This is the fourth installment in a seven part series called, "An Author's View of the Publishing Process."
Part 1: A Book Concept Takes Shape
Part 2: Writing the Non-Fiction Book Proposal
Part 3: My First Writers’ Conference
I began a corporate PR job for a startup company that sucked up all my writing time, so my book writing venture was relegated to the back burner yet again. As time permitted, I tweaked chapter titles. I decided to axe the grandparent theme and expand my scope to include all relatives, friends and co-workers of adoptive parents.
Armed with my revamped book proposal, I attended the conference the following year and pitched it to a different series of editors and agents. Still no bites. But I was learning a lot about the publishing industry and meeting quite a few editors and agents, so I figured I’d be satisfied with the contacts I was making within the industry (a side note – I also pitched stories to several magazine editors, which did land me several assignments).
In 2005, I attended a large writers’ conference during which we scheduled 15-minute, one-on-one appointments with agents and editors. This method felt much less threatening to me than group appointments, and I arrived at my interviews with a renewed sense of vigor and enthusiasm about my book.
This time around, editors expressed interest. Several said, “Love your chapter titles!” Others said, “Great writing…but…I don’t think our sales team would go for it. It won’t sell enough copies.”
One agent kindly explained, “Your book is like a tiny tributary off the mighty Columbia River. The Columbia River represents the mainstream – your typical book buyer. The people who live along the Columbia won’t buy your book. And even though everyone on the little tributary of the River Adoption will buy your book, those people don’t comprise a large enough audience to make it worthwhile for a publisher to put $50,000 (or more) into publishing it.”
Ouch.
What to do? “Expand your audience. Beef up your marketing section. Prove to us that people interested in adoption will buy it,” the editors and agents recommended. “Your book will find a home. Don’t give up.” Three editors even asked me to send them my proposal, and two others recommended other editors who might be interested in it. I went home feeling hopeful.
Continued in the next post
For more news and information about adoption, please visit my Website, www.laurachristianson.com, or my Christian Adoption blog at adoption.com.
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