BellaOnline Forums Career Nonfiction Writing What are your main writing questions?

I've had several people asking by email how to start the process in writing for publication. I would also like to know what interests, questions, or concerns you the most about writing for publication. This includes both nonfiction article and book writing.

I am posting at least one article per week (and maybe more) and would like to meet the most needs in these articles to help get people past writing hurdles.

If you could post your questions or concerns about writing, I'll see which ones to address first. Thanks. Glenda

Hey Glenda,

This isn't necessarily a question. But I wonder if sometime you might do an article about query letters, what types of information is the most important to put in, what to leave out and that sort of thing. I have been sending queries out for sometime to magazines and have had some limited sucess with them. I would just like to know how to query better, so to speak.

Thank you...

Hi Glenda:

Like Debbie I'm also starting to send out queries, my first ever. I usually pitch to publications I know already, then I write the whole article and hand in. Now I'd like to pitch to national women's magazines, but have yet to get started. I have notes on an idea but it seems too broad.

Any information you can provide on thinking up and structuring ideas would be helpful.

thanks

Leah

To Debbie and Leah,

I think an article about writing query letters is a great idea. Look for it very soon. As I'm sure you already know, they are the best way to open the door for an editor to want to see your work.

Thank Glenda. I look forward to reading the article. I put some notes together for a query letter and posted to a writers group, so I feel better now that I've taken the first step.

Hi Glenda,
I'm looking forward to query letters too.

I'm mostly interested in how to get started once you know what you want to write about.

I am looking to publish a nonfiction book for my first time but I do not know if its better to go through an agent or go right to the publisher. I assume that there is more then me out there with the same questions about it, would you be able to write an article on this? Im wondering if going in a crtain direction is better for getting pubished the first time. Also maybe pros and cons or a comparision of the two(kind of a agent vs. publisher)would be good ideas for an article

Hi CulturalCanuck. This is teddyeno (Ian). How are you? Go right to the publisher; don't go through an agent because that gets too expensive. By the way, what non-fiction book have you written? Do you like to do any sort of creative, non-fiction writing? Would you like to know about my writing project?

Thanks for the tip teddy
I was told that its best to wait to write non-ficition until after you find a publisher (and the opposite for fiction) I dont know if this is true but I was going by that. I have a tonnnnn of notes and little bits started already but was waiting to put it all together. My first book was going to be about opening a dayhome in Canada. I have worked in the childcare field for 9 years and the hardest part was when I opened my own dayhome. It cost me a ton and I was kind of at a loss of what to do. Since the economy slowed down more and more people are opening dayhomes and I thought it would be a great time to share what I learned. I could not find anything to help me out when I starte d so I want to provide a kind of survival guide for getting through the first year alive and not farther in debt then when you began.

I love writing creative non-ficition, writting even essays in school have always been kind of fun for me, even if I dont know much about the subject and research is required.

I would love to hear about your writing project!

Cavelle, if you have a really interesting self-help business story its sometimes OK to just approach the publisher with a proposal and one chapter!

If they like you and feel your success story is warming and could help enough other people they will commission you!

I have ideas on follow ups as well, such as lesson plans, cheap creative crafts based on things I did with the kids I watched. Should I mention these ideas as potential follow ups? Or is it better off to leave them out.

And I also have no idea if you should only send to one publisher at a time, or should I send to a few that I see fit?

This is an extremely good question and topic and one of the most major concerns of every writer. (Ignore that poor sentence construction--I was just trying to make a point.)

There are so many things in writing that are Catch-22's--meaning, oh, you sould do this first; no, you should do this first; no, it should be done that way.

Bottom line, there are no 100% absolute ways to do any one thing. However, there are some good ways to get your feet in the door and to prove yourself, so to speak.

I've really been trying to focus all my articles here at first on "what should you do first and when and in what order." No, like I said there's no 100% order, but there are tons of things that can be done to make it easier.

This is what I'll focus on for these next couple of articles. Thanks for the idea to everyone who was asking the same thing but in differenet ways.

A publisher won't look at a fiction book unless it's completely finished (unless you are already many times over a New York Times Best Seller list author).

For nonfiction, you need to research what the publisher requests are: doesn't accept unsolicited manuscripts? only agented material? proposal of X number of chapters, etc? Every publisher is different.

Whether to go with an agent or straight to the publisher depends on the above guidelines and on a couple of other circumstances.

To go with an agent costs nothing--if there are fees attached (except postage or copying fees) then run as fast as you can from that agent. They do not charge reading fees or anything else. They normally take 15% of the royalties. If you don't make money, they make nothing. So, they do their darndest to work hard for you. That's how they make their money.

Nonfiction publishing is a little different from fiction publishing in that you would learn how to write a fantastic nonfiction proposal to pitch your idea to agents/publishers. Writing the proposal is harder than writing the book, I've read many times. Proposals must be without any grammar, punctuation, spelling mistakes, etc. Like a query letter, this is your tool to convince the agent/publisher to work with you. You have two choices here: You can write the complete book and then write the proposal. By doing it this way you're taking a chance that someone will pick up your book and publish it. There's also a possibility that you put all the work into the book and no one wants it. That is why it's better to write a couple of chapters and then send the proposal to those publishers/agents looking for your subject matter. If someone picks up your book you get the required amount of time to finish it. If you Google - how to write perfect book proposals - and you'll find around 170,000 hits. Take your time studying how a proposal is written. If you don't do it right, it could mean a lot of rejections. I prefer finding an agent rather than a publisher because the agent's job is to do all the work for you. They diligently search for publishers interested in your subject matter, they have all the contacts in the industry that you don't have, they can help you understand a contract, tell you if your book needs edited first, and it's free. Someone here said that literary agents are expensive. NEVER pay a literary agent up front! They get paid when you get paid. Also, check closely at the nonfiction publisher sites you find and abide by their standards with submitted proposals. Publishers have their own "recipe" for doing proposals. And always find out who to address your proposal. Never write Dear Sir or Dear Madame. Editors love it when you've bothered to find out their name and address them accordingly. I hope this helps! Write on... Jill Prather www.yourroadtohappiness.com (coming soon!) Ghostwriter Pro

Hi Diane, Thought I'd put in my 2 cents worth here :) Once you are settled on your topic make a chapter by chapter outline. There are many different opinions on this and the method you use should be the most comfortable. Some writers do a detailed outline (that's me because my memory is horrible), and others write out a simple outline with the main sections. Either way, the outline will help you keep on track and give you a place to keep your thoughts and ideas, as you can continue to add or subtract from it. Have you research online about your topic? Do you see that there are tons of folks wanting to know about your subject matter? The best to do this is by going to sites like Click Bank (it's free to search, putting in several keywords related to your book, and see if your topic gets a lot of hits online. Does your book have a particular slant that others do not? Or is there simply not enough material out there that your book would provide? Visit lots of sites about your topic to learn the most you can about it. Professional sources are great to include in your title because it will help to give you expert status in your subject matter. People often think you have to be a college graduate to write nonfiction. But it's not true. Anyone who knows their topic inside out through experience and life learning is an expert. Learn how to write a fantastic book proposal. In the marketing section, you'll need to do research like at Amazon or other giant book stores to see if anyone else has written about your topic in the last several years. The marketing section of the proposal will let you tell the publisher/agent how your book is different than all of the other titles published, which will give you a great chance of getting a contract. Well, that's the beginning steps. I hope it helps and good luck! Smiles, Jill Prather Ghostwriter Pro

P.S. - Links about how to write perfect nonfiction book proposals. BellaOnline ALERT: Raw URLs are not allowed in these forums for security reasons. Please use UBB code. If you don't know how to do UBB code just post here for help - we will help out!

Hi Jill,
That is excellent advice. Thank you!!! I'll let you know how it goes!