The Book Proposal Hot Seat

It is always a good opportunity with the tables turn and you are interviewed instead of always being the one to ask the questions. Last night Rosey Dow from Experts in Focus interviewed me about a topic that I'm passionate about--book proposals. During this hour-long teleseminar, I answered questions which listeners had submitted to her about book proposals.

Why do I continue to go out and encourage people about these proposals?

First, I'm passionate for writers to achieve their dreams and be more successful in their submissions to editors and agents. During the teleseminar, I quoted a statistic from Dan Poynter's Self-Publishing Manual that there are an estimated two million manuscripts in circulation around at different publishing houses and agencies. That is no typographical error but two million. Will you be able to catch that editor or agent's attention in the few seconds they will consider your idea? Can you make it rejection-proof? I gave some ideas in the teleseminar.

As I exposed last night, I'm constantly learning new things about book publishing and in particular the submission process. My experience comes from my own work as a literary agent and my years in this business as an editor and writer. Just as the business is constantly changing and evolving, I continue to grow in my experience and perspective.

My perspective about book proposals takes a "snapshot" in my Book Proposals That Sell yet constantly improves and I gave some of this information during the teleseminar.

Second, as people improve their proposals, I hope my editor and agent colleagues start to receive better targeted and better crafted book proposals. From the feedback that I get from readers, I know to a small degree several of my efforts are making a difference and I'm grateful.

Finally in a selfish way, I'm looking for better book proposals that will come into my literary agency. If they are the right project for my agency, then I can work with the author and push it to a new level of excellence then turn and get it into the marketplace for them.

At several different points in the teleseminar, Rosey Dow told the listeners about Proposal Secrets as a resource to learn more about book proposal creation. If you haven't been to the page in a while, check it out. I've added a couple of additional bonus gifts but the change that happened yesterday was an additional order button. Now you can choose to make three payments for the course. I hope this flexibility will help more people take advantage of this resource.