Scale By The Bay 2019 UnConference: Jess Haberman, What Not to do When Pitching a Book

Scale By The Bay 2019 UnConference: Jess Haberman, What Not to do When Pitching a Book

Recording: Scale By The Bay 2019 UnConference: Jess Haberman, What Not to do When Pitching a Book

thank you all for coming I'm Jess Haberman I'm the senior acquisitions editor for data science at O'Reilly Media and my talk is about what not to do when pitching a book and we'll talk about other different formats of content as well but I just want to talk about best practices and and we'll just jump into it so that it's I sort of have three things to not do and three things to do so we'll start with the do not do so the first thing is do not assume submit a proposal yet you know make sure you're ready and here are the things you want to do find out which editor manages the space for the topic that you want to write about or that you that you've already written about you might have content done already this isn't difficult to do just like Google search like check LinkedIn get a contact an editor contact at the publisher where you want to pitch and and ask who manages the space let them know the topic that you're planning and they'll get you in touch with the right person that helps you get to the person who's making the decision for you and who can sort of speak most with the meet with the most information about whether it makes sense you might if you're flexible in your topic you might talk to the editor about what kinds of topics and information they're looking for that's a really helpful way to make sure that you're aligned with with the publishers interests it if before giving them proposal especially if you've if it's not completed yet you might just suggest a couple ideas and and you might have a brainstorming call with your editor these are all like really great ways to sort of get you know all your all your thoughts formulated in a really sort of business forward kind of proposal and make sure you've done your research like know know what topic or topic so you want to talk about and know what the market is for that content that just means looking up what else is out there and that might be other books it might be training courses on different sites it might be YouTube videos it might be medium articles there are a lot of different formats for content just know like who's talking about the topic and what information is freely available versus what might be available in more long form and and know that know what the submission guidelines are for the publisher and have their proposal template with you before you get started so though that's a lot of stuff to do before you submit an actual proposal when you're actually writing a proposal my biggest pet peeve is to tell your editor that there's nothing available on the topic that you're writing about um one that's probably not true like I said like it can take and form in a lot of different formats so it might be a video it might be a medium article there is something out there if there is nothing out there on your topic I do not want it I don't want to be the editor or the publisher that's putting something out there for the first time without data to support that it is worth are an significant investment so so definitely it's more important to have the right book to market than the first book to market at least that's a Riley stands like there may be other publishers who have a different strategy and you can you can start to figure that out with a little bit a little bit of research and just and know that your editor is forming a business case to to invest in the book you know a book is an investment of many thousands of dollars for the company so they need to be able to prove that it's really worth the company's investment so think about it you may feel very like personally you know connected to the topic or to the people who are writing about that topic you might have be very passionate about it which is also good but know that we're making a business decision so I'm so bring data to bring like very well researched data to your book proposal you'll see in a template from O'Reilly that we asked very specific questions you know we use resources like Google Trends you know like the number of presentations at a top conference on a specific topic you know YouTube you know views you know we might look at a like somebody's Twitter handle or or hashtag to see how popular it is what the engagement looks like so there's a lot of ways to present data um and then you know the technology should be mature enough to remain up to date for three to four years after you've proposed the content so think long term you know if if it's a cool brand new tool that you think is really interesting and you know a lot about it that's great but if it's still changing a lot we need to think twice before we put print content into the world that it's hard to change so those are my first do not sorrow one more one more do not do is do not try to please everyone know who your audience is you know carefully identify your target audience for example there's a couple things I see often in proposals where especially for a beginner audience targeting both students and you know experienced somewhat experienced practitioners that's hard those are two different audiences really they buy books in different ways you know they're buying college textbooks versus they're they're buying something maybe on O'Reilly comm or on Amazon so those are things to think about another example is content that targets executive leaders and data engineers they have very different goals and they're in in their structure in different ways so so think about who who is gonna most benefit from their content you know in terms of knowing your audience who's reading your proposal that is different from who is reading your book so you're writing content in your proposal for both audiences your your description is targeting the person who wants to read your book but your data for doing the book is targeting the people at the publisher that might be you know that's gonna be your editor that might be your editors boss that might be other folks who are sort of weighing in maybe a sales team so that's something to keep in mind into as well and and just know what the challenges are for your audience you know what's motivating them to seek out your book are their keywords that they're searching for these are all things that you'll be asked in a proposal to to be thinking about so those are the the three to sum up the three do nots do not submit a proposal until you're ready don't tell your editor there's nothing else like your content out there and don't try to please everyone any questions before we move on to the things you do want to do no questions from the masses okay so we'll continue so be open-minded consider other projects and opportunities that can lead to your dream project you know you especially if you're a first-time author you know diving into a brand new book a big comprehensive book on a new tool is daunting and it takes a long time so there may your editor might steer unit different direction so that your dream project can become more of a reality and that you can accomplish it better so you that might mean serving as like an online course instructor we do that at O'Reilly quite a lot and there are a lot of really great opportunities to do that you might present your concept a few conferences first that really helps to get some like people on the ground who are using that that particular tool technology get there get Q&A s and understand where those folks are having trouble because identifying the problems that they're having is going to be like the best material for your for your project another another option is to serve as a reviser sort of a lead like a lead a co-author in a book that exists that you know that the original author may not be able to take on um so we do this a lot that really should be led by your by your editor unless there's a book you know and that you believe has been successful that you see is out of date and that you want to help revise like you know if you can reach out to an editor and say like hey like what's happening with you know sequel cookbook like and you know anymore like oh yeah we really like to revise that we're strong what the original author to make that happen so can you help us that might be an opportunity for for you as well something to consider and then and and then when if you're if you're pitching a new book you might consider a co author or co-author team that might mean people that you work with am i mean people outside of your company to be able to sort of tag-team and have a broader perspective in terms of the project you're putting together and that might you know it's always good for us to have diverse voices and diverse opinions and just diversity in general so always be thinking about like who else can I loop in that's also important when you think about we hire tech reviewers so we want to make sure that that there are other folks looking at the material I often look ask tech reviewers to look at my proposal and to look at the content as its delivered so we constantly have other voices sort of chiming in to make sure we're on the right track because trust me they know a lot more about data engineering than I do so it's always good to have a few experts in your back pocket so I mentioned this a little bit do offer a solution to a problem you know it's really important that you have a clear point of view that your again you're not trying to please everyone you have a you have an opinion about how to solve a problem but be agnostic if you can you know there's probably a lot of different tools to try to you know solve a problem for example you know a few are pitching something on data quality there are a lot of tools for cleaning and pre-processing data so I would rather see a project that talks about the variety of tools then you know one tool in general that widens the audience a little bit and and helps you just just share just a more diverse opinion about a few different tools that can be helpful and then my last my last two do is to think broadly you know if you're writing a book for example you're going to need to fill 300 to 500 pages ideally you're not writing more than that like please don't give me 700 pages on any but sometimes happens but in a proposal that's probably where you're gonna end up being maybe 250 but like 250 to 500 is really the area you're you're trying to fit your no matter like if you're in that span you're going to need at least 10 chapters so think about how you organize that content like how can you break it up into really digestible chunks so that it's understandable to the reader and there it's easy to idea to digest and your editor can help you with this so you know it's always good to just work closely with your editor on an outline and just always think about your proposal as a draft it's it's you know don't get too attached to anything in particular especially a title you know don't get attached to like what your cover is gonna look like or what animal you want your cover all these things our decisions that gave me throughout the process and you should always try to be open-minded about what that process looks like and it helped other informed opinions be part of that process as well so those those three again are like be open-minded offer solution to a problem and to think broadly so that that's basically my three do's and dont's any questions about any of that okay I can answer for you guys okay all right well I covered everything clearly so that's great so please feel free if you have a project that you'd like to propose or you have some topics that you've been mulling reach out to me I'm here today and tomorrow I'm happy to set up a meeting or just we can like meet in the hallway for 10 minutes that's totally fine again my name is Jess Haberman a JB er ma N and I'm on LinkedIn I'm the only Jeff haverman and O'Reilly so I'm not hard to find so reach out if I can help you in any way and thanks for listening you