NONFICTION MYTH BUSTERS, PART I
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FAVE LINKEY-POO RIGHT THIS SECOND: I am addicted to Vh1′s “I Love the New Millennium” and one of my most favorite parts about it has to be the commercial they used to advertise it. Condoleezza never looked so fun.
A friend of mine recently expressed an interest in publishing a nonfiction book, and after hearing his pitch I definitely thought it could work. It was a fresh take on an old subject, and I thought it would be a welcome addition to bookshelves. But then he started talking about the way he thought he’d go about bringing his book into existence, and I didn’t so much love that. Which made me think that there might be a lot of misconceptions out there about writing nonfiction, and I thought I could maybe use my blog to clear a few of them up. After all, the roadmap with fiction is pretty easy by comparison. You write a book, you get an agent, you find a publisher. One, two, three. Unless you skip the second step because you’re a lawyer or something.
But nonfiction is a bit more complicated. Having written and sold a nonfiction book, here’s what I learned in the process.
Myth #1: Start your nonfiction book endeavors by finding a contact at a big publishing house (Houghton Mifflin, Simon & Schuster, etc.) and talk to them about whether or not they might be interested in your book.
Gah! This is the equivalent of deciding to go grocery shopping and then calling up the manager at Piggly Wiggly to ask them if they carry potatoes. Don’t contact anyone at a publishing house or an agency as your first step — ever. Why? Because you have to do your homework first. Trust me, people will be much more inclined to chat with you if you’re knowledgeable about the industry and market you’re jumping into.
So what is a good first step instead? Go to Border’s or Barnes & Noble and look at all the books on the shelves that are even remotely like yours. Every. One. Of. Them. Write down the titles, the authors and the publishers. If they list their agents, write that down, too. This is useful because you’re going to have to explain, ultimately, what books are on the market that will compete with yours. And knowing what publishers have printed books like yours will help you narrow down where to send your book when you’re ready. Knowing what’s on shelves already will also help you explain why your book is different from all these, which leads me to my next point.
Ultimately you’ll have to explain to a publisher why your book — on growing daisies, for example — is different than all the other books on growing daisies that are on the market today. You will have to outline why and how you have a fresh take on this subject, and why people are going to want to buy it. If you haven’t figured that out yet, then don’t bother pursuing your nonfiction book dreams. Because I can tell you right now a publisher won’t go near it. Sorry for the harsh lingo, but having a fresh idea in a saturated market is what’s going to get you noticed. That’s as true for nonfiction as it is for fiction, actually.
Myth #2: Write the entire book, then figure out the nonfiction publishing process.
Well, okay, it’s not terrible to write a book and then figure it out, but you don’t have to. You can write one or two really solid chapters, then you can work on what’s called a nonfiction book proposal. That’s where you outline what your book will cover, who your book will compete with, what demographic it will reach, and why certain publishers should be interested in it. For the best road-map on writing a book proposal, please see The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Getting Published by Sheree Bykofsky and Jennifer Basye Sande. This book is the Bible for anyone wanting to publish nonfiction, and it’s good for fiction as well. It’s brilliant, and I can’t recommend it highly enough.
A publisher can actually sign you — with a contract and an advance — based on the proposal and the first two chapters. So you don’t have to write the entire book first. That’s one of the cool things about nonfiction.
On my next nonfiction post, I’ll cover whether or not you need an agent, and whether or not you should create “supplemental pieces” to go along with your book.
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