How to write a popular science book (part II): The Auction, Writing, and Promotion

Issue 111: Part II sharing our experiences and tips for selling and promoting a trade book

We are busy writing our next book proposal right now and thought it might be fun to let people get a sneak peak about how to write a trade book. If you have ever thought about writing your own book, here is our own experience and a few tips to get you started.

This is part of a series on how to write a book. In Part I, we wrote about how to go from an idea to a book proposal and this week we discuss how to auction, write, and promote your book. In Part III, we give subscribers a sneak peak at our original book proposal for The Power of Us.

DEVELOP A PROMOTION PLAN

A huge part of writing a book is getting people to actually buy it. Getting people to spend $20-30 for a book—and then invest hours reading it—is a unique challenge. In fact, most books don’t sell. A lawsuit last year revealed that 50% of published books from Penguin Random House sold less than a dozen copies. Another analysis from top publishers suggests that 66% of new books sell less than 1,000 copies in a year (and 93% se…