Niche Publishing in Health Care Education

Lenny Kravitz

Lenny Kravitz might not need to fit into any particular niche, but health care textbooks certainly do.

Publishers identify each book's particular niche, or market segment, during the earliest stages of development, typically during concept development. We need to figure out who will buy the book before we can actually write the book.

We work to identify markets that offer the greatest opportunity for sales. We love when a book can appeal to a large market. Wheeee!

Some books, though, are made to appeal to a small market. Those might be a tougher sell to a publisher.

Consider two examples:

1. Textbook A is designed for physician assistants (PAs) in the U.S., a market of roughly 84,000. Capturing even 10 percent of that market could prove profitable for a publisher.
2. Textbook B is designed for PAs working in pediatric ophthalmology offices, of which there might be, I don't know, a few hundred? That would be a considerably tougher sell for most publishers.

That doesn't mean that Textbook B would never be published, but it does mean that the author will have to be more diligent in finding just the right publisher.

Five Rights of Publishing

You've probably heard of the Five Rights of Medication Administration (actually there are six). No doubt you've also heard of the Five Rights of the First Amendment.

Well, anyone who writes a book or who is thinking about writing a book should become familiar with what I call the Five Rights of Publishing.

Every publisher considers these five rights when deciding what books to publish. They're that critical. You should consider them too to help ensure your success as an author.

Let's take them one at a time, looking at the questions you should ask yourself about your project.

#1 — Right Book

Is this the right book? Does its approach hit the mark? Is it organized appropriately?

#2 — Right Author

Am I the best person to write this book? If I'm working with other authors, is the team the best one to write the book? Do I have the requisite knowledge, experience, and background to write authoritatively about the topic?

#3 — Right Time

Is this the right time to publish this book? Is there a current need for this book, or is it a future need? If it's a future need, will the book be publishing in time to meet it, or will it be too far ahead of the curve?

#4 — Right Market

Is there a clear market for the book? Can I define the kinds of programs or individuals most likely to purchase the book? If the answer is that everyone will want this book, think again. Think about all the books in every bookstore you've ever been in and why you didn't gravitate to every single section in the store. Then apply that thinking to your own book.

#5 — Right Format

Should the book be hardcover? Softcover? Spiral-bound? Should it be 8-1/2 x 11 or 7 x 10 or 6 x 9? Should the interior be one-color? Two-color? Full-color?

When you think about all of these rights will you be able to ensure the successful outcome of all your writing endeavors?

You got that right!

3 Tips for Your First Conversation with a Publisher

First impressions count. They're not always correct, of course, but they count nonetheless.

When you're planning to be an author, your first conversation with a potential publisher counts just as much.

To help you make the best first impression you can, follow these tips.

#1 Be honest.

The publisher will most likely ask you lots of questions about your book idea. Answer as honestly as you can. If you don't know the answer, say so.

Sometimes we ask about the market you think your book will be written for. You don't have be exact or even correct, because chances are that the market you first envision will change as you discuss the book in more detail.

If you're unsure about the market, say so. But don't get ahead of yourself and say that the book is for everyone. No book is for everyone, not a single one ever written including the Bible. (For more on writing for a specific market, see "Picture the Person You're Writing For."

#2 Be humble.

I've had potential authors actually argue with me about how and to whom their book should be written and marketed.

Don't do that.

When it comes to publishing, the publisher is the expert, not you. So listen to the publisher. If you think you disagree with something, that's fine, but don't take the publisher on from the point of your being an expert. Take him on from the perspective of wanting to learn.

#3 Be professional.

Sounds like a no-brainer but really, it isn't. We want our authors to feel comfortable with us, to feel open and talk with us as colleagues.

Sometimes, though, that familiarity breeds conduct a bit too, shall we say, loose.

Your publisher is still, when comes to authoring, your supervisor, in a way, so act accordingly.

Don't drink too much at dinner. Don't disparage colleagues. Don't invite friends or family members to a publisher's event without asking the publisher first.

The best tip, though, is to just be your very best you. That will be more than enough.

3 Keys to Getting Your Textbook Proposal Read for Real

You have an idea for a textbook or clinical resource. Your book could be the next best thing to squeeze-bottle ketchup. It could make you and the publisher very happy. Wonderful!

But if the editor doesn't read your proposal, your book, your baby, your crowning glory might never see the printed page.

Never fear. Here are three keys to make sure the editor reads and truly considers your proposal.

1. Find the right editor. Sounds like a no-brainer, but it isn't. A publishing company might have 10, 20, even 30 or more editors signing titles in various disciplines. Figuring out which editor is right for your book might prove confusing.
   
   To find the right editor, go first to the publisher's website and look for an author's area. (For a list of author areas for the major healthcare textbook publishers, check my blog post at http://andymcphee.wordpress.com/2010/10/26/tips-for-writing-a-solid-book-proposal/.
   
   Look for a list of editorial contacts, and then identify the editor handling the discipline that most closely resembles the discipline you'll be writing for.
   
   Alternately, you can find a book similar to yours and published by the same company, and then check the masthead for the editor's name. Look for Publisher, Sponsoring, or Acquisitions in the person's title.


2. Write a compelling proposal lead. Put your best effort into the lead of the proposal. That's where you'll keep or lose the editor's attention. In that lead, tell the editor:

• Which markets the book is designed for. Be specific. Rather than "The book will appeal to medical assistant programs," write "The book will appeal to medical assistant programs that offer introductory courses in medical billing and reimbursement."


• Why your approach to the content is superior. Again, be specific.


• Why you're the right one to write the book. Toot your horn in specific ways. Rather than "I just love this topic," write "My background as a lab tech and 8 years of teaching clinical medical assisting give me an edge."

1. Make the proposal error-free. This is must. If the editor finds one spelling error, well, okay. But two? Three? More? Forget it. You need correct spelling, punctuation, capitalization—everything. Show the editor that you're a writer.

When I see a proposal from someone who gets all three keys dead-on, oh, I'm reading that proposal.

What Should the Title of Your Textbook Be?

Compared with writing an entire textbook, you would think coming up with a good title would be easy, wouldn't you?

Sometimes, yes, it is easy, but mostly it's kind of a pain. Let me give you a few tips for crafting a title that will make your editor happy.

Do your research

When trying to figure out a title for your book, research the market first. Find out which books compete directly with yours, and look for commonly used words, such as:

• Complete


• Comprehensive


• Essentials


• Fundamentals


• Guide


• Handbook


• Manual


• Mastering


• Practical


• Principles


• Review


• Understanding

Those words are common for a reason, they provide insight into the type of book it is. You may decide to use one of these, and that's fine but it's just the beginning.

Frame the right tone

Many first-time authors try for a cutesy title, like Medication Marvels for a pharmacology book, or Is That a 301.4 or 568.7? for a medical coding book. Don't make potential purchasers guess what the book might be about, let them know immediately.

Sometimes, though, a cutesy title actually works. For instance, the title of our popular How to Survive and Maybe Even Love Nursing School is kinda cutesy but for the content and the author's presentation, it works really well.

By and large, though, stick with a straightforward title.

Ditto for the subtitle, if needed.

Keep it short and sweet

Short titles are almost always best for a lot of reasons, but mostly because they're easy to design around and they stand out to purchasers because they're easy to remember. In healthcare publishing, though, we're often publishing for a specific market, so sometimes long titles can't be helped. For instance, "pharmacology" and "medical assistants" might both need to be part of a title. That's fine, because potential purchasers will look for those words to know about the book. Just don't hide them in a bunch of other words unless it's absolutely necessary.

Think "Amazon"

Make sure that your title is search-friendly. Think about the last time you looked for a certain kind of book on Amazon.com. Let's say you're looking for a pharmacology book for allied health students, and you typed "pharmacology allied health" into the search box. You probably got back mostly titles that have those words in the title or subtitle. You might not have seen Medication Marvels in the results because it didn't have "pharmacology" in the title.

That's why we publishers often use a fairly long subtitle, so searches on Amazon and other distributor websites will include the book in their results.

The title "decider"

The good thing for textbook authors is that the final decision about a book's title doesn't belong to them anyway. It belongs primarily to the acquisitions person and ultimately to the company itself. That's because the title is a marketing and sales tool more than anything else.

One more little thing

Before I let you go, do me a favor. When you tell people what your book is called, don't say, "My book is entitled Such-and-So." It's not entitled, it's just titled.

Thanks.

How We Choose a Book Cover

I've approved or rejected a whole bunch of book and newsmagazine covers over the years, and it never ceases to amaze me the sheer variety of opinions that can be expressed over any one cover design. Just now I brought around to several colleagues two possible covers for a book to be published next year.

The book will sell in bookstores, so the cover needs to be catchy, it needs to convey a cogent story about the content, and it needs to pass several other marketing-oriented criteria such as placement of the author's name. The color palette used on a cover is typically also used for the interior, so the cover shouldn't be too monochromatic. Otherwise we wouldn't have the flexibility we need to vary colors in headings, sidebars, and other features. So anyway, I bring these two options around to some peeps for their opinion. (I had a third option but I had already rejected it. Looked too much like tennis balls on a Scrabble board.)

Sure enough, as I knew it would come to pass, some people absolutely hated Cover 1, while others absolutely preferred it. Some hated the title font on Cover 2, some found it really interesting. Some really liked the puzzle-like image on Cover 2, some had a clear aversion to it.

That's why I love covers, there isn't any one right answer.

Design lies very much within each person's emotional center, I think. With writing, we can read a variety of authors and like them all even though their style can vary quite a bit. Sure, there are some authors we just can't stand, but on the whole we can read and enjoy a wide variety of writing styles and never give them a second thought.

But with art and design, our response is more emotional, more instinctual, more gutteral. We react to every design. We have to, there's no way around it. The trouble is, for us decision makers in publishing, we have to choose just one design. Oh, ugh.

When I show a cover around, I'm not just gathering opinions. I'm also gauging those opinions in light of the kind of person I know you to be. For instance, I showed the cover to someone who tends to think on a highly detailed level. Many of the book's intended purchasers also think that way, so I considered the opinion in light of that. Another person was more artistic, so I considered the opinion in that light. I certainly weighed the author's own choice as well.

In the end I chose the version I think will do the best job for this particular book. Will everyone be happy? Heavens, no. But we'll have a book with a great cover that fits the need for a product of this type in the market it's intended for.

Happy happy joy joy!

How Much Will I Make from Authoring a Textbook for Allied Health?

Occasionally a potential author will ask about compensation before they have even written a book proposal. These educators (typically) have often asked a loved one for advice and then come back to me and say, "My husband/wife/friend/relative says I shouldn't write a book unless it makes sense financially. Can you tell me how much I can expect to make?"

I understand the concern, I really do, but until I have a proposal in hand, until I can really "see" what the book will be and where in the market it will best fit, I can't really talk about compensation.

These folks still deserve an answer, of course, and in a nutshell, this is what I tell them. (Keep in mind that I'm referring to authors of textbook publishers for allied health. Nursing textbook authors often make considerably more because there are so many more nursing students than those in any single discipline in allied health.)

You're thinking about writing a book for, say, medical assistants. The MA market is pretty solid, well over 150,000 students a year, but unless you're planning to author a book for a core course that all MA programs offer, you're looking at only a slice of that MA pie.

Even then, books for a core course are competing against a host of other textbooks, so take that slice and then divide it again.

If you're planning to write a book for a less ubiquitous course, or perhaps a book that supplements other books, your slice of the pie will be really small.

So know going into this that your book will most likely not make you rich, it just won't. You won't be able to send your kids through college on the royalties, but twice a year, in April and October, a nice little paycheck will arrive in your bank account.

If you're lucky, you could purchase some nice patio furniture with it or a lovely new rug for the dining room.

If you're really lucky, if your book sells really well, you could put a hefty down payment on a new car or install a new deck off your back door.

Only a precious few authors, though, make six-figure incomes for any single edition of their book.

Textbook authors by and large write because they have something to say, because they want to make an impact on their profession, because they want to earn the praise and respect of their peers, or for any number of other wonderful and fulfilling reasons, but the seldom do it for the money.

If someone's main reason for writing a textbook is to make money, they'll probably be disappointed. I'm not saying they won't make money, because they probably will. I mean, why would I sign a book that I believe isn't going to make us or the author money?

So a bit of advice if you're considering authoring a textbook. Don't do it purely for the money; you won't succeed. Do it for your profession and know that in April and October you'll receive a lovely little gift, which will make you glad you decided to write.

Picture the Person You’re Writing For

You've decided to write an article or even a book for, say, medical assisting students. Before you put even one finger on the keyboard, before you even open Word, picture in your mind your specific market.

I don't mean you should picture MA students in some abstract way. I mean to picture a single, specific MA student, perhaps one you've known, who possesses attributes typical of an MA student.The importance of writing for a specific market is well known, but when you actually sit down to write, you need an even clearer idea of who you're writing for. I've written a lot for teenagers, and when I'm writing for them, I imagine a specific person.

For an article I wrote on sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) among teens, I pictured a girl about 15 years old, sitting at her desk in school, listening to a teacher talking about STDs. Every now and then she would turn to a classmate to her right (don't ask me why, but she always turned to her right) and giggle about something in the article she was reading.

Why a 15-year-old girl? The age range of readers of that particular article was going to be 12- to 14-year-old students in a health class. Female because I thought that STDs were going to be somewhat more interesting to girls than boys, though both needed to understand them. But I like to picture just one person rather than two, so I went with a girl. Giggling now and then because most kids that age, though they possess some level of maturity, are mostly just kids who giggle to alleviate some of the discomfort sensitive topics tend to bring about.

Do the same thing when you write.

Picture someone with specific qualities like that too, qualities you would find in your "typical" reader, and you'll find that your writing will speak more directly to the market you want to reach.