Book Proposal – More Market Research
Ugh – just went through another four pages of publishers in the self-help category on WritersMarket.com… it’s such a guessing game! If I’m not careful I’ll pick far too many – it’s so tempting and easy to add a market that is close. But close isn’t good enough.
I remember so well from my magazine and newspaper days how often writers would submit perfectly good stories that just weren’t for our market. You, and I, have got to think readers – readers are our market, a particular type of reader who will be interested enough in what we have to say to buy the book.
So how do I decide? I read the description on WritersMarket – those are actually submitted by the publisher, so it’s their words. Of course, many entries are sadly out of date. But if they say, for instance, “we want scholarly treatments of psychology by professionals” I know darn well they don’t want me.
If the seem sort of likely, I go to the publisher’s website. Most of them elaborate at least a bit on what they want on a page often called “submissions.” But the real decision is made looking at the book’s they’ve actually published. I’m not insisting that every publisher I pick publish something in the recovery field, although I’m adding most of those who do. But they do have to show some willingness to deal with controversy. Sometimes I just go within and ask my inner self.
It’s not very scientific, but nothing about writing and publishing is.
Next I’m off to a large bookstore to practice some of my own advice. I’ll take a notebook, find the recovery and self-help sections and see if I can surface a publisher or two that aren’t on the list.
Write well and often,
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