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Subsidiary Rights and Spin-Offs

March 31, 2010 By 1 Comment

If you were submitting to an agent or publisher, the next part of a proposal you would write would be the one called subsidiary rights. When you sell your book to a publishing house, the publisher acquires primary rights. This enables them to sell the book as is or in adapted or condensed form. To see a list of primary rights, see Michael Larsen’s How to Write a Book Proposal.

Subsidiary rights include things like first-serial rights to excerpt the book before publication, British and translation rights, rights to produce abridged, unabridged and dramatized audio and video versions of your book, etc.  A more complete list is included in How to Write a Book Proposal.

While you are wearing your business hat, you might consider if your book has potential for subsidiary rights. However, this section is not really necessary to the blog-a-book process. I’ve just included it here so you’d be aware of it; if you plan on approaching a publisher, the addition of subsidiary rights to your proposal can prove attractive.

A more pertinent section of the proposal, but also one that is not really necessary to consider prior to beginning to blog your book, is the spin-offs section. Acquisition editors and agents like to know that you aren’t a one book author. The spin-off section of a proposal is where you look at your first book idea and consider what other books you might write as follow-ups.

Could your book be a series? Is there a way for you to entice a publisher into a multi-book deal?  Does your book naturally lead you to write books on similar or related topics?

If you want to be found by an agent or publisher, or if you plan on approaching them yourself, it might be a good idea to be prepared to answer the question, “Do you have other books you plan to write after this one?” Your answer could make the difference between getting a contract and being turned down.

Additionally, while you have your business hat on consider what you will do when you finish your blogged book. How you will capitalize upon that success? Having your next book idea lined up and ready to go, means you don’t lose any readers. That’s key to becoming a successful author long term.

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Markets: Who Will Read Your Blogged Book?

March 26, 2010 By 1 Comment

 

On to the next proposal section included under the “Introduction” heading: Markets. As I mentioned in my last post, you now need to make sure you are wearing your business person hat. No writer’s hats allowed.

It’s time to meet your readers or to discover how many readers your blog might be able to gain. In general, discovering your readers represents an exercise in researching if your blog has a market.

Again, even though you are blogging a book, you need to know this information for two reasons: First, since you will be the one primarily responsible for promoting your blog, you’ll want to know in what markets to place your promotional efforts. In other words, you want to promote to the right readers—the right markets. Thus, you must take time to find out who those readers are. Second, and more importantly, you must find out if you even have readers. If no market exists for your blog, you’ll be lucky to garner even a few readers for your blog. (If this is the case, forget about your blog getting “found” by an agent and published as a physical book.)

Knowing if you have a market for your blogged book helps you discern if a reason exists to bother writing and publishing your work. Is there anybody out there that will read your work? Since you are blogging a book, you want to ask, “Is there anyone out there in cyberspace who will subscribe to my blog or come back every few days to see if I’ve published a new post?” In blogging or website terms, you want to know if you can build up a large number of unique visitors (those that come back more than once—hopefully repeatedly).

To discover if you have a market, start with this step: Describe the audience for your blogged book. Who is your average blog reader? Who would be interested in your topic? Who will subscribe to your blog?  Include demographic information if you can. (Do your research!)

Now describe large groups of people (actual markets) that will subscribe to your blog. (Again…do your research! Go out on the Internet and find statistics and information on the size of these groups.) Don’t be lazy. Answer the question, “Who is the market for my blog?”  (Wrong answer: People like me. People who like cats. Right answer: The 1.3 million cat owners in the U.S. The 80,000 veterinarians licensed in the U.S. today.)

Once you’ve done this, you will know if you have a market or not. If you have a large numbers of people who potentially could be interested in your blog, great! Your blog gets the green light. If you can’t think of any markets, or if your markets are very small, you might want to reconsider your topic or re-angle it to target a bigger market.

Of course, nothing stops you from blogging your book for your own enjoyment. You might find one or two readers show up. You can always tell your friends and family to come read your blog. Without a real market, however, you won’t gain many unique visitors, subscribers or readers.

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Overview: The Features and Benefits of Your Book

March 22, 2010 By 1 Comment

Now that you have a pitch, it’s time to actually write the overview of your book. Typically, an overview begins with a paragraph or two that hook the reader. This isn’t much different from an article; the beginning of the overview could be considered your “lead.”

Next, insert your pitch. This is followed by a statement that includes how many pages your book will have and how much back matter it will include. Since your book’s “form” is comprised of blog posts, think of your pages as posts. How many posts will you write? Each posts will be 200-500 words in length. A short book has about 25,000 words. If you assume the average post will be 350 words in length, that means you will have to write about 72 blog posts. Your back matter might be some extra blog pages with resources or something like that.

Next, you must write a page and a half or two pages that describe the features and benefits of your book. In other words, what will the reader gain by reading your blog each time you write a post? Once they finish reading the book, what will they have learned? Why should they read the book?

The overview should read like a short synopsis of your book. Consider this your promise to your readers, and as you write the book, you deliver on that promise.

In my next post, we go on to the next part of the proposal: Markets. Be read to wear your business hat.

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Overview: Write a Pitch for Your Book

March 18, 2010 By 2 Comments

Now that you have a title for your book and you know what your book is about, it’s time to write a pitch. This is your “elevator speech,” the one you’d give to an agent or an acquisition editor if you happened to meet them in an elevator or at a conference.

Writing a pitch shouldn’t be too difficult after going through the steps I’ve outlined previously. If you know what your book is about and you know why someone should want to read your book—what benefits it will provide and why it is unique*—you should be able to write something pithy in 50 words or less that describes your book perfectly.

Why the word limit? If you can’t tell someone what your book is about in fifty words or less, then you don’t know what you are writing about.

So, try your hand at a pitch. Include your book’s benefits, its unique qualities, why someone would want to read it, the problem you are going to solve, the value it will add. What makes your book special? At its very core, what is it about? What is its message? What is its purpose? Fit all this information into the most creative 25-50-word sentence you can write.

(Okay…I know you can’t get all of that into one 25-50-word sentence; just get the most important points into the pitch—the ones that tell someone the main things you want them to know about your book’s subject. You’ll include the rest of it into an overview, which you’ll learn about tomorrow.)

 

If you don’t plan on pitching your book to an agent, write a pitch anyway. It will help you hone your idea to the max. And once you’ve written the pitch, your book will naturally flow out if it. You’ll find writing it much easier.

The pitch also provides you with a great marketing tool. You’ll use this pitch to tell people what your book’s about…to convince them to buy it.

*If you don’t know exactly why your book is unique, no worries…yet. In the near future, I’ll show you exactly how to figure this out. Hint: It involves knowing your competition.

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Overview: Create a Title for Your Book

March 16, 2010 By 1 Comment

Your blogged book (or any book) needs a title, and possibly a subtitle, that entices readers into its pages or posts. Sometimes books have creative titles; however, many nonfiction books have tell-it-like-it-is titles that let readers know exactly what they will find within a book’s pages.

To come up with a great title, you need to be clear about your book’s subject matter. That’s why we previously spent time honing your subject, theme, and message. If you go back to these sections and study how you have described your book, you will find phrases and words that might work in a title.

Often titles use a play-on-words, alliteration, the actual name of the subject being written about, or a popular phrase. Sometimes titles evoke emotion. The title of a self-help and how-to book should identify or solve a problem, give a reader hope, be easy to remember, or be clear and specific to the topic.

Short titles are more memorable. Numbers works well, too, as in “7 Steps to…” or “10 Ways to…” and “The 8 Places You Should…” Consider using keywords in your title and subtitle to make your book and blog easier to find by search engines.

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Overview: Why You Want to Write This Book

March 12, 2010 By 1 Comment

This may seem like a silly question, but why do you want to blog a book? Think about it…What’s your purpose? You see, your book must share that purpose. It must have a reason to exist. If it doesn’t, no one will show up at your blog to read the posts day after day (the equivalent to turning the pages of a physical book).

What’s your mission? What do you want to accomplish by writing this book? Do you have some driving reason you must blog this book now? Does doing so fulfill your soul’s purpose? Do you want to help others? Do you have knowledge you feel compelled to share? Do you feel you can change the world with your story? Is the timing just perfect? Have you been waiting for years for science to catch up with your theories and just yesterday new evidence was revealed to support what you’ve known all along?

What’s in it for you? What will you get out of writing this book? Wealth? Fame? New clients? Expert Status? Satisfaction?

Why must you write this book? Get really clear about the answer. Write it down. Compose a mission statement.

(Tip: You’ll want to include this in your book proposal if and when you decide to submit one to an agent. This will be your Mission section.)

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The Overview: Your Book’s Message

March 10, 2010 By 1 Comment

The first section of your book proposal, your overview, includes a lot of information. If you actually write the proposal and submit it to an agent, this section will have a hook (like the lead to an article), a pitch, details about page numbers, illustrations, etc., and a possibly a brief look at your markets.

While we could have looked at your book’s theme in this section, we’ve already done so. Therefore, we will now continue from that point and begin honing your message. The purpose of the next few exercises all revolve around coming up with your pitch, or elevator speech. While you may not plan on pitching your blogged book to anyone, creating a pitch helps you know what your book really, really, really is about. You want to be able to tell someone the gist of your book in 50 words or less (possibly 25 words or less), including the benefits, unique qualities, and highlights of your “story.”

To get clear on your book’s message, ask yourself, “What am I trying to say to my readers? What do I want readers to remember after they put down my book?”

Here’s another way think about this question: Why do you want readers to read your book?

Try visualizing the back cover of the book. What type of copy might you print there? What would it say? What message would you want to convey about what lies within the pages of your book?

In my next post, we’ll look at your mission.

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The Parts of a Proposal

March 7, 2010 By 2 Comments

You can find many books on how to write a book proposal. Lots of information exists on the Internet as well. In my experience, the following list, which is divided into two sections—Introduction and Outline, includes the fourteen vital sections of a book proposal

Sometimes these sections are included in a different order; some books don’t include them all. Authors and agents sometimes choose to include additional sections or even attachments if necessary. Less than these fourteen sections tends to be too little; more can be too much. Most agents and publishers are happy with a proposal that contains the information you will include in these sections.

The Parts of a Proposal

Introductions

  • Overview
  • Markets
  • Subsidiary Rights
  • Spin-offs
  • Promotion
  • Competing Titles
  • Complementary Titles
  • Resources Needed to Complete the Book
  • About the Author
  • Mission Statement
  • Author’s Platform

Outline

  • List of Chapters
  • Chapter Summaries
  • Sample Chapters

Since we are talking about blogging a book in this blog, if you don’t plan on ever looking for a traditional publisher for your book and you don’t want to go through the whole business plan/proposal process, you can do just the minimum. This means just planning out your manuscript itself and focusing on marketability. In this case, you’ll want to complete these sections of prior to beginning to blog.

Introduction

  • Overview
  • Markets
  • Competing Titles
  • Complementary Titles

Outline

  • List of Chapters
  • Chapter Summaries

This will at least give you a good picture of the gist of your book and who will read it. You also will know the markets you can target with your promotion, what competition your blogged book faces and what blogs to target for joint venture projects. The outline gives you your structure: chapters and their content. You’ll break this down further into individual blog posts later.

That said, I highly recommend completing all the proposal sections. Better to be ready for the possibility of a traditional book deal should one arise. Plus, you might want to have well-written bio on your blog site, your mission statement might focus your work, a promotion plan will help you target your efforts in this area, etc.

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How to Begin Blogging Your Book: Start with a Business Plan or Book Proposal (part 5)

March 6, 2010 By 2 Comments

Now that you have a pretty good sense about your book’s theme and what you want to write about, we are going to get serious. Really serious. Yesterday was just a taste of what’s to come…

As I mentioned, everyone who wants to write a book—blogged or otherwise—needs to go through the proposal process. You don’t necessarily have to write the proposal out in great detail, but you do need to go through the steps. Just yesterday my literary agent told me she wished every writer would take the time to seriously do this; the proposals she receives don’t show that even writers who want to become traditionally published have done their homework. Thus, their books aren’t marketable. I had the opportunity to speak with self-publishing guru Dan Poynter a few weeks ago; he told me he tells all authors (Yes, even those wanting to self-publish.) to write a proposal for their book because they need a book proposal if they are to create a successful book.

Even though you plan to blog your book, you need a business plan.  I know it’s just a blog, but if you plan to blog a book you want to look at this blog as if you are creating a manuscript. Indeed, that’s exactly what you are creating. Thus, you want to approach this endeavor just as you would any other new book project.

Let me give you four good reasons for at least going through the book proposal process before you begin blogging your book. First, one day you may want to sell this book to a publisher, and you’ll need a proposal to do so.

Second, a proposal allows you to get a big-picture view of your book. You’ll be looking at your book through the lens of an acquisitions editor, which means you’ll be evaluating its marketability and value-added potential.

Third, the proposal offers you a chance to think about all the different ways in which you can promote your book, not just through your blog. In today’s world of publishing, promotion is everything. Everything. A blog constitutes a great first step, but you’ll need to do more than just blog; plus, you want people to know your blog exists, and that takes promotion.

Fourth, a proposal requires you to come up with a list of chapters and to offer a short synopsis of each of those chapters. This provides you with a starting place for your blog (and your book manuscript). Once you’ve completed these parts of your proposal, you’re almost ready to begin writing your blog.

To begin blogging, I don’t think you need to have a formal or totally complete proposal. I just suggest you go through the proposal writing process to some degree. Afterwards, you’ll have an extremely clear idea about what your blog, or your book, will include, who will read it and how you’ll promote it. You’ll also know if there are any ways in which to build a business around it with ancillary products.

Maybe more importantly, you’ll know who your readers are and what your competition looks like—if there is any. This information will tell you if you even should be blogging on this subject. It will also tell you who else out there blogs or publishes on this topic. These people might make great joint-venture partners or people with whom to create reciprocal links, make agreements with for guest blog posts, and such.

Tomorrow, I’ll tell you about the parts of a proposal, and we’ll work through them together.

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How to Begin Blogging Your Book: Identify Your Book’s Theme (part 4)

March 3, 2010 By 2 Comments

(Note: A post was added after part 1 of “How to Begin Blogging Your Book.” That’s what happens when you blog a book in real time. Sometimes you realize you’ve written something in the wrong order.”)

Lest you wonder why I’m focusing so much on your blogged book’s subject, theme, etc., let me explain. Part of the exercise of getting ready to blog your book involves getting really clear about what you are blogging about, why you are blogging a book, and how you are going to move forward both with our writing and with the business of blogging and publishing. We are now starting to delve into some areas that will become important for a book proposal.

Ah…I hear some of you saying you don’t plan on writing a book proposal. You will simply have your blog discovered. Even then you might be asked to submit a proposal; therefore, you might want to be ready to write one. Also, it behooves anyone who wants to write a book of any type to go through the proposal-writing process. Doing so constitutes coming up with a business plan for your book. You need to do that. That’s all I’ll say about this for now; I’ll elaborate on this topic later.

Your book may involve a primary idea, but it needs to focus on a certain topic, or organizing principle. This constitutes its theme. A book may cover several topics that support or expand upon an idea.

What is your core idea?

What is your topic? Or do you have several topics?

This book revolves around the idea of blogging. Its topic is blogging a book. Within that topic, I am discussing several sub-topics.

Write a theme statement about your book’s subject. This is a statement that makes an assertion about your book.

As examples, look at these two descriptions of theme statements, which I recently came across:

The 80/20 Principle: The Secret to Success by Achieving More with Less by Richard Koch: A minority of causes, inputs, or efforts leads to a majority of the results, outputs, or rewards.

Trust Agents: Using The Web To Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith: “Building and using networks of influence can positively impact your business.”

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How to Begin Blogging Your Book: Identify Your Book’s Theme (part 4)

 

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