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7 Things Publishers Really Want: Book Business Plan

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Business Partners: Teamwork: Author, PublisherWhat publishers seek in an aspiring author doesn’t just involve your book idea or even your writing. You need a book business plan.

By producing a business plan for your book, you’ll have done the work to prove your idea is, indeed, one publishers want.

Business Partners

You have a product you want to market (book). You seek a financial partner (publisher) for the creation and production of that product. To land the deal, you present the potential partner your business plan (book proposal.) If acceptable, they offer you a contract, which, once signed, the two of you go into business together. You become Business Partners.

But how to you land a traditional publisher? Let’s examine what a publisher (acquisitions editor and book publishing review board) examine when considering your “book business plan.”

The 7 Things a Publisher Considers

Publishers are seeking aspiring authors who are also good business people. So, you must prove that you and your book idea are an acceptable financial risk.

Your book proposal should include all seven of the following:

  1. Idea. Good idea unique and necessary in its category.
  2. Market.  Your market analysis should indicate the potential for reader interest.
  3. Competition. Similar books in your category must show a proven track record.
  4. Credentials and author platform. A proven ability to write and a large built-in readership (platform) for your target audience.
  5. Promotion Plan. A concrete, creative and extensive plan to use your author platform for sales in various ways (3-12 months and beyond.)
  6. Plans to write more books. Publishers week multiple-book authors. The more you write, the more they sell. It is wise for the publisher to invest in authors who continue to produce products.
  7. The manuscript or sample chapters. Prove you can produce a quality, well-written product that will sell.

Other reading:

Think you have what it takes? Get Published.

This article  summarized from Writer’s Digest “Do You Have What Publishers Really Want?,” Nina Amir, April 8, 2014—accessed November 18, 2021.

SPECTER ~ The Lazarus Project, A Paranormal Suspense Thriller

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S.P.E.C.T.E.R. - The Lazarus Project, Book 1READ A SAMPLE | SHARE | BUY
~ A PARANORMAL SUSPENSE THRILLER

See all Books by Carrie Merrill

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In the afterglow, the grid vanished, and Ryan’s breath caught in her throat when she saw what remained. There was Jean, walking through her living room just as she had imagined her. Except, this woman was outlined in a halo of blue light—a hologram with every living detail that had been Jean—when she was alive.
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When gifted homicide detective Ryan Mills is recruited to a top-secret FBI division known as S.P.E.C.T.E.R., the world of the supernatural becomes more real than she could have ever imagined. She is introduced to an incredible device known as LAZARUS, which can replay the events of a crime with the smallest pieces of available evidence. With the help of her new partner, Special Agent Sam Masters, and Dr. Matthew Holbrook, the research scientist who created Lazarus, Ryan is plunged into the paranormal exploration of unsolved murders.

But Ryan holds a secret, one she can’t share with her partner or Holbrook. That secret comes back to haunt her when a homicide crime scene holds clues to someone from her past and has torn at the edges of an eighteen-year old cold case: the disappearance and possible murder of her own sister. The killer has scrawled a message meant only for Special Agent Ryan Mills:

“Yesterday, upon the stair, I met a man who wasn’t there . . .”

He’s back. The only person who knows what happened to her sister. And he knows something about Ryan too… something even she doesn’t know—yet.

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A Carrie Merrill novel. Visit CarrieMerrill.com

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Where I’m Bound, A Civil War Novel by Allen Ballard

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Where I'm Bound A Civil War Novel by Allen Ballard
Available from FSP Bookstore, Amazon and Everywhere Books are Sold

Where I’m Bound, a stunning and engaging Civil War novel, was the first novel (in 2000) to focus solely on the soldiers of an African American regiment. Throughout the war, more than 180,000 African-American men fought for the Union Army. Many were escaped slaves, others were freed men; yet all voluntarily enlisted for one cause: freedom. For the first time in fiction, their experiences are successfully portrayed in a manner befitting the grandeur and scope of their contributions. Inspired by the true story of a black cavalry unit in Mississippi, renowned African-American historian Allen Ballard weaves factual events with the fictional account of an escaped slave, Joe Duckett, who flees to join the Northern Army.

When Duckett escapes his life of bondage to become a cavalry scout, he grows to be more than a free man-he becomes a hero. Duckett and his hard-riding regiment roam the Mississippi Delta, freeing slaves and keeping vital waterways open for the Union. As the war approaches its final, tragic days, Duckett embarks on his most dangerous mission yet: to return to the plantation from which he escaped in order to reunite with his wife and daughter.

More than just an account of Civil War, Where I’m Bound is an affecting portrayal of the psychological effects of war. Through the character Duckett, some of war’s greatest tragedies are painfully evoked-the agonizing separation from family, the horrendous mission of having to kill another man, and the cruelty and moral corruption that occur when men’s passions are their greatest weapons against one another. This story of one man’s ability to meet such overwhelming challenges brings to life the noble fight for freedom as displayed by African-American soldiers as well as the effects of the fight on an entire country and culture.

Where I’m Bound is a striking blend of historical fact and dramatic storytelling brilliantly illustrating the accomplishments of African-American Civil War soldiers. Where I’m Bound is destined to become a classic novel of the Civil War.

Voices in the Past: Journeys Beyond the Peaks (The Journeys Saga) by M.F. Erler

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Voices in the Past, Journeys Saga by M.F. Erler
Available from FSP Bookstore, Amazon, B&N and everywhere books are sold

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In this historical fiction novel, thirteen-year-old Cinda Parker knows she and her brother Ian have a special mental connection. When a mysterious stranger, Lexi, arrives from the future, they realize they are more than typical mid-twenty-first century children.

Lexi convinces the siblings to travel back 200 years into the minds and lives of their ancestors, in order to help their father, who is dealing with grief over his own father’s death and anger with his brother’s questionable choices.

When their family line is disrupted, Cinda and Ian learn the true value of one single life.

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Journeys Beyond the Peaks: Voices in the Past is a spin-off of M.F. Erler’s popular seven-book series: The Peaks Saga. As the first book in this new saga, “Voices in the Past” moves the characters from time-travel future to time-travel past. Based on stories of the author’s ancestors, this book offers unique and interesting perspectives of how descendants can learn from their past, and sheds more light on the families first introduced in The Peaks Saga. As these characters move through their lives, they show how all of us are products of our pasts, our present, and the future.

An M.F. Erler novel. Visit PeaksAndBeyond.com

Time of Death, Not all Secrets Stay Buried by Carrie Merrill

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Time of Death, Not All Secrets Stay Buried, by Carrie MerrillREAD A SAMPLE | SHARE | BUY
~ A PARANORMAL GHOSTLY THRILLER

See all Books by Carrie Merrill

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Evan finds herself lost in a world between life and death, but something else is there with her. Something sinister, demanding that its secrets be revealed.
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Dr. Evan Jensen is a fourth-year resident in a General Surgery program at St. John’s Hospital in Chicago, where she must face life and death decisions on a daily basis. After she is the passenger in a horrific car accident, she is taken to the same trauma hospital where she works. Comatose and with life-threatening injuries, random and misty images dance around in her silent brain. Evan finds herself lost in a world between life and death, but something else is there with her. Something sinister and terrifying.

Once she awakens, she is locked in a body that is unable to walk and with a serious brain injury. Through weeks of painful therapy in the hospital’s rehabilitation unit, she becomes aware that she didn’t return to this life alone. Perhaps the waking nightmares and whispers in the dark of her room are a product of a damaged brain, or maybe they come from somewhere else, in the most hidden corners of the hospital. Maybe, they are a warning from the locked north wing on the seventh floor, a place that nobody will talk about. A place where something tragic and terrible occurred years before Evan arrived there. And now it demands its secrets to be revealed.
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A Carrie Merrill novel. Visit CarrieMerrill.com

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TATTOO 313, a political thriller

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TATTOO 313, a political thriller by Pat WileyREAD A SAMPLE | SHARE | BUY
~ Dead dogs, a cryptic email, and a suspicious death.

When Jack Quinn’s friend, Tom, is found dead by apparent suicide, Jack turns to a cryptic email for answers. Then, when Tom’s wife goes missing, he uncovers a far more disturbing truth that will send the country spiraling out of control.

While investigating suspicious activity of dead animals being buried on a Connecticut river island, Jack is drugged and kidnapped by terrorists. After escaping captivity, Jack is unable to warn the country in time and the terrorists unleash the deadly virus on New York city. Thousands die and the country falls into chaos. President Cain orders martial law, suspending the writ of habeas corpus until those responsible are apprehended.

Yet, armed with a unique knowledge of the attack, Jack uncovers a far more shocking truth—one that reaches to the highest office in the land.

A Jack Quinn political thriller, Book 3 in the Jack Quinn book series

Where All Worlds End, Book 7, The Peaks Saga

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Martina’s past and her depressions have come back to haunt her, even though she should be content to see her time-traveling daughter, Celestia, married to Laken Meta, a Time Portal Guardian. Instead she flees to The System, putting herself and all her family in jeopardy.

Will they be able to get her back, despite the dangers they all face? Will Dain and his younger brother, Evin, two teens from present day Earth, be able to help–with their special GAP-crossing abilities?

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“…a page turner!” —Judith Seidel

“I remember fondly reading The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe when I was in middle school. The Peaks at the Edge of the World has a similar mix of fantasy and adventure with a moral tale at its center. This is a book that’s appropriate for a younger audience than most sci fi/fantasy novels. Enjoy the read!” —Kathy Dunhoff, Zola Award-winning Women’s Fiction Writer

“…start with a religious/fantasy base, then adds a dollop of ‘A Wrinkle in Time’, mixed in a sprinkling of ‘Narnia’ and spice it up with a little romance.”

“M.F. Erler is an intriguing story-teller. The Peaks at the Edge of the World was hard to put down. I had many sleepless nights because I couldn’t wait to find out what happened next!”

An M.F. Erler book. Visit PeaksAndBeyond.com