WRITING FOR THE POPULAR PRESS

Advice for Faculty Who Want to Publish Books and Articles

 

Hello! If you’ve come to this page, it’s likely that you have set an appointment for me to visit with you and discuss your work in progress - or, the book or article you’d like to start.

If you have been directed here by a search engine or landed by accident, you’re welcome, too. This page is all about the groundwork for getting published by the trade-book press and by news and information publications available to the general consumer.

The purpose of this page is to provide you with a series of video lectures. I used to present this material as part of a seminar, and it worked well. But it became apparent to me that the most valuable transaction I had with faculty occurred in follow-up discussions about particular projects.

As a result, I’ve decided to skip the seminar and provide anyone who wants it with the same material in video form. After you view these presentations, I will come meet with you in your office on campus and discuss your individual work.

These segments build upon each other and are best viewed in sequence. They are mostly about five minutes long.

From time to time I refer you to the “resources” on this page. The resources are listed at the bottom of this page and consist of a PDF file that consists of a proposal I wrote for one of my books, a chapter I wrote on how to write a feature story, and a couple of sample opinion pieces I wrote.

Other resources consist of links to sites I believe you’ll find helpful. Now, here are the video lectures.

 

 

Lecture 1: Opportunities for Academics Who Want to be Published in the Popular Press  

• An overview of what venues are available for academics, and how your specialty can prove profitable.

 

CLICK HERE TO VIEW

 

Lecture 2: Writing Shorter Pieces  

• Here, I discuss feature articles and their unique structure, opinion pieces, and how shorter pieces meld with book writing and speaking

 

CLICK HERE TO VIEW

 

Lecture 3: How to Market Your Work

• This is a brief discussion of whether or not you need an agent, how to find one if you want one, and you take the first steps in marketing your material.

 

CLICK HERE TO VIEW

 

Lecture 4: The Book Proposal

• One of the terrific advantages of writing nonfiction books is that you can essentially sell the project before you write it. The key is to craft a persuasive proposal for your project — usually two chapters, an outline, and a prospectus. This lecture tells you how.

 

CLICK HERE TO VIEW

 

Lecture 5: How to Make Yourself a Package Deal

• Authors need to follow a synergistic strategy: in effect, making two plus two equal five. You do this by amortizing your work among your books, articles, lectures, and consulting. This lecture explains how to make each segment of you enterprise feed and energize the others.

 

CLICK HERE TO VIEW

 

Lecture 6: How to Get that Book Written

• I know only one thing for sure about the publishing industry — you can’t sell a proposal or a manuscript unless you finish it AND get it out there. Here’s a guide to a process that’s worked for me through 24 books.

 

CLICK HERE TO VIEW

 

 

Resources

 

Here are some resources and sites that will be useful:

 

PDF of a proposal for LIES WE LIVE BY(Click on the title to view), along with a book chapter on writing feature articles and some sample opinion pieces

 

http://www.timbete.com/BookProposal.html

A nice, compact site explaining some of the nuances of proposal writing

 

http://www.adlerbooks.com/howto.html

A publisher’s guide to proposals. Some may be different from what I advise but there is generally no right or wrong way to do it; much depends on the type of book and the approach of the author.

 

http://www.rusoffagency.com/

Here is an agent’s site. It provides a brief overview of what appeals to an agent.

 

http://www.manuscriptediting.com/proposals.htm

This is a compilation of different sites that provide a variety of viewpoints into the writing and selling process. A lot of ads for books on how to sell your writing, which is OK, because I’m familiar with many of these works and some are very good.

 

http://www.carlhausman.com

My personal website if you’d like to learn more about me and my work.

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Copyright © 2007. Carl Hausman.