Why I Turned Down a Book Deal (And the Lessons I Learned), Part 2

Read Part 1 here.

So I got an email from an acquisitions editor and after some searching, I realized she was for real.

I emailed her back and we scheduled a chat.

And then I was nervous as all get out.

Clueless

With a real conversation looming, I felt like David up against Goliath, but not because she was evil or scary in any way. To the contrary! She was nothing but kind, generous and helpful (she still is!).

The issue? I was totally clueless about publishing and I knew it. I had no idea how to proceed, what to ask or what to expect. To me, the publishing industry was very mysterious. And huge. And impenetrable. And certainly not a place I ever thought I would be.

I felt really, really small.

But THANK GOODNESS FOR GOOGLE.

I began my self-imposed courses in Publishing 101 and Self-Publishing 101. Between the time we scheduled our chat and the time it actually took place, I googled my eyeballs out.

Chat Day

Going into the conversation, I decided I was simply going to listen as much as I could. I wanted to gather every single golden nugget of information from someone "on the inside." I knew that was possible only if I would NOT TALK SO MUCH. (If you know me in real life, you know I can talk. No, ramble. Especially when I'm nervous.)

When the call began, all the questions I had collected during my research were in front of me and I had my notebook and pencil in hand. I took a lot of notes as we talked. I learned a lot of interesting things about publishing.

What was supposed to be a 30-minute chat turned into a very pleasant and informative 90-minute conversation. I asked a flurry of questions about the publishing process and she graciously answered them all. I think I had about 5289 of them.

She also gave me priceless feedback about my ebook and made a couple of suggestions that were very helpful. I was so grateful for her wisdom. She also pointed out a few parts of the book she particularly liked. That was extremely encouraging.

As you read further, please note that this is the experience I had. I do not claim this is the only way publishing works. I'm sure it varies and I am certainly no expert in the publishing industry. I'm just hoping the details of my experience might give others a general idea of how it works.

And if YOU have interacted with a publisher (or are one) and can shed light on the subject from a different perspective, BY ALL MEANS, do so in the comments. This is meant to be "how-to" in nature.

More Questions Raised

One of the first lessons I learned about publishing is that books are as long as they are because in order to be profitable, they've got to be sold at a specific price point. For books in my genre, this price point is usually somewhere in the range of $11 to $15.

It makes complete sense really. If someone's going to pay $11 for a book, they're going to want it to have a little heft. No one's going to pay $11 for something really short. If it can't be sold for at least $11, it's not worth the cost of publishing.

All that to say, my 30-page, 8.5 x 11 inch ebook was much too short to make into a full trade book. If I wanted to move forward, I was going to have to beef it up a little. Or a lot. In fact, I would have to increase my word count from about 5500 to 40,000. That's almost 7 times as long.

Whoa.

But like I said, the editor was amazingly helpful. She offered a cornucopia of suggestions: angles I could flesh out, stories I could gather, examples I could include. Pretty soon I was coming up with my own ideas too. Forty thousand words felt like a mountain, but I knew I could do it.

Plus, I was loving the idea of becoming a real published author.

The Book Proposal

Another lesson I learned about publishing is that if you are contacted by an acquisitions editor, it does not always mean you are a shoo-in (at least it wasn't in my case and I don't think it is as a general rule).

As I mentioned yesterday, the job of the acquisitions editor is to find authors whose writing style and subject matter "fit" with the publishing house. She found me, but I still had to convince the publishing board that it'd be a good idea to publish my book. As I understand it, the publishing board is made up of editors and other important people that together, decide what books are good ones to pursue.

So, our conversation ended with the editor's suggestion that I write a book proposal and bio which she would then present to the publishing board. The publishing board would decide whether or not to extend an offer.

A Good Next Step

Submitting a book proposal and bio seemed to be a good next step, so that's what my husband and I decided I would do.

But this was yet another step in the process about which I was completely ignorant. I had no idea how to write a book proposal (or bio).

The editor was very kind to send me a sample book proposal that I used as my guide (a proposal she said was one of the best she had seen). I had agreed to submit my own proposal within a couple of weeks, so I was very grateful to have an example to follow instead of having to research book proposal writing too!

So I wrote my proposal, including some of the helpful hints the editor offered during our conversation as well as some of my own ideas.

She presented it to the publishing board.

The publishing board accepted my proposal.

I received a bona fide book offer.

And my questions mounted.

Continued tomorrow…

More Lessons Learned:

• Books are printed in 16-page increments. So, the goal is to write a book that would fit neatly into 160, 176, 192, 208, etc. pages (multiples of 16). This makes for efficient and cost-effective printing.
• The traditional publishing process takes a long time. In my case, when I accounted for the communication back and forth, writing a book proposal, waiting for it to be accepted by the publishing board, receiving the offer, signing the offer, writing the manuscript, allowing for the manuscript-to-release date necessities, this was going to be a 2-year process.
• Like I mentioned, I did a lot of researching. If you are at all interested in becoming a published author, I highly recommend you follow a few blogs. First, Rachelle Gardner is a literary agent and her blog is full of very helpful information for writers. Second, Michael Hyatt is the Chairman of Thomas Nelson Publishers. Not only is his information about publishing outstanding and informative, the other topics he covers are excellent as well. Lastly, many of you know Seth Godin, a true pioneer in this digital age. Not many people know about his new blog at The Domino Project. To say he thinks outside the box is an understatement. His ideas about the future of publishing are fascinating (and I agree with many of them).
• As far as book proposal writing goes, I don't have much in the way of resources since my situation didn't require much research on the topic. I was fortunate that the editor offered to forward me a sample that she really liked and had been accepted by the publishing board previously. That was a major score since I knew this was exactly the type of proposal they were looking for. If you have the opportunity to get your hands on a proposal that was already accepted by your desired publisher, go for it. If not and if I was to research it today, the first place I'd begin is Michael Hyatt's ebooks, Writing a Winning Non-Fiction Book Proposal and Writing a Winning Fiction Book Proposal. I have not read either of them, but I trust Michael Hyatt's perspective.

Don't miss the rest of the story! Sign up below and I'll send 'em right to ya. (If you already receive my blog updates via email, you don't need to sign up again.)

ShareTweetBuffer