In the writing world right now, I hear a lot of discussion about whether its best to have an agent or best to submit a book package directly to publishers. I think it’s hard to say until you actually get your project together.

Writer’s Markets are full of articles telling you ow to get query letters and book submission packages together. You can read old ones for information. Always, however, make sure that you look up a publisher’s current requirements and names of staff members on the net..

When giving a little bit of biographical information to the publisher, don’t forget to mention the title of your blog and reference the number of readers, if that’s enough to be impressive to an editor. These days, blogging has become a credible way to become “an expert” in some area of expertise.

Good luck!

Don’t ask me how the hell I was ever published anywhere – I can’t write, spell, punctuate OR proof.

Most of what you see on the market is “perfection” I LOVE to see quirky funny books that also teach realistically.

Face it, home ec is a rarity in schools today and many of us were raised in an era where Moms were working their butts off outside of the home.

Many skill sets that were taught as the norm a couple of generations ago are now being lost.
You’re helping to change that.

Renae covered many of the specifics of a proposal above.

A friend was published by a small house a couple of years ago. The book was sold on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Borders, but there was little in the way of publicity or marketing.

I’ll send you a link if you’d like. They actively solicit proposals.

I’ve been published as part of an anthology by a very large house. The promotion was good (TV and radio) especially for a group of writers who weren’t unknown outside of the internet.

I wasn’t involved with the proposal and did none of the legwork, so I’m little to no help there. I know we did have an agent, a 26,000 word proposal (written with the help of the agent) and the book was auctioned.

I would suggest you do some research on how well books of this general type are selling, how well blogger books are selling – show where you fit in the market, and how you are different from what’s already there.

Good luck to you both – I really enjoy reading.

You could even do it up sort of tounge and cheek as a “textbook”.

But to be honest, I personally don’t buy much in the way of books, I tend to just get them out of the library-so I can’t promise I’d buy one.

I would be happy however to do an in depth review of any book you publish!

As for a book, look online at various non-fiction book publishers. Or, try the library for writers’ market guides. Find publishers who publish books similar to yours, but not identical. (Why would they want to compete against themselves?) Look for how-to or self-help publishers.

Next, send them a query letter. In it, give a summary of your book, tell why you think the book would sell, and why YOU are qualified to write this book. Make this letter your best, most persuasive writing ever. Remember, the publisher gets zillions of these. You want yours to stand out. Many publishers accept e-queries, so you can click-send, change name and address, click-send, and keep going to send out lots of queries in a day, to different publishers. Just be sure to change each name, so they “think” they are the only one. HA!

Then, get a book from the library about how to write a book proposal. They will probably want 3 complete chapters, a one page summary of the book, and a chapter-by-chapter (one paragraph each) summary. Also, a market analysis – which is a list of other books on the market. Show them the competition. Show them you’ve done your homework. And convince them that they need to publish your book because . . .

Anyway, hope this helps.

Renae
http://www.renaebrumbaugh.com

Plus, I’m poor. And cheap.

That said, you might could use tastebook.com to create something, then let folks purchase directly through them (I’m assuming that’s possible), making it easy on you. Just my 2 cents.