Writing a sample proposal and chapter has other advantages as well. Sometimes the editor may like your ideas, but not your approach to writing the book. Publishers are obviously more comfortable suggesting that you make basic changes to your book when you’ve only written a few pages, rather than a full manuscript. Even when no publisher makes an immediate offer on your book, a smart reading of rejection letters can give you valuable clues on how to re-tip or reformulate the material so that it will sell in subsequent shipments.
Two chances of success. This system gives you two chances at the brass ring. Publishers are always happy to see a revised book proposal. Although few outside the publishing industry know it, many major bestsellers only became bestsellers the second time around. The first time they were shipped, these books were rejected by all the major publishers. But its astute authors paid careful attention to the criticisms they received and made extensive revisions with them in mind.
Naturally, publishers now found those same books irresistible, because Author Submissions had been redesigned to reflect exactly the kind of book the publisher wanted. Help publishers plan publishing schedules. Publishers find that this system also works in their favor. It offers them the opportunity to contribute their suggestions to strengthen your manuscript during its formative stages. It also allows them to plan which books to publish in the coming years.
Meanwhile, the six months to a year you spend writing your book after the publisher has hired you will give your staff ample time to develop effective marketing and promotional plans. Those plans must be in place three to six months before publication. That’s the lead time needed for the publisher’s marketing division to sell your book to stores, as well as for print and electronic media to schedule reviews and interviews with you. It helps you plan the best strategy to write your book.
Writing a proposal for your book has one final advantage. It gives you the opportunity and framework to focus in depth on almost every element of your book before you start writing the book itself. By creating the main parts of a proposal, you will learn how to:
* Precisely define your topic and audience
* Create a “bestseller title”
* Give your book an irresistible appeal for readers (and sales)
* Develop a successful sales style
* Find the best structure for your book and the individual chapters and subsections
* Present yourself as an expert that publishers and the media will clamor to feature.