got to be impossible or anyone without the benet o myeducation, training and legal experience.

In The Everyday Advocate: How to Stand Up for Your Autistic Child , Ishare my hard-won knowledge not only with other parents—but with relatives,caregivers and professionals—making the book a valuable read for everyonewho loves or cares for children with autism.

Areva’s hook is longer than what’s advisable or most books, but her book war-ranted a more detailed hook. A chapter outline rom her book is in chaptertwenty-ve.

EXAMPLE: The Compassionate Carnivore: Or,How to Keep Animals Happy, Save Old MacDonald’s Farm,Reduce Your Hoofprint, and Still Eat Meat Here’s how Catherine Friend’s authoritative, engaging voice helped sell her book.

Meat is the esh o a dead animal.While the people who can’t deal with this act bury their heads in the sand,

an ever-growing group o olks is paying attention. Tey can pronounce sus-tainability . Tey want to consider humane ways to raise animals. Tey wantto do the right thing. Tey buy organic vegetables, drink air-trade coffee, andconsider the impact o their purchases on the planet. Tey are—and here’s thekey—connecting their purchases to a problem.

Tese conscious consumers had help making these connections. Whenenvironmentalists connected the air, water, and global-warming problems to





people’s actions, people began to say, “What I do really does make a difference.”Tey began to care and to change.

But when it comes to meat, the connection was severed decades ago whenpeople moved to cities and began eating Swanson’s Chicken Pot Pies and OscarMeyer Hot Dogs. We orgot that a chicken was killed to make the pot pie, thata steer and hog were killed to make the hot dog. A huge gap appeared betweenus and our meat.

HOT TIPS

• Avoid the words I, we, us, and our unless the book is about you. Editors

are wary of authors who overuse the word I unless it’s relevant to the

book. Unless you or your experience are part of the book, write about

the subject, not yourself. AAR member Robert Shepard thinks it’s okay

to use the I word when discussing oneself as long as it’s not overused.

I agree, but the surest way to avoid using it too much is not to use it.

• Avoid the words you and your in your introduction and outline. These

rst two parts of the proposal are about the book—you are writing

these rst two parts for the editor, not for the book buyer. If you feel

the need to address readers directly, as this sentence does, do it in

your sample chapter.

• Use round, accurate numbers in your hook. If a number isn’t round, qual-

ify it by writing nearly , almost, or more than (not over ).

EXAMPLE: Stooples: Ofce Tools for Hopeless FoolsBeing desk-bound galley slaves, editors could relate to Stooples, and the

authors (Kevin Reier, Adam Najberg, and Nick Vacca) made it easy or themto get a sense o the book’s potential.

American businesses receive millions o catalogs a year rom Staples, OfficeMax, Office Depot and others. Tey support an office supply market that spends$325 billion a year and grows by 4 percent a year. Te leader o the pack is Sta-ples, a juggernaut with more than 500 stores in nine countries and annual saleso more than $3 billion.

But what i a Staples catalogue went off the deep end? What i instead o pens,pencils and computers, it offered Office Massacre De ense Systems, Rubick’sCubicles, Snivel Slacks, Disappointing Revenue Ritalin and Accent Decoders.



What i every product was highlighted by a humorous photo that made good-natured un o the ineptitude and wackiness o businesses large and small?

Ten you’d have Stooples: Office Supplies or the Rest o Us by Kevin Reier,Adam Najberg and Nick Vacca.

Note the nal title in the heading.

PUTTING A NUMBER TO IT

Let’s say you want to write a book about a new way to stop drinking. Like aver-age readers, editors are aware o the problem in a general way. You need to

provide statistics about how many people drink too much and the toll it takesin lives, health costs, and lost work time to convince editors the subject meritsanother book.

Using numbers—dates, geography, money, size, the number o people, thegrowth o a trend—will

• give credibility to your acts and to you as an authority on the subject• put the subject into context or editors

• prove there will be wide national interest in the subject when your bookcomes out two years rom now.

You’ll use some o this in ormation again in the section on markets.

EXAMPLE: 9 Steps for Reversing or Preventing Cancerand Other Diseases: Learn to Heal From WithinAn anecdote about a woman who used Shivani Goodman’s advice to cure her-sel preceded this subject hook.

One in every our deaths in America is rom cancer, and hal o all Americans,more than 92 million people, will get cancer. Forty percent o those diagnosedwith cancer this year will not be alive in ve years. More children under agefeen die rom cancer than any other disease. And the death rate continuesto rise as cancer replaces heart disease as the number one killer o adults. Inaddition, millions are suffering rom other diseases that limit or interrupt thequality o li e.

Te National Cancer Institute estimates that cancer costs Americans $60billion a year. So not only are the treatments ineffective, but they threaten thenancial security o America’s amilies.





HOT TIP

Keep your opening hook as short as possible. If it’s compelling, one sentence

may be all you need. Your opening hook just has to justify the idea for the bookhook that follows it. Your outline and chapter will tell publishers what they need

to know about the subject.

EXAMPLE: Comfort Zone Investing: Build Wealth and SleepWell at Night

ed Allrich wrote Te On-Line Investor , the rst book on the subject, which

was discussed in the last edition o this book. Here is the opening hook ored’s second book, Com ort Zone Investing :

Te best time to invest is when you have money. —Sir John empleton, ounder, empleton Funds

With that great insight, people know when to invest. But how and where are thebetter questions. People ear that i they invest, especially in stocks and bonds,there’s a chance all or most o their money will disappear. Com ort Zone Invest-ing will help readers overcome anxieties through understanding and knowl-

edge and guide them to investments in their com ort zones.Most people don’t know enough about investing. oo ofen, individual inves-

tors get a hot tip rom a riend or hear about a stock rom a talking head on V.Without any or very little research, or an understanding o the stock market, theybuy a stock and hope or the best. But there is no hope in the stock market.

YOUR BOOK HOOK

Afer you hook editors to your subject, the next challenge is to ensnare themwith the essential in ormation about your book:

• Te title and the selling handle or your book. Even though the ull titleis on the title page o your proposal, repeat it here and then use a short

version o it.

• Te books or authors serving as models or your book.

• Te expected (or actual) word count o your manuscript (and the num-

ber o illustrations, i you use them) and how many months afer receiv-ing your advance you will deliver your manuscript.



• An optional list o your book’s major benets (discussed in chapter ten).

• An optional list o your book’s special eatures: anecdotes, humor,checklists, sidebars, exercises, summaries, boxed copy, icons, and any-thing else you will do to give you book visual appeal, links to Web con-tent, back matter, and anything else you will do to make your book visu-ally appealing and use ul.

• (Optional) I you’ve sel -published your book, tell editors whatever willhelp sell it. Include

• sales gures and in ormation about subsidiary-rights sales. • a list o changes, i any, you want to make in the new edition. • how many manuscript pages o new material you will add, i any. • the number o months afer signing you will deliver the manuscript.

Include reviews and articles about the book with key passages underlined.

EXAMPLE: Day of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor A concise example by Robert Stinnett whose book we sold to Free Press:

Day o Deceit: Te ruth About FDR and Pearl Harbor will be the rst book toprove that FDR knew in advance about Pearl Harbor and approved it. Te man-uscript will be X pages with orty-three il lustrations, and author will deliver themanuscript nine months afer receiving the advance.

Te next chapter discusses how to nail your title.





THE GOLDEN RULES FOR CREATING TITLES

FOR YOUR BOOKS AND CHAPTERS

• Make your titles tell and sell. • Make your titles appeal to the heart as well as the head.

• Use your models as guides.

• Use your communities to test your titles.

A good title is the title o a success ul book.—R C

One New York editor said to us, “I the title is good enough, it doesn’t matterwhat’s in the book.” Everything Men Know About Women proves her right. Tebook has sold more than 750,000 copies. How do I know that the title alone soldthe book? Because it’s 120 blank pages!

You’re in your avorite bookstore just afer your book is published. You startwalking the aisles, delighted to nd your book ace up on the new nonction table inthe ront o the store. You pause to look at it and also take in the books around it.

How long do you spend looking at the covers o other books? wo secondseach, i you are the average book buyer. And guess what? Tat’s how long every-

CHAPTER 8

Naming Rites: Finding the AnswersYou Need to Choose Your itle



Naming Rites: Finding the Answers You Need to Choose Your itle 29

one who walks by the table will spend looking at your cover. wo seconds is lesstime than it took you to read the previous sentence.

wo seconds or the colors, design, artwork, title, and perhaps a quote andthe name o the person who did the oreword. A large proportion o bookshave tombstone covers. Nobody could think o an image that could capturethe essence o the book in a way that would help sell it, so words are all brows-ers have to go on. Tat’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it makes the righttitle all the more important. Finding the per ect title or your book will be an

“Aha!” experience. You will know it the moment you think o it or hear it. Itwill be love at rst sound.

It’s been said that business books provide affirmation, not in ormation,and that what it takes to be success ul in business hasn’t changed much. Butauthors keep coming up with resh, timely ways o expressing their ideas intitles that make their books salable to new readers. Tis works or Frenchcookbooks, too.

Ideally, your book should be new wine in a new bottle. It should containnew in ormation that will ace no competition and that will bear a title that

separates it rom other books. But i , as is true or most books, your book willnot be the rst one on the subject, it’s all the more essential that your “bottle”be new, that you conceptualize your book in a way that makes it seem resh—give it a title that justies another book on the subject.

Assume the editors at big houses are experts on the subject, have seen hun-dreds o proposals about it, and have bought many o them. Tey will knowimmediately how well your book will compete with others on the subject.

Te per ect title or your book will get them excited about it, in partbecause they know your title will excite their editorial boards, sales reps, pub-licists, subsidiary-rights department, and booksellers, as well as the mediaand book buyers. Your title will help them position your book in relation tocompeting books.

THE HEAD AND THE HEART:TITLING WITH BOTH SIDES OF YOUR BRAIN

Creating the best title and, i necessary, subtitle or your book involves usingboth sides o your brain because the best titles appeal to the heart as well as




to the head. For your title, you need the right side o your brain. You need todraw on your creativity to capture the essence o your book or to synthesize its

benets in a short, simple, visual, and accurate title that paints a picture andcreates an emotional response.

Te lef side o your brain aces the challenge o coming up with the sub-title: the shortest, simplest, clearest way o expressing what your book will do

or your readers to justi y their buying and reading it.

THE TELL-AND-SELL FACTOR

In How to Drive Your Competition Crazy , Guy Kawasaki tells the story o hownobody at a private boy’s school signed up or a course called “Home Econom-ics or Boys,” but the class lled up immediately when the school changed thename o the course to “Bachelor Living.”

In the same way, the right title or your book unites two realities.

• What you’re selling and what people are buying • What your book says and the most compelling way to conceptualize

that body o in ormation so it will appeal to as many potential bookbuyers as possible and exclude as ew as possible

Susan Sontag says that writing is like “making bouillon cubes out o soup.” Iyour book will be the essence o what you want to say, your title will be theessence o that essence.

itles or sel -help books, books on popular culture—in act, any bookaimed at a mass audience—must have a high tell-and-sell actor. ogether,

your title and subtitle must tell—describe what your book is—and sell—moti- vate book buyers to pick it up off the shel . Make your title as clear, concise,compelling, and commercial as your subject allows.

HOT TIP

The longer you make anything in your proposal—words, sentences, titles, paragraphs,

chapters, anecdotes, and the book itself—the better it must be to justify its length.

Make your title a big red ag that screams, “Stop and pick me up! You can’tlive without me! I’m worth twice the price! ake me home now!” An effec-




tive how-to title incorporates the notions o a desirable activity or skill to belearned, a systematic approach to learning it, and, perhaps, a time within

which the reader will acquire the skill. Good examples include the ollowing.

• Te 90-Second Fitness Solution • How to Make Someone Fall in Love With You in 90 Minutes or Less • Te 4-Day Diet

Benets that a book or chapter title might convey include speed, quality,economy, or a system or program o steps readers can take to bring about thechange they seek. Using numbers, like 10 Steps or Curing Health, is a simpleway to present a systematic approach and describe the structure o your bookor chapter.

Te ollowing titles (which we sold) tell and sell and combine a catchy titleand subtitle to convey each book’s benet:

• Hit by a Farm: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Barn byCatherine Friend

• Stooples: Office ools or Hopeless Fools by Kevin Reier, Adam Najberg,and Nick Vacca

• Black Belt Negotiating: Become a Master Negotiator Using Power ul Les-sons From the Martial Arts by Michael Soon Lee

HOT TIP

• Try out your title on your networks to study their response to it.

• Don’t offer agents or editors a string of titles to choose from; pick the

best one. You can share the others later.

• Align your title, your manuscript, your talks, and your promotion with

your readers’ needs, values, and fears. The more you help your readers,

the more they’ll help you.

GENERIC VICTORIANS

Shortly afer we started our agency, I drove a cab or a while to make up or the

royalties we hadn’t started earning yet. Driving a taxi gave me the chance tosee parts o San Francisco we hadn’t explored. It also enabled me to discover




the beauti ully painted Victorians that were sprouting up like owers aroundthe city.

I knew there was a book in them, so I took photos o the houses and wrotea proposal or a book. It took a year and a hal to sell. Local publishers said thecolor photos would make the book too costly to produce. New York editorssaid the book was too “regional,” the kiss o death or a New York publisher.

Finally, Cyril Nelson, an editor at Dutton, stopped in San Francisco on hisway to visit his printer in Japan. Afer driving him around the city to see thehouses, he became a believer and risked six thousand dollars on the book.

When photographer Morley Baer and I were roaming around San Fran-cisco shooting houses or the book, he suggested we call the book PaintedLadies. As soon as he said it, I laughed with delight. It was the per ect title.We knew we needed a subtitle, and San Francisco’s Victorians was the logicalchoice, but we were stuck or the right adjective. Cy was right on target withthe word resplendent .

Te rst book, published in 1978, started a national trend that led to vemore books. Te trademarked words painted ladies have become generic or

multicolored Victorians.

HOT TIP

If you luck into the title of a lifetime that has a word or phrase you can use for your

talks and for a series of books, buy the domain name for your website immediately

and trademark the word or phrase as soon as your publisher agrees with you.

I you can’t think o an ideal title or your book, perhaps your agent or editorwill, or maybe you will as you are writing the book. Your title may change inthe course o writing and producing your book. I you’re lucky, you will set-tle on a title that you, your editor, and the S&M (that’s sales and marketing)crowd agree will create the strongest response on bookstore shelves. Use thetitles o success ul books like yours to spark your imagination.

GETTING A TITLE PAST THE GATEKEEPERS

Between you and your book thriving on bookstore shelves two years romnow are nine gatekeepers who will have a say about the title or your book: you,




your communities, your agent, your editor, your publisher’s editorial board,your publisher’s sales reps, the bookstore chains, the warehouse clubs, and

discounters like Walmart. I any one o them doesn’t like the title, regardlesso the previous responses to it, the title is toast.

Writers are less concerned about titles than they need to be. Tey assumetheir publisher will change the title, so they don’t spend enough time on it orenlist other writers to help. Tey are also too close to their work to create thebest titles or their books.

Big publishers are working with too many books to pay enough attention toall o them. I they get stuck on a title, they choose the least objectionable one.What percentage o published books have the best titles or them? My guess: ewerthan 10 percent. Check out your shelves and bookstores to see i you agree.

Te best insurance: Enlist your communities and do whatever it takesto come up with the best title or your book. I you’re planning a series obooks, the title you choose must serve you well or the series. It will becomeyour brand. As I said be ore, you’ll know it when you hear it; you’ll get goosebumps. Finding the right title or your book challenges your publisher either

to use it or to nd a better one.Te range o nonction books and the endless possibilities or creating

titles can make the challenge daunting.

FINDING THE ANSWERS YOU NEEDTO CHOOSE YOUR TITLE

When I worked at Bantam, the editors used to talk about a Little, Brown and

Company novel called Five Days. It didn’t sell well, so when Bantam publishedthe mass-market edition o the book, they changed the title to Five Nights. FiveDays tells;Five Nights sells. Tis is a timeless example o what a title should be:evocative, intriguing, enticing, appealing to the emotions more than to themind. Tis applies equally to the titles o your chapters.

A New Yorker cartoon shows a man, his hand extended, introducing him-sel to a woman at a party, and he’s saying to her, “Hi. I’m, I’m, I’m … You’llhave to orgive me, I’m terrible with names.”

Being terrible with names is not an option when it comes to naming yourbook. A symbol or metaphor that captures the essence o your book can




crystallize the meaning and structure o the book. Let your imagination runwild and have un thinking about all the possibilities. Te authors must have

had un coming up with the ollowing titles:

• How to Pull Strings and Inuence Puppets • My Indecision Is Final • Ventriloquism or the Complete Dummy

Children’s-book agent Andrea Brown nds that the right title is especially impor-tant or children’s books. Humorous titles like Cloudy With a Chance o Meat-balls or Te Cat Ate My Gymsuit sell much better than straight orward titles.

You must have a creative distance rom your book and be a bit o a vision-ary or a poet to come up with a title that excites you. You need the distancethat astronauts in space have when they behold Spaceship Earth.

TWO WAYS TO SIMPLIFY FINDING YOUR TITLE

Here are two simple ways or nding a title:

• Te titles or serious re erence works, biographies, or books proposinga scientic or political theory need only tell, not sell. People buy thembecause they want the in ormation, so you can simply name the in or-mation to create the title. As elsewhere, be guided by comparable booksyou admire. David McCullough didn’t need anything ancier than John

Adams to have a bestseller, a must-read or biographers and memoirists.

• Your book may need only a title. Tanks to the success o the movieSaturday Night Fever , Karen Lustgarten’s Te Complete Guide to DiscoDancing —one o our books that came out shortly afer the moviedebuted—didn’t need a subtitle to hit the best-seller list. (Te photo oher on the cover made its way onto a postage stamp commemoratingthe seventies. How’s that or nding immortality?) Other books o oursthat didn’t require subtitles include the ollowing:

• Learning to Write Fiction From the Masters by Barnaby Conrad • Random House Webster’s Quotationary compiled by Leonard Roy Frank

• Fun Places to Go With Children in Northern Cali ornia by ElizabethPomada (now in its ninth edition)




NINETEEN QUESTIONS IN SEARCH OF ONE ANSWER

I the easy ways won’t work, here are nineteen questions to ask yoursel to helpyou nd the title or your book:

1. Does my title have an impact o an ad or article headline, compellingpeople to read the copy that ollows? Using the word ree helped JayConrad Levinson with Guerrilla Marketing or Free: Dozens o No-Cost

actics to Promote Your Business and Energize Your Prots.

2. Does my title have three words that capture the essence o my book’spromise? When one writer was stuck or a title, Oscar Dystel, then thepresident o Bantam, asked him, “What’s the point o the book in threewords, no more, no less?” Te writer replied, “Quick weight loss,” whichbecame the heart o the title or the bestsellerTe Doctor’s Quick WeightLoss Diet .

Te title was one o the reasons I Li e Is a Game, Tese Are the Rules,by Chérie Carter-Scott, hit the top o the New York imes best-seller list.

Te subtitle— en Rules or Being Human as Introduced in Chicken Soup or the Soul —also helped, as did the hour Oprah joined her audiencewatching Chérie’s presentation.

3. Does my title make use o a memorable image, symbol, or metaphor thatcaptures the essence o my book in a way that can be the basis or mybook’s cover art, promotional materials, and uture books?

Allan Hamilton’s Te Scalpel and the Soul combines an intriguing

juxtaposition and alliteration that captures the essence o his spiritualmemoir. His proposal is in Appendix D.

Another example o an evocative title that agent Robert Shepard likesto use is Friday Night Lights, a bestseller and then a television series.

4. Does my title sell my solution? Don’t sell a question; sell an answer. Don’tsell a problem; sell a solution. Make your title positive and empower-ing. Convince book buyers that you’re going to solve their problem. An

example: Edward Segal’s Getting Your 15 Minutes o Fame and More! AGuide to Guaranteeing Your Business Success.




5. For a how-to book: Is my title the prescription or the cure my book willprovide? Readers want a how-to book to be a magic pill. Tey want to

ollow the directions and enjoy the benet the title prescribes. HaroldLustig did this with his book 4 Steps to Financial Security or Lesbianand Gay Couples.

6. Does my title make the biggest promise that my book will ulll? Hereis a brilliant title by David J. Lieberman: Get Anyone to Do Anything:Never Feel Powerless Again—With Psychological Secrets to Control andInuence Every Situation. Tat title is so good it was optioned or a

movie twice!

7. Does my title broadcast my unique selling proposition (USP)? Create aUSP that will make your book stand out rom the competition. Tis isparticularly important or a book that will ace a lot o competition, likeTe Only Negotiating Guide You’ll Ever Need: 101 Ways to Win Every

ime in Any Situation by Peter Stark and Jane Flaherty.

HOT TIP

When publishing people refer to a title, they use only one or two words, so do

as they do: After you give the full title in your book hook, use a shorthand ver-

sion of it in the rest of your proposal so editors won’t have to keep reading the

whole title.

Keep your title short and simple, six words or less, and add an explana-

tory subtitle if you need to. 1776 did the job for David McCullough’s bestseller,

but Dry is the shortest title I’ve ever seen. (It’s a memoir that involves alco-

hol and shing.) Malcolm Gladwell’s bestseller Blink is also admirably concise.Book designer Karris Ross has found that keeping subtitles to around ten words

makes them easier to understand.

You will also help book buyers who are researching books by subject if the

rst or second word of your title conveys the subject of the book. Ingram, the

nation’s largest wholesaler, gives only the rst sixteen letters of a title in its com-

puterized book list that booksellers use for ordering. Then again, there’s always

David Reuben’s Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex But Were Afraid to

Ask. Thirteen words didn’t keep it from becoming a bestseller.




8. Is the title o my book the same title as the talks I will give about thebook? Te same title or both creates synergy. Whether it’s to hear you

or read your book, you’re asking or people’s time. Your title must convince them their time will be time well spent.

9. Does my title use proprietary nomenclature, a way o capturing theessence o my book that makes it mine alone? Jay Conrad Levinson’sname has become synonymous with Guerrilla Marketing, the brandhe built.

10. Can I use a variation o my title or other books? Te Guerrilla Market-ing series, the Dummies books, and the Chicken Soup series prove thatthe right title helps create enduring brands.

11. Does my title broadcast my book’s benet so well that it creates an irre-sistible urge to buy my book? Another example by David J. Lieberman:Never Be Lied to Again: How to Get the ruth in 5 Minutes or Less in

Any Conversation or Situation .

12. Does my title offer one or more o the golden oldies that people havealways wanted and needed most: sex, love, ood, health, laughter,pleasure, peace o mind, work, power, success, making money, andsaving money? Also consider the ollowing subjects o national andglobal interest:

• Leisure interests such as games, sports, movies, music, and socializingthat people enjoy online and off

• East meeting West in the Asian (i not the Chinese) century as authorsdraw on eastern traditions in li estyle books about health, tness, ood,work, gardening, spirituality, and design

• Universal concerns including work, business, politics, peace, the envi-ronment, ood, health, tness, education, sustainability, water, reli-gion, technology, multiculturalism, and aging

13. Does my title capture how my book will affect my readers? Will it in orm

them, enlighten them, entertain them, persuade them, inspire them,make them laugh, help them lead better lives, or provide any combination




o the above? Here’s the title or Francesca De Grandis’s book:Be a God-dess! A Guide to Celtic Spells and Wisdom or Sel -Healing, Prosperityand Great Sex .

14. Does my title use wordplay to help make it memorable? Te techniquesyou can use include

• Rhyme: Private Lives o Ministers’ Wives by Liz Greenbacker andSherry aylor

• Rhythm: I Li e Is a Game, Tese Are the Rules by Chérie Carter-Scott

• Alliteration: Amazeing Art: Wonders o the Ancient World by Chris-topher Berg

• Verbal and visual puns: $ellmates: Te Art o Living and Workingogether (one o my avorite ideas that needs a writer)

• Wordplay (changing a letter or a word in a well-known phrase or usingits opposite): ongue Fu! How to Deect, Disarm, and De use Any Ver-bal Conict , a great title by Sam Horn; Stuff Happens (And Ten You

Fix It!): 9 Reality Rules to Steer Your Li e Back in the Right Direction byJohn Alston and Lloyd Taxton; and Winning the Battle o the Exes:How to Make the Last Day o Your Divorce the First Day o a Li elongFriendship, another idea that needs a writer.

• wo contrasting or opposing phrases: Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus by John Gray

• Humorous titles, essential or books with humor: I’m Not as Old as I

Used to Be: Reclaiming Your Li e in the Second Hal by Frances Weaverand How Now Brown Sow: A Fat-Free Guide to Raising Pigs in Your

Apartment , an idea unlikely to nd a writer. I can’t convince Jack Can-eld to do Chicken Soup or the Shoemaker’s Soul or Chicken Soup orthe Filet o Soul , but I keep hoping.

15. Does my title use words that sell?

• Words that sell products and services: sex(y), now, success, rst , com-

plete, how to, you, health, balance, trans orm, original , diet , weight loss,God , soul , spiritual , inspirational , overcome




• Money words: ree, money (-making /saving ), save, prot , risk- ree, guarantee, income, tax- ree

• Superlatives: biggest , largest , best , oldest , youngest , richest , most beauti- ul , most exciting , most complete, cheapest

• ime words: now; today ; a number ollowed by seconds, minute(s) ,hour(s), day(s), week(s), month(s) , year(s); speed , quick (-ly) (-er) (-est), ast (-er) (-est), instant(ly) , convenient

• Words that suggest a system or program: a number ollowed by secrets,steps, stepping stones, keys, ways, commandments , building blocks

• Crossover words: at home and at work , in your personal and pro es-sional li e, or parents and teachers

• Combined words: putting two words together to create a new one, likeNegotiauctions: New Dealmaking Strategies or a Competitive Market- place by Guhan Subramanian

16. Does my title promise an experience that will be unny, dramatic, inspi-rational, trans orming, moving, amazing, or enlightening? From Buch-enwald to Carnegie Hall is a Holocaust memoir that captures the essenceo pianist Marian Filar’s remarkable story that Charles Patterson helpedhim tell.

17. Does my title make use o the title o a success ul book?Freakonom-ics spawned titles that made use o its last three syllables, and authorshave been mining Edward Gibbon’s Te Decline and Fall o the RomanEmpire or more than two hundred years.

You can look at all titles to create a variation or your book, but thebetter known the source, the more impact the title will have.

One tribute to a book’s success is a parody o the book’s title. Alongwith speaker Scott Friedman, I’m waiting or someone to write Te 7Habits o Highly Effective Nuns. You know your book is success ul whensomeone does a parody o it.

18. Does my title appeal to the needs, ears, and values o my potential read-

ers? When one o our writers wanted to write a book called Te HealthFood Hustlers, I suggested that it would be more salable i he called it Te




Insider’s Guide to Health Foods, which made the book a service insteado just an exposé, and that was the title Bantam used or the book.

19. Do I have a catchy title that has nothing to do with the subtitle? wobest-selling examples: Harvey Mackay’s Swim With the Sharks WithoutBeing Eaten Alive: Outsell, Outmanage, Outmotivate, and OutnegotiateYour Competition and Richard Bolles’s What Color Is Your Parachute? APractical Manual or Job-Hunters and Career-Changers .

Any o these possibilities may spark the title or your book. Playing aroundwith them will lead you to chapter titles, subheads, and phrases you can usein talks, articles, your blog, your newsletter, your website, and on social net-works. Te titles o success ul books will also inspire your creativity.

The following chapter will show you how to provide your book’s markets.



THE GOLDEN RULE FOR YOUR SELLING HANDLE

Sell what readers will buy.

You will spend months writing your book, but sales reps, who may be sell-ing hundreds o books at a time, may only spend seconds selling it. So, asa sales rep once remarked in Publishers Weekly : “We need an expeditious,concise, sales-oriented handle that says a lot about the book in as ew wordsas possible.”

What reps need is an effective one-line selling handle. Broadway producerDavid Belasco’s warning to playwrights also applies to you: “I you can’t writeyour idea on the back o my calling card, you don’t have a clear idea.” It’s thehigh-concept idea o the log line, the one line o copy in V Guide that mustconvince viewers to watch the show. Your selling handle will be a one-linestatement o your primary goal or your book.

MODELING YOUR BOOK

Te Hollywood pitch, the movie version o a selling handle, is what lm agents

use to pitch ideas. Tis pitch ofen combines two success ul movies: “It’s gonnabe colossal! It’s E. . meets Jurassic Park!” Comparing a book to one or more

CHAPTER 9

Te Instant Sell: Your Selling Handleand the Models or Your Book

Te Instant Sell: Your Selling Handle and the Models or Your Book 41




well-known books or authors gives booksellers and media people an immedi-ate grasp o the models or your book. Kirkus Book Reviews used two nonc-tion bestsellers to desribe W. Bruce Cameron’s novel, A Dog’s Purpose: “ Mar-ley and Me meets uesdays with Morrie.”

Your book’s selling handle may be its thematic, structural, or stylisticresemblance to one or two books or authors. Te ollowing examples canserve as selling handles because editors will immediately understand whatyou’re selling, and you will both have a model on which to pin your literaryand commercial hopes.

• A Fast Food Nation about ashion • A What to Expect When Your Dog Is Expecting (not a bad idea, at least

or an article) • A book in the high-energy, reewheeling style o om Wol e

ESTABLISHING YOUR MARKETING POSITION

You can’t just think about what you’re selling; you must also think about what

your potential readers are buying. Isolate what makes your book unique, whatsets it apart rom your competition. Ten create a concise, memorable phrasethat conveys your book’s content and appeal.

You want to establish your book’s “marketing position.” Because the bestmarketing position a product or service can have is to be the rst o its kind,write—i you can—that your book “will be the rst book to … ” I yours can’tbe the rst book to do something, make it “the only book to … ”

You don’t have to use either o these approaches, but you must nd a com-pelling phrase to explain why your book merits publication and why editorsshould read your proposal.

HOT TIP

Unless you have a complete manuscript or a self-published book, use the word

will when referring to your book because it doesn’t exist yet.

Your selling handle must broadcast the benet readers will gain rom yourbook. I you have trouble coming up with a strong title or selling handle, try



Te Instant Sell: Your Selling Handle and the Models or Your Book 43

this: List your book’s substance and benets in the orm o phrases. Ten seei you can abstract rom them one enticing phrase that captures the essence oyour book. Selling handles vary in length, but as everywhere else in your pro-posal, the ewer the words the better—feen, at most.

Here are some success ul selling handles our authors have created.

• Kathleen Archambeau: Climbing the Corporate Ladder in High Heelswill be the rst book to tell women how to be success ul and happy with-out becoming just like men.

• Catherine Friend: Meeting My Meat: Adventures o a ender Carnivore will be the rst book to tell readers about the lives o animals and stillsupport their choice to eat meat.

Te nal title or Catherine’s book was Te Compassionate Carnivore .My partner Elizabeth’s idea or the title was Hi, My Name’s Fluffy. I’ll BeYour Lamb Chop onight.

• Kevin Reier, Adam Najberg, and Nick Vacca: Stoopleswill parody busi-ness through the tools o all trades: office products and the catalogues thatog them. It will ollow the path laid down by Dilbert and Te Onion, butdo it like Items rom Our Catalogue, the bestselling takeoff on L.L. Bean.

• Shivani Goodman: Shivani had nished her manuscript, so she writesabout the book in the present tense: 9 Steps or Reversing or Preventing Can-cer and All Other Diseases Without Surgery, Drugs or Changing Your Diet is the rst book to present a program with practical, step-by-step techniquesand vital tools that have been tested in this country and ourteen others.

HOT TIP

Editors resist what seems self-serving. Let your idea, your supporting facts, your

passion, and your writing make your case.

GOING FOR 60 MINUTES

Te more competition your book will ace, the more important it is or yourselling handle to mention what your book will be the rst to have. I you’re



THE GOLDEN RULE ABOUT LISTING BENEFITS

Make your book more salable by showing how it will help your readers.

Including a list o your book’s benets will help prove why it’s needed. Tisis even more valuable i you are the rst author to provide a benet, which isworth mentioning. So i your book’s benets warrant more explanation thanwhat you’ve provided so ar, add a list o benets in descending order o theirability to sell books. Listing benets may make sense or a how-to book, butit’s not necessary or many narrative books such as memoirs.

EXAMPLE: Guerrilla Trade Show Selling Here’s how Jay Conrad Levinson, Mark S.A. Smith, and Orvel Ray Wilsonlisted their book’s benets.

Guerrilla rade Show Selling will:

• Maximize readers’ trade show investment.

• Enable readers to avoid image-damaging, business-killing show behavior.Some companies will be better off i they don’t participate in trade shows.

CHAPTER 10

Bennies or Readers, Royalties or You:Listing Your Book’s Benets (Optional)

Bennies or Readers, Royalties or You: Listing Your Book’s Benets (Optional) 45




• Give readers control over their trade show sales results, leaving little tochance. Include ideas to salvage shows with poor exhibit placement, wrong

show selection, missing exhibits, and seven other problem situations. • Enable small companies to compete with larger well-established competi-

tors. Large competitors ofen don’t prepare their exhibit sales staff prop-erly. A small, well-trained exhibit staff will beat a large, unprepared staffevery time.

• Save time, money, and energy in creating in-house training programs orresearching the scattered in ormation on trade show selling. Tis will elimi-nate the need to hire sales trainers—perhaps inexperienced at trade showselling—or expensive consultants.

• Repay the investment in this book thousands o times over.

HOT TIP

Keep in mind the distinction between features and benets. Features are con-

tained in your book; benets are what your features do for your readers. Fea-

tures create benets; benets create fans.

Te next chapter discusses how and when to include special eatures in your book.



THE GOLDEN RULE FOR HAVING SPECIAL FEATURES

Add special features to make your book more helpful, visually appealing, and

pleasurable to read.

Workman is the most creative publisher in Manhattan. You can see this inhow they present in ormation and design their books. Editor-in-chie SusanBolotin says they “layer” in ormation by having subheads, boxed in ormation,illustrations, and graphic elements to draw the eye and invite readers into thetext. Tey also use white space and choose creative ormats to give their books

eye appeal. When deciding the ormat in which to publish a book, publisherPeter Workman will pick up different-sized books to help decide which onelooks and eels right.

Te next part o your overview describes other important eatures yourbook will provide. Will the book be humorous, serious, or down-to-earth? Willit contain anecdotes? What kind o personality will it have?

I what you will illustrate is not already clear, explain it. Visual appeal is anessential element in selling products and services, so publishers want to avoid

an endless chain o paragraphs—blocks o copy that aren’t inviting to the eye.Here are ways to break up your text:

CHAPTER 11

Adding Value to Your Book:Special Features (Optional)

Adding Value to Your Book: Special Features (Optional) 47




• subheads• illustrations

• sidebars • exercises • checklists • chapter summaries • copy in the margins • boxed and screened in ormation • quotations

Visual appeal is important in books intended or a wide audience; it’s not as vital or serious or academic books. Be a model ollower.

EXAMPLE: Stooples: Ofce Tools for Hopeless FoolsTe authors had a clear vision o their parody, and they made St. Martin’s jobeasier by doing the design work.

Stooplesis envisioned at 128 pages at 8½" × 11", and will contain:

• 200 products with humorous photos

• short pieces o humor that complement the products

• an introductory letter by Stooples’ CEO

• humorous attacks on Stooples’ competitors OfficeHacks and OfficePeephole,complete with graphics such as a red circle and diagonal stripe with Office-Hacks name in the middle o the circle

• e-mails rom the Stooples’ CEO on strange challenges the company is ac-ing such as lost shipments, OfficeHacks counter measures, OfficePeephole’sstrange management practices

• instructions such as how to ship by mail

• a nal section with the most humorous stories that have appeared on thebook’s website

Stooples will ollow the ormat o the Staples catalogue. Te book will highlightproducts in the ollowing categories: office supplies, technology, custom printing,

urniture, office machines, and attire and accessories.Categories that are not in an office-supply catalogue include drugs, people,

lunchroom/bathroom, and esoterica.Te authors will keep adding new material to make the book as timely as

possible. Te authors will provide the design or the book.




HOT TIP

When you nd humor, see if one of these four ways will enable you to use it.

1. Use it as is.

2. If it isn’t about your subject, build a bridge between it and your subject

to make it relevant. In How to Get a Literary Agent, I tell the story of a man

named George Bosque who robbed Brink’s of a million dollars, spent it in

a year and a half, and was then caught by police.

When the police asked how he managed to spend the money in a

year and a half, he replied, “Well, I spent half of it on gambling, drink, and

romance, and I guess I squandered the rest.”That has nothing to do with publishing, but I tied the two together by

writing: If publishers think they’re getting the next Tom Clancy or Danielle Steel,

they’ll squander a bundle in the best-seller sweepstakes.

3. Change humor so it’s relevant. “Want to know how to make a small for-

tune from writing? Start with a large fortune and write full time.” Eliza-

beth and I rst heard this anecdote when we were writing books about

Victorian houses that need a lot of work. In our talks, we changed thepunch line: Start with a large fortune and buy a Victorian.

4. Use humor you encounter as a springboard for creating new humor.

Develop an instinct for comedy by looking for the funny aspects of every-

thing you experience. This is a skill that will help you weather hard times

as well as write.

LAUGHING TO LEARN AND EARN:USING HUMOR IN YOUR BOOK

Communication and in ormation are entertainment, and i youdon’t understand that, you’re not going to communicate.

—J N , - M

In our entertainment-driven culture, entertainment is the price o attention,

so strive to make your book as enjoyable to look at and read as it is in ormative.Dramatic, revelatory, and inspirational writing make books enjoyable to read.




So does humor. Best-selling author Norman Cousins believed that “laughteris inner jogging,” and we all need a good workout. Te more you laugh, themore open you are to learning, and the more your readers laugh, the moreyou earn.

Humor makes books more enjoyable to read, which in turn makes themsell better. I you’re writing an exposé or a serious book, humor may be out oplace. Otherwise, a book will benet rom adding humor. John Grogan’s abil-ity to make readers laugh made the sad ending o his bestseller Marley & Me all the more effective. But don’t eel you have to become the next Dave Barry.

You will nd humor in • Google—the word humor has hundreds o millions o links • magazines with humor in them, including Te New Yorker • quote books • joke books • books by comedians and humor writers • books o anecdotes

• biographies • other books about your subject • cartoon books, although you’ll have to pay or permission i you use the

drawing instead o only the caption • books on popular culture • books on writing humor • comedy clubs

• comedy CDs

I money is no object, you can hire a comedy writer to create material or yourbook. Where there’s a wit, there’s a way.

HOT TIPS

• If you want to use humor, include it consistently throughout your book.

• Decide on the number of jokes or anecdotes you’d like in your chapters

and how best to integrate them. Use humor, drama, compelling insights,




or inspirational writing to move your readers and make your book a plea-

sure to read. Test-market the effect of your work on readers and listenersto make sure it’s having the impact you want. Ask readers to grade the

impact of each high-impact moment on a scale of one to ten.

• The best hope that books have for being successful is word of mouth and,

thanks to computers, word of mouse. The funnier a book is, regardless

of who writes or publishes it or how well it’s promoted, the better the

word of mouth it will generate. It’s impossible to make most books too

funny or to prevent the success of those that are funny enough. The effec-tive combination of humor and content will also lead to your success on

the speaking circuit, and speaking enables you to test-market your humor

before you write your book.

YOUR BACK MATTER

In a cartoon by Harley Schwadron, a patient is on a hospital gurney, and a

nurse standing over him says, “Tey’re going to take you back to surgery,pro essor. Dr. Bickel got con used and removed your glossary instead oyour appendix.”

Add a glossary or appendix i they will help readers. I your models haveback matter, include it. List back matter in the order in which it will appear:

• resource directory (may include books, periodicals, organizations, events,blogs, and websites—you may want to add these resources to your site and

update them regularly) • appendices • ootnotes • glossary • bibliography • index

Writers can usually list their back matter in one sentence. However, i you

need to describe your appendices, use a separate page at the end o the outlineto supplement your mention o them in your overview.




TAKE OUT AN AD IN YOUR BOOK

This isn’t a component of your proposal, but a reminder for when your book

is prepped for publication. The back of your book should include a request for

feedback from readers and your contact information. Include your blog and

social networks. List as many reasons as you can to attract readers to your

website. Promising updates will help. You can also use this page to describe your

products and services. Make it factual so it doesn’t sound self-serving, but use

the page as an ad.

HOT TIPS

• Librarians like back matter because it adds to a book’s value as a research

tool. Publishers like to please librarians because school, college, and pub-

lic libraries are major customers.

• Offer to put your back matter on your website if your publisher wishes.

This will shorten the book and lower the cover price.

• Avoid footnotes in your proposal—they’re distracting and will make your

proposal (and your book) look academic. If your book will have footnotes,

make them blind footnotes, divided by chapter, that readers can nd at

the end of your book by page numbers. If you use them in your sample

chapter, include them at the end of your proposal.

• Avoid asterisks to indicate information at the bottom of a page. They also

interrupt the ow of the text.

• Include nothing that will prevent readers from reading from your rst

word to your last, ideally without stopping.

SELLING A SELF-PUBLISHED BOOK

Sel -publishing in print and as an e-book or podcast is a huge, growing, and posi-tive trend. It empowers authors to nd the audience or their books and gives themthe chance to test-market their books to prove they will sell. Jossey-Bass executiveeditor Alan Rinzler reported that publishers pick up 5 percent o sel -published

books, a higher percentage than books that haven’t been sel -published. I you sellenough copies o your book, publishers will take an interest.

how to write a book proposal - 4th edition

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