How to Publish A Book

A Guide for Business Professionals, Consultants, Doctors, and Other Nonliterary Types

Abstract:

Most professionals know that a book is a key element to building a reputation asan expert, but what they don’t know is how to write and publish a book. Thisguide explores the elements of a book proposal, ghost writing, other editorialservices, understanding your publishing options, and how to determine whichoption is best for you.

Intro:

A book is by far the best and most effective way for an expert to share his or herknowledge with others. A book is a resource, an uninterrupted communicationtool, and an effective way to sell the expert as a superior thought leader in his orher field. A book is also a jumping off point from which to create other ancillarymaterials such as workbooks, audio, eBooks, and other items that enhance aprofessional’s career. Unfortunately, actually publishing and distributing a bookis a daunting task and many professionals don’t know where to start.

Where To Start

Before you can approach the idea of developing a book proposal, you need toknow what it is you want your book to be about. Start by organizing yourthoughts and honing your message. Pull your thoughts together, and identifyyour key message, sub topics, talking points, and supporting evidence.The first thing you need is your key message. What is the big idea you wantsomeone to take away from your book? Is it to eat healthier, be more frugal,become more organized, or some other idea? Your key message is the end goaland the umbrella under which all of your efforts will fall. For example, let’s sayyou are a physician specializing in integrated medicine—your key messagemight be something like “treating the whole person and not just the symptoms”or “complete wellness.”Next you need to brainstorm sub topics. Sub topics are the next level, orhierarchy under which you will organize the information, strategies, and tips youwill share to help achieve your key message. Often these are represented aschapter or section headings. Using the integrated medicine example above,under the key message “complete wellness,” we can establish the following sub

topics:1. Pitfalls of Traditional Medicine2. Overview of Alternative Medicine3. Integrating Traditional and Alternative Medicine4. Listening to Your Body5. Achieving Total Wellness After your subtopics are established, you want to list the talking points that youwill discuss under each subheading. Examples, case studies, strategies, andother evidence support the talking points. Using our outline above, we will fill outthe talking points for #1, Pitfalls of Traditional Medicine:1. Pitfalls of Traditional Medicinea. Band-aid Solutions: Focus on symptoms, rather than thecauseb. Overmedicated: Pros and cons of modernpharmaceuticalsi. Statistics on the number of medicines on themarketii. Statistics on the number of lawsuits or claims fromside effectsiii. Numbers on the reduction of serious diseasesthrough vaccines and monitored treatmentc. Increasing Expense: Rising cost of healthcarei. Prevention over treatment2. Overview of Alternative Medicine3. Integrating Traditional and Alternative Medicine4. Listening to Your Body5. Achieving Total Wellness As you can see, we have already started to form an outline. This outline is whatthe author will use to create the book proposal, which will also be used todevelop the book. Be sure to include statistics, anecdotes, graphs, casestudies, and other important information that will help support your points, asthese items are key selling points for your proposal.

Elements of a Book Proposal

Unlike fiction, where an author must have a completed manuscript ready beforethey approach a publisher or agent, a nonfiction author only needs to develop aproposal to submit to publishers and/or agents. The proposal should answer thefollowing questions:1. Content: What is the book about?2. Market: Who would be interested in this idea?3. Competitive Titles: What other books already exist on this topicand how does this one differ?4. Platform: Who is the author, why is the author the best person to

produce this book, and what are they doing to engage withpotential readers?

Content: What is the Book About?

This section of the proposal is usually 1-3 pages, unless you include a samplechapter which can range anywhere from 5-20 pages. Length is not as big of aconcern as the quality of what’s included.If you completed the steps in the section titled “Where to Start,” you shouldalready have an outline for the information you want to cover in your book.Based on that information, you want to come up with a brief, one sentence pitchthat captures the soul of your idea. For example: “Affordable and completewellness.” This is the hook of your book—the key message we discussedearlier.Next you want to create a short summary paragraph that goes into slightly moredetail about how the book will achieve your hook. For example:This book is a guide for achieving complete wellness in an affordable andholistic way. It explores the pitfalls of the modern health care system andidentifies ways to integrate alternative medicine techniques intotraditional medical practices. The book educates the reader on currentpractices and arms them with new resources and techniques to achievetotal wellness.If you have a startling statistic that stresses the importance of this message, byall means use it here. That information will help sell the importance of your topicto the prospective agent or publisher.Once your opening summary is developed, you will follow it with your outline.Your outline identifies the chapters and the key topics they will address. Identifyany compelling facts, strategies, case studies, or information you will use tosupport the ideas in each chapter. You may include a sample chapter if youchoose. Some publishers and agents require one, but many don’t. It reallydepends on whether you will be the one actually writing the book (we willdiscuss ghost writing later), and on the agent or publisher’s requirements.

Market: Who Would Be Interested?

This section can be anywhere from 1/2 of a page to 2 pages. Here you identifythe market for your book both in qualitative and quantitative terms. To determinewho your audience is in qualitative terms, ask yourself the following questions:• Who would be interested in your topic?• Where do they live?