First, finish it. And whatever you do, do not PAY any publisher to have it published and "marketed". A high % of those outfits are skating close to the scam line.

Is it local interest? Could you have it printed (on your own) locally and sell it locally? I know one man who realized that there was no good reference for the state's gun laws, so he researched it and wrote it, took advance orders to pay for the printing the first couple thousand, and he's been profiting ever since ... he sells them through local gun shops and bookstores.

Actually, if it's a non-fiction book, you don't need to finish it completely before you start marketing it, if you're interested in having it published by one of the larger houses. (Fiction plays by different rules, unfortunately for those of us who write in that direction.) Rather, what you need to do is write an outline of the book, detailing what will be discussed in each chapter. You need to write the first two or three chapters, adhering strictly to the outline so that a prospective publisher will see that you are approaching this in a professional manner. Then, you need to write the best, most succinct and professional-sounding cover letter you have ever written in your life. It will be one page long, no longer. (Editors don't have time to scan through reams of stuff -- you either grab them on the first page or you don't grab them at all.) It will tell a prospective publisher the following: what your book is about, why it is different from other books that might occupy a similar market niche, why you are the best person to write this particular book, what your credentials are (doesn't have to be university or college -- experience is great), and how the publisher can reach you.

Having done all this, you then start researching publishers. You should probably head out to your nearest library and get hold of a book called "The Writer's Market", which details a huge number of the publishers in North America. You'll note that under each publisher's listing, they will tell you what kind of books they publish. There is absolutely no point in sending a gardening book to a publisher that does mainly mysteries, for example. From this book, you can start to compile your list of potential publishers. And then the real fun begins.

You have to prepare a neat, professional-looking package consisting of your brilliant cover letter (aka the "query letter"), your brilliant and comprehensive outline, a synopsis of the book (what it's about, the overall thrust of it), and about three chapters or fifty pages, whichever is smaller, of actual manuscript. You must make sure that all of this material is completely grammatically correct, spell-checked and triple checked for accuracy. Then you start sending this package out to the top publishers on your list. It's considered permissible to send to more than one publisher at a time as long as you're at the query stage; however, if more than one publisher is interested in the book, you will need to let all parties know that the manuscript is being looked at by others. You don't have to specify who those others are, but it is considered exceptionally poor form to do "multiple submissions" without telling the parties involved.

Phew. Have you got all that?

Oh, and then, having done all this work to sell the book, you need to actually make sure that you write it according to the outline you've given. But after all this marketing stuff, that should be easy, right? :D

Did you ever finish and publish it? If so, please give us the title and publisher.

I would also suggest having an attorney look at your contract before signing it.
I compiled 2 books for a publishing company but received very little money for my hard work. They were after me for a long time to write more books but I was only making money for the publisher and soon tired of doing this.
I had also signed an agreement to use only this publisher for the next 5 years. I would never recommend signing this form. I was stuck for 5 years and gave up writing.

Thanks for sharing your experience. That's excellent advice.

I'm responding to the issue of having a lawyer check your contract. If you have recently published a book or some articles in recognized mags you may qualify for membership in Authors Guild. They are a great org that really supports writers in many ways. One way is to review publishing contracts gratis by their legal staff , as well as to suggest standard contracts that protect your interests. Any serious writer really needs to join this group.

Ketzel has everything right, and I suspect is experienced in the industry. Contact a publisher before it's too far along. They may want to steer the content a bit in a direction that they can sell it better, and it's more than likely that they'll have ideas for improving it. This can save you some time.

I say this as an editor at a publishing company (not garden related). We've published hundreds of books and we likely have a better idea about how to produce a salable product than most first-time authors do.

Our most frequent type of "redirection" is to simplify the language (i.e, clarify, not "dumb it down"), reduce the number of topics within individual chapters, and replace text with diagrams.

Finding a publisher can be more difficult than writing the book. Good luck!

--Jonathan

Since I too am considering writing a first book, I find this is an interesting thread, and I appreciate the words of wisdom of zootjs and ketzel. Along these lines, I have a question for everyone: Is there a market for a new and comprehensive book on tomatoes? By that, I mean one that covers, at least to some extent, everything about tomatoes that a tomato enthusiast/aficionado/junkie/addict/head might want to know (and maybe more). I am considering writing such a book, and in fact already have prepared an outline and introduction. But before I put a year or two's work into it, I would very much appreciate any opinions anyone may have on the subject.

What I have in mind is something that would cover at least the following subjects:

1. Biology and cultivation (including different species and cultivars),

2. Genetics and genetic modification (e.g., sad story of the Flavr Savr gene),

3. Origin and evolution (meet your cousin, the tomato),

4. World-wide diffusion and subsequent history (how did the tomato get to India and China, anyway? The English? The Portuguese? The Spanish? One author suggests early sea contact with Peru)

5. Adoption and use in different food traditions (e.g., how do tomatoes fit in with the religious aspects of Indian food tradition?),

6. Health aspects (e.g., effect on prostate and lung cancer, macular degeneration, sun damage to skin),

7. Commercial and economic issues (do they really eat 200 pounds per person per year in Egypt?),

8. Connections with famous people (e.g., Ronald Reagan),

9. Film and literature (nobody should miss Attack of the Killer Tomatoes or its sequels),

10. Myths (e.g., the Robert Gibbon Johnson story) and misconceptions,

11. Tomatoes and sex (no misconceptions there, and no conceptions, either, I suppose [smile]),

12. Enthusiast organizations and festivals (the most spectacular is in Spain),

13. Etymology of popular and scientific names (where did the name lycopersicum -- Wolf Peach -- come from?), and

14. Home growing and cooking (somewhat).

I know of course that there are many books on how to grow tomatoes, and many recipe books, and I certainly don't intend to compete with such books. What I am thinking of is something that would not only contain quite a lot of information about a broad range of subjects relating to tomatoes, but also use tomatoes as a lens to look into some of the things mentioned (history, biology, even cosmology: for example, without supernovas, tomatoes could not exist).

Needless to say, with such a range of topics, I could only cover most things in a fairly summary manner; the selling point would be its breadth, not its depth on any subject. I would make reference to other books for more depth on a given subject.
Would you buy such a book? At Amazon prices? Would it be better to have lots of pictures, maps etc. and a higher price or fewer of such things and a lower price?

There the various books on other food items, some of which have done quite well in the market, notably Mark Kurlanskys three books, on cod, salt and oysters, respectively. There is also one on the potato by Larry Zuckerman and one on the olive by Mort Rosenblum.

Each of those is, however, somewhat less comprehensive than what I outlined above, which brings me to a second question: Should I cut back the scope and make it a bit deeper in the areas retained? If so, what should I leave in or keep out? Should I make it pretty much purely a history book with a particular twist, like KurlanskyÂs? Or would that narrow the audience too much?

Just to elaborate for a moment, a historical work would start with the break-up of Pangaea, the latest supercontinent, which started drifting apart 200 million years ago. The breakup resulted in separate biospheres developing in the Americas and Eurasia, which meant that the tomato was unknown to the bulk of humankind until the the last 500 years. During that time humans have, from a biological perspective, re-united the divided parts of Pangaea. Before they did so, the tomato spread from its origin in the alto plano of the West Coast of South America to what is today Mexico and Central America, but not to what is today the US (why it didnÂt is an interesting issue I would try to explore) or anywhere else. In the last 300 years or so, it has been adopted into almost every food tradition on earth.

How and when it did so is a story that, to my knowledge, has never been fully told, except as it relates to the US (in Andrew SmithÂs book cited below). Telling that story would allow me to bloviate on various subjects such as international trade routes and social history.

As I write that last paragraph, it occurs to me that this story alone would be quite an undertaking, one that could not really be done justice in a single chapter of a broader book. But then ÂÂare the 30 million home tomato gardeners in the US going to buy a history book? Or will you want growing tips, recipes, cosmology, sexual innuendo and genetics and such thrown in? I suppose I could include some of those topics in a book that is primarily a history, but would a book that is primarily a history that grab your attention, or, more relevantly, give you an uncontrollable urge to buy it?

Hey, maybe I could include OprahÂs favorite tomato recipes. I could put that in a chapter entitled, "the tomato and popular culture."

I would appreciate any thoughts any of you may have.

Thanks very much,

Jonathan

P.S.: I have looked at the following, none of which (it seems to me) is quite what I have in mind:

1. Tantalizing Tomatoes, ed. by Karen Davis Cutler (New York 1997)
2. The Tomato in America, by Andrew Smith (Columbia, S.C. 1994)
3. The Great Tomato Book, by Gary Ibsen (Berkeley 1999)
4. The Great Tomato Book, by Sheila Bluff (Short Hills, N.J. 1999)

(The preceding two books have the same title and were published in the same year; rather remarkable.)

5. In Praise of Tomatoes, by Steven Shepherd (New York 1996)
6. Exploring the Tomato, by Mark Harvey, Steve Quilley and Huw Beynon (Cheltenham, U.K. 2002)
7. All About Tomatoes, by Walter L. Doty (? 1981)
8. Terrific Tomatoes, by Mimi Luebbermann and Faith Echtermeyer (? 1994)
9. 100 Heirloom Tomatoes for the American Garden, by Carolyn J. Male (New York 1999)