Welcome back to your Do-it-Yourself MFA program.

In traditional publishing, fiction and non-fiction are sold in two very different ways. To get an agent or sell a piece of fiction, you need to have a completed manuscript.

Therefore, if you want to write fiction, go do it and we’ll meet back here for the next part, which is getting an agent (and why you want to have one).

Nonfiction is different: To get an agent or sell a work of nonfiction, you usually write what is called a book proposal and sample chapters, which is what we’re going to talk about today.

The reason is pretty simple — agents (and then publishers) are going to want to tweak and focus nonfiction projects before they’re written. It’s much harder to guide a project when the author has finished the book (and is holding firm to the idea that her way is the best way to relay the material to the reader). But editors will want to guide the process, because they can see a bigger picture that you can’t — namely, how readers like to receive information based on numerous past projects and past reader reactions.

Remember back when I did the roll call in Part One?  It’s time for you to go back there and hook up with someone else who wants to write non-fiction on a topic very unlike your own (since they’ll be seeing your ideas).  Feel free to form online groups of more than two and set up an Google Group to house your exchanges.  Or grab someone from your face-to-face world who will read this post and then give you feedback on how well you’re hitting the goals.  And check out the people who are participating over at BlogHer.

A book proposal is a formal piece of writing with a format that allows agents (and later, publishers) to scan the document quickly and find what they are looking for. This is not a time to get creative with format and make your proposal into a three-dimensional shoebox diorama. Give the agents exactly what they want. Consider this as important as wearing the proper attire to a meeting.

You will be judged on the look of your proposal. If it’s put together in a sloppy manner, if you’re recycling an old copy that was sent back to you from an agent who rejected it (but covered it first with coffee stains), or if it doesn’t contain the necessary information, it doesn’t matter how brilliant your idea is — no one will want to work with you. Agents are looking for an easy reason to reject your work. Don’t give it to them.

All proposals contain these parts (and this is the order I give them):

• Overview: 5 pages or so on what the book is about (definitely could be shorter, but not longer).  Spend a lot of time writing this part because it’s the first thing the agent reads and you want to pull them in.  Do you have a shocking statistic?  Put it at the front of the overview to point out how important it is that people read your book.  You can start it with an anecdote.  The point is to give the agent a taste of your writing style while also telling them about the book.  Think of it this way: if you only had 3 minutes to sit across from the agent and convince them to represent your book, what would you say?  Keep the writing formal–in other words, third person.  And make sure you say how many words you predict will be in the book to give a sense of size and how long you’ll need to write the book from the time you sign the contract.  Use this space to get the agent excited about the project.
• Markets for the Book: in other words, who the hell would want to buy your book.  Give statistics and get creative.  For my non-fiction infertility book, I pointed out that the book would be helpful for those experiencing infertility, but it was also a book that doctors, nurses, adoption agency directors, therapists, and family members might want to read too.  Is there a specific place/conference where your book could be sold (a biography of Dolly Parton?  Might be good to sell that at Dollywood)?
• Competitive Books: what are the books currently on the market that would be competition for your book?  As you tell the agent about those books, also tell how your book is different and fills a gap that other book does not.
• About the Author: your biography–but more.  This is where you need to effusively explain why you are the best person to write this book.  Tell about your platform (remember that word from the last installment?).  List any awards, the url for your blog, or your education background.
• Promotion: what are you willing to do and what can you do to sell your book?  If you have media ties, this is the place to list them.  If you speak at conferences that are related to your topic, are a member of an organization related your topic, or write for other sites that are related to your topic (did you get that it has to be related to your topic?), but those connections here.  This is a place to show the agent that you have considered the business side to writing and are going to be a cheerleader for your own project (because if you’re not–why should they be?).
• List of Chapters and Chapter Outlines: on the first page, place all the chapters and their titles.  Then, on the subsequent pages, write one page for each chapter, giving a summary of what you plan to write.
• Sample Chapters: write two or three chapters of the book.  You don’t need to write them in order.  Most people turn in the introductory chapter and then one other chapter from the middle of the book.  Make sure they’re your most interesting chapters.  And take your time with these–they are very important.  Consider them your audition.

A proposal may end up being between 50–100 pages when you factor in the sample chapters.  So this isn’t a small thing you can whip up in one day.  Take your time.

And think about your proposal like pulling a piece of clay — you have an idea in mind of where you want it to be at the end, but you need to be flexible and fluid to get it there. Remember back when you wrote a paper at college and you came up with the thesis and then needed to tweak it 100 times as you did your research? Well, your proposal sort of needs to have that flexibility, too. You may need to tweak it 100 times as you conduct more research or write those first chapters. You may even decide in the middle of writing the proposal that this book is not worth writing. And that’s sort of the point — by making yourself tease the idea out on paper, you can see whether or not it works before you begin writing the actual book.

I think the most important advice I can give is to look at your proposal as a sample of what is to come. If you have a humour book, your proposal better be pretty damn humourous. If you’re aiming for a breezy, best-friend-like tone for the book, your proposal better have a breezy, best-friend-like tone. The proposal is an extension of the book — it’s not separate from the book.

And the book is sort of an extension of you, so the proposal is an extension of you, too. Use your strengths. Do you write really moving blog posts that get people crying? You may not be the best person to put together a humourous proposal — but, on the other hand, you may rock at putting together a really moving proposal about a sensitive topic.

You’re going to be judged by your proposal. It’s not just about how well you can write, but whether the tone is engaging for the subject matter. Think of your proposal as a document that is getting 10 minutes of face time to show the person you are. You want them to like you or you want them to hire you. And you need to be yourself.

Okay class, any questions on what was discussed here? Please leave them in the comment section below and I will answer them in the comment section below. Keep in mind that I have a lot of topics to cover so your question may be answered in a future installment (see below). So keep your questions about non-fiction book proposals.

Heads Up and Looking Back: topics that will be covered in future installments or that were covered in past installments

1. Before You Even Get Started

2. Are You Ready to Be an Author?

3. THIS POST

4. Why You Need an Agent

5. How to Find and Sign with a Reputable Agent

6. Querying Agents

7. What Happens Next–Waiting for a Book Sale

8. No Agent? Other Paths to Publication

9. What to Expect After You Sign a Book Deal

10. Be Your Own Publicist

11. A Mishmash of Leftover Questions and Answers

I was at a blogging event in DC and I received a ticket for a free half hour session with a professional photographer.  It’s kismet that I also need a head shot for the new book as well as a brochure for a speaking event so I wrote her the day after the event to book my session.

Holy fucking Christ, she made me look so pretty.

I don’t think I photograph particularly well, especially when I’m conscious that there’s a camera pointed at me.  But Mary immediately put me at ease.  Her studio is in this gorgeous converted mill that I always knew existed but had never visited.  It is this fantastic space with antique velvet furniture.  If it had been socially acceptable, I would have wanted to curl up on one of the couches and read.

But I wasn’t there to read–I was there to get this head shot done.  The head shot for the first book was taken by Josh after I had stepped out of the shower.  We were on our way to run errands or eat sushi and I let my wet hair out of my bun, plopped down on some nearby steps, and he snapped the picture.  And I was fine with that in the same way that I was fine back when my blog layout was that free version provided by Blogger.  And then suddenly, one day I woke up and realized just how hideous my blog looked and how aesthetics do matter to an extent.  The same thing happened with my head shot, especially in regards to the book.  If I’m going to take a year and a half to craft a book (especially with all of those damn deadlines and late nights), I should put a little effort into even the head shot.

So Mary started moving me around the room, taking pictures in different types of light, on different pieces of furniture, talking to herself from time to time as she saw a shot she liked on the camera.  And I have to admit that I had low expectations because while she may have liked the shot, I think I look more like Frankenstein doing a fear grimace in most pictures of me.  But at one point, she flipped around the camera so I could see and it was incredible.  The woman in the frame looked polished and mature and relaxed and happy.

It finally clicked with me why I should have shelled out the $150 (that’s all it costs to get a head shot–$150!) two years ago.  The difference between a picture snapped by your husband on a point-and-shoot vs. a photograph artfully arranged by a professional photographer is day and night.

It will take two or three weeks to get my head shot back and when I do, I’ll post it on my blog and on the new book site.  But peruse her other photographs on her photo blog.  Isn’t her work amazing?  If you live in the D.C./Baltimore area, Love Life Images does amazing work.  You know how Josh brings out the best in me?  Well Mary captured that best in me on film–somehow, she got it to come out and caught it in a snap shot.

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I am still participating in Crystal Light’s Pure Fitness Challenge and I’m giving away a $100 gift card on my review blog.  Read and leave a comment to enter.

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22 months ago, I brought the twins to school for the first time and found myself unable to leave the building.  I hid in the library at the back of the school for…a while.  I will not admit to how many days I spent at the school.  The point is that Allison knew how impossible this moment was, how it brought back that screaming-on-the-inside (and in my case, also screaming-on-the-outside) feeling of leaving your child in the NICU and she offered to remain on the phone with me while I walked outside.

22 months later, we were out celebrating at a graduation dinner when I got word that Allison gave birth to beautiful and perfect Olivia Moonpie (fine, not her real name, but damn that’s a good nickname).  It was this strange symmetry of beginnings and ending, with school and now with this new life.  And I think the entire restaurant must have thought our table was crazy over the way we cheered as I read the message.

Congratulations, Allison, and may the first days be sweet days.

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The Weekly What If: What if you had to get stuck on an amusement park ride (choose your amusement park from Disney to a boardwalk funhouse) for 8 hours, but the ordeal would grant you lifetime free admission to the park as well as a spot on a late night talk show to discuss the ordeal which leads to a book deal.  Which ride would you choose to get stuck on and ride in an endless loop?

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And now, the blogs…

Mom to Twins Plus One has a post (fine, it was last Thursday, but I didn’t read it until Friday, so I’m counting it as part of this week) about two losses in her family, but namely, her great uncle.  Her great aunt and uncle were unable to have children, so with his death, her great aunt loses her entire nuclear family.  While there are obviously other people in her aunt’s extended family–Solaris for one–she writes of the loss, “There really are no words to console her, she lost her love, her family, suddenly and sadly. She only wants to be with him and who can blame her.”  It is a heartbreaking post.

Baby, Borneo or Bust has a post about her move.  It was her last night in her old house and she wistfully writes, “It’s our last night in this room where we created her…our last night in this room where my water broke, where she and I spent much of those early months, coccooned in from the winter weather and the world.”  I don’t do well with change, so I read her post with my heart in my throat.  It’s a move that comes with possibly even more endings, and the post is brief and beautiful.

Braving IVF has a post about a dream that is followed by fresh bleeding after her D&C.  I cried when she wrote, “he said my dream was our little girl saying goodbye. (A week later, this still makes me tear up.) We’re not religious in the slightest, but I think he was right. My body realized it was letting go of the last little bit of her, and gave me that dream.”  It is an incredibly moving post.

Lastly, Once a Mother has a post about trying to wrap her mind around her daughter’s death.  She describes this feeling of powerlessness as “I feel like a pawn, anxiously awaiting whatever move the universe doles out for me next, and it’s terrifying.”  The part that made my heart break is her description of the scent of the soap.  You will not be able to read this post without crying too.

The roundup to the Roundup: A professional photographer takes my head shot.  Read my blatherings to win a $100 gift card.  Huge congratulations to Allison.  Answer the Weekly What If.  And four sad blog posts to read–perhaps creating a quiet sort of mood.

Back in 1989, America wept over the death of Shelby in Steel Magnolias. Like her mother M’Lynn (Sally Field) we wanted to know why. We wanted to “know how that baby will ever know how wonderful his mother was! Will he ever know what she went through for him!” And we cried buckets.

Shelby, the focus of the play and film, is a character based on author Robert Harling’s sister who died after complications from diabetes. While most women with diabetes can have a healthy and uneventful pregnancy, Shelby is given instructions by her doctor not to attempt pregnancy, disregards them because her desire to be a mother is so strong, and dies less than a year later after a failed kidney transplant.

Writing the play and the movie may have been an act of catharsis for Harling and his family (many of whom were on set or in the film), but it was also a cathartic movie for American filmgoers who could tap into Shelby’s desire for a child who is a combination of herself and her husband, Jackson, while cursing the unfairness of a child who loses his mother so young.

So why the hell are we so judgmental of Rajo Devi Lohan?

The Indian woman made history by becoming the oldest woman to give birth at age 70. She is currently dying, having never recovered from complications after pregnancy. While there may be 70-year-old bodies that can withstand and bounce back from birth, like Shelby, Rajo took a risk and is currently paying the price.

Yet also like Shelby, it is a price Lohan feels is worth the prize. She states:

I dreamed about having a child all my life. It does not matter to me that I am ill, because at least I lived long enough to become a mother.

It’s a sentiment many can relate to even if we wouldn’t make the same choices, yet when we steer into cultural territory, we suddenly stop seeing the misty-eyed Shelbyness of it all and instead begin an ethnocentric-laden judgment of women willing to die in order to create life. Where it’s admirable from Shelby, it’s selfish from Lohan. With Shelby, we cluck that you just never know what will happen to a young mother–any of us could die after birth. With Lohan, we snarl that she greedily just created a motherless child.

Yet few can understand the pressure that exists within certain cultures to produce a child, and it’s a sentiment that is summed up by Deva Singh, father of the triplets born to the oldest triplet mother in the world (a spring chicken at 66).

Bhateri has fulfilled my dream of having a child and giving my family an heir. She was my first wife and after she failed to conceive a child, I married twice but again. I did not have any child from my other wives also.

Americanly, I would have been pissed as all get out if Josh had taken a second wife while we were battling infertility. But examining Singh’s statement with cultural relativism, I see how strong the need for an heir is that it would move a man to take multiple wives (and support multiple wives) in order to have a single child. And seeing the length a man would go through to build a family, I can begin to understand the length Lohan or Singh went through to achieve pregnancy and give birth. The need for an heir trumps happiness, it trumps love, it trumps money or health. And while it’s not a cultural standard I would choose for myself and luckily, I don’t live in a society where Josh could take a second wife due to my wonky ovaries, I can still appreciate a culture that is different from my own.

After all, I have a strong feeling that other countries look at Steel Magnolias and shake their head over Shelby’s hubris. Believing she knew more than her doctor? Believing that everything would work out in the end despite evidence to the contrary? Start examining her actions under a judgmental microscope and you’ll wonder why you cried over her death rather than thrown something at the screen. But just as I give Lohan and Singh room to make their choices, I also give the Shelbys of the world the room to follow their heart. And damn it, I still get choked up just thinking about that funeral scene.

Cross-posted with BlogHer (so check out the comments there too).

In case you weren’t aware, as a blood-thirsty, vampire-like infertile woman, you want to steal another person’s baby.  Some people instinctively know this, so they joke at parties about how they’d like to give their shrieking infant to you (“You want a child?  Take this one!”).  They cock their head to the side and they tell you earnestly that they really really wish this baby growing in their belly was yours because it’s “your turn.”

But others do not know this, and this is why articles like this need to be written; to tell Americans that desperate women want to steal their baby.

With a box-cutter c-section.

But wait!  Though earlier coverage of this story gave vague facts such as the attacker, Veronica Deramous, wanted to “adopt her baby” and that “Deramous had been telling people she was pregnant though she wasn’t and her reason for attacking Adams was likely to keep the baby for her own” at no point do reporters use the term infertile.  In fact, at this point, we know nothing about Deramous’s reasons for wanting this particular baby nor do we hear anything more than conjecture in the second part of Mundy’s article since she states that the motive is still a big question.

Yet why do the detectives, “say they think that Deramous, 40, is no longer able to have children, for reasons other than age.”  On what grounds do they imply infertility?

This word possibly becomes assumed because this story meshes with a long string of fictional infertile and baby loss attackers to perpetuate the idea that baby lust can be felt so strongly that it would make an otherwise sane woman tie up a pregnant woman for days and attempt to cut the baby out of her womb.

If it’s not a full length feature film such as Waterland, it’s a mainstream television show such as Private Practice.  I’m sure there are others, but I’m too busy plotting how to steal a baby to come up with another.

Meanwhile, news coverage sensationalizes the story, pointing out that “if you’re fixated on having a baby, and then you see a tv show or you hear about another example of a woman going and trying to get a baby out of a womb, all of a sudden, that plays into your own delusional system and it becomes an idea that you’re going to act on.”

Hear that infertile, baby-fixated women?  You just heard this story and now you’re going to go act on it.  Pregnant women beware!

I say this tongue-in-cheek because of the ridiculous nature of this belief.  It begins with this thought that infertile women want a baby, therefore, they must want any baby.  Hence why those outside the situation often feel it their place to offer advice on how to reach parenthood counter to the feelings of the people actually experiencing infertility.  Those attempting treatments are told to “just adopt” and those adopting are questioned as to whether they really gave treatments a chance.

Just as those who conceive without assistance make decisions about family building from when to start trying to how many children to have, those who do need assistance simply have an extra layer of decisions to make such as which family building path to use.  But just as it would be annoying for those outside the person or couple to weigh in with their opinions on what month is the best month for a delivery, those who are using assisted conception or adoption to build their family often feel annoyed when people make suggestions without weighing the multitude of factors that go into choosing a path.

The “any baby” belief snowballs into “if they want any baby, then they could even want my baby” with the mistaken notion that the longing for parenthood can become strong enough to turn an otherwise sane person into a baby stealing nightmare.

But Veronica Deramous was anything but sane.  She was a woman with four children (one of whom assisted her in keeping Teka Adams hostage), a jail record, and a history of deception.  She committed forgery and identity theft, ran up debt under other people’s names.  She lied about being pregnant when she wasn’t.

Liza Mundy’s article feels a bit like watching a horror film.  With so many actual scary possibilities in the world, what good can come of watching Freddie Kruger pick off teenagers?  And what is the purpose of placing the reader in the horrifically graphic story, especially one that is backed up by this fact in the second part of the article:

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children documented 13 U.S. cases of successful removal of a fetus by an abductor from 1987 through last July.

13 cases in 23 years!  This is hardly a situation that demands greater understanding.  Until we are going to fill the newspaper with the more common moment-by-moment break down of a rape (“89,000 women reported being raped in 2008“), something it would behoove the general public to think about a bit more, I’m not sure why we are focusing on the outlandish crimes that while are personally horrific to those involved in those 13 cases, hardly effect the greater population.  You have a greater chance of losing your child while doing nothing (stillbirth rate: 1 out of 160 deliveries) than you do being one of the people who has your child forcefully removed from your body.

Yet still, the message continues with the profile of this sort of attacker according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.  I’ll give you three guesses as to the main criteria…

According to the center’s profile of a typical abductor, the woman may have children of her own but may be no longer able to bear children.

And it all returns to those blood-thirsty, vampire-like infertile women who will do anything to grab a child, any child.

Cross-posted with BlogHer (so check out the comments there too).

For the past few weeks (and a few weeks more), I’ve been doing a partial unplugging.  It’s sort of neither here nor there; I’m not firmly online nor am I firmly off.  Which means that there’s no sense of recharging but there’s also little catch-up.  It’s sort of the best and worst of all possible worlds.

Does it have to be all or nothing?  Some people write posts proudly stating how they turned off the computer and electronic devices for a whole weekend and how it changed their entire outlook on life.

There was a great New York Times article on how kids wish their parents would partially unplug and I’d extend that to…um…everyone.  I get annoyed when the person I’m with is spending more time checking their mobile device than they are interacting with me.  It’s one thing to be sitting online at a conference–I expect everyone at BlogHer this summer will be tweeting while we’re talking–it’s another to be out to dinner.

My partial unplug has been a matter of logistics.  I had an edit due followed by end-of-year activities and the start of summer activities.  Some things have to give and it’s not just cooking and cleaning–it’s computer time too.

It took me almost two weeks to add some people to the blogroll.  I managed to throw up the LFCA, but I didn’t get to click over myself and read full posts.  I read and commented on blogs, but not in the amounts I usually do.  I checked email and answered all of it, but in big chunks sometimes several days later rather than doing it in drips and drabs during the day.

And everyone has survived so far.  Including me.

Yet, at the same time, the Internet is addictive in the same way that chocolate is addictive.  I’m not eating a piece right now, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t think about it constantly or crave it or consider buying some when I see it in the store or choose it over other, healthier food.

I can obviously exist without chocolate in the same way I can exist without the computer, but it seems that a milquetoast retreat from candy (not able to go cold turkey, I limit myself to four Hershey kisses at night) is all I can muster which makes me think that my milquetoast retreat from the computer shouldn’t necessarily be applauded.  It’s a milquetoast retreat because I’m not sure I’d be happy with a complete unplugging.

What I’ve been doing is existing in the place where happiness and time constraints intersect.  I’m doing as much as I can online in order to remain happy with the time constraints holding me to much less than I normally do.

So I can spin it as moderation, but is moderation really just another word for a tempered addiction?  As much as I have days where I wish I could quit the Internet, would I really be happy if I quit the Internet?  Could I ever really give up my blog, or would my finger tremble indefinitely over the delete key?

Are you addicted to the Internet?  Do you actually need an online quiz to determine that?

And apologies, I’m still partially unplugged for another week or so.  Who knows how this summer will go with a changed schedule.  So thank you for understanding if I’m slower than usual to respond.