Article Write Books Publishers Want

Books People Want to Buy, Books Publishers Want
I have four management books with three primary publishers. My books are also printed overseas in many languages including Russian, Chinese and Polish. How can you achieve this? I also run creative writing courses overseas and sometimes coach promising writers who wish to be published. I am going to share with you some of my tips.
Whether to Start At All
If you wish to go for print rather than web, bear in mind that paper publishing is in contraction, that publishers have less resources for marketing and promotion, and that their demands on authors to contribute (to sales-success and often actual purchase of numerous copies) are increasing.
If your presence in your target market is minimal or if your ability to create marketing opportunities and actual sales are limited, then you are better to go for a web-based publication and focus your attention on the web where you have a chance of success.
What Publishers Want
In recent years, with the pressures on paper-publishers increasing and overheads having to be cut, publishers are demanding more and more of their authors. In many genres, new authors are now rarely taken on unless already ‘celebrities’. Here are some of the key things that paper-publishers want:
A Ready Market – existing book-sales, market presence, a hot marketing concept
Marketing Support – your presence and sales at conferences, meetings & events, partner organisations that are associated with you
Actual Sales – commitments from your associate organisations to buy the book in volume, also, typically, your commitment to buy, say 200 copies of the first run of 500 or 1000 copies printed
Non-competitive – they want a book that does not run up against the sales of their own titles and a book that can make market-advances against anything similar with another publisher
A format that that is proven to be successful – for example, a work-book that students (in academic and private training) could be recommended to read
Almost certainly: a written form detailing all the marketing information, including contacts, and sales.
If you do not shape up, then consider a web-based book. This article is not intended to guide you in this field, that guide is for another time!
Other Advice
Buy a copy of The Writers Handbook which is updated each year. This will help you choose your publisher hot-list and inform you what their requirements are for contact and what to send them. Some will take a synopsis only, others two or three sample chapters, some will only take referred approaches (from agents and other authors within their stable).
In addition, go and look at other books (in your chosen genre) in a good bookshop on a Saturday. What looks attractive? What are other people picking up and taking away? Pick up those books to try and understand why. The publisher will likely also be interested in an approach that contains similar language and presentation. Look at their other titles and make sure your subject area is not already well covered by them. If they have another title, make sure that your book differentiates from their existing title.
What about Using a Literary Agent?
Very few authors will attract an agent. Agents make money on contracts linked to royalty-advances and to sales volume. If you are a dead certainty to make volume then do not be tempted to keep all the royalties to yourself. An agent can be worth paying because they can negotiate off the standard contracts and find the publisher that will yield the most wide-spread sales and exposure. They will ask the specialist questions that authors do not know to ask. For most of us though, the agent is not an option.
Write the Book & Design the Sequel
Publishers earn more money from existing authors due to new sales on the back-list every time a new title comes out. One-off authors are a risk and more costly to launch; so they want longevity. Show them you have another book in you by including with your letter the new title, strap-line and the basic structure of your upcoming work.
What Else?
I always send a synopsis of the book offer with my letter together with, exactly, the sample chapters or full manuscript as stipulated by the publisher. This synopsis is not just a list of facts, it is designed to have the appeal of a book cover. Make sure you mention your sequel!
This attractive synopsis (or flyer) should include quotes from people who have read the manuscript. When I create a flyer, the quotes are always from other authors, so I can write, “This is the book I wish I had written” Will Thomas, author of 13 published coaching books. And yes, that is a real quote!
Concluding Remarks
When writing books there is a further issue that does not usually apply to article-writing. That is, the approach. Most people tend to write books over many months or years. This in inefficient because the writer has to get up to speed with all the existing content each time they re-start.
Work out how much you can reasonably expect to write in one day by writing a chapter on something you know about. Your book (unless a work-book) will most likely have between 50,000 and 80,000 words, so divide the target size by your day-rate and then take that time out (with some contingency time built-in) to write your book.
I make it pleasurable by writing in great locations, working four-and-a-half days a week and enjoying social and sporting activities, like riding horses or rowing.
Focussing will save you an enormous amount of re-reading and re-planning time. You will also reduce the huge prospect of self-doubt, because you are on the path, not off it and hoping you will have the guts to get back on. In short, you are many times more likely to be successful. Make it so.