If you want to sell your nonfiction writing, at some point you’ll have to write a query letter. This holds true whether you are writing a book, an article or an essay. If you remain uncertain about what writing a query letter entails, return to the origins of the word itself. The word “query” means “a question” or “an inquiry.”…
Read More
Make Every Word Count When Pitching to Agents or Acquisition Editors
A writer wanting to obtain a literary agent most often has to send an agent a pitch or query letter before ever entering into a conversation about representation. Additionally, if aspiring authors decide to approach publishing houses without literary representation, they must take the same route: compose and send a pitch or query letter. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, you might…
Read More
The Top Six Questions Memoir Writers Ask
It’s Day #9 of the Write Nonfiction in November challenge! We’ve covered a lot of ground already, and I thought we’d take a break from the business side of nonfiction writing to talk a bit about actual writing—memoir writing to be exact. Memoir writing represents an area of nonfiction writing I know much less about, so I’ve asked my friend…
Read More
What Do Agents Look For? Great Writers, Great Professionals
Nonfiction writers looking for traditional book publishing contracts—wanting to sell their manuscripts to small, medium or large traditional publishing houses, need to find themselves literary representation. While finding an agent may not be necessary for many small publishing houses that accept unagented work, most mid-sized and large publishing houses, indeed, only accept agented book proposals. Occasionally an unagented proposal is…
Read More
10 Ways to Build Your Author Platform Online
As mentioned in yesterdays WNFiN post, when a publisher or acquisition editor examines a prospective author’s nonfiction book proposal, he or she will look long and hard at a number of things that have little to do with that writer’s writing. In particular, purchase of a manuscript depends to a great extent upon a proposal section called the “Author’s Platform.”…
Read More
The Five Biggest Questions Publishers Ask Before They Will Buy Your Manuscript
I know we’ve only just hit day number six, but it’s time to get into the real nitty-gritty of nonfiction writing: the business end of book publishing. (I warned you we would!) If you’re going to write a nonfiction book, you must be sure you have a marketable product. (This is true of articles, too, but we’re going to talk…
Read More
How to Earn More and Work Less by Managing the Rights to Your Articles and Considering the World Your Market
My writing roots are grounded in magazine journalism, and I still spend a good bit of my time each year writing articles for a variety of publications. I have a monthly gig writing an article for a trade magazine, and I try to write a variety of articles related to my interests and to the books I am writing and…
Read More
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 205
- 206
- 207
- 208
- 209
- …
- 219
- Next Page »