Publisher’s Lunch reports on a major novel deal for The Lace Reader:

Brunonia Barry’s originally self-published debut supernatural thriller THE LACE READER, about a woman who can see the future by reading patterns in lace who returns home to Salem, Massachusetts after her great-aunt goes missing, to Laurie Chittenden at William Morrow, in a major deal, reportedly for $2 million (NY Mag), at auction, by Rebecca Oliver at Endeavor (world English).

Your book proposal is an essential tool to sell your book to a publisher, before you write it.

How to ‘Invent’ Your Book – Entrepreneur.com
suggests: “Prepare a comprehensive book proposal. This should include a detailed outline of your vision for the entire book, including each chapter; your background and what qualifies you to write on your given topic; a market evaluation of similar and successful books currently on the market and an explanation as to why yours is different; and a few sample chapters to demonstrate your writing style and your ability to produce valuable content.”

When you join my new membership site for authors, you receive Get Paid To Write A Book: Write A Non-Fiction Book Proposal And Sell It as part of your membership. In addition, you’ll receive templates and sample proposals, so you have models to follow.

So many books, so much competition, you’ll think as you walk into a bookstore. With so many books published each year, while writing a book is an achievement, promoting your book is vital. If you don’t promote your book with your own fair hands, it won’t find readers.

The promotions (marketing) aspect of book publication comes as a nasty shock to many writers.

Relax, promotion is fun, when you approach it in the right spirit.

An author who’s definitely doing just that blogs on Half of Me.

On her About page, the author of Half of Me says: “I am writing a book about my weight-loss experience called Half-Assed: A Weight-Loss Memoirfor Seal Press which will be published in May 2008 (click to pre-order from Amazon at the discounted advance price of $10.85!).”

As her book’s title suggests, this blog is both humorous and useful.

Does your book need a blog? Yes indeed. Writing a blog is the easiest way to get publicity for your book. Ideally, you’ll start to blog when you get an idea for your book, and will continue to blog long after your book is published.

We’ll be discussing blogging your book on the membership site; giving you lots of inspiration, a guide and on-going tips.

For every author who’s written and published a book there are many more who’ve got a book cluttering up their computer hard drive year after year.

To become a published author, who sells books to major publishers regularly, or who sells ebooks, your sales skills are just as important as your writing skills. In my new membership site just for authors, you’ll develop both those vital skills.

I love big historical novels, and was engrossed by Labyrinth, Kate Mosse’s bestseller. It also intrigued me that this bestseller was blogged, because I adore blogging, and recommend it to writers.

In this article on the release of her new novel Kate Mosse talks about her follow-up to her huge hit Labyrinth Kate Mosse talks about the secret of writing a bestseller: “So what is the secret to a bestseller? ‘This is the thing I feel strongly about, if you can do things that really matter to you, not thinking about where they’re going to lead, but just the thing that seemed right to give your time to, whether it works out or not, you feel satisfied, and that you enjoyed yourself on the way.

‘If instead you do it because you want to be here in two years, or five years, you spend all your time measuring yourself by things that are not achievable.’”

This is excellent advice for writing any kind of book: write the book YOU want to write. If instead you write a book for what you presume are market conditions, then you’re at the mercy of the market. Not only that, your book runs the risk of sounding manufactured.

It’s surprisingly easy to assess how a writer felt when writing a book. If you think your editor won’t notice that you’re struggling, or are bored witless, you’re wrong.

When you write the book that you want to write, not only will you have fun along the way, but your readers will have fun too. And a book that’s a page-turner is the sign of a publishable book.