From Book Idea to Bestseller: What You Absolutely, Positively Must Know to Make Your Book a Success (Prima Writing Guides) [Paperback]

Kim Baker (Author), Michael Snell (Author), Sunny Baker (Author)

Book Description

Series: Prima Writing Guides | Publication Date: April 9, 1997

"Its step-by-step advice, coupled with its inspirational support, can turn any serious writer into a successful author."—Emmett Murphy, author of the New York Times bestseller Leadership IQ
Spending months, even years turning an idea into a completed manuscript is one thing. Getting it published is quite another. Many first time authors desperately rummage through book after book in search of tips that will help them in the process.
Now, anyone with enough persistence and a copy of From Book Idea to Bestseller has an advantage to getting a nonfiction title published. It turns the long journey of an aspiring writer into a complete business plan that makes sense in the rapidly changing publishing world of today.
Unlike any other book on writing, it provides actual, entire templates that authors can use as models in writing their own winning book proposals. Writers will learn:
·How to write a book proposal (with four sample proposals to use as templates)
·How to find and work with an agent
·How to understand and negotiate a contract
·How to promote a published book
·And much more
From Book Idea to Bestseller provides check lists of things-to-do that will guide writers step-by-step from the idea to bestseller process.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

From Book Idea to Bestseller is a very good soup-to-nuts guide for embarking on, and maintaining, a career as an author of non-fiction books. Michael Snell is an agent and writer, and Kim and Sunny Baker have authored nearly two dozen books between them. Here they share step-by-step information on creating book proposals, "cross-marketing," finding additional opportunities in ancillary markets (CD-ROMs, lectures, consulting, etc.), and developing a long-range "career" plan. Some of this information will apply to pragmatic fiction writers, too. And as for getting off your duff, one of the authors profiled herein published her first work at 12.

Review

"Its step-by-step advice, coupled with its inspirational support, can turn any serious writer into a successful author."—Emmett Murphy, author of the New York Times bestseller Leadership IQ

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Prima Lifestyles (April 9, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0761506306
• ISBN-13: 978-0761506300
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,725,870 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Practices for Selling Nonfiction Books, May 3, 2000

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This review is from: From Book Idea to Bestseller: What You Absolutely, Positively Must Know to Make Your Book a Success (Prima Writing Guides) (Paperback)

I have already sold two nonfiction books on my own without an agent. Reading this book was a real eye-opener. I found out that I did not know the first thing about how to write a nonfiction business proposal. My first thought was to wonder how much money it had cost me not to have read this book sooner. Well, better late than never.

Book publishing is still somewhat of a mystery to me. Reading this book dispelled more of that mystery than two years of working with outstanding publishers has. The authors are not only knowledgeable, they are very generous in the way they share their experience. By having an often-published author/agent and two other well-published authors collaborating, you have a lot of potential knowledge to pick up. I suspect it would be hard to get any more knowledge from an entire writing career than you obtain by reading this book. What a geat deal!

These are good writers, too. The organization of the book is simple and effective. The prose is brief and clear.

But what I liked best was the warmth and supportiveness that the authors expressed. These people genuinely want you to get published and have a writing career (if that's what you decide you want).

Get this book, read it immediately, and then start applying it as soon as possible!

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Top-notch information, January 25, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: From Book Idea to Bestseller: What You Absolutely, Positively Must Know to Make Your Book a Success (Prima Writing Guides) (Paperback)

Every aspiring non-fiction author should read and re-read this book.

If the all authors that send me manuscripts and proposals would follow the guidelines in this book, I'd have a lot more contracts, referrals and encouraging letters to write, and far fewer rejection form letters.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding how to book for your first book submission, August 12, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: From Book Idea to Bestseller: What You Absolutely, Positively Must Know to Make Your Book a Success (Prima Writing Guides) (Paperback)

This most thorough and easy to read book has proven itself to me. I had the idea of what a proposal should look like, but Snell let me grasp exactly what the publishers want to see. It didn't bog me down with useless information. I really appreciated it's get to the point format.