How to write and sell a book

On average now once a week someone asks me advice about writing a book, finding an agent or selling a book. This week so far three people have asked me for advice.

If as many people would buy my book, as ask me for advice on writing a book, I'd be selling a lot of copies. Of course that is one of the problems with this world - many people want to write books, but many people do not want to read books. Tens of thousands of new books are published each year and many of them are on the remainder pile within a couple of months.

But I'm not here to soapbox about that. I'm here to say what it is I tell people who ask me for advice. This way, next time I am asked, I can simply send a link to this blog post.

So - here are the answers to the questions I am usually asked:

Q: How do you find time to write books with a job and two kids?
A: Some people keep journals, some people write every day. I don't. I write in spurts. For my first book, I took a month off from work because I had a lot of compensation time built up, and I wrote about half the book in that time, going back through notes I had taken on events and elaborating on those notes for the book.

For my last book, I spent a few weekends - 12-hour days - in a quiet office with no distractions, without my family, without the Internet, and then when my younger son was away at camp, I worked every night for two weeks, about six hours nonstop at each sitting. I can write thousands of words this way, in one sitting. A 250-page book is about 100,000 words, so it adds up fast.

If I have a thought or a nugget that could be the seed for a passage or a chapter, but I don't have time to spin it out at that moment, I jot it down fast and email it to myself. I create a folder in my email to save those notes so I can find them later. You also need an outline, at least for nonfiction. The outline keeps you going, and that way you can write parts of chapters out of order if you're stuck.

I did not write any of my books before I had a contract and an advance from a publisher. A deadline and money are powerful motivators. Usually you get some of the money when you sign the contract and the rest when you hand in the manuscript.

Q: How do you find an agent? Who is your agent?
A: Most authors who are not famous, thank their agents in writing, in their books, in a note in front of the book, or in acknowledgements in back of the book. Find books like the book you want to write, and figure out who agented them. You can find my agent in the acknowledgements of all my books.

If the author of a book you like did not thank the agent in the book, you can research the names of agents who sold books in recent years on Publisher's Lunch/Publisher's Deluxe. You have to pay $20 a month to subscribe to this Web site but you can cancel any time, and it's worth it. Just reading its daily emailed newsletter will tell you a lot about what types of books are selling, who's selling them and which publishers are buying them, and how much they're paying. There is an archive so you can research past deals. You'll also get a sense through this newsletter of what publishers take books without agents. There aren't too many, but there are a few.

There is no point in querying an agent who does not sell the type of book you are writing.

A very useful book is "Jeff Herman's Guide to Book Publishers, Editors & Literary Agents."

I have not, and would not, pay an agent to read a manuscript. Agents take a fee, usually 15 percent, of the advance, after the book idea is sold.

Q: What is the process for selling a book?
A: I don't know anything about fiction. For nonfiction, here's how it has worked for me.

I did not write any of my three books before selling them. I wrote a proposal and a sample chapter, but not the entire book, and I got contracts on the basis of my proposals. An agent uses the proposal to sell the concept. After I had a contract, then I wrote the book. To me, it seemed like a waste of time to write a book if I wasn't sure I could sell it. In fact, the one time that I wrote half of a book before I had a contract, the agent was not able to sell it, and I felt very sad afterwards that I had wasted months of effort for nothing.

Here's what's in a proposal: An anecdotal lead that flows into a summary and description of what the book is about, as a sort of advertisement for the book, its concept and content; who you are and why you are the best person to write the book; who will buy the book and how it can be marketed; a list of other books that are like your book, to show that books like this will sell, but at the same time, an explanation of why your book is slightly different from all these other books, and maybe better; an outline, which includes a very brief description of each chapter; a sample chapter - not necessarily the first chapter, but the best chapter; and an author bio. Length: 15 pages, maybe another 15 for the chapter. If you have published other things, include some clips or reviews.

To query an agent, write a one-page letter that summarizes the proposal: Describe the book, describe yourself, explain why you are qualified to write this book, explain who will buy this book and why you think it could be a hit. Ask for permission to send the proposal.

You should do research on 20 to 50 books that are like your book. Use Amazon to query subjects that are like your subject. Go to a big bookstore and look at all of the books on the shelves where you imagine your book would be. Read as many of them as you can. Immerse yourself in the genre; educate yourself. Then figure out five or 10 that are most like your book, and research who agented them, who published them. Now you're ready to write your proposal, find your agent and proceed on your way.

Q: What about self-publishing?
A: Unless you are writing a family memoir just for your own family, or a book of poems and recipes just for yourself and your immediate family, I don't see the point of self-publishing. To me it is pure vanity. If no agent will take your book, or if an agent will take it but no publisher will, maybe it's time to start with a new subject. Many famous writers experienced multiple rejections before hitting on a winner.

But maybe you think you can sell your book on your own. Maybe you have a built-in client base because of your job or profession. Maybe it's a niche subject on a disease or a neighborhood, but you know there are hundreds, maybe thousands of people whom you can find through some organization or store, who will buy the book. Maybe you want to go around the country with boxes selling books and making change for $20 bills. Bless you! There is a book called "Self-Publishing For Dummies," and that will tell you everything you need to know.

In my experience, writing a book is easy compared to selling it. But that's a whole nother topic of conversation that I don't want to get into here. Thanks for listening to all of this, and good luck.