Meryl's Notes Blog

Here are a few articles that provide insight into book authoring. Chronicle Careers explains what editors look for in books. Remember editors come from different backgrounds and have different tastes. The article lists a few basic steps that could apply to most book authoring situations.

Godin’s 19 points of advice to authors looks at the big picture of writing a book. AbsoluteWrite has many articles on writing books. Also Anne shares her experience in writing a book proposal.

If you get a great idea for a book, before tracking down an publisher or agent — write an outline. Flesh it out. You might be surprised to see the idea doesn’t work out or isn’t enough for an entire book (maybe write a few articles on the topic?) that stands out from what’s already on the market. Before approaching anyone or pursuing the idea, I do two things for a quick evaluation of the idea:

• write an outline

• evaluate its uniqueness from already published books

Usually I can tell right away whether the idea is a good one or not.