Simon Sheppard (writer)

Simon Sheppard is a writer of gay erotica and a sex-advice columnist from San Francisco. He is the author of many highly acclaimed works of gay erotica/pornography, including the books Kinkorama, In Deep, and Sex Parties 101. He is also the editor of Homosex: 60 Years of Gay Erotica, winner of the 2007 Lambda Literary Award for LGBT erotica; the anthology Leathermen; and is the coeditor of the anthologies Rough Stuff and Roughed Up. Sheppard's work is wide-ranging, often combining history, philosophy, or culture — high and low — with hardcore sex. His first book, Hotter Than Hell and Other Stories, won the Erotic Authors Association Award for Best Collection of the Year, and the title story of In Deep was shortlisted for the Rauxa Prize for Erotic Fiction. His work has appeared in over 250 anthologies and he writes the columns “Sex Talk” and the online serial "The Dirty Boys Club.” Sheppard is openly gay,[1] active in the queer artistic, political and AIDS-activist communities, and has publicly opposed the Iraq war. He lives in San Francisco, where San Francisco dubbed him “our erotica king.”

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How to Write a Nonfiction Book Proposal that SELLS

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

Things You’ll Need:

• A great book idea
• Awareness of the competing titles
• Credentials on your topic
• A weekend's worth of time

Step1
Overview: A book proposal has FIVE basic parts. But the gateway piece is the Overview. This is what EVERYONE from agents to editors to publishers will read first. Put the most time into the overview. It should be 3-5 pages long, Times New Roman or similar serif font (if the lower case "h" has little feet, it's a serif font), and it should answer the publishing industry's main questions: 1. Who will buy this book? That means -- Who is your market? The 5 million people in the US who own dogs? Parents? Small business owners? The more specific you can define your audience, the better your chances of selling. Better: the people who own large breed dogs that are hard to train; parents of adopted children with learning disabilities; small business owners seeking to raise financing. 2. WHY will they buy your book? Do you have some unique experience or solution that no one has heard before? There were about 286,000 books published in the USA in 2007 - you better be sure none of them cover your topic before you do this. (Go to Amazon). 3. Why are YOU the right person to write this? Are you the person who owns a large breed dog? That might work. But it would work better if you also breed dogs AND you're considered an expert within your industry and last year, you won some relevant aware AND were interviewed in Dog Fancier magazine. Of course, it would be even better if you were Cesar the dog whisperer, in which case your book advance would have a LOT more zeroes on it! In the Overview, we want to know that YOU are the best person on the planet to write this book. I see dozens of queries every DAY from therapists, small business owners, parents, etc. who think they can write a book because they have an idea. Publishers don't buy books to be nice to people. You MUST have something special about YOU and/or YOUR IDEA to make anyone pay attention. There's just too much competition for shelf space at Barnes and Noble these days for "good ideas" to be worth much without a powerhouse author behind them. (There are great ways to become a powerhouse BEFORE you pitch your book - I'm doing an article on that soon).
Step2
Part 2 of 5: Author's Credentials If I didn't scare you off above, here's where you get to brag - and I mean load it on - all about everything related to the book's topic that you've done. This should be ONE PAGE long, mention any related media you've done, and refer to yourself in the third person, as in "Wendy Keller loves authors but has the experience to know what it takes to get published and she doesn't hesitate to make it clear..."
Step3
Part 3 of 5: Competitive Analysis This is where you prove to the publishing industry that you are not an amateur. You will list the titles, publishers and authors of 6-8 books related to yours. (Never say there aren't any! Spend more time on Amazon). You will explain in 3 paragraphs what you think about each book, in this format: Paragraph One: why that book is great. It got published and so far, you didn't. There must be SOMETHING good about it, even if it's just that it has a nice cover design! Paragraph Two: What's WRONG with the other book. "It's too bad that the author wrote in such a dense, academic style. While the material is certainly worth and the research impeccable, most readers who commented on Amazon.com said that they had trouble deciphering the sometimes obscure, dry language...." Paragraph 3: How your book is going to be NDBM: New, Different, Better or offer something More. Be REALLY clear about this. "While Eat, Pray, Love certainly helped readers connect with the author, my book will enfold readers who have not gone through a divorce or similar trauma, and who do not find a travelogue all that interesting..." Three paragraphs per book x 6-8 competing titles = write it as long as it needs to be, then edit every extraneous word, and that's good enough for now. (Agents will often help you clean up the proposal if they see $$$ signs when they read it.)
Step4
Part 4 of 5: Chapter Summary -- This is where you lay out the format for your book. Most 60,000 word books have 12 chapters, that means about 5,000 words per chapter. Set your book up this way - it's easier. What are the most important 12 things someone should know when they've read your book? What are the 6-15 sub points per chapter? That's your chapter summary in rough form.
Step5
Part 5 of 5: The Marketing Plan - For most agents, this is the single most important part of the proposal. It's also the hardest for new authors, who often whine, "Isn't that what the publisher is supposed to do for me?" or "Why would I have to be famous before I write a book?" I understand. But I'm telling you, if you are not in some ways distinctive from the THOUSANDS of other people with ideas uncannily similar to yours who try to get agents/publishers this year, you will not get a contract. You MUST have done something (hiked Everest wearing scuba gear, won the Nobel Prize or even the pie-eating contest; etc.) or have done MEDIA (radio, print, television, internet - they can interview you or you can be the host or you can write articles/stories) or be in some way known as a leading authority on your topic (and have proof) OR be a professional speaker (make that "and/or" because the preferred new authors have at least 2-3 of these). It also counts if you are in charge of some huge company and can control the fact that 20,000 of your employees will find a copy of your book in their Christmas stocking... The publisher wants to know that YOU are ready, primed, able to help them sell books. Differentiating yours from the 268,000 new books means TEAM EFFORT and the more you bring, the more they get excited. (Take it from me - clients even with a local cable show or a popular blog are more likely to sell well than PhDs who have brilliant ideas for their books).
Step6
BONUS - Sample Chapters. Write ALL of chapter one (5,000 words, remember?) and make it make us cry because it's so well-written. One sample chapter would likely be enough to get you an agent (the gate keepers); two sample chapters will get you a publisher (the people with the money).

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