Post by account_disabled on Dec 24, 2023 5:50:51 GMT -5
After creating my company at the end of 2009, I joined the CCIP Young Entrepreneurs club. It is a place for exchanges (in more or less numerous groups) between young entrepreneurs, all subject to the same constraints: to develop, to make themselves known, to find clients, to recruit, to manage, to finance, etc. I participated in a workshop on communication and “how to make yourself known”. At the time, I was coming out of a Business Unit Management position in the industry, I had less than 500 contacts on LinkedIn and I was taking my first steps on Twitter. One of the participants said: “you have to write a book”. I hadn't really thought about it until then. I dug into the subject and quickly realized that there were 2 references on the market for professional books: Eyrolles and Dunod.
Moreover, when writing my first book, when I contacted managers to interview them or Email Data to have them contribute, the first question, which systematically came up when I said that I was writing a book, was: “with whom”? As I don't like to work for nothing, rather than writing a book and then selling it (with the risk of not selling it or having to rewrite all or part), I directly contacted these 2 publishers via the addresses contact email indicated on their sites. The 2 publishers responded very quickly. At publishers, the people in charge of collections and editorial projects know their markets and their readerships very well. They know very well what they need. The process is much simpler than writing in your corner without having met anyone.
We agree on a collection, a theme, an approach, a format. For professional books, publishers generally work by collection. The sales teams sell collections and we analyze the results of the collections rather than the results of the titles: good sales compensate for poor sales and we thus balance the collection as a whole. Then, we submit a summary of the book and one or two chapters. The project goes to the editorial committee for validation. We then complete it with 3-4 more chapters to properly validate the style and approach and ensure that the work will therefore fit well into the collection. My understanding is that from 1,000 sales (it doesn't seem like a lot, but many of our political or media personalities haven't reached it), the publisher is happy and that from 1 500 or 2,000, we can consider a V2.
Moreover, when writing my first book, when I contacted managers to interview them or Email Data to have them contribute, the first question, which systematically came up when I said that I was writing a book, was: “with whom”? As I don't like to work for nothing, rather than writing a book and then selling it (with the risk of not selling it or having to rewrite all or part), I directly contacted these 2 publishers via the addresses contact email indicated on their sites. The 2 publishers responded very quickly. At publishers, the people in charge of collections and editorial projects know their markets and their readerships very well. They know very well what they need. The process is much simpler than writing in your corner without having met anyone.
We agree on a collection, a theme, an approach, a format. For professional books, publishers generally work by collection. The sales teams sell collections and we analyze the results of the collections rather than the results of the titles: good sales compensate for poor sales and we thus balance the collection as a whole. Then, we submit a summary of the book and one or two chapters. The project goes to the editorial committee for validation. We then complete it with 3-4 more chapters to properly validate the style and approach and ensure that the work will therefore fit well into the collection. My understanding is that from 1,000 sales (it doesn't seem like a lot, but many of our political or media personalities haven't reached it), the publisher is happy and that from 1 500 or 2,000, we can consider a V2.