I recently signed a six-figure book deal with Simon & Schuster for my book Building a Second Brain.
As a first-time author, and in the midst of the greatest economic crisis in a generation, this is a spectacular outcome. It took a year of hard work, a team of editors and advisors, and countless proposal drafts and revisions, along with a heavy dose of luck.
In the beginning, is a message.
You have something to say. A message that wants to get out of you. That needs to get out of you or else it will keep you up every night and drive you crazy.
Publishing a book is like running for political office.
There are a lot of people out there who you want to take a certain action, at a certain time and place in the future. With political campaigning, that action is to vote. With book campaigning, it is to buy your book.
Your proposal is like a business plan for your book. It needs to justify why your book is worth not just years of your time and effort, but the time and effort of dozens of professionals around the country (and maybe even around the world) who will be needed to get your book on shelves….
You should think of the people you’re working with at each stage of the publishing process as your publishing team.
Each one contributes something different and has different interests, but what you all have in common is the desire to see your book through to publication and on to the greatest possible success.
After you’ve written your proposal and sent it to publishers, the future of your book is in their hands.
If you’ve done your job effectively, you will receive an offer (or hopefully, offers) to purchase the rights to your book.
Almost all offers come in one of three ways:
Once you’ve accepted an offer for the publishing rights to your book, it’s time to draw up and sign a binding contract.
Many of these contract details have standard provisions, but you can always ask about and negotiate for them. The more you understand about the implications and subtleties of these clauses, the more empowered you’ll be in your negotiations.
After all this work and finally signing a deal…it’s time to do the thing you’ve been asking for, and write the book.
Leave plenty of time to do this — more than you think you need. And then, add additional time for unexpected rewrites, reviewer feedback, finding photos and illustrations, securing permissions, doing followup research, and interviewing people.
Everything you’ve done up to this point has been preparation for this singular moment: the launch of your book.
An incredible amount of time, energy, money, and attention has been invested by many different people. The foundation has been laid for sales of your book to reach thousands, or tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands, or maybe even millions of copies.
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