search.noResults

search.searching

note.createNoteMessage

search.noResults

search.searching

orderForm.title

orderForm.productCode
orderForm.description
orderForm.quantity
orderForm.itemPrice
orderForm.price
orderForm.totalPrice
orderForm.deliveryDetails.billingAddress
orderForm.deliveryDetails.deliveryAddress
orderForm.noItems
the Outdoor section and sent them all to beef up Cookery. But don’t do this until after all the other stages that make up the Outline itself. Cos if they mail back okay send in the book proposal, you need to send it in right then.


2 / the More Research T... THe incisive title


be a casual email-answer; Mr Explicit knows you’re going to hate him by name when he trashes your message unread.


1 / the Pre-pitch


I like to start with a short email explaining what my book is, and who I am, and asking if it’s something they might want to do and would they like to see a Proposal? Maybe they’ve got Bear Grylls on a big advance already doing it. Maybe they just closed down


Hunt the corners of the publishers’ website to see if they have author guidelines. They hide them in the menu second in from the right hand side, third from bottom sub-menu. This is a way of working out whether your an author who does her research.


Along the way you deploy all the poetic weapons in your verbal fi ling cabinet...


3 / the Blurb The intrusive CLICHÉ


You think the publisher writes the back cover blurb once the book’s all fi nished. Write it yourself, before you even begin. There’s no better way of working out what your book’s about. Your blurb will be about 150 words long (except however short you make it it’s going to overrun a bit). In the fi rst sentence it’ll have the reader intrigued; by the second sentence they’re hooked; sentences four and fi ve hint at the depth and richness to come as you chase the opening idea over the hilltops and rush it barefoot across the wide white sands. Along the way you deploy all the poetic weapons in your verbal fi ling cabinet. You zap them with a metaphor, scramble their brains with a conceit, seduce them with rhyme, with pun, with alliteration, with assonance. If they’re still trying to get away after all that, snare them with a cunning semicolon.


4 / the Cover and the Title


Write the blurb and get it right. Then write the title. Go out at dawn and catch the picture for the cover. And your book’s half done! In fact it could be even more than that.... Cover, back cover, spine: that could be it, as far as most people in the bookshop are ever going to take it. Title, cover, blurb: these are going to persuade the reader to open up the inside and maybe even buy it. If they work on the reader, they might even work on your prospective publisher as well. If they work on the publisher, they could even persuade you, the author...


5 / Shape and Size


Suggest an approximate shape, size, and word count. How important are the pictures, and are you going to supply them yourself? The general format might well match some things already in their range.


6 / About You


Can you write? With luck, your beautiful blurb has convinced them you’re Oscar Wilde with big boots on. But almost as important, can you write a book? Because there’s more to that than just writing the writing. Will it arrive on time, at the agreed word count, properly fact checked and with the spelling corrected? You convince them of that by listing books you already wrote: if you did three for one publisher, the fi rst two anyway must have been on time and without any obvious mistakes in. No books? Then tot up your magazine articles. No articles? Well you’ve got a blog you can mention, maybe… Do you know what you’re talking about? Mention any relevant qualifi cations (eg you work for Scottish Natural Heritage) and awards.


Don’t give them 75 full-res images to clog up their inbox


Will your stuff sell? This is for them to work out for themselves, but try to plant hints that it might. Publishers hope that your book will go viral, and save them the expense of marketing it. So many of them look for 10,000 Facebook followers, on the basis that if 20% of them buy the book that’s the fi rst print run sold straight away. (Okay, so 0.02% of them actually buy the book... ) TV appearances make you seem even more like someone who might sell some copies.


7 / Sample Material


They’d like a list of the contents. They’d like to see a bit of the Introduction. Enough to show that your beautiful blurb can continue into further swathes of killer prose. But not enough to get them bored. 1000 words could be enough. They’ll want a sample route (if it’s a guidebook) or chapter. Even if you’ve written the whole thing, just send in the best bit.


continued overleaf.... spring 2017 | Outdoor focus 11


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16