Patricia J. Parsons

Book proposals, Book publishers, Pitching books

Finding the right publisher: Tales from the trenches

Posted on 29 Nov 201129 Nov 2011 by Patricia J. Parsons

I recently became the founding editor-in-chief of a new academic journal. Although this might not seem all that exciting to the average writer, it has opened my wide eyes even further on the topic of the “right fit” between writers and publishers. I am stupefied by the astounding lack of research that prospective writers do about the theme and focus of the journal and our manuscript requirements. Do writers who want to be published – regardless of whether they are writing an academic article or a fantasy novel – not have the intellectual capacity to grasp the concept of editorial fit, and that they need to do at least a modicum of information-gathering to check this out?

The truth is that I’ve had a surprising number of submissions to the journal that are (in no particular order of importance): longer than the maximum length for our manuscripts (and I’m not talking about a few hundred words; I’m talking about three to four times longer than our editorial guidelines clearly state); only peripherally related to the focus and objectives of the journal and then only if you really squint at the manuscript; not formatted in any way that resembles the guidelines that are clearly posted on the front page of the journal’s web site. I don’t think I need to go on.

If you are a writer (like me) and you want to be published (like me) there are lessons to be learned about finding the right publisher – the one with the right fit. Because if you don’t, the publisher will simply send you a rejection slip and that’s so hard on the ego and a waste of your time! I’ve been published by a variety of publishers – types, sizes and countries (USA, Canada, UK), and along the way, I’ve learned a few things about finding that important right fit. The first two steps I recommend are as follows:

Find a publisher that actually publishes in the genre that you want to sell to them. This seems like a no-brainer to me. The very first time I wanted to sell a book to a publisher, I knew that it would be pointless to send it to a publisher with no interest in books about health-related topics. Publishers usually do make a statement on their web site (on the prospective author page) about what they do and do not publish.
Find a publisher whose books are targeted toward the same reader that yours is. And forget about writing to the publisher’s needs rather than the audience you intend for the book. When I first started writing, I was clearly focused on health-themed trade books for that nebulous “general public.” I had an idealized notion that I would “educate” the masses about health issues, so I had to find a publisher whose books reflected that. I had to examine their current and back-list to see what they’d done before – because publishers are not likely to see your book as the one that pushes them toward a different audience. If they only publish children’s books, then forget about your romance novel!
My first-ever book published by a now-defunct Toronto publisher. I had to do research to find the right fit.

Now that you’ve narrowed your search and have a list of publishers whose list reflects the type and readership of your own material, you still have a few more steps before you can submit your work.

Research their submission requirements. This is very important. (who knew writers were so lax about this!) It is the packaging of your ideas, and if it doesn’t conform to their particular guidelines, it means that they are likely to reject your work. If you’re submitting non-fiction, you’ll need to determine exactly what they’re looking for in terms of a book proposal – the format, content & length. Not all publishers want the same things, but all of them cover some important bases: Can you succinctly state the purpose and market for your book? What is it about? Why are you the right one to write it? How is it structured? What’s in each chapter? When will it be finished? How long will it be? If you’re submitting fiction, do they actually accept unagented books? How much of the novel do they want to see? If you send too much, they might not read it.
Make sure that your query conforms exactly to their requirements. This is a non-negotiable issue for unpublished writers. And, frankly, why would you not follow their guidelines in preparing your submission? It shows that you are professional, you are smart and you are interested enough in them as your potential publisher that you took the time to educate yourself about them.
Submit the query in precisely the method they prefer. Do they accept email submissions? If so, should it be an attachment or a query in the body of the email? Or must you fill out an online form? Must you send a hard copy? How many copies do they need? Do they want a self-addressed, stamped envelope for a response and/or return of the materials? When I first started writing and sending materials out to publishers, this latter approach was the only way they could be submitted, and some publishers actually continue this antiquated approach. That meant making photocopies and sending large envelopes with folded pre-addressed and stamped envelopes inside, and waiting months for a response in the mail. (Truth is you might still wait months even with an emailed submission.)
Send your query to the right person if at all possible. Do a little research and find out which of the editors actually acquires (and therefore presumably enjoys) the kind of material you are sending. Then you can address your query to the right individual which is far preferable to sending it to the info@ email address on the web site.
Keep meticulous records of where and to whom you send a query. This will really help you to see a pattern of publishers and their needs, and it will ensure that you do not look unprofessional by sending a query to a publisher who has already rejected you. Very embarrassing.

After following all of these rules, I still get responses from publishers that say things like: “This is a very interesting proposal. It just doesn’t seem to fit in with our publishing program at this time.” B**s***. What the editor is really saying is that they just don’t like it. Their “publishing program” as such doesn’t really change much. So, don’t let verbiage like this fool you into thinking that “at this time” might mean “perhaps another time.” It doesn’t. You just move one. And when that email comes saying, “We like this proposal very much. We’d like to consider publishing your book,” you know that your prep work has paid off!

I actually sent out a book proposal this past week myself. It’s one of those books that I’ve been mulling over and keeping notes about for a few years. When I sent it in, the publisher replied asking me where I had learned of this publisher. I had done my homework. I was alerted to this particular niche publisher through a group I belong to on the business network site LinkedInwhich I’ve recently begun to see as a serious contender for writing leads. Then I did my homework. I researched the publisher, the books they’ve published, their authors (a number whom are people whose work I admire), and the publisher himself. I wanted to know his background. I told him all this – including the part about researching him.

His response was that I seemed to have the ideal credentials to be writing the book I proposed. We’ll see. I’ll let you know how the road to this one progresses.

Grammar, Writing craft

“Grammar is important”…really?

Posted on 23 Nov 2011 by Patricia J. Parsons

I was listening to the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) noon-time ‘open-mouth’ show on the radio as I drove from one appointment to another on Monday. The guest ‘expert’ that day happened to be a grammar expert: I missed the introduction, but I inferred that he was a high school English teacher. He and the host discussed various aspects of grammar, and people called in with their grammar-related questions, as well as their pet peeves. In his attempt to avoid the jargon as he put it, his explanations of why certain English grammar rules are what they are lost something in the translation making it difficult to view his explanations with much credibility.

The show ignited my inspiration to write this blog post and then, oddly (is grammar in the air this week?), colleague Alison Delorey wrote a blog post on our students’ newsletter on the very same topic. Truthfully, though, her post is on grammar as style and you should read it. She suggests that “Grammar can be creative, interesting and exploratory…” and I agree with her; my concern in response to the call-in show, though, is that grammar is first and foremost a framework or structure for verbal communication in general. Grammatical mistakes frequently result in failure to communicate, and so your message, whatever it may be, is lost.

A caller to the radio show guest asked him the simple question: What is the difference in usage between ‘bring’ and ‘take’? It was his answer to this particular question that started to get me riled up about over-simplification of the rules.

His response was to tell her that “I bring” and “You take.” I started thinking about this as the caller also tried to process this new information. I was thinking that this couldn’t possibly be right since you can also bring clarity to a situation (you wouldn’t’ ‘take’ clarity to a situation), and I can take action on something (I wouldn’t ‘bring’ action). Clearly you can also decline both of these words: I bring, you bring, he brings etc. So, it sent me flying to Margaret Shertzer’s The Elements of Grammar (a kind of companion to Strunk and White’s classic Elements of Style, and my bible for all things stylish (although not my wardrobe!).

According to The Elements of Grammar the difference between the two words is this: to bring means to convey toward (the speaker); whereas to take means to carry from (the speaker).[1] There, now I feel better. He had over-simplified it and muddied the ability of the speaker to convey a message.

Although messages can be the victim of the grammar-challenged among us, for me it’s often more of a simple stylistic issue – which takes us back to Alison’s point. In fact, most of the grammar mistakes that I find particularly annoying (somewhat like the sound of fingernails on a chalkboard in my world) are personal peeves. So, now it’s my chance to rant a bit.

For the love of god, let us stop turning nouns into verbs! It’s beginning to get out of hand. One curmudgeonly grammarian on the internet came up with examples that even I haven’t even heard. “I’m going to suicide,” “after I enema it all out”, for example, then this grammarian questions when we stopped “writing” books and began “authoring” them. Hmm.

Now if I could just banish the word “impact” used as a verb in my students’ writing, I think that I will have had an impact on (not impacted) their style!

But that’s just me.

[BTW The title “Grammar is Important” is the title of my grammar text from elementary school – other books have come and other books have gone, but I still have this one on my bookshelf from about grade four. What does that say about me?]

[1] Shertzer, Margaret. 1986. The elements of grammar. New York: The Macmillan Publishing Company, p. 144.

Author web sites

Author web sites: Need to have, nice to have or nuts to have?

Posted on 15 Nov 2011 by Patricia J. Parsons

J.K. Rowling has quite a web site. It’s flashy; it’s imaginative; it’s just the kind of web site you might think that creator of the Harry Potter brand ought to have. And I have no doubt that her myriad fans visit it when they are in need of all things JKR. However, what’s the point of the unknown author having a personal web site (beyond the obvious ego-massaging aspect?)

In general terms, and in these days of social media, you have to be clear that a web presence is just that – a web ‘presence.’ It is present – no more, no less.

A web presence is usually a static site where organizations or people can hang information. If they seek to be dynamic in nature or to engage others (in the case of authors – presumably your readers), then they need to be connected to opportunities for encouraging this engagement: an author blog (present site included), a forum of some kind (perhaps a Facebook page where discussion can take place on the ‘wall’), a wiki (wherein you might engage your readers to help you create a piece of writing – but that’s a bit odd in my view. (Just odd enough that I might try it.)

The Huffington Post ran an article earlier this year that explores just this question. The article focused on an interview with Anik LaFarge who is the author of The Author Online: A Short Guide to Building Your Website, Whether You Do it Yourself (and you can!) or You Work With Pros. Just as you might imagine, the discussion of the pros and cons is hardly balanced: the interview subject is, after all, in the business of creating author web site, so naturally she thinks that they fall into my “need to have” category. The one thing she does suggest that seems completely useful is this: there’s no point in having a web site if you don’t use it. Couldn’t agree more. I think that the question of using it, though, has two components. First, the author has to use it, and then the readers have to use it.

An author’s use of his or her web site manifests itself in a couple of activities. First, the author needs to ensure that the site has useful information that is updated on a regular basis for those who do happen to stumble upon it. Second, the author needs to get that web site into search engines so that it can actually be found.

As far as readers are concerned, they need to use it to become engaged with the author, something that many authors in days gone by, weren’t really interested in. Times have changed. I suppose readers use authors’ web sites to get the backstory on current work, to find out what’s coming up and to get background on the author. Those would be three kinds of content that could be found. However, how often do you as a reader actually visit the web site for an author you like?

As a reader I never seek out and visit author web sites. Do you?

As a writer, I think that my web site tells certain people that I’m a serious writer and that I have accomplished a few things. Who, though, are those certain people? Agents? Film makers? New publishers? I don’t know the answer.

My own web site caused me considerable soul-searching. Did I need one? What would be its objective? Who would read it (a bit like the question of who will read your book)? Who will design/maintain/update it? Was it worth it?

It seemed like a no-brainer. These days, if your work is in the public view, whether you’re an organization or an individual, if you’re not on the web, in some sense, you don’t exist. Perhaps that’s a bit strong, but it does make a point.

The truth is that an author web site is a place for me to send interested individuals whom I meet at parties etc. who specifically ask if there’s anywhere they can read about me. So, if I meet you at a party and you happen to ask what I do (I usually don’t talk about myself unless asked these days) and then you’re interested enough to ask where you can find out more information, I’ll probably send you to my web site. But do I think thousands of people are visiting it monthlly? I’m smart enough about web sites to be sure of the answer: NO.

There is one thing I know for sure: a web site will not make you a rich and famous writer. But what I don’t know is if you can become a rich and famous author without one. That’s if you want to be rich and famous.