Jon Samsel

Let us assume that you have come up with a new book idea. You like it and believe it would sell. How do you present your idea to publishers? Here are some choices open to you:

1. Describe your idea briefly in a letter consisting of anywhere from a few paragraphs to a full page.
2. Describe your idea in an email to a dozen publishers and offer to follow up with an outline and sample chapter. This is the multiple submission method. Numerous authors report good results from using it. You can send multiple query letters and also multiple outlines and chapters to a dozen or more publishers.
3. Hit the editor you write or phone with a working title. This can help keep the book idea better fixed in the editor’s mind.
4. Simply state that you want to write a book on a given subject and tell why you believe it might be right for that publisher. Do this for each company you contact.
5. Ask the editor if there is current interest in new book projects. Name the categories that include your book ideas, such as self-help, how-to, childrens books, adventure novels, romances, or whatever. Most people in the industry think of romances, westerns, mysteries (and certain other types) as genre books.

This last method is really just a request for an editor’s okay to send some new book projects. It sometimes works if your timing is right. An editor may well be looking for some new titles in certain categories, like health or popular psychology, for example, so you might get a green light to send what you have in those categories.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 17th, 2009 at 2:05 am and is filed under Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.