Making a Business Case with Your Book Proposal | Matt Holt | 394

Have you ever thought about publishing a book? Be careful! There are a lot of misconceptions and bad information about publishing. If you want to publish successfully, and see your work reach it's best audience, you might need to do a little research — and our guest on this episode is a treasure-trove of information. To clear up the misinformation and get our listeners started on the right foot, we've invited Matt Holt, Editor-in-Chief of Matt Holt Books (a BenBella Books imprint) to join us. Matt was previously Senior Vice President and Executive Publisher at John Wiley & Sons, where he oversaw a team of 85 staff. Over his 27-year career, he's acquired over 1,000 titles and published 10,000 titles! We start with the questions you need to answer before you set pen to paper. Matt believes you need to know your book's goal; why you are writing it, and for what audience? Once you have those answers, you can start thinking about the publishing model that will best suit your authorship. Having had literally thousands of proposals cross his desk, Matt can tell in only 30 minutes whether a manuscript merits further exploration. During our conversation, he shares what he is looking for in a proposal, and the methods he uses to look into each potential author's background and qualifications. Lastly, we discuss the tension that often exists between author and publisher. The author is making a long-term, multi-year connection ,while the publisher is looking to get in, publish the manuscript, and move quickly onto the next project. Matt explains what both sides can do to provide the transparency needed for everyone to achieve their goals. If you want to ensure that your manuscript proposal doesn't get tossed into the "pass" pile, you've got to listen to this episode! Three Key Takeaways: * You can get a book done quickly and cheaply, or you can get it done right. * Thought Leaders who are also practitioners often have an advantage in promoting their books as they already are in direct contact with their audience. * A book is a mass-market tool, you'll need methods of taking your content to scale if you want to fully capitalize on your book launch.