so I’m writing a non fiction book
and I thought I might take you along on that journey with you
share the behind the scenes of writing this book
pitching this book hopefully getting a publishing deal for this book
and everything that’s involved in that and what that looks like
now I am an author and ancient historian
I’ve already written and published both fiction and non fiction
however this will be my first ever full length
adult non fiction history book for a general audience
so it’s not like a little mini book like all the Violet Tiaras
it’s not for children and it’s not like a um
super dense academic book that will probably only end up in university libraries
it is intended to be like an accessible history book
the kind that anybody can read without any background
and hopefully enjoy learning from
and I do already have a literary agent because of my previous works
however in saying that
some of these early steps won’t look that different
regardless of whether you have an agent or have previously published before
now when you’re looking to write and publish a non fiction book
the expectation in the publishing industry
is that you have some reason for writing it
like if you’re writing a memoir
obviously the Assumption is
there’s something interesting that you’ll be talking about in that memoir
and it’s your first hand experience
if you’re writing a history book or a sociology book or a book on politics
there’s an Assumption there that you will have some sort of level of expertise
like you’re the right person to write that
and that you sort of already exist within that field
so like
you might have already published some academic articles
you might have a PhD you might be a journalist
you might work in the field you want to write about
you might have first hand experience of what you’re writing about
it can take many different forms
and for me I am an ancient historian
so I’ve been thinking about this book for a really long time now
and it’s an ancient history book
which generally focuses on the ancient Mediterranean
so we’re looking at ancient Greece and ancient Rome
what is generally perceived as like the classical world and
and it’s an ancient history book
that specifically deals with one aspect of women’s lives
I don’t know like
at this point I don’t know whether I should be giving more details online
about what the book is since it hasn’t been picked up yet
but I am about to go into the stage in the process
where my agent is going to be approaching publishers
like I said I thought it might be fun to share some behind the scenes
I’d let you know about that journey
because who knows how long that could take
it could get picked up really quickly
it could get picked up after quite a while
it could never get picked up
and I think all of that actually interesting to learn from and see
because sometimes
you will never hear about the publishing journey at the very end
like it can sometimes seem really quick
if you’re not witnessing it from the very beginning
so this process actually started for me months ago
so I had the concept for the non fiction book
and it sort of had stemmed out of some of my existing interests
and some of my existing research
and stuff I’ve been coming across in other parts of my work
as an ancient historian and a writer and
and I mentioned to my agent
I said I think this would be a really interesting topic um
for a book for a non fiction book that I think people would really enjoy
that could be written about in a way that was both informative but fun
and discussed with her whether she thought there was a market for it
because obviously she has more of
like an insight onto the pulse of the market about what people are wanting
what’s getting published what’s getting picked up
what people want to know about
and she thought it could saw
and they could have a place
and there wasn’t currently a book that filled that place on the market
so I set about writing off more formal pitch
I sort of and did a little bit of
so I gathered together some of my thoughts
I am in some of the research I already had
and sort of wrote a little summary of what I thought the book would look like
what each chapter would be
and I said that again to my agent
she thought yeah okay
love the direction now we need some sample material
so what happened next was
more recently I wrote a chapter of this book
so I don’t have a book deal
I don’t know if this book will ever get published
I don’t know what the future of it is
but I do have a chapter of this book
I have a full length chapter in an early version
obviously if the book does get published
it might look very different by the time it comes out
and I also have a much longer pitch
so I have the book summary
I have detailed summaries of each chapters
I went a little bit more in depth into what I wanted the book to look like
and provided the sort of like
evidence and background to back up the existence of this book
to prove that like
it could be a book because generally with non fiction
a lot of the time you won’t be pitching with a full book
so it’s a little bit different from fiction in that sense
but a lot of the time when somebody is looking to write a non fiction book
they’re not necessarily going to have written the whole thing
from beginning to end
and that applies whether or not you’re published before or not
whether or not you have an existing sort of publishing history
you can pitch nonfiction books to agents and publishers
who are open to those genres
and currently open to submissions without full books a lot of the time
and obviously you have to check individual agents and publishers
sort of submission requirements
and I have gone through this process in the past before I was ever published
and you will be approaching them with a certain degree of material
so in this case
my agent felt it was appropriate to have a chapter and then a very detailed
sort of like
overview of the book and sort of consideration of some comparative titles and
like why I was the right person to write it
and then because I already have an agent
she’s obviously sort of like
adding her flare to that if you didn’t have an agent yet
that would obviously be an added step
but the plan is no
with her like
Agent Flare um
she will approach some editors on my behalf
um at
there’s publishing houses that she feels this book might suit
editors who are maybe looking for something like this
because again
like as an agent
you kinda know what’s going on behind the scenes
to an extent that authors don’t really know
like this is your area of expertise
you spend so much of your time in your life um
on the pulse of publishing and um
the author industry so
so the coming months she is going to be
like I said
approaching editors on my behalf in the hope is that the book will get picked up
and on the basis they get picked up
I will have um
the space and the time and the support to write the whole thing
but I don’t know if that’s gonna happen
like I
I just don’t know like
I put this work into something
and I don’t know if it’s gonna go anywhere
which is a lot of being an author and is a lot of um
sort of paying yourself out there as a writer
but I obviously hope it will
I think this would be really fun book to write
I have a fun topic to discuss
and a book that I think people would find really interesting
so
I don’t know how much I should say about the sort of my new shy of the topic but
um I I
I would really like this project to come to something
but I just I don’t know
I like
I just don’t know if it’s going to
and I thought whether or not it does
it might just be fun to talk about it a little bit on here
so you know where I am now
like I’ve written a chapter
I’ve written a page I’ve written a summary and um
planned out what the book will look like
and I’m hoping it will get picked up
and I will basically keep you updated
if that’s something you’d like to hear more about
because usually again
I would only really talk about book long after it’s been picked up
long after I send a contact to
maybe closer to the publication days
that this is something you decide you don’t want to learn anything else about
you never wanna hear about this again
we’ll just we’ll just never talk about it didn’t happen