Make an Irresistible Proposal

Every author has a challenge with their submission to an agent or editor. How can your proposal become irresistible? Other proposals can be passed over but yours must be presented and kept. One of the magic keys is to include special sales in your marketing plans. I guarantee it will separate your book from others because almost no one talks about this important area of the book market.

Can you come up with a special market for your book that will sell 10,000 to 100,000 copies from the first printing? Does this sound impossible? It’s not. According to Jerrold Jenkins, president of the Jenkins Group in Traverse City, Michigan, the majority of special sales (a special sale is anything outside of the traditional bookstore setting) for books originate from the author who turns up these leads and creative ideas to sell thousands of books. Could your book contain a special back cover with the symbol of the organization and be used as a membership renewal gift? Could it contain a special letter from the president on the first page of the book? These books with a special cover or special inserted letter are called “special sales.”

Book sales have a fundamental problem that has been around since the Great Depression.

Retailers can order your book into the stores (good news for that to happen). But it doesn’t remain on their bookshelves forever. If your book doesn’t sell after a period of time, they can return the book to the publisher (not good news). These returns are charged against the earnings of your royalties. Special sales are never returned! They are guaranteed sales for the publisher and the author. I would encourage you to take some time at the Jenkins Group website and study the various examples of special sales. While these examples might not be exactly like your idea, be creative in your plan and potential for sales and include this plan into your proposal under the category of promotion.

As an editor, I love to locate an author who understands it takes more than excellent writing to sell large volumes of their book. I’ve discovered a book that is a valuable resource for writers in this area called How to Make Real Money Selling Books (Without Worrying About Returns): A Complete Guide to the Book Publisher’s World of Special Sales by Brian Jud (One Square Pub). This book documents that more than half of the books sold are sold through non-traditional channels such as mail order, warehouse clubs and other means.

Have you ever read the sales numbers of a particular book and wondered how that particular book ever sold in the bookstore? Some of those big sales numbers have been outside the bookstore.

How to Make Real Money Selling Books is a valuable resource for any writer to think outside the box.

Jud covers many specific strategies for generating special sales. As you read these strategies, determine which ideas are appropriate for your book, then incorporate them into your nonfiction or fiction book proposal. Including this type of information at the beginning of the publishing process will show your publisher your intention to be proactive in the sales process. Proactive authors who understand how to sell books are attractive authors to any publisher.

Jud’s earlier book, Beyond the Bookstore and his newer title are loaded with current statistics and contact information such as, “Today, the worldwide book market approximates $90 billion. Almost one third of those sales occur in the United States. Over the past ten years, the amount of sales through traditional outlets is decreased by 11 per cent (down 19 per cent without factoring Internet sales), and sales through non-bookstore outlets have increased by 8 per cent.” Three major advantages of special sales include control over your destiny, customization potential and nontraditional market segmentation. If you utilize the information in this book to generate a detailed marketing plan for your book proposal, it will help your proposal stand out from all the others on the acquisitions editor’s desk. Only the author has the passion and intense interest in their book. Use this book to increase your sales and strengthen your book proposals.

If you include even the beginnings of an effective marketing plan in your proposal, you send the following messages to the publisher.

Publishers are looking for authors who have connections to their readers—either through an email list or an active social media platform. In a few seconds, any editor or agent can check your social media on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook or any number of other platforms. If you blog, have you added recent entries? If you podcast, do you have recent programs? Your active involvement in these platforms will be an important part of your proposal. Make sure you include the links and numbers in your proposal. Those numbers with the right publisher could translate into book sales and readers.

Never forget that there are thousands of proposals circulating at a publisher. Your goal is to make your proposal irresistible—and something they have to publish—before a competitor snaps it up.

W. Terry Whalin, a writer and acquisitions editor lives in California. A former magazine editor and former literary agent, Terry is an acquisitions editor at Morgan James Publishing. He has written more than 60 nonfiction books including Jumpstart Your Publishing Dreams and Billy Graham. To help writers catch the attention of editors and agents, Terry wrote his bestselling Book Proposals That $ell, 21 Secrets To Speed Your Success. Get a free copy of his proposal book (follow the link below the image). Check out his free Ebook, Platform Building Ideas for Every Author. His website is located at: www.terrywhalin.com. Connect with Terry on Twitter, Facebook, his blog and LinkedIn.