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| Anita - She never wrote a book. |
You had to know Anita. She was trying to keep me from getting a big head. Her response amused me. By then I was 47 years old and had long stopped looking for her approval, because I was NEVER going to get it .... EVER.
This is why I credit my mother with being one of the most influential people in my success. If she'd been all gushy, constantly telling me how good I was, I'd never become such an overachiever. She probably knew that, but I digress.
This Book Proposal Business
A key piece to any book proposal is identifying the markets for your book and convincing a potential publisher that it's worth the cash (now minimally $100K with most publishing houses) to invest in your project. They want you to prove there's a market.
My Market Research for Thin Places: Irish Gateways to the Otherworld
Primary Markets: The figures I uncovered in my marketing research show that the primary markets - Tourists to Ireland, earth-based religious groups, the Mind, Body Spirit genre, readers of Celtic Christianity titles - rank in the millions.
Secondary Markets: The secondary markets - genealogy trackers, tour groups / guides, hospitality industry and organizations with an Irish, Celtic, or earth-based spiritual mission have millions in this country alone.
Subsidiary Rights: Then there's the subsidiary rights - book clubs, foreign translations, audio (podscasts) and video (I secretly want to model Rick Steves and have a Thin Places PBS show where instead of saying "Keep on travelin'" at the end, I say "May all your places be thin.")
Spin off Possibilities: The spin-off possibilities are huge - Thin Places in Wales, Thin Places in Britain, Thin Places in America ....Fat Ladies in Thin Places.
Merchandising: I can see note cards, calendars, screen savers, T-shirts, book marks, grocery bags ... the possibilities are endless. Who wouldn't love some photo of a mystical Irish landscape plastered on chachkies < -- yes, I looked it up in the Urban dictionary. Yiddish word for trinkets.
The markets combined with my platform indicate this book would be a profitable venture. I feel better now and am a tad more motivated to finish the proposal by my self-imposed deadline of Sunday, February 26th.
But today ..... I'm taking off, heading south and traveling across the largest estuary in North America - and the most studied estuary in the world - the Chesapeake Bay. And I'll be crossing it by way of one of the Seven Engineering Wonders of the Modern World - The Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel.
So day 6 is a day off (again). Going to visit my girlfriend, Del in Norfolk.
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