Casco Bay Literary Services - Getting Started Writing a Nonfiction Book

Profiles in Courage

The barriers to getting published in the contemporary United States pale by comparison with what many people faced in earlier periods—especially some members of the population. Take the example of Phillis Wheatley.

Kidnapped as a child of about 7, probably in present-day Gambia or Ghana, she was transported to Boston and sold as a slave in 1761. She was bought by Susanna Wheatley, who was more compassionate than many slaveowners. Noticing the child's prodigious intellect, various Wheatley family members taught her to read and write. Soon she was studying English, history, geography, astronomy, and the Bible, becoming one of the best educated young women in Boston.

Wheatley also studied Latin, translating Ovid and other authors. One of her pieces of literary criticism on Ovid was published.

Wheatley wrote poems as well. Some were printed and attracted widespread attention. She modeled much of her verse on the poetry of Alexander Pope and other neoclassical authors. When she was 14, she wrote "To the University of Cambridge," a poem offering advice to Harvard students. How apt Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own would have been for this brilliant slave girl, who could never hope to see the inside of Harvard or any other university.

Later a poem she published about General George Washington led to a meeting with him.

The only book Wheatley was able to publish was her Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral. Efforts to publish it in Boston were unsuccessful. A British publisher accepted the manuscript, but only after the governor, lieutenant governor, and 16 other prominent Boston citizens attested to its authenticity. They signed a statement saying, in part, that the poems had indeed been written by "PHILLIS, a young Negro Girl, who was but a few Years since, brought an uncultivated Barbarian from Africa." Wheatley was only about 20 when her book appeared in 1773.

She was freed the same year but continued to live in the Wheatley household until it was torn apart by death and by the Revolutionary War. Susanna Wheatley, her husband, and her daughter and son all died within a few years of each other, depriving Phillis of the only family she had known in the Colonies.

In 1778 Phillis Wheatley married a Boston grocer, but the security she hoped for never materialized. She lived a life of poverty and struggle, losing two of her three children (the third died just after she did). While working in a boardinghouse, Wheatley managed to continue writing poetry. At her untimely death at age 31 in 1784, she was working on a collection of her poems to have been dedicated to Benjamin Franklin.

Today this extraordinary woman is honored as the first important African-American writer and as the second woman writer (after Anne Bradstreet) in the United States.

—For more information, see Phillis Wheatley, Collected Works, ed. John C. Shields (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989); Wheatley, Complete Writings, ed. Vincent Carretta (New York: Penguin, 2001); Wheatley, Poems, ed. Julian D. Mason, Jr., rev. ed. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989).

Getting Started
Copyright © 2006 Casco Bay Literary Services

Do you have an idea for a nonfiction book but aren't sure how to deal with agents and publishers, or how to maximize your chances of getting your book accepted? This report will help you get started.

You're on the right track if you're trying to research your publishing options and learn as much as possible about the publishing field early in the writing process.

Publishing is a hard field to get to know, even for experienced authors. There are many types of publishers and editors, each with somewhat different requirements; publishing professionals use jargon and follow practices with no counterparts in other fields; to make matters worse, conditions are constantly changing in this era of technological innovation.

Publishing is also ultimately a business, and business issues not always obvious to outsiders can shape decisions about which books to publish and which to reject (and about how extensively to promote those that have been published).

The Basics

If you've had no previous exposure to book publishing, the logical place to start is with one or more basic books that introduce terminology and provide an overview of the publishing process. There are many alternatives; the following books are useful and sometimes inspirational:

Bykofsky, Sheree, and Jennifer Basye Sander. The Complete Idiot's Guide to Getting Published. 3rd ed. New York: Alpha Books, 2003.

Camenson, Blythe. How to Sell, Then Write Your Nonfiction Book: A Comprehensive Guide to Getting Published—from Crafting Your Proposal to Signing the Contract and More. Chicago: Contemporary Books, 2002.

Howry, Michelle. Agents, Editors, and You: The Insider's Guide to Getting Your Book Published. Cincinnati, OH: Writer's Digest Books, 2002.

McCutcheon, Marc. Damn! Why Didn't I Write That? How Ordinary People Are Raking in $100,000 . . . or More Writing Nonfiction Books and How You Can Too! Clovis, CA: Quill Driver Books, 2001.

Page, Susan. The Shortest Distance between You and a Published Book. New York: Broadway Books, 1997.

These books will answer most of your questions about how (or whether) to get an agent, what you can expect in terms of advances and royalties, how the publishing process works, and other practical topics.

One issue you'll want to consider carefully is the likelihood that your particular topic will appeal to agents and publishers. Many factors influence a book's publishability and marketability—for example, the amount of competition it faces, the size of the potential market, the timeliness of the topic, and the "staying power" of your subject as well as whether it lends itself to a series of similar books. (Staying power is important because books that remain in print for a long time often end up doing better financially than temporary bestsellers that quickly disappear from the shelves.)

In Damn! Why Didn't I Write That? (pp. 41-42), Marc McCutcheon identifies "the top eleven nonfiction topics that can be counted on to appear on best-seller lists—with multiple titles—again and again." According to him, these topics are dieting/weight loss, relationships, parenting, health, low-fat cooking, sex, spiritual, money/finances, cats, career and leadership, and computer and Internet.

In case you've noticed that this list is slanted toward women's interests, McCutcheon points out that 70% to 85% of book buyers are women and that most editors are women.

For more on the issues of publishability and marketability, see McCutcheon's chapters titled "What Kind of Nonfiction Book Should You Write?" and "How to Know If Your Book Idea Will Fly."

Deciding on a feasible topic is of course not enough, because you then have to write it up effectively. For help in thinking through your book's concept and with other aspects of the creative process, you may find the following book useful: Eric Maisel, The Art of the Book Proposal: From Focused Idea to Finished Proposal (New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin, 2004).

Specialized Resources

After you have a general idea of what publishing entails, you'll probably want to turn to more specialized resources that pertain to the type of book you're planning to write—memoir, creative nonfiction, scholarly study, or whatever.

Memoirs have become an increasingly popular genre. If you're planning to try your hand at telling your life story, many good how-to books and other sources of information are available. Two alternatives include Judith Barrington, Writing the Memoir: From Truth to Art, 2nd ed. (Portland, OR: Eighth Mountain Press, 2002), and Tristine Rainer, Your Life as Story: Discovering the "New Autobiography" and Writing Memoir as Literature (New York: Tarcher, 1998).

If you're interested in writing creative nonfiction—in which fiction techniques are utilized in a nonfiction book to give it more dramatic interest and depth—you might find the following resource useful: Carolyn Forche and Philip Gerard, eds., Writing Creative Nonfiction: Instruction and Insights from Teachers of the Associated Writing Programs (Cincinnati, OH: Writer's Digest Books, 2001).

Writers tackling business books could profit from the suggestions in Richard Lanham's Revising Business Prose, 4th ed. (New York: Longman, 1999). Lanham's emphasis is on turning ponderous English into succinct, readable prose.

For academic authors and others interested in serious nonfiction, a good alternative is William Germano's Getting It Published: A Guide for Scholars and Anyone Else Serious about Serious Books (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001). This slim volume contains many practical tips in chapters like "What Editors Look For," "Surviving the Review Process," "What a Contract Means," and "How to Deliver a Manuscript."

A more advanced book that anyone interested in writing serious nonfiction should consult is Susan Rabiner and Alfred Fortunato's Thinking Like Your Editor: How to Write Great Serious Nonfiction—and Get It Published (New York: Norton, 2002). This book is probably most useful for those who have some idea of the nuts and bolts of publishing and have an idea of the project they want to work on, but want more information on writing strategies and on the strategies for approaching agents and publishers.

Rabiner and Fortunato know their stuff; she is a literary agent and has been an editor at various major publishing houses (Random House, Oxford University Press, St. Martin's Press, Pantheon Books, Basic Books), and he has been a freelance editor and writer for many years. They provide an insider's perspective on the criteria agents and editors use in accepting or rejecting manuscripts—criteria that may not be obvious to would-be authors and that may even seem counterintuitive.

For example, they include a case study involving a hypothetical book project on women who kill (pp. 41, 50-54). You would think almost any publisher would be interested in such a book, anticipating that it could be a bestseller. Yet in their example, all ten publishing houses the manuscript was submitted to rejected it. Why?

In Rabiner and Fortunato's analysis, this book has an "audience-identification" problem. While women would be likely to read a book titled Children Who Kill—since children's welfare is important to mothers as well as to many other women—the subject of violence by women has less appeal. Men are a more likely target audience for books on violence. Yet, in Rabiner and Fortunato's line of reasoning, most women who kill probably kill men—making them an unenthusiastic audience.

So a project that at first glance seemed promising ultimately had no appropriate audience and thus few publishing prospects. In this and other areas, Rabiner and Fortunato's advice can save authors much fruitless effort.

Proposal Writing

Besides exploring the resources mentioned above, or similar ones, you should consult books or manuals on the specific topic of book-proposal writing. A proposal package typically includes a cover letter, an author bio, an overview of the book, information on competing books, a promotion plan, a chapter outline, and one or more sample chapters. In most cases, your proposal will be between 20 and 30 pages, excluding sample chapters.

Proposal writing has become increasingly complex, so it would be a good idea to look at several how-to books, because all of them offer slightly different perspectives and practical tips. In particular, you'll need actual, detailed sample proposals and analyses of proposals (the more the better, since you should try to find successful proposals that match your project as closely as possible). Helpful resources on how to prepare a book-proposal package include:

Frishman, Rick, and Robyn Freedman Spizman, with Mark Steisel. Author 101: Bestselling Book Proposals—The Insider's Guide to Selling Your Work. Avon, MA: Adams Media, 2005.

Herman, Jeff, and Deborah Levine Herman. Write the Perfect Book Proposal: 10 That Sold and Why. 2nd ed. New York: Wiley, 2001.

Larsen, Michael. How to Write a Book Proposal. 3rd ed. Cincinnati, OH: Writer's Digest Books, 2004.

Lyon, Elizabeth. Nonfiction Book Proposals Anybody Can Write: How to Get a Contract and Advance Before Writing Your Book. Rev. ed. New York: Perigee Books, 2002.

Maisel, Eric. The Art of the Book Proposal: From Focused Idea to Finished Proposal. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin, 2004.

Mettee, Stephen Blake. The Fast Track Course on How to Write a Nonfiction Book Proposal. Sanger, CA: Word Dancer Press, 2001.

Schneider, Meg, and Barbara Doyen. The Everything Guide to Writing a Book Proposal: Insider Advice on How to Get Your Work Published. Avon, MA: Adams Media, 2005.

Whalin, W. Terry. Book Proposals That Sell: 21 Secrets to Speed Your Success. Phoenix, AZ: Write Now Publications, 2005.

An aspect of a book proposal that has become more and more important is the promotion plan. Especially if you're hoping to land a contract with a major publisher, don't skimp on this section of your proposal, because it could cause your manuscript to be rejected. One well-known agent—Michael Larsen—now asks that authors initially submit only the title of their book and their promotion plan to him. He says this information is more important than the content of the book in determining whether the book can be sold to a big publisher.

It has also become increasingly necessary for authors to have a "platform." A platform is created by your expertise, reputation, and contacts, and provides a forum for promoting your book. For example, if you're writing a book on widgets, it would help if you're a widget engineer, are active in the widget association, and are often invited to speak at widget conferences.

For more discussion of both promotion plans and platforms, see Rick Frishman and Robyn Freedman Spizman's Author 101: Bestselling Book Proposals. Their emphasis on the need for a national platform and sophisticated promotional efforts may seem discouraging and, for some, raises disturbing questions about undemocratic trends in U.S. society. For instance, Frishman and Spizman quote a New York agent to the effect that a woman who owned a day-care center and was a successful parent could have gotten a parenting book accepted years ago, but now would be required to be a well-known pediatrician or child psychologist (p. 26).

The important thing to remember is that it's almost always possible to get a good book published. To realize your publishing goals, you'll have to inform yourself of current publishing practices, then decide on the strategy that best fits your manuscript and your objectives.

Further Research

You'll probably want to supplement the resources listed earlier by doing online research. Some agents, for example, provide extensive information on preparing proposals, submitting manuscripts, promoting books, and similar topics on their sites.

Don't forget to read widely. If you're hoping to write a bestseller, read and analyze current bestsellers. What do you think accounts for their success, and how can you apply these insights to your own writing? If your goal is to write a memoir, why do you think some memoirs are moving, while others leave you cold? If you're trying to write a pathbreaking business or scholarly book, analyze your competitors. What do they offer readers that less successful books don't seem to offer?

And remember to read relevant book reviews in the New York Times Book Review and other sources to get an idea of what critics look for in successful books. After all, in writing as in other pursuits, success can be elusive unless you know what you're trying to achieve.

(The books mentioned above are available in many libraries; they can also be purchased through our bookstore. You'll find links to the New York Times and other sources of book reviews on our links page.)

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