Can I share something with you? I had a conversation recently with an entrepreneur eager to grab one of the handful of chapters being offered in my new anthology project, “How the Fierce Put Family First”. It turned out to be one of those talks where I thought you might like to be a fly on the wall because the things we talked about are the things that every entrepreneur trying to make a business work must think about right now.

I knew it was important to share this information with you. So here’s what went down:

This entrepreneur and I were discussing the value of the anthology project. Since I designed the program to offer as much value as possible, I enjoyed sharing with her the fact that if she were trying to publish a book on her own right now, she might be able to produce the book, but she would not be able to afford the extras that help a book sell well including:

**professional cover and interior design for the book
**a full marketing campaign
**an Amazon.com bestseller campaign
**connection of being published with other top co-authors

She also wouldn’t be able to get copies of her book without paying extra and she wouldn’t necessarily have the best distribution for the book.

(By the way, all of these valuable pieces and more are included in my anthology program. You can read all about it at http://www.PublishingShortcut.com.)

But after I presented the entrepreneur with this I said, “You know what? I can give you all the value in the world, but only you can know if this project will fit in with who you are and what you want to do with your business.”

I could tell she was surprised, so I went on to explain:

“You could get 200 books out of this program,” I told her. “If you can sell them all for $20 each, you’ll make your investment in this program back quickly. But can you do that? Is your website set up to sell? Do you speak at events where you can sell this book? Do you have an audience to sell to? Only you have the answers.”

I also pointed out that only she would know where her business is right now and what strategies would be best to take her to the next level. If a book could be one such strategy, she would have to figure out how best to implement that strategy. My project would be one such way. Doing it herself would be another. Again, she would know best what would be best for her.

You see, I have this conversation with each and every client I work with. This type of thinking is what I teach in my Business Book Bootcamps. (The Fall 2010 Session is now enrolling!) This is how you would think about any book you choose to do, not just this anthology project. If you don’t have a plan for how to use the book in your business, it will be a wasted opportunity.

It doesn’t have to be that way for you. If you would like some help in thinking through a strategy for how you would benefit from participating in “How the Fierce Put Family First”, here’s what you can do:

1.) If you haven’t done so already, listen to the call I hosted earlier this month, “Co-Authoring Your Way to a Bestselling Book”. You can access the recording at this link:

http://www.doneforyouwriting.com/audio/newanthologycall.mp3

2.) Review the information page on the anthology project at http://www.PublishingShortcut.com.

3.) Send me an email at editor@doneforyouwriting.com to schedule a strategy session so we can create a plan for how you would use this book in your business.

It’s as simple as that. No more worrying, no more hand-wringing or anxiety about whether or not you can make this investment.
No more wondering if you’ve missed your chance and then kicking yourself next year when this book comes out because you know you didn’t do your homework.

It’s really all about making a sound, well-considered decision just like the ones you make for your business everyday. I know you can do it, and I don’t want you to miss out on this book because you thought otherwise, especially since I know you probably have a great story to share in your chapter!

I’ll wait to hear from you, unless you hear from me first telling you that all the spots in the book are taken.

Best wishes,

Sophfronia

Sophfronia Scott
Publisher, Messenger House Books
Executive Editor, The Done For You Writing & Publishing Company

Why is the world so caught up in the hype around where basketball superstar LeBron James will play next year? (If you didn’t already know, his decision is meriting its own primetime show, a full hour on ESPN!) Because they know there’s a strong possibility he will team up somewhere with other key superstars such as Dwayne Wade, Chris Bosh or Amare Stoudemire. The idea of a group of talented people getting together to practice what they do best captures our imagination and we all want to be a part of it, directly or indirectly.

It’s the same idea behind assembling a group of talented people and inspiring them to write an essay for a book based on a hot topic and sporting a snazzy title. The result:  an anthology, one of the more popular form of books being published today. The New York Times noted “the wave of anthologies has not yet crested” and the phenomenon is still a great seller. You can take advantage of this trend to get yourself published faster than working on your own. I know it might not be what you dreamed-sharing a byline and being in a book that’s not wholely yours, but it is a way for a first time author to get a foot in the door. Here’s how they work.

Choose Your Topic

Anthologies are organized and driven by their subject matter. And the title usually makes it crystal clear what that subject is. Examples: Maybe Baby: 28 Writers Tell the Truth About Skepticism, Infertility, Baby Lust, Childlessness, Ambivalence and How They Made the Biggest Decision of Their Lives; The Bastard on the Couch: 27 Men Try Really Hard to Explain Their Feelings About Love, Loss, Fatherhood and Freedom. When you choose your topic you’ll want it, of course, to be something you’re interested in writing about, but you’ll also want it to feel as though you are responding to what’s on the minds of a particular group or society at large.

When I came up with the title for my recent book, How the Fierce Handle Fear, I was responding to my observations that fear seemed to be on a lot of minds. I read about it in magazines, saw it in the undertones of many television news stories and heard it in conversations with clients and friends. I knew this would make a good–and important–topic for a book. When you consider your topic you’ll want to do your best to plug into the zeitgeist because that’s what will generate buzz about your book and get you interviewed in the media.

Gang Up! Find Your Co-Authors

Next, find other writers interested in participating. You can do this by Googling your subject and seeing what writers are already working in the field. You can also scan online groups, like on Yahoo, to find unpublished writers looking to do their first book as well.

How Will You Publish and Split Costs?

If you self publish your anthology, you’ll have to come up with a plan for how you’ll handle the costs and oversee the project. Will it be “your baby”, in which case you’ll pay for the book’s production (and possibly even pay the bigger name writers if that’s what it takes to get them involved) and marketing costs. If you go in with a group of first timers, you’ll all be able to split the costs, but it might be a good idea to have someone act as the project manager, to keep from having a “too many cooks” scenario develop.

Co-Market For Your Best Results

The best part about working with more than one writer is that you’ll be able to use the muscle of marketing to more than one list. Ideally each writer will have their own list (either their personal contacts or a list they developed as part of a business) and that automatically multiplies the number of people you can reach with the book. You’ll want to put your heads together to develop a good marketing plan so you’re all sending out similar materials with a similar message. Again, you can designate a project manager to handle submitting the book to media markets (your co-authors can handle local media if they already have their own contacts). Hopefully everyone will pitch in and do their share. After all, if the book succeeds it could be the stepping stone the writers need to their own individual book contracts!

Would You Like to Learn More?

If this type of book project sounds interesting to you, I invite you to join me for a free teleseminar where I’ll be discussing the finer points of anthologies. The call is entitled “Co-Authoring Your Way to a Bestselling Book: The Secrets to Gaining All the Benefits of Being a Published Expert with Just a Fraction of the Work”. Just go here for all the details and to register for the call. By this time next year, you could be a published author!

© 2010 Sophfronia Scott

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR E-ZINE OR WEB SITE? You can, but you must include this complete resource box with it: Sophfronia Scott is Executive Editor of the Done For You Writing & Publishing Company. Learn what a difference being a published author can make for your business. Get your FREE audio CD, “How to Succeed in Business By Becoming a Bestselling Author” and your FREE online writing and book publishing tips at www.DoneForYouWriting.com.

Fair warning: if you’re pitching an interesting novel based on your life story, don’t be surprised if an agent or editor encourages you to write it as a memoir instead. (James Frey discovered that the hard way when he first pitched the book that became the ill-fated A Million Little Pieces.) Memoirs still sell well in the guessing game that is the publishing industry. And, as we’ll soon see by the upcoming filming version of Eat, Pray, Love starring Julia Roberts, memoirs can make good film fodder too. So whether you come to it on your own or by suggestion, you may be writing your memoir very soon. That leads me to Fair Warning, Part 2: I’ve learned that when a person starts thinking about telling their life story, they tend to overthink it. They get caught up in worrying about things such as what others will think and who would publish it. The whole thought process results in paralysis so they can’t even figure out how to get started. But if you do your thinking in a more focused way, and then follow it up with specific actions, you’ll have your completed pages done before you know it! Here’s how to get going.

Who is the Book For?

Before sitting down at your desk, decide who you are writing for. Are you writing for a wider audience (the general public)? Are you hoping to write the next Eat, Pray, Love? Or are you writing solely for your children and grandchildren? Answering this question will take many concerns off your plate from the very beginning. For instance, if you are writing only for family members, your writing style can be more intimate and informal, almost as though you are writing a letter. You also wouldn’t have to worry about getting an agent or attracting a publishing house because you know you’ll either print the book yourself or have a self-publishing company produce a bunch of finished books for you.

If you are writing for a wider audience you will have much more to deliver in terms of story, action and writing style. But let’s keep this on the back burner for now and only think in terms of one thing: you know you have to write well. The rest you can worry about when the book is done.

What Story or Stories Do You Want to Tell?

You don’t have to do the David Copperfield thing and go all the way back to “I am born.” Contrary to popular belief, real life doesn’t always make for interesting writing. So instead of going the James Frey route and embellishing, as he did with A Million Little Pieces (and you see where that got him!), focus instead on the great stories that have happened to you. I’ve heard from many people who desire to tell the story of their World War II experiences. They can do whole books just on that subject. There’s no need to do more unless you have more to say.

Joan Didion’s  memoir, The Year of Magical Thinking, is all about her months of grieving after the death of her husband, John Gregory Dunne. It is a beautiful example of what can be done by examining just a small portion of your life. Likewise, Maya Angelou covered her life experiences in more than one book. So you don’t have to write down everything in one place. Just think: What story are your burning to tell right now? Start there!

Skip the Writing Part–For Now

This may seem counter-intuitive to your intent to write a book, but if putting down that first word or sentence is too hard, you may find it easier to talk your book first. All you have to do is give yourself a rough outline of what you want to talk about and then speak your stories into a recording device. You probably tell these stories anyway more often than you realize, which is probably why people say, “You should write that down”. This will feel natural for you, especially if you enlist a friend or family member to interview you. That makes it easier than just lecturing into the air, plus the person you choose can help you to dig out certain details that you have either  forgotten or just didn’t think to bring out. For instance, a curious interviewer might ask “Who was with you when you stormed that beach in France?” or “What kind of car were you driving when you first saw Mom walking down the street?” or “What were you wearing when you met Martin Luther King Jr.?”

Mitch Albom did this. Even though I had read Tuesdays with Morrie, it didn’t hit me until I saw the television movie based on the book that he had recorded Morrie during each visit. He didn’t have to work from notes or memory. I’m sure the tone of Morrie’s voice was a constant inspiration for Mr. Albom to keep going and finish the book. I’m sure your family would love to have such a recording of you. The recording could be a gift itself, even if you never turn it into a book. But this is about creating a book so…

Transcribe for an Instant Rough Draft

Have a friend or family member or hire someone to to take the words from your recording and put them on paper. Most transcription services can do this fairly quickly, depending on the length of the work. I use eTranscription Solutions (http://www.etranscriptionsolutions.org) to transcribe my seminars and they are fast and accurate. The beauty of this is that once the transcript is done, you’ll suddenly have a rough draft of your book in your hands. No more blank pages to contend with!

Shape Your Book

Now this part should be really fun. Once you have your rough draft, you can begin to shape your story, like an artist with clay. Again, beware the impulse to embellish, but try to give things a beginning, a middle and an end. Keep your audience in mind. Remember, your writing doesn’t have to be fancy. You just want to make sure you’re being compelling, and that you’re getting your message across. If you have any doubt about the way something is written, read it out loud. You’ll be able to hear whether a phrase is awkward, if your sentences are too long or if you have fragments instead of complete sentences.

Finish It!

The best way to ensure that you’ll complete your project is to set a deadline for yourself and honor it. Otherwise you may let it linger for months or years, working on it only a little at a time. Maybe you could tie your deadline to a family event such as a holiday or a reunion. Wouldn’t that be the perfect place to present your completed memoir? If you seek to get your book published traditionally instead of doing it yourself, you may not have control over when you’ll have a finished book in your hands, but don’t let that stop you. Go as far as you can and present that work, even if it’s a stack of photocopied pages or a box of cassette tapes to your loved ones. They will appreciate the gift–and your effort–for years to come.

© 2010 Sophfronia Scott

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR E-ZINE OR WEB SITE? You can, but you must include this complete resource box with it: Sophfronia Scott is Executive Editor of the Done For You Writing & Publishing Company. Learn what a difference being a published author can make for your business. Get your FREE audio CD, “How to Succeed in Business By Becoming a Bestselling Author” and your FREE online writing and book publishing tips at www.DoneForYouWriting.com

Let’s face it: schools gave outlines a bad name! Whether you realize it or not, every time the word “outline” comes up you probably think about the whole Roman numerals, 1, 2, 3, a, b, c, skeleton that you learned in class. You might even get the chills because you could never learn how to cram the information given into the arcane format. But that doesn’t mean that outlines are  archaic and unimportant. Whenever I meet a writer having trouble with a work, fiction or non-fiction, the problem usually goes back to the fact that the author-to-be isn’t clear about what they want to do with or put in the book. In other words, they didn’t outline it first. I realize you might be the kind of writer who can fly by your seat and write out of the blue. But if you’re not, an outline is your best insurance that you will finish your book and avoid that horrible affliction that kills many books: writers’ block. Here’s the easiest way to create an outline and make it work for you.

Why Outline?

When you make the commitment to sit down and figure out, chapter by chapter, what you want to say in your book, a few amazing things happen:

• Your vision for your book idea/concept goes from fuzzy to clear.
• You ensure your book is functional.
• You have all the information for your book in one place.

When you have all this working for you, your confidence level immediately rises. You know what you’re doing with your book, it’s that simple. Now, here’s another way to think of your outline:

Your Book’s To-Do List

Yes, an outline is just a to-do list for your book. We make to-do lists all the time and it’s no big deal, right? A to-do list reminds of you what you want to get done: what groceries you want to buy, who gets thank you cards, what bills you have to pay. An outline does the same thing: it reminds you of exactly what you want your book  to do or what information you want it to relay. Just pull out a piece of paper and make your list. Start here:

Make a list of your chapters–make a guess if you don’t know how many you’ll have. Ten chapters is a good number to start with. Under each chapter heading make a list of the main points you want to make in each chapter. If your book is non-fiction, you’ll want to include a list of anecdotes you want to tell and the calls to action that will entice people to go to your website. Make sure each chapter list is complete. Don’t be lazy here. If you think, “I’ll just figure that part out later”, that’s the place where I guarantee you’ll get stuck when you get to it. Take this opportunity to really think through your book.

The outline doesn’t have to be pretty or error free. It does have to make sense to you and only you. You want your outline to be a clear reminder to you of everything you want to say in the book. You can even add to it later if you want. It’s really just for you. Keep it with you, review it regularly. If you get stuck while writing, always go back to your outline. A good outline is the road map to the satisfaction of becoming a published author. And that’s not necessarily something you’ll  learn about in school!

© 2010 Sophfronia Scott

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR E-ZINE OR WEB SITE? You can, but you must include this complete resource box with it: Sophfronia Scott is Executive Editor of the Done For You Writing & Publishing Company. Learn what a difference being a published author can make for your business. Get your FREE audio CD, “How to Succeed in Business By Becoming a Bestselling Author” and your FREE online writing and book publishing tips at www.DoneForYouWriting.com.

When you write a book to promote your business, you’re encouraging people to knock on your door to hire or buy from you. You do this with a powerful lead generation strategy including many calls to action placed throughout your book. However, you don’t want just anyone coming to you. You want prospects who are potentially ideal clients–people you’ll enjoy working with, who respect your expertise and have no qualms about paying you what you’re worth. But here’s the good news: you can actually pre-screen prospects by making key choices in your book. Here’s how. You can qualify prospects with…

Your Material
If you’ve listened to your audience and designed your content really well, then the material in your book will automatically appeal to the people you want as ideal clients. If you’re not sure, just interview past clients and ask them what they most want to know or need help with right now. Also survey your list often so you know what’s on their minds. If your content is compelling, you’ll draw the right prospects into the fold.

Your Questions
You’ll want to continually ask questions in your book to make the readers qualify themselves. “Do you want do this?”, “Is this you?”, “Is this what you want?” Ideally you want a person to answer “Yes!” and raise their hand by going to your website or contacting you by mail, fax or phone.

Your Offers
The things you give away will also tell you what type of prospect you’re getting. I’m willing to bet that the many different giveaways Dan Kennedy offers in his many books all bring him different types of prospects. A person signing up for a free email series is a valuable prospect, certainly. But someone who entered his National Sales Letter Contest (an offer from his Ultimate Sales Letter book) to win a Mustang car is someone who digested his material, acted on it and jumped through a major hoop by completing a lengthy application process. That person would be ten times more likely to spend serious money with Mr. Kennedy and would do it sooner rather than later.

Now this doesn’t mean you want all your offers to be big. Having a range is better. Offer a free tool, or a newsletter subscription. But offer other items as well that require a little more work. Maybe you’ll invite them to a live event that requires a $50 deposit. Or create a contest of your own. This way when the crowd shows up, you market to each person based on their current level of interest–and save money by knowing how to divide up your marketing budget!

© 2010 Sophfronia Scott

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR E-ZINE OR WEB SITE? You can, but you must include this complete resource box with it: Sophfronia Scott is Executive Editor of the Done For You Writing & Publishing Company. Learn what a difference being a published author can make for your business. Get your FREE audio CD, “How to Succeed in Business By Becoming a Bestselling Author” and your FREE online writing and book publishing tips at www.DoneForYouWriting.com.

By Sophfronia Scott

It’s sort of like that chicken or the egg question: which do you work on first, your book or your business? Should you write a book first and then develop a business when you start attracting attention? Or should you build your business up first and then write a book as the biggest, tastiest piece of your marketing pie? It’s the kind of pondering that can put a well-meaning entrepreneur into the overwhelm zone, and neither the book nor the business move forward! Here’s the problem with this kind of thinking: it assumes that the book is a separate project from your business, when really the two can be developed together. Here’s how you can easily fit a book into your business strategy.

What Will Be Your Focus?

Let’s look at your business going forward in the next 6-12 months. Is there a particular area, subject or service you would like to introduce or highlight in a new way? Perhaps you’ve been coaching on business success and you want to start a coaching program around marketing to women or you sell a product that teaches how to write copy, but you want to start teaching it live as a bootcamp. What exactly is it you want to bring to your business and what kind of results do you want to see from the effort?

What Do You Want People to Do?

Now let’s pretend someone on the street has just heard about your new offering. What would you want them to do next? Go to your website to learn more? Attend a free public seminar? Call or email you? Think of all the different “next steps” that could be possible for a person who comes across your information. Write out these steps as if they were on a map that leads the person right to you or, more specifically, into the top of your product funnel. These steps might be simple such as going to your website for a tool or a report. Or they could be a little more complicated, like having them fax in a request for seminar tickets. I like to have a sprinkling of both kinds of steps. The variation can help you gauge the quality of your prospect.

Plan Your Book Accordingly and Launch It

Fortunately for you, you don’t have to wait for someone on the street to tell someone else about your business and your new offering if you are writing a book. And all of those different ways you want people to come back to you, to make contact? They will be placed in the book as your “calls to action”. Your book will also highlight your knowledge and expertise with the subject you’ve chosen, be it marketing to women or how to hire the best people. It would also mention all the new business offerings in this area. Once you have written and launched the book, you can promote the book. And here’s the magic of this: it looks like you’re promoting this one book, but you’re really selling all that other stuff you have going on that’s connected to the book: your paid newsletter, your workshops, your coaching programs, your contests, your products. How are you doing that? It’s all in the book!

The great thing about this book-and-business strategy is that it can be repeated again and with different subject matter and different offerings. Successful entrepreneurs such as Jack Canfield, Robert Kiyosaki and Donald Trump have been doing this for ages. Isn’t it time for you to get the word out and make a profit as well?

© 2010 Sophfronia Scott

Sophfronia Scott is Executive Editor of The Done For You Writing & Publishing Company. Get your FREE audio CD, “How to Succeed in Business By Becoming a Bestselling Author” and your FREE online writing and book publishing tips at www.DoneForYouWriting.com.

By Sophfronia Scott

I met with a client recently to discuss his marketing ideas for his upcoming book. These ideas mainly consisted of sending press releases and focusing on media contacts. That’s great and I told him so. But I felt he was overlooking the potential of other tactics that could be just as effective for him if not more so. He would be able to reach a large number of people, just as he would if he appeared in the media, but it would happen in a different way. People tend to overlook it because it’s not as flashy as showing up on television or radio.

Let’s look at it this way–when you want someone to write a story about you in a magazine or newspaper, or you want someone to have you on their television or radio show, you’re wanting to tap into that medium’s large audience. That’s the point of being in the media–lots of eyeballs looking at you. But there are other ways to attract those eyeballs.

We’re living in a time where, more than ever before, there are self-made celebrities who command audiences of their own. These people are writers, entrepreneurs, comics, athletes–just about anyone with a blog or a Twitter account has an audience.

If you can assemble a group of partners who have substantial lists of their own and get them to promote your book, you could have hundreds of thousands, even millions, of readers learning about you in as much time as it takes to send an email. If you find the right partners, ideally those whose lists are full of your target reader, this type of promotion can be more effective than being on TV because you would be in front of more people who are more likely to buy your book.

Now For the Hard Part
But how do you find and connect with the partners most likely to promote your book? Here’s the thing: the internet is a great place to find people. And I did find several partners this way. You can easily track down the blogs and websites that get the most traffic and you can even get the contact information for the people who run them. However, connecting with such writers often takes more than sending an email or making a phone call.

When I started searching for partners to promote Doing Business By the Book, I took a cue from Timothy Ferriss. When he was preparing to promote The Four Hour Work Week, he traveled to a number of the popular tech conferences where he met, questioned and bonded with many of the top bloggers in the country. Tim made it easy for these writers to want to work with him because they were able to get to know him and learn more about what he does.

I took a similar route and spent the year before my book launch traveling, attending mastermind meetings and networking with as many people as I could in order to find the right partners to promote my book. The connections I made continue to be very important in all my endeavors so the effort I made to do this very up close and personal kind of networking still pays off today. In my most recent trip I went to Chicago for the Women on Fire Retreat hosted by Debbie Phillips. Again, I met some wonderful people including the awe-inspiring Stedman Graham. I have no idea where these connections will lead someday, but made the effort to step out and make them, and that’s what matters.

So even if you don’t have an audience of your own just yet, think about who does have a list of readers who might connect with your material. Think about what you have to offer a potential partner. Ideally your networking should produce win-win results for both sides.

One Last Note: Enjoy your meetings. Take the opportunity to learn about what others do and how they do it. You’ll find this type of marketing much more rewarding that sending out press releases to faceless names from a magazine masthead.

© 2010 Sophfronia Scott

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR E-ZINE OR WEB SITE? You can, but you must include this complete resource box with it: Sophfronia Scott is Executive Editor of the Done For You Writing & Publishing Company. Learn what a difference being a published author can make for your business. Get your FREE audio CD, “How to Succeed in Business By Becoming a Bestselling Author” and your FREE online writing and book publishing tips at www.DoneForYouWriting.com.

Let’s face it. You read and study and seek advice from writing professionals like myself because you want to understand the convention of the publishing industry so you can be accepted and be successful in the realm. There’s nothing wrong with that. But I would like you to think about this for a moment: Sometimes there’s even more success to be had by going against the grain of what’s usually done. And there isn’t a better time than now to experiment with new approaches because these days “what’s usually done” in the publishing world isn’t working.

But before you set out to write the book that shatters convention or create the promotion that makes us all rethink how to sell a book, here are a few tips to keep in mind to help smooth your unpaved path.

Be Clear For Yourself
Know what you want to do and why you want to do it. Don’t worry if the reasons don’t make sense to anyone else. I’m sure no one could really understand why real estate maverick Frank McKinney wanted to write and publish a spiritual book, a real estate guide and a young adult novel all on exactly the same day, but I bet the reasons were crystal clear to him! Everyone else could only stand back in amazement as each book hit bestseller status. If you’re clear on your reasons for writing against the grain, it will help you to…

Be Strong in Your Conviction
Many people will tell you why you can’t do something–I could even be one of them! But if your plan is sound, and only you can know that for certain, move forward in the direction of your dreams. The book publishing industry has operated on convention for ages so it doles out the rejection slips like sprinkles in an ice cream shop. Authors like J.K. Rowling got more than their fair share. But because she held firm in her belief that her story of boy wizard Harry Potter was worthy, she was rewarded with a fortune.

Execute Well
It’s one thing to be a maverick. It’s quite another to be a bad maverick. I’m not even sure if there’s a proper word for a bad maverick. You’re just considered bad! If you’re going to write a book like no one has ever seen before, then it has to be good. There will be too many people waiting to say, “See, I told you it wouldn’t work.” Your work has to be on target and so polished it shines. A half-baked job won’t cut it.

Get Others On Your Bandwagon
When you write against the grain, it helps to have your own support team. You’ll need the positivity to outweigh the “no’s” you might hear along the way. Plus you’ll enjoy celebrating your triumph with people who were there with you the whole way–no johnny-come-lately’s at your party!

Show Some Personality
Now is not the time to sit back and be conservative with your writing. If you’re already stepping out to write something different, you may as well go all the way. Don’t be afraid to show your personality. Your brash mind came up with the idea–let it come out with all that brashness intact. You’ll draw more interest in your project, and you’ll have a lot more fun creating it!

One Last Note: Don’t be afraid to ask for help along the way. If you’re doing something totally new, you might hesitate to talk about the project and keep it too much to yourself. Remember (and I learned this from author and coach Barbara Sher), isolation is a dream killer. The more people you tell about your bold vision, the more good energy you’ll build around it. And you’ll be that much more likely to drive that bold vision home.

© 2009 Sophfronia Scott

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR E-ZINE OR WEB SITE? You can, but you must include this complete resource box with it: Sophfronia Scott is Executive Editor of the Done For You Writing & Publishing Company. Learn what a difference being a published author can make for your business. Get your FREE audio CD, “How to Succeed in Business By Becoming a Bestselling Author” and your FREE online writing and book publishing tips at www.DoneForYouWriting.com.

What is a Book Proposal?
A book proposal is a document that presents the detail and scope of your book idea. It summarizes the book, provides sample chapters and explains why you’re the right person to do the book. Depending on the book, the proposal can be as few as 20 pages or as much as 45-50 pages or more. Think of it as prospectus–you’re making the pitch to the publishing house on why your book would make a great investment for the company.

Do You Need One?
You’ll want to write a book proposal if…

–you’re writing a non-fiction book
–you’re seeking a traditional publisher and/or a literary agent.

Making Your Case
The great thing about a book proposal is that it proves your book is a great idea–so much so that you’ve written pages of detail to back it up. This is important because your proposal won’t be read by just one person. These days it often takes a whole team of people to make a decision on whether or not to sign your book. Imagine what it would be like if you had to pitch each person again and again in person? Let your proposal do the talking for you!

Saving You Time
The work that goes into writing a book proposal can be very telling. It may show you that you’re focusing on the wrong area of your topic. Or that the audience for the book isn’t as big as you had hoped it would be. Such discoveries can be disappointing, but the upside is that these discoveries give you the chance to make a choice: you can re-focus the book, take steps to make it stronger or even decide to abandon the project altogether, which can save you lots of precious time.

How Will You Sell Your Book?
Many writers get so caught up with the idea of a book–and getting it written–that they give no thought to how they will sell the finished product. But in a book proposal you have to present all the ways you plan to market and sell your book. It makes you think about your audience and how you’ll reach them. The exercise is a great reminder of who you’re writing the book for in the first place, which can motivate you to get your project done.

Getting Started
Okay, now for the technical part. Here are the different sections you’ll want your book proposal to have. Of course these days you can add many bells and whistles: photos, videos, product samples. But your proposal still needs the basics:

Title Page
This is the first page of the book proposal. Your title should be centered and printed about two-thirds of the way down the page. In the bottom left hand corner you’ll type in your name, address, phone number, email address and the name and contact information for your agent.

Overview
You’ll want to have two to three pages explaining the overall premise of your book. You’ll also want to include a Table of Contents that shows what points will be covered in each chapter.

Bio/Credentials
This isn’t just your usual resume stuff, this is a big opportunity to sell yourself as THE person to write the book. Write it in the third person starting with your education and credentials. You’ll want to point out any experience that specifically relates to the subject matter of the book. Have you written articles or previous books on the topic? Note those as well. List any public speaking that you have done and will do in the future, including television and radio interviews. Include a really nice photo. It doesn’t have to be a glamour shot, but you do want to look interesting and engaging. A 5″x7″ is fine.

Competition
The publisher will want to know if there are books similar to yours already out there. It will help them to see that there is a market for such books. At the same time, you’ll want to point out how your book will be different, or better, than what’s already out there. Do not trash someone else’s work. It’s bad form. It’s enough to say a competitor’s book left something out, or doesn’t cover a certain aspect. If you don’t know what competing books exist, you can look them up in Books in Print or on Amazon.com.

Outline
This will be your chapter-by-chapter outline showing what you will cover, point-by-point, in each chapter. You can plan on allotting about half a page per chapter.

Sample Chapters
This is where you get to show that you really can write! You should submit at least three chapters of content. It doesn’t have to be the first three chapters, but if you haven’t written anything yet those may be the easiest to do. Then again, some writers like to start in the middle of a book! The main key here is to be good–no typos, no misspellings and no factual errors.

Marketing
The marketing section of your book proposal is so important that many publishers will often read it first. So make sure you spend the time to make this the best it can be. Lay out your whole marketing plan here. Explain who your target audience is, how big it is and why they will buy this book. How do you plan on reaching them? Are you buying your own advertising? If so, in what publications and what is their combined circulation? Will you be reaching out to book clubs, corporations or college classes where you book could be taught? How can you make your book stand out against the ones that are already out there? You want to make the case that there is a ready made audience out there and all the publisher has to do is reach out and grab them by signing you.

Promotion
Remember, a publisher wants to acquire you and your connections, so this is another important section of the proposal. How will you put yourself out there for your book? You’ll want to explain if you’ll be doing public speaking, or maybe you have a huge list you communicate with via newsletter every month. How many are on your list? If you plan to hire your own publicist, put that fact in as well. Do you have famous connections that will help you get great blurbs? Do you have a budget? If so, how much? Yes, they do want to know if you plan on spending some of your own money!

Publishing Details
Here you’ll detail the length you propose for the book (in words) and whether the book will have any illustrations or photos. You’ll also want to give an estimate for the time you’ll need to turn in the finished manuscript.

And that’s it. When your proposal is done you might want to hire an editor or a book consultant to go over it and give you some strong feedback. That way you’ll know you have it in the best shape possible and you can feel confident when you’re sending it out. Be positive, be clear, and good luck!

© 2010 Sophfronia Scott

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR E-ZINE OR WEB SITE? You can, but you must include this complete resource box with it: Sophfronia Scott is Executive Editor of the Done For You Writing & Publishing Company. Learn what a difference being a published author can make for your business. Get your FREE audio CD, “How to Succeed in Business By Becoming a Bestselling Author” and your FREE online writing and book publishing tips at www.DoneForYouWriting.com.

So I have to ask the question: what are you willing to do to market your book? Remember, think in terms of your book and your audience. You won’t necessarily have to write articles for O, The Oprah Magazine like Ms. Skloot did. Your best connections may be elsewhere. What can you do RIGHT NOW to get started?

The Making of a Bestseller: Rebecca Skloot and a Great Obsession

by Luisita Lopez Torregrosa

Some might say she’s calculating and shrewd, a charmer with a practiced smile and a flair for marketing herself. They would be right. Others might say she’s passionate and bold, a brilliant writer and a science savant. They, too, would be right.

She comes out of the gate at a gallop, the literary season’s wunderkind, Rebecca Skloot, taut and trim in boot heels, running the final lap of a whirlwind 72-hour publicity campaign in New York City for her bestseller, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” an irresistible story of science, race, and class about a black woman whose immortal cancer cells, removed without her permission, led to major medical advances including the polio vaccine and a multimillion-dollar research industry while her own family lived in ignorance and poverty.

With “Henrietta Lacks,” her recently published first book, Skloot has achieved that rare publishing trifecta: critical acclaim, commercial success, and personal popularity. None of it came by chance. None of it came easily.

On a hectic day last week that began for her at 9 a.m. and would wind down 14 hours later, Skloot leaned forward at our coffee shop table, ready to spring up at any moment, her hands moving in unison with her lips, serving as the props to her streaming answers. She wastes no time with pauses or niceties but speaks rapidly, her hands punctuating the air. She orchestrates the conversation just as she has orchestrated her propulsion to the top of the publishing world. She’s to the point, well-mannered but impatient. Life is moving so fast for her.

Skloot is a youthful 37 but has lived with that book forever. She was 16 and sitting at a community college biology class when she first heard about Henrietta Lacks, who died in 1951 from cervical cancer. She was intrigued by the story of Lacks’ mysterious cells and obscure background, but it was only when she was in graduate school, studying writing at the University of Pittsburgh, that she became fixated, as she says in her book, with the idea of writing it. She signed up for the long haul when she was 27.

It took her 10 years, three publishing houses, four editors, one divorce, a freelance stint in New York, school loans and credit card debts, and a faculty job at the University of Memphis, but she did it. She got the great story of Henrietta Lacks onto the front stage. That was her mission from the start — to get the story out there — but the exhaustive research, the ethical-legal complications, and Lacks family history proved more complex than she had expected.

“I grew up white and agnostic in the Pacific Northwest, my roots half New York Jew and half Midwestern Protestant,” and the Lacks family came from rural poverty and Christian roots in the tobacco fields and segregated towns and neighborhoods of the South. She had to immerse herself in those lives and they had to learn to trust her. In time the Lacks family became so close to her that she has started a scholarship fund with some of the proceeds from her book for the descendants of Henrietta Lacks.

All along, while Skloot was working on the book, indefatigable, bouncing back after one setback after another, she was “working on publicizing it early, early, early, doing magazine work and meeting editors and planting the seeds to have people know and cover the book when it came out years later,” she tells me. Without any training or guidance, she began planning publicity from the start. “I started writing for Oprah’s magazine because I really wanted my excerpt there.” She did book reviews in order to get acquainted with book critics and editors who might serve her well later, and she zealously maintained those relationships and began to build a network of supporters. She used or created every opportunity to sell her idea, her future book.

“Everything I did, everything I did, every story I wrote, every book review, every relationship, was in some way a step toward February 2, 2010″ – the date of the book’s publication.

Praise came instantly and the book took off, debuting at No. 5 in the New York Times nonfiction bestseller list.

One day she was a little-known freelancer and the next day she was declared the newest literary phenomenon. Just 24 hours after her book came out, Dwight Garner, reviewing the book in the daily Arts section of The Times, proclaimed it “one of the most graceful and moving nonfiction books I’ve read in a very long time.” Four days later, on Sunday, Feb. 7, the New York Times Book Review, which can make or kill a book, gave the book its blessing. Writers usually wait weeks hoping to have their books reviewed by The Times. But the reviews of Skloot’s book came out immediately after its publication. Skloot didn’t have to chew her nails, waiting and hoping.

“Dwight’s review — that was aaa-mazing!” Skloot’s got a wide Julia Roberts smile. “Then the book hit, debuted on the bestseller list and my life just EXPLODED!”

The first week after publication she received over 9,000 e-mails requesting speaking engagements and interviews. She no longer could manage it all, but she’s a control freak and turning over her book’s fate to others made her nervous. Earlier, before fortune rained on her, she had plotted her Immortal Book Tour – 50-some cities, four months — with the help of her father, Floyd Skloot, who’d never gone on a book tour though he’d written several books (none commercially successful) about the brain damage he suffered from a virus. She also persuaded colleges and universities all over the land to pay her for speaking at their campuses, which gave her enough money to cover expenses.

These days everyone wants a piece of her, her book is flying out of book stores, and Skloot has a trail of handlers: two publicists, an agency scheduling speaking engagements (already planning 2011), her literary and movie rights agent, and assorted others. Not bad for a girl from Portland, Ore., who since age 5, only wanted to become a veterinarian.

“I know I am held up as the poster child for author’s self publicity,” she says. “Part of it is that I thought about this for a lot of years and built a lot of connections, but part of it is just the story. Many writers have e-mailed me, saying, ‘I want to know exactly how you did it this.’ But that’s when the story comes in. It has built-in academic interest because it’s a science book, it’s a book about race, it is sociology, it is African American studies, women’s studies, journalism, history.”

It’s a riveting story all around. Henrietta Lacks was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the land in Virginia that her slave ancestors had worked. She was born in Clover, a dying town, and later moved to Baltimore, where her children and grandchildren still live. Her cancer was diagnosed after she had had five children, and it was terminal. Her cells, known as HeLa cells worldwide, helped lead to medical advances like vitro fertilization and gene mapping, and have been sold for billions of dollars.

But Henrietta Lacks is hardly known and she is buried in an unmarked grave. More than 20 years after her death, her children found out about the fate and value of her cells. That knowledge confused and tormented them and changed their lives forever. This story, a compelling slice of American history, comes painfully to life in Skloot’s hands.

What makes her success more magical — or irritating, depending on your point of view — is the fact that Rebecca Skloot never dreamed of being a writer. She was trained in the sciences and came to writing by accident. She was a junior at Colorado State University when she chose an elective in creative writing over foreign languages. “I had no interest in writing,” she tells me when we pick up our conversation over lunch, after she had appeared on the Fox Business Network and taped a segment for an NBC-affiliated Web site (though it was her appearance on “The Colbert Report” that had her most excited). She wrote her first report in the creative writing class about the freezer in the morgue at the university’s veterinary school, a dark story that had her classmates and professor dazzled and intrigued. She liked seeing the response. She was hooked.

Scratching out a living as a freelancer in New York, she developed an easy prose style, explaining science in everyday language, making it understandable, even interesting. Over time her features and reviews appeared in all the right places: The New York Times and The New York Times Magazine, New York magazine, O the Oprah Magazine, Wired, Popular Science — a broad publishing landscape that included the highly educated audience of The Times, the hip readers of New York magazine, the female readership of Oprah, and the nerdy techs who gravitate to Wired. She even wrote a brief piece for the AARP Bulletin, a publication for older Americans.

She had lived so long with “Henrietta Lacks” that her friends called it “The Immortal Book Project of Rebecca Skloot.” It did seem at times that it would never see the light of day. But finally, with a six-figure advance from Crown Publishers and the seclusion provided by a retreat in remote West Virginia hills, she pulled the book toward the home stretch.

“I did imagine this success,” she admits. “I imagined it somewhat. A lot has to do with the story . . . I was obsessed with the story and so much of my drive to do the publicity was about wanting as many people to read the book and hear the story . . . That’s what makes it less smarmy.”