I was sitting on the judges panel for the 2012 San Francisco Writers Conference Pitchfest, which is usually a contest—we changed the rules at the last minute this year, when my literary agent and fellow judge, Verna Dreisbach, leaned over and said, “It’s okay, Nina. It’s okay.” I realized I had sort of gone off [...]
I recently saw this basic question asked in a LinkedIn discussion: What do all my social media stats—blog readers and social networking followers—mean to an agent or a publisher? My response: “They mean a lot.” They mean you have platform. And platform equates to you being someone with whom an agent or a publisher wants [...]
I’m in New York City today for the Writers Digest Conference. Next month I’ll be at San Francisco Writers Conference, and this spring I’ll be at several more such events. Most of these events have some sort of agent or acquisitions editor pitching event, so I thought today it would be appropriate to write a [...]
You’ve got a great idea for a nonfiction book. You’ve written a killer book proposal. Now you need a fabulous query letter to grab an agent or a publisher so they ask you to send your proposal for review. To write a killer query, you need a one-page letter with three basic sections or paragraphs. [...]
If you are a traditional publishing holdout, a nonfiction writer who sees the benefits of having their work produced by a publishing house, who does not want to become a self-publisher (for any number of reasons) or who simply has always dreamed of receiving a contract and advance for your book, you will need a [...]
More often than not, aspiring authors who send me nonfiction book proposals for editing haven’t included all the information required. They think they know what should be in the document’s pages. They may have read books on how to write a book proposal or found helpful articles on the Internet, but they still don’t understand [...]
The adage says, “You only get one chance to make a first impression.” For writers, that first impression often gets made not in person but in writing with a query letter. In that document, which is sent to a literary agent (and sometimes to a small publisher) if you are looking for a traditional publisher [...]
If you are a traditional publishing holdout, a nonfiction writer who sees the benefits of having their work produced by a publishing house, who does not want to become a self-publisher (for any number of reasons) or who simply has always dreamed of receiving a contract and advance for your book, you will need a [...]
The second part of the nonfiction book proposal is called The Outline. If you recall, the first part of the proposal is called the Introduction, and included all the sections I’ve discussed in the previous 10 posts. (Find the first post in the series here.) The Outline includes three sections: List of Chapters, Chapter Summaries [...]
The Platform section constitutes the final one in the Introduction of a nonfiction book proposal. Here you prove you have done what it takes to create a built-in readership for your book. The Platform section can make or break an aspiring author’s chances of getting a publishing deal. Thus, be sure you not only have [...]
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