Podcast Interview: Ted Weinstein 09/21/2022 - Why Every Author Needs a Book Proposal

Carla King interviews literary agent Ted Weinstein: Why Every Author Needs a Book Proposal.

Nonfiction Authors Podcast | September 21, 2022 10:00 am PT / 1:00 pm ET

“[Author brand] is a word that can be overused. It can also be underused, because theoretically anything that is your public presence could be labeled as a brand. My point is more—whatever you want to call it, understand that you have a presence in the world. Think about how you shape that presence in the world.”
-Ted Weinstein

About Ted Weinstein

Ted Weinstein is a literary agent with broad experience on both the business and editorial sides of publishing. Also a widely published author, Ted has been the music critic for NPR’s All Things Considered and a commentator for the San Francisco Chronicle and many other periodicals. His agency, Ted Weinstein Literary Management, represents a wide range of non-fiction, including narrative nonfiction, popular science, business, history, current affairs, politics, psychology, and pop culture. His clients include creativity guru Austin Kleon, author of Steal Like an Artist; Stanford University’s Kelly McGonigal, author of The Willpower Instinct; business presentation expert Dan Roam, author of The Back of the Napkin; NPR’s “Math Guy,” Keith Devlin, and many more.

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Show Notes

Links

Twliterary.com
Bookproposaltemplate.org
Howtofindanagent.org
Self publishing sites
- Substack
- Ghost
- Medium

In this episode…

The three key principles of authorship.
How book proposals and business plans are synonymous.
The steps to creating a mainstream book proposal.
How to find the best literary agent for you.
The importance of gathering a support group to rally around you while writing your book and book proposal.
Why publishing in periodicals is good for nonfiction authors.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the interview series for the Nonfiction Authors Association. Today’s session is withTed Weinstein and we will be talking about why every author needs a book proposal. I’m Carla King, your host, and I’m happy to have you with us today. This interview will last only 30 minutes and you can find the replay on our Nonfiction Authors Association website and social media platforms including YouTube, and wherever you listen to podcasts.

And now I’d like to introduce our guest.

Hi Ted, welcome to the podcast.

Ted Weinstein 0:04

Hey, how are you doing?

Carla King 0:06

I’m doing great. And I’m still thinking about our Writing Conference panel that we sat on a few months ago, where I heard you describe the three key principles of authorship. And the audience was kind of surprised. But then I saw a lot of heads nodding when you were talking about them. So could you tell us what these three principles are, and describe each of them for us?

Ted Weinstein 1:33

Sure, this is something I say to pretty much every author, no matter what genre they’re working in. And it’s–like it or not–the way an author needs to think about their career. The first is that all publishing is self publishing. And there are many routes to go now. You could directly self publish, you could go with a hybrid publisher, you could go with a traditional publisher. But keeping the mindset of self publishing, no matter which path you take, I think is absolutely essential.

The second principle is to get famous first. A lot of authors come to agents and say, ‘Hey, get me a book deal, and then I’m going to be famous.’ And that’s exactly backwards–that if you’re going to get a book deal, or even if you’re going to self publish, you need to have cultivated some fame, or what we call in the industry platform, so that you’re known to others already. That a book is the way to monetize that fame, rather than a book being a way to create that fame.

And then the third principle is that you’re CEO of your own multimedia empire–that we’re talking largely about books today. But every medium that an author writes in is reinforcing all the others. And all the different ways we expose ourselves to get famous, to take control of our own careers as authors, they all reinforce each other. And that happens across multiple media. It’s really important to have that sense of broad spread. And also understand that you’re going to be ‘hiring people’ as your subordinates in your empire. I work for my authors, so I’m VP of sales, if you like. But there are also editors, there are also designers. Depending on the path any author takes, there are other people that are ‘working for them.’ So you’ve got to have the mindset that you’re the leader–you have other people working for you, but you’re still the one in charge of that empire.

Carla King 3:21

Great, thank you for that. So all publishing is self publishing, get famous first, and you’re the CEO of your own multimedia empire, not just media empire. So, toward that end, we probably want to have a plan. And we’re talking about book proposals today. And most of us think of a book proposal and a business plan as completely separate efforts. And here, you’re gonna put them together, aren’t you? Can you give us an overview of your experience with successful authors, and how you’ve tied this plan together into one document?

Ted Weinstein 4:00

I’m here in San Francisco, which is the center of Silicon Valley. And when you’re talking to folks and you say, ‘Oh, a business plan, okay. Hm, a book proposal, okay.’ Imagine that you are just pitching a venture capital firm, because that’s obviously what so many people here in Silicon Valley do. It’s the exact same thing. If you’re starting by pitching mainstream publishers–or agents as a way to get to mainstream publishers–think of it as making the exact same kind of pitch.

What you’re asking for from a publisher is the money and the time to continue to pursue your book project, which is a lot like a startup company. And even if you then go down the route with a hybrid publisher or go self publishing, you’re still going to need to assemble resources, you’re going to still need to have people supporting you. So all of that is essentially having a business plan.

Before you spend a year or two of your own time and effort, you should have a pretty clear picture of what you’re doing, and then here are all the elements that go into it. So thinking of your next year of effort as, ‘I need a business plan for that,’ is exactly the same mindset that should go into a book proposal, and that’s why I just think they’re synonymous. You can call them either one, but they are exactly the same thing. It is a document to clarify your thinking, think in a businesslike way about the effort that you’re setting off on, and make sure that it makes sense first to you, and then it’s persuasive to others.

Carla King 5:27

Well, that’s great if you’re starting from scratch, right? But what if you have already written your book? You’ve poured out your heart, you’ve shared your knowledge, you’ve written your memoir, and now you do this book proposal business plan, and you find that oops–maybe your comparables, your competitive analysis shows you that maybe there’s another book just like it or it’s not needed in the world. What do you do then? Do you just scratch it and start over?

Ted Weinstein 6:01

Maybe it would be helpful to go through just the sections real quickly of the mainstream book proposal. And then that I think will be a good opening to talk about which aspects might change your thinking, whether you’re just getting started, or whether you’ve actually written your full manuscript.

So really, a book proposal breaks into two sections–there’s style and substance. For the blend of the two, first of all, you’ve got to have an overview. And that’s the back cover of your book, it’s your Amazon page, call it what you will. But that is the very crisp, very clear, very persuasive two to three paragraphs, which lays out exactly what your book is.

And then you’ve got the–as I said–the style and substance. So for the substance, you’ve got things like–who’s your target audience. Being really clear–psychographically, demographically, however you want to describe them–who is this book’s core audience? And then, who are the secondary and tertiary audiences? About the Author. What are your credentials? What makes you the only person to write this book? And what makes you the best person to market this book? And then competitive titles. And so the competitive titles–I really prefer to use the phrase comparable titles. Because it’s not that your book is the only one like it in the world. If you’re saying that, then the next question from an agent or anybody else is going to be, ‘Why is there only one book like this?’ Maybe you don’t have the right approach. But if you look at your comparable titles, it’s helping you figure out, ‘Okay, here is where I fit in the universe.’ And so it’s a very important clarity. And also making a case in the Venn diagram of life–’Here are books that overlap with mine, but there’s none uniquely like mine.’

And then for some of the sizzle, is the marketing and promotion. And that may be the biggest section of a book proposal, other than the detailed table of contents. Because you really want to make clear–whether it’s to an agent and an eventual publisher, or just to yourself before you start this–’How am I going to get people to buy this book?’

And then the real substance is the detailed table of contents, which could be three pages, it could be 10 pages. It’s laying out the full arc of the book you want to write. And then of course, there’s your sample chapter. So those are the sections of a traditional book proposal. And each of them is important. Each of them requires some thinking. As you write each one, they will inform the others. So think of it as an iterative process.

But then–to return to your original question, Carla–let’s say you have sat down and just written the book. If you’re writing a novel, or if you’re writing a memoir, then you really do need to have written the full book. No disrespect intended, but nobody believes you’re going to complete the whole thing. And so there are probably 6 million unfinished memoirs in desk drawers or on hard drives all over America. So you really do need to write the full thing if you’re a first time author. If you’re writing nonfiction, you may only have done a chapter or two. You may not even have done that much, but have only started to think through, ‘What is it that I want to say? What is the book I want to write?’ Either way, then taking the time.

Taking a deep breath and saying, ‘I’m going to write this book proposal.’ That’s a great way to go through the thinking and clarifying of what exactly your project is, and how exactly you’re going to reach the biggest number of authors. And so, let’s say you’ve written a full memoir, or let’s say you’ve actually sat down and written your practical nonfiction book. If, then, before you start to pitch it, or if you go to the time and expense of self publishing it. If you write a book proposal, and it makes you say, ‘Oh, I’m not sure I’ve got a great strong enough marketing plan yet,’ or, ‘I’m not sure I have a big enough public profile yet.’ Or, ‘Oh, that’s interesting. I’m not sure the framework here is one that fits in with the comparable titles in a way that’s compelling to readers.’ That’s great, actually. You may be frustrated and say, ‘Why did I put in all this effort?’ But every page you wrote, every bit of the work you’ve done already, is still remarkably important raw material. It just means you have to go back and rejigger things a little bit, maybe rewrite some, or maybe put it down for a little bit while you go out and build your platform. All of it, though, even though it feels frustrating, is going to be helping you prepare to reach the greatest number of readers.

Carla King 10:14

Yeah. Reframing your book–that might be so necessary for so many people. I’ve been in many writers groups where we’ve done this exercise of creating an outline for a book that isn’t quite done yet. And I see that happening when people are in the middle of their books, right? Just that exercise of documenting it, and going chapter by chapter and outlining it–almost changes the whole process.

Ted Weinstein 10:45

And there’s nothing wrong with that. It may be frustrating, but anybody who thinks their first draft of a book–or even their first draft of a book proposal–is going to be the definitive one–come on, let’s sit down and talk, people. You know better than that. And an absolutely mandatory aspect of a career for anybody I even consider as a client is first, are you in a writing group? Are you getting systematic feedback, not from people who love you? I’m sure you have many people who love you and wish you well and are really supportive. But that’s different from being part of a critique group, or having a writing buddy or partner–somebody, one or more people that are really going to help you hone the work you do.

The worst thing you could do is do a quick draft, try to get it out in the world, and either get lots of rejections from agents and editors, who are unlikely to give you a second chance to come back to them. Or spend the time and money and the patience of your loved ones, and go down the self publishing route, and then not have the book succeed. So better to do the hard prep work–better to do the many, many daily runs before you start to run that marathon.

Carla King 11:51

And this is an argument for getting out in public first. or while you’re writing the book. correct? Because you have all this information–I’m talking about both memoir and prescriptive nonfiction books–why not put it out as a blog? I’m arguing. Put it out as a blog, put it out as maybe a Substack newsletter and see what kind of traction you get. Is that a good strategy?

Ted Weinstein 12:12

Well, it’s interesting, you say, putting ‘it’ out. And I would take a half step back and say it’s putting yourself out, and your wisdom and your insights out. And that is essential. Folks worry that, ‘Ooh, if I share a little bit publicly, then someone’s going to steal my idea,’ Well, first of all, no one’s going to steal your idea. Because it’s the richness that you bring to it, that makes it your own, and that hopefully, people are gonna want to pay good money for. And more importantly, their attention for. And if you’re putting some of that wisdom out now, all that’s doing is step by step helping you, frankly, write your book.

Certainly showing that there is an audience who says, ‘Oh, insight one–that was really great. People are responding. Insight two, people are responding.’ That’s fantastic. It’s sort of like saying, ‘Hey, if I put a couple of my recipes out there, and some of my nifty techniques, that nobody would buy the full cookbook.’ In fact, it’s the opposite. You build an audience, you prove your own credentials, you show that–look, people are responding. It’s time now to do the full cookbook.

Carla King 13:14

So can you just talk about you as an agent–and as other agents who represent nonfiction authors–when you get a book proposal, and it’s good, and you don’t see a public profile, or much of one…do nonfiction agents generally work with people if they see an idea, and it’s good? Or do you just say, ‘Go out and get a platform first, and then come back to me?’

Ted Weinstein 13:44

I would say that any definitive statement about agents is almost guaranteed not to be accurate, because it’s a very personal business. And there are some agents that came–they used to be editors in publishing houses. There’s some agents that came out of business development and other aspects of publishing. There are others who are authors to begin with. So it’s a very personal business, which is part of why authors should be thoughtful, and query lots of agents. And find the one whose skill set complement what yours are, whose skill sets are right for what you need. And of course, has the right temperament and professionalism that matches the way you want to approach the business.

So the way I work is–folks will come to me. Or frankly, many times, I will reach out to somebody else who is starting to develop a public profile, or has been written about, or has just started to share a little bit of their wisdom. And I’ll say, ‘Hey, there’s an interesting book possibility here. Have you thought about it?’ And if they say yes, and they’re interested, one of the first discussions we’ll have is, ‘Okay, how can we make you even more famous now, so that when the time comes for a proposal, it has the best prospects?’ And then to your more direct question, sometimes people come to me and they say, ‘Yeah, I’m not really well known, but this is what I have to say.’

If I think there is great potential, and I’ve got a good vision that–one, we would work together well, and two, that I think this is something that could make us both a lot of money–then I might spend time and give them tips, make some introductions with editors for them–and by this, I mean periodical editors–and do some of the other coaching from the sidelines before we even go out with a book proposal.

But it’s really important to remember agents do not make a penny until the author makes a penny. And so all of the work we might put in–before proposals ready, before we pitch it, before the contract is done, and the money starts to flow–that is all being done for free. So we are making our own best judgments. Who do we want to work with? Who’s got the best prospects?

We’re often wrong–every agent has examples of folks we turned down, who had great success with somebody else. And many of us have stories of people–I have a client who was turned down by 27 other agents. But he and I met, I saw some potential, we worked together–refined his proposal in a different way, and sold it to imprint at Simon & Schuster, and we even did a movie deal. So this is a very personal business, there are no rules to any of this. And that’s why you want to be very self aware.

You have to remember that you’re CEO of your own multimedia empire. And when you’re talking to agents, or anybody in the business, it’s not necessarily this is the right person to work with you. But ask those questions, see what they’re willing to do. And be aware of their careers. Don’t be resentful. If I say, ‘Hey, I think you’re great, you’ve got something nifty, but I’m not the right partner for you.’ Just say thank you and move on and check in with the next person.

Carla King 16:36

Well, thanks for that. Because I think authors are often really kind of desperate to publish. And they’re querying every agent. And agents have this reputation of being mean, because they didn’t write back, right? And the author just didn’t prepare, or do their research well enough, to know that it was a match for them.

Ted Weinstein 16:58

I was talking this morning–had coffee with a friend from publishing–and the word that came up is professionalism. And even though we like to think of books, and writing, and literature as this special realm of art, and so on, this is a business. This is how I make my living. And hopefully this is how many of the folks listening to this, and seeing this podcast, are approaching it. Professionalism matters almost as much–almost more and certainly as much–as everything else.

And so a frenetic sense–’I’m just going to query like crazy,’ or, ‘I’m going to look for validation by sending queries that aren’t ready.’ None of that is the right way to go. And having your own kitchen cabinet–your own board of directors–is really important. The folks that are going to support you, that do love you, they’re gonna say, ‘Oh wait, I’m not so sure you’re ready to start querying.’ Get that committee around you to make sure you don’t make those slips. And then every time you open your email, every time you think about picking up the phone, your first question to yourself is ‘Hey, am I buttoned up? Am I buttoned down? Am I really ready to be approaching folks in this industry in a professional way?’

Carla King 18:07

Are you arguing for an author brand? That’s what I’m hearing from you.

Ted Weinstein 18:12

It’s a word that can be overused. It can also be underused, because theoretically anything that is your public presence could be labeled as a brand. My point is more–whatever you want to call it, understand that you have a presence in the world. Think about how you shape that presence in the world. One–my hair is a little bit too short for this–one can let their hair down in the privacy of their own home, and certainly with their own friends–but this is a business first and foremost.

If an author is going to spend their own money on self publishing, or if they’re going to be approaching agents, and eventually editors, this is all about the money. And that’s a good thing. Money is a marker for how many people you’ve eventually reached with your wisdom, with your insights, with the grace of your writing. But understand that this is industry, this is commerce, this is capitalism. And we want to position ourselves for the best success. And if thinking of yourself as a brand is the right way to do that? Great. That’s a good label.

Carla King 19:13

We have a few minutes left, and I did want to delve into a couple more things very quickly. One of them you just quickly mentioned. Publishing in periodicals is important for nonfiction authors. Can you talk about that a little bit more?

Ted Weinstein 19:25

Sure. Again, it gets back to the word platform. And that means literally how high you stand above the others in your realm. For memoirists, I hope your memoir is not the only one about the broad topic. So is there a way you can get out there and show that people respond to your writing? They respond to your story, and the unique personal way you tell it.

So that could be placing short aspects of it in a literary journal. It could be just getting publicity for whatever there is that’s close to unique about your own story. For someone who’s writing more prescriptive or narrative nonfiction, that means getting out in the world and showing that–hey, editors at periodicals are paying attention and liking what you have to write in short form. It means–oh look, whether it is your own Substack, or the response to articles, and an existing periodical–readers are reading, and readers are responding. These are all very important ways to prove yourself to yourself, to hone your own voice and your substance. And then, when the time comes–when your book is out–you’re building on an existing audience, not starting from scratch.

Carla King 20:33

Thank you. And finally, can you talk a little bit more about self publishing? Do you have clients who self publish at the same time as you’re representing them to a traditional publishing house?

Ted Weinstein 20:49

It’s less common. But on occasion, those different channels of self publishing have been useful to clients of mine. I have a couple clients who self published to start, and had enormous success. And then it made sense to come to a traditional publisher with their next book. Because they’d already built that audience, they’ve proven they’re already superstars. And then with the increased distribution, and leverage of a major publisher, their next book–or the second edition–could do that much better.

There are others who decided they had a side project that didn’t make sense–for various reasons–to run through the traditional publishing model. So instead, we did the self publishing, and I actually sold foreign rights as if it was a traditionally published book. Sold translation rights, but the original book itself in English was self published. And that was just a function of the right logistics for that project.

And then you mentioned Substack, and there are other models for that as well. That is, frankly, self publishing. That is a way to make some money off your words that is entirely under your control. And whether it’s Substack, or Ghost, or Medium, or any of the other places where one has a blogging platform–where one can charge interested readers–those are great ways–one, to make some revenue. Two, to hone your voice and your substance. And three, build that audience.

Carla King 22:08

Great. And let me rewind just a little bit. Did you say that you had an author self publish something, and you represented that author to sell it in other forms?

Ted Weinstein 22:21

Yeah, and that’s a rarity. I almost shouldn’t have said that, because it sounds like something folks are gonna want to jump on to,

Carla King 22:26

Exactly–we’re gonna get a lot of calls.

Ted Weinstein 22:29

No, I have a client who was already a global big name. He’s published 30 books. And there was one project that made sense. It was a companion book to an online course he taught, which had 70,000 students. And because of the timing–and many other reasons–it made no sense to try to go through to the traditional publishing route. He used one of the self publishing platforms–doesn’t matter which one–but he is one of the platforms to do a self published Ebook, and print- on-demand book, so that the 70,000 students could get their hands on it. Because it was a course being taught globally, there were folks in many other countries that took the course, which was only taught in English, but really valued the opportunity to buy the material–the written material–in their native language. And that gave us the opportunity to work with my existing network of sub agents to have it translated into some other languages.

Carla King 23:19

Okay, good. Thanks for clarifying that. Yes. And that also argues for having a long and good relationship with your agent, and your agent knowing the landscape. And do agents always negotiate contracts, or do you bring in intellectual property lawyers? Or do you act as all of the above? How does that work?

Ted Weinstein 23:40

To your point, hopefully. The way I do business is–this is a long term relationship. There are some agents who just want to do the deal, and couldn’t care less. I have found, over the course of my career, that getting to really know, and getting to become part of, and to help coach a client on all aspects of their career, leads to success–not just for the first book we do together–but many others. And so that’s just something we do. And I have spent a lot of time with some key clients–the better they do, the better we all do together. And that kind of long term relationship I find is the most fruitful way to work together.

Carla King 24:14

Thanks so much. And you’re super generous for being with us today and sharing the information that you’ve developed, even on your website. Can you point us to where people can find resources and get in contact with you?

Ted Weinstein 24:25

Sure. My main website is twliterary.com. And that includes all kinds of resources for authors. There are some video presentations, some audio presentations, lots of other information. And then there are two shortcuts that folks might like. One is bookproposaltemplate.org, which goes to a particular page on my website. And that just gives the very straightforward, full outline for a book proposal. And the other–because I want every author to find the right agent for them–if you go to howtofindanagent.org, that goes to the page on my website where it lays out–here’s how to identify, and here’s had a query, all the agents that might be the right match for you. This is a very personal business. I don’t feel at all bad if somebody goes with a different agent, or finds the right agent for them. That’s the model we all want. That’s what’s best for the world and the best for everyone’s success.

Carla King 25:17

Thanks so much, Ted. Thanks for being our guest today.

Ted Weinstein 25:20

Happy to do it, have a great day.

Carla King 25:22

Thank you.

And thank you to our listeners for joining us today and every week. For a list of guests and topics just check our schedule on the site, use your favorite search engine, or better yet, sign up for our mailing list at NonfictionAuthorsAssociation.com.

Quotes from our guest

“But every medium that an author writes in is reinforcing of all the others. And all the different ways we expose ourselves to get famous, to take control of our own careers as authors, they all reinforce each other.”

“You may be frustrated and say, ‘Why did I put in all this effort?’ But every page you wrote, every bit of the work you’ve done already, is still remarkably important raw material. It just means you have to go back and rejigger things a little bit, maybe rewrite some, or maybe put it down for a little bit while you go out and build your platform. All of it, though, even though it feels frustrating, is going to be helping you prepare to reach the greatest number of readers.”

“[Author brand] is a word that can be overused. It can also be underused, because theoretically anything that is your public presence could be labeled as a brand. My point is more–whatever you want to call it, understand that you have a presence in the world. Think about how you shape that presence in the world.”

“If an author is going to spend their own money on self publishing, or if they’re going to be approaching agents, and eventually editors, this is all about the money. And that’s a good thing. Money is a marker for how many people you’ve eventually reached with your wisdom, with your insights, with the grace of your writing. But understand that this is industry, this is commerce, this is capitalism. And we want to position ourselves for the best success.”