Two amazing teacher friends — both specialists in curriculum development — prepared a massive teacher’s guide for 50 Burning Questions, and it’s recently been uploaded to the Annick web site. So, if you know a teacher or librarian who might benefit, please pass along the link!
Thank you, Heidi De Lazzer and Misty Paterson!
Here are some publishing rumours I’ve heard in the past year:
The first of these doesn’t make sense to me. I used to be responsible for sorting through the Whitecap slush pile. For a while, I even sorted another publisher’s slush pile for an hourly wage. There is a lot — a LOT — of less-than-professional stuff in those piles. And it takes much less time to read the first page of a manuscript and toss it over your shoulder than it does to check the author’s on-line presence. So, while I believe that on-line presence is important to publishers, I don’t believe that every intern or co-op student is googling away, checking out the great-grandma with the hen-and-chicks submission to make sure she’s on Facebook.
Now, about the other two things: I know they’re not true. I know this because I just finished reading Sixpence House by Paul Collins, published by Bloomsbury, which has got to be the most eclectic little memoir I’ve ever read. It’s basically a mash-up of the author’s personal experience moving to England for a year, and his encyclopedic knowledge of rare and out-of-print books.
I thoroughly enjoyed it. But, while reading, I was trying to think of one other person I knew who might like the book. And I couldn’t. I couldn’t imagine anyone else having the patience to saunter along the streets of Hay with the author while he muses about long-dead writers fading into oblivion.
There is no way the marketing department decided to publish that book. Which gives me hope for the industry in general.
It’s here! Please feel free to head out immediately to your local bookstore and buy multiple copies for your friends, family members, and pets.
According to this, my new MacBook Air does not automatically qualify me for publication.
I asked my publisher for a final 50 Poisonous Questions cover, now that the book is off to the printer. Of course I love the illustrator’s work, as always. But does anyone notice something strange? First person to spot the problem and leave a comment wins a free copy. (You just have to wait a few months until the books arrive.)
Woohoo! My latest non-fiction manuscript is off to the publisher. If my posts this week have been “brief,” it’s because I’ve been focussed entirely on underwear.
Now, I get to alternate between periods of celebration, during which I revel in the freedom of a deadline-less life, and periods of nail biting, during which I wait for the publisher to call and tell me my content sucks, or I’ve messed up the word count by oh… 15,000 or 20,000 words.
Not that that would ever happen.
Except once.
The next step in my proposal writing outline is “Schedule.” But do we really need to discuss this?
Tell them how much of the book is written and how long it’s going to take you to write the rest. All done.
Oh, except… make sure you add at least a month to your own estimate, before you put it down on paper, so that (a) when your great aunt calls and offers you an all-expenses paid trip to France, you can say yes (b) you don’t have to panic while writing the last chapter, becoming steadily grumpier until your family is forced to move in with the neighbors and (c) you’re not the loser calling up your publisher to ask for an extension.
Voila. Schedule. Brace yourself for my big example:
Schedule
I will need three months to complete the manuscript.
To read more about this subject:
Proposal Writing 5: Readership
Proposal Writing 4: Format
Proposal Writing 3: The Summary
Proposal Writing 2: The Outline
Proposal Writing 1: The Reasons Why
Your intended publisher needs to know, without having to flip to the sample text, who is going to be reading your final book. Are you aiming for preschoolers? middle grade readers? young adults? If you’re writing for adults, is there an international community of 5.6 million daisy-chain makers to read your Flower Children for a New Age?
If you’re writing for general interest, this section is easy. If your book appeals only to a special interest group, you’re going to have to sell the size and the enthusiasm of your potential readership.
My rather basic example:
Readership
This project is designed for 10- to 13-year-old readers. Those are the readers most likely to be familiar with Canadian Girls Who Rocked the World and Canadian Boys Who Rocked the World. It’s also an age group old enough to advocate effectively, and young enough to wholeheartedly believe that change is possible.
To read more about this subject:
Proposal Writing 4: Format
Proposal Writing 3: The Summary
Proposal Writing 2: The Outline
Proposal Writing 1: The Reasons Why
Let’s be realistic. You have no say in the final format of your book. You could describe a fully illustrated, four-color coffee table book and your publisher could accept your proposal and publish a text-only pocket book.
So what’s the point of a proposal section on format? It’s a chance to share your vision — your concrete, one-day-to-be-printed vision — with the publisher. And even though you might not get the ultimate choice in format, your suggestions send important messages.
Suggesting a format that is ridiculously wrong for your idea, ludicrously expensive to print, or downright impossible will mark you as an amateur, someone unfamiliar with book publishing. For example, let’s consider The Pop-up Book of Old Growth Activism, a hardcover to be created in full color, with pop-up cedar trees on each page combined with profiles of environmental activists. Here’s the problem: full color hardcovers are expensive, and pop-up books are most economically published in Asia. So, even if you can guarantee thousands of buyers (many thousands), you will still have to explain the contradiction between your wish to protect the environment and your wish to print in China and ship the books back.
On the other hand, sharing an appealing and realistic format allows you to create a vision of the book in the publisher’s eye. It will explain how long your book will be, and include any out-of-the-ordinary considerations. It doesn’t have to be long. When in doubt, go with the basics on this one. And if you’re going to refer to a specific book, as I do below, make sure it’s recognizable. In this case, I’ve chosen a book by a Vancouver author in a proposal designed for a Vancouver publisher.
Format
This is a workbook-style project, similar to Sarah Ellis’s A Young Writer’s Companion. It should be softcover and large enough to be comfortably used as a notebook. Ideally, line illustrations and use of a second color would enliven the text.
I’m imagining 128 to 144 pages. The manuscript itself would consist of about 2,500 words of body text and an additional 2,500 words of sidebar text. And, because it’s meant to inspire activism, it will of course need to be printed on recycled paper.
To read more about this subject:
Proposal Writing 3: The Summary
Proposal Writing 2: The Outline
Proposal Writing 1: The Reasons Why
First on the list for your non-fiction book proposal: the summary.
This initial summary is your chance to sell your idea. The title of this section is misleading… it’s not actually a summary. A summary, you see, would be boring. It would include everything, it would drag with details, it would have to reach the publisher through osmosis, because said publisher would have fallen asleep.
Think of the summary as your ideal imagined catalogue copy. How would the marketing department describe your finished book? What would the back cover copy say? How will the book’s press release hook potential reviewers? There lies the genesis of your book proposal “summary.”
Here’s what it might look like:
Rock Your World!
Save the Children, the Spirit Bear Youth Coalition, the Freechild Project — across North America and around the world, youth are banding together in activism. But how were these organizations born? And how can a young, would-be activist get started?
Rock Your World! is a combination workbook and guide designed to allow 10- to 13-year-old readers to plan their own world-changing activities. With short chapters on research, fundraising, writing persuasively, forming community groups, and using the media, it will give students the tools they need to start making a difference.
Each two- to three-page chapter will be followed by workbook pages on which readers can take notes, make plans, and record their activities. Interspersed amidst these pages will be short biographies of successful world-changers, interesting facts, and advice from well-known activists. For example, the chapter about persuasive writing might feature information about Simon Jackson’s campaign to have 25,000 letters delivered to the premier’s office during his initial campaign to save the spirit bear.
Rock Your World is a natural companion to Canadian Girls Who Rocked the World and Canadian Boys Who Rocked the World, but can also be sold independently, within and outside of Canada.
Previous posts on this topic:
Proposal Writing: 2 (Outlining the outline)
Proposal Writing: 1 (Why do it?)