"If an editor has approached you about a book, it’s almost a certainty that other editors would ALSO be interested in you writing a book." I wish so much I had known this back in my youth! I was lucky enough to be approached by an editor, and the publisher she represented (Institute of Physics in the UK) did publish my book, and it did fairly well, but... if I had to do it all over again I would have sent the proposal out to others too. Then again, this was back in the early days of the internet and it was much harder to find out how things worked. No helpful newsletters like this one back then, at least not that I was aware of.
My main reason for seeking an agent, which you didn't mention here explicitly, is that publishers like Norton make it impossible to approach them without an agent. So if you think you have a kind of cross-over book and no agent, it will definitely turn into an academic rather than a trade book.
"If an editor has approached you about a book, it’s almost a certainty that other editors would ALSO be interested in you writing a book." I wish so much I had known this back in my youth! I was lucky enough to be approached by an editor, and the publisher she represented (Institute of Physics in the UK) did publish my book, and it did fairly well, but... if I had to do it all over again I would have sent the proposal out to others too. Then again, this was back in the early days of the internet and it was much harder to find out how things worked. No helpful newsletters like this one back then, at least not that I was aware of.
My main reason for seeking an agent, which you didn't mention here explicitly, is that publishers like Norton make it impossible to approach them without an agent. So if you think you have a kind of cross-over book and no agent, it will definitely turn into an academic rather than a trade book.
Hi Jeff, thank you for your substack. Truly. It has been very educational.