Writing a book: Strategies for your success

A colleague recently asked me about writing or editing a book, or writing a book chapter, given that I have a few of these on my resume and she knew my background.1-4 I responded initially by describing some of the advantages of this endeavor. With a chapter in a book, an author is not as restricted to page or word limits as with a journal manuscript—although there still may be limits. A manuscript submitted to a journal may be 15 to 18 double-spaced pages, but a chapter may be 20 to even 50 pages depending on the overall length of the book. Topics that take longer to explain can be divided over multiple chapters. In a book, you can explain content in depth, provide background information, and add boxes, visuals, and bulleted lists, among other aids, to help readers understand the information and its importance. Many features found in a book are designed to reinforce comprehension and retention—which can be fun to develop but are also something new for authors familiar with only writing journal articles. But…while an author might prepare a journal article in 4 or 6 weeks, a book is likely to take a year or longer. I emphasized to my colleague: the main consideration when deciding whether to write a book is the time commitment. All other issues become secondary to the time that is required to be successful with either writing or editing a book. Is there a clear need for the proposed book? What is it? Who might buy and read the book? Publishers are more likely to be interested in publishing a book that can be used as a course text than a specialized book with a small market. As a course text, though, is there a need for another book on the market? Do your homework and search for current books in the substantive area. Review those books and make a list of what content or focus is missing from them that your proposed book will address. You will need this information for the prospectus, which is the formal name for the plan for the book. Is there enough content to fill a book? A published book may be 150 to more than 1000 pages, which depending on design and topic, may translate to 300 to 3000 manuscript pages (using a ratio of 2-3 manuscript pages for one book page). I know a colleague who edited a 650 page book, which was over 2500 manuscript pages. In this case, there was more than enough content! I think we have all read books (not necessarily in nursing) that were adapted from a long-form magazine article, which had lots of filler and “padding.” You can't get away with this in scholarly publishing. You need to have the necessary content to fill the manuscript pages. Will you write each chapter yourself or have other authors write individual chapters? With the latter, you may become more of an editor versus an author, and you need to consider if that's the way you envision your book coming together. With contributors, you can often complete a book in less time. However, authors have their own writing styles and may not follow the outline you give them for their chapters, leading to repetition across chapters and gaps in content. They may not provide required information such as pictures, “call outs” or “pull quotes,” objectives, National Council Licensure Examination type questions, and other design elements that are all part of the overall book and contribute to its “look.” If the contributor fails to supply these elements, it may become your responsibility to do so. Importantly, some contributors may not adhere to deadlines no matter how many reminders are sent and may even fall short of submitting anything at all, leaving you in the lurch. Do you have resources to help manage some of the details associated with preparing a book, for example, reminding contributors about due dates, checking and often revising references, getting permissions to reprint images, and so on? If you need secretarial or administrative help to do some of this work, do you have the resources to pay this person or would this be someone available to you through your job? Will writing the book benefit you in your career development or meet one of your personal or professional goals? This is an extremely important question. If you are in academia in a tenure track position, you should candidly ask your dean, a mentor, or other trusted colleague if a book will “count” as part of your promotion and tenure dossier. Some schools, colleges, or universities focus solely on data-based articles published in peer-reviewed journals and don't evaluate books as a significant contribution to a person's resume. Make sure to clarify this point before taking on the task of writing a book. Most importantly, do you have time to write a book? Writing a book takes a lot of time and perseverance and is probably the number one consideration to keep in mind as you decide whether to pursue this project.5 Most books in nursing are published by commercial scholarly publishers such as Wiley, Springer, Elsevier, or Lippincott/Wolters Kluwer, among others. Some publishers focus on clinical books and textbooks for prelicensure nursing students, while others publish mainly graduate level texts and specialized books. Other publishers of nursing books include professional organizations such as the American Nurses Association and Sigma Theta Tau International. University presses also publish books, but nursing titles are usually not of interest. Some authors self-publish their own books. With digital resources that are available today, this is a viable option, but then all responsibilities for sales, marketing, and distribution fall to you—responsibilities that are usually assumed by the publisher. You need to decide if you want to take this on. Assuming you are going with a traditional publisher, an early step is to determine which ones have experience with the content of the book you are considering and have resources to market your text. Once you have narrowed down potential publishers, send an email to the acquisitions editor to see if they are interested in your topic. I suggest doing this before preparing the prospectus and spending any more time on the proposed book. You may think there is a need for another book in your area of interest, but a publisher may not agree. This initial email is important because the “yea/nay” decision may be made at this point, especially if you are an unknown author. You need to sell yourself and your book idea in about 100–200 words, max. Make sure to address the acquisitions editor by name—which must be spelled correctly. Describe your idea for your book, stating it in the very first sentence. Also state why you think they are the right publisher for your idea. Be compelling but concise. Also, keep in mind that this email will give a brief illustration of your writing style, so make sure it reflects properly on you, is grammatically correct, and is free of punctuation and spelling errors. Last, be sure to include complete contact information with your signature: name, email, mailing address, phone number (indicate if a text can be sent to this number), and fax number. If you survive the hurdle of the idea email and an acquisitions editor is interested, the next step is to prepare a prospectus. This is the proposal or plan for the book and each chapter in it. If you have not authored other books with the publisher you are considering, the acquisitions editor will likely ask you to write one of the chapters for the book as a sample and submit it with the prospectus. Even if you are planning on having contributors for the book, the editor will still want to evaluate your writing style, because that will set the tone for the overall book. Book title (tentative); Purpose of the book and why it is needed; List of chapters in order and content in each chapter; Contributors for chapters you are not writing yourself; Courses in which the book would be used (if your proposed book can be used as a course text, investigate across schools of nursing potential courses in which the book might be adopted); Features of the book such as objectives and chapter summaries at the beginning of each chapter, boxes with key points, case scenarios demonstrating how the content applies to different patient populations and clinical situations, images and illustrations, and so on. Summaries of competing books, their content and cost, and a rationale why your proposed book would be better; and Projected book length and completion date.1 Let me just say, in general, the prospectus is not a simple document that can be written in a few hours. If you have a good handle on the competition and where your proposed book fits into the panoply of similar topics, you may be able to pull it together relatively quickly, but be prepared to spend some time on this task. Publishers often send the prospectus and sample chapter to external reviewers for feedback on the need for the book and its content. You might be asked to revise the prospectus based on this feedback and resubmit it to the publisher. You may also need to negotiate the proposed chapters, their order, and potential contributors. The prospectus will become the basis for your contract and stands as the proposed outline for the book. You want it to represent your vision while at the same time being congruent with the publisher's overall catalog. At this point, the acquisitions editor needs to go back to their larger team and sell the idea to have the book accepted as one they will publish. This is out of your hands, so it only reinforces why the prospectus (usually revised multiple times at this point) is so important. Once the book gets the green light, the publisher will send you a contract detailing your responsibilities, as well as theirs. You need to write the book and submit it on time, and book contracts include language about what happens if you do not submit the manuscript by the due date. There will be language about copyright transfer. Details about fees for permissions—and who pays these fees—to use copyrighted material, such as illustrations, will be included. The publisher will produce and market the book, and pay you a royalty, which is outlined in the contract. It is a legal document so you might want to have a lawyer review it before signing. Note that a contract is negotiable, which is another reason to have an expert look at it before you sign on the dotted line. In the absence of a lawyer, you might ask a colleague with experience as a book author to review the contract and provide feedback. You need to prepare the manuscript according to the publisher's guidelines. Writing the text is obvious but there are other essential elements. You, or your contributors, are usually responsible for submitting figures, illustrations, and any artwork. You might search the Internet and find the “perfect illustration,” but you need permission to reprint it unless it is open access. Look for a Creative Commons license. If the figure, illustration, or other document has one of these licenses, go to the Creative Commons website at https://creativecommons.org/ and check what is allowed with that type of license. Creative Commons licenses allow individuals to grant copyright permissions to their work and provide content that users can copy, reuse, modify, distribute, and add to, depending on the specific license. There is a link at this website to search for images with a Creative Commons license.6 If figures, illustrations, and artwork are in a journal article, then you can obtain permission to reprint them at the Copyright Clearance Center (https://www.copyright.com/). If the publisher uses RightsLink® for permissions, go to the article at the journal website. There is often a link to the Copyright Clearance Center/RightsLink® (https://www.copyright.com/publishers/rightslink/). If there is no link with the article, or if you are requesting reprint permission from a book, then go directly to the Copyright Clearance Center to request permission. There will likely be a fee, which the publisher might pay—or you may be responsible for this fee which will be taken out of your royalties. Ideally, this is something that should have been clarified during the contract negotiation. Another option is to see if the publisher has access to a library of illustrations that are available to you. For example, Getty Images (gettyimages.com) provides royalty-free images for a fee. Your publisher may have a subscription, which would give you the option to search and use the pictures in your book, at no cost to you. If you decide to embark on this book writing endeavor, set up a writing schedule with due dates for each chapter or section of content and adhere to them. One strategy is to consider each chapter as a separate “manuscript” with its own due date. Work on one chapter at a time. I think it is more difficult (and takes more time) to start multiple chapters rather than focusing on one chapter until it is completed. Start with an outline for the chapter. It does not have be a formal outline but can be a list of the content to include. Assign a realistic due date for completion of a chapter or section of content and don't change the due date. Block off time to write and don't let other activities drift into that time. Develop a list of related activities such as finding illustrations, checking references, and similar tasks that you can do when fatigued or in between meetings. Don't spend your valuable writing time on those tasks. Focus on finishing the book and learn to say “no.”1 Make sure your chapters/book are congruent with the proposed list of chapters included in the prospectus, which may also be detailed in the contract. The contract may also specify the number of pages in the manuscript—make sure you are in close proximity. While you may have a little leeway, you should try to be no more than 10% over or under the total number that was agreed upon. Once the manuscript is submitted, it will go into production. Similar to journals, authors will be sent page proofs to review and answer queries. Read the proofs carefully—they will include changes made by the copyeditor, who is not an expert in the content. Note that you will be reviewing and responding to queries for many more pages than a typical journal article—say, 200–500 versus 6. Once again, be prepared for the time commitment! While many people outside academia may never have heard of a journal article, everyone is familiar with books. Authoring or editing a book is seen as a pinnacle event and something of which you should be justifiably proud. That said, it is not an easy job, even if you are an expert in the content and can spout off references at the drop of the hat. If you have a good idea and an interested publisher, then I definitely encourage you to explore moving forward and writing a book. But do so with your eyes wide open and knowing what you are taking on. You want this to be a professionally satisfying experience, not a decision that you will regret. You can make the former happen with careful thought, planning, and execution. The author did not receive any grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. The author declares no conflicts of interest. Marilyn H. Oermann, PhD, RN, ANEF, FAAN, is Thelma M. Ingles Professor of Nursing, Duke University School of Nursing, Durham, North Carolina, USA. She is Editor-in-Chief of Nurse Educator and author/coauthor of many books.