Health Book Contracts

Book contracts are difficult enough to understand. They can get even more complicated when you’re writing a health book and not only working with an agent and publisher, but you’re collaborating with someone to help you write the book. Everyone has to get their fair share.

The publishing agreement can be several pages long, so you’ll want to take your time and read through every page. You may need some help in negotiating changes to several key clauses. Make sure you choose legal help from someone familiar with publishing agreements.

Here are a few books on writers contracts to get you started.

• Contracts Companion for Writers (Literary Entrepreneur series)

• The Writer’s Legal Companion: The Complete Handbook For The Working Writer, Third Edition.

• The Writer’s Legal Guide: An Authors Guild Desk Reference

8 ways to find a health book collaborator

Should you write a health book yourself, or work in collaboration? Look closely at the top selling health books in bookstores and you’ll see that many if not most are written in collaboration between a writer and a health expert. Often the expert is named first as the “author” to give the book clout, while the writer is listed second. Sometimes the writer isn’t even mentioned on the cover but acts as a ghostwriter for the expert (and should negotiate a higher percentage of the split). But there’s plenty of room for both names on the cover of a health book, depending on how you negotiate your contract. (More about that later.)

Teaming up with a collaborator to write a health book  has many advantages. It lightens your load and improves your odds of success. And it can be loads of fun. Here’s why you should consider it:

• If you’re a busy expert in the health fitness or nutrition field, you may be too busy to write an entire book on the side, even if you have the writing skill. Writing a book takes a certain kind of writing skill you may not be used to. A writer can communicate your health book ideas effectively in a competitive marketplace. And a writer will also help with the responsibility of writing the proposal, finding an agent and publisher, and working with editors.

• If you’re a professional writer, you can benefit from a prominent health experts platform and credentials, two necessities for selling today’s health book by conventional means. You may do more of the upfront work, but the expert can do the talk show circuit and answer questions in the press — who want credentialed experts, no matter how much you may know about your topic.

How to find a collaborator

1. [If you're a health expert] You can post a free add on ASJA.org (American Society of Journalists and Authors), a professional writing membership of over 1,000 vetted writers.
2. If you’re  health expert] Browse the bookstores for similar books to the one you want to write. Figure out which of the bylines belongs to the actual writer. In many cases the writer is only listed in the acknowledgments. Then search for their website and contact info.
3. [If you're a health expert] Check magazines and newspapers for bylines of popular articles on your topic. Then search for their contact info online and ask them if they’d like to talk about a collaboration.
4. [If you're a health expert] You may already be talking to an agent, publisher, or book packager who likes your health book idea. They can probably suggest a good co-writer.
5. [If you're a health writer] Read medical journal articles and medical university press articles on your health topic. The experts contact info shouldn’t be hard to find through the university press office.
6. [If you're a health writer] Ask one of the experts you’ve interviewed for other projects. They’re most likely comfortable working with you and know you’re ligit. You can also ask other health writers if they can recommend any of the experts they’ve interviewed on your health book topic.
7. [If you're a health writer] Browse online for books out of print or soon to be out of print on your topic. Contact the expert author and find out if they’re ready for an update.
8. [If you're a health writer] Contact agents who rep health books and try to get on their list of go-to writer collaborators. A good place to meet agents for this purpose is at writers’ conferences such as those put on by ASJA.org and FreelanceSuccess.com.

Coming soon: How to talk to a potential collaborator; and Who gets what? Collaboration agreements and contracts

Finding an agent for your first health book

A lot of people think they can simply write a book about their health topic or experiences and mail it off to a big commercial publisher who will be happy to receive it, publish it, promote it, and make millions for the happy author. It can happen that way, but unfortunately, this isn’t usually the way it works. Just like you need a real estate agent to best sell your home, you need an agent to help find the best publisher for your book and guide you through the negotiation process.

Here are some online resources for finding agents to approach, and some book suggestions which will explain how the agent/author relationship works and how to properly introduce yourself.

Resources:

• The searchable literary agent database of the Association of Authors’ Representatives (AAR).
• The FAQ page of the AAR (explains how to find and work with an agent)
• The literary agent search page at Publishers Marketplace.
• The literary agent database at Agent Query
• The literary agent directory at Writers Net.
• The Literary Marketplace available at the library.
• Ask other authors for agent recommendations.
• Writers conferences and workshops. (More about this coming soon.)

Once you identify a potential agent, you don’t want to just send out your complete book proposal. You should always send agents a brief letter first, asking if you may send your proposal for consideration. In this letter, you want to include your credentials for writing a health book, whether that’s your profession or something from your personal experience. If you don’t have writing cred, you can always write articles for your own or other people’s websites, or write an article, essay, or op-ed on your health topic and send it to a newspaper.

You can also sign up for Peter Shakman’s HARO (help a reporter out) and make yourself available for interviews by health journalists. (It’s free for both writers and sources.) If they quote you in their article, you can include that in you query letter and proposal.

Send your letter, proofread and polished, on nice white stationery. Most agents won’t accept query letters by phone or email. Include a stamped self-addressed envelope for reply. Go ahead and send it out to several agents at the same time. Agents get tons of these in the mail, so don’t expect a quick response. In fact, many won’t respond at all, so don’t take it personally.

Writing a book proposal

Two kinds of people want to write health books: 1) writers interested in health, and 2) health professionals interested in writing. No matter which one you are, the process begins with the book proposal. Before you write your book, before you can attract a book agent, you need to know and show what your book is about. The important thing to know is that nonfiction books are presold. Unlike novels that you write first and then shop around, nonfiction books, about health or anything else, get sold from the book proposal.

Health books are a bit different when it comes to selling a book idea to an agent and then a publisher. That’s because you probably fall into category number 1 or number 2 — you’re either a writer interested in health, or a health professional interesting in writing. You probably are not both a health professional and a hotshot health writer. If you are, you’re one of the lucky ones, so just pass go. But in today’s health book market, most health books are created in collaboration. You may already have a collaborator in mind. If so, you can put your heads together and write a killer book proposal that highlights both your best ideas and credentials. Be careful, though, because if you pick the wrong collaborator, your proposal may get rejected. If you don’t already have a collaborator in mind, that’s okay. An agent who likes your proposal can help you find a one.

Before you write a proposal for your health book (or nutrition or fitness book), read up on what editors expect. Book proposals are expected to follow a specific format, and if you don’t know that, you proposal won’t go far. In a previous post I recommended books that will help you craft book proposals that sell. Since writers need to be readers first, here they are again, in cased you missed it:

• Thinking Like Your Editor, by Susan Fortunato and Alfred Rabiner
• Nonfiction Book Proposals Anybody can Write (Revised and Updated), by Elizabeth Lyon
• Book Proposals That Sell: 21 SECRETS TO SPEED YOUR SUCCESS, by W. Terry Whalin
• Write the Perfect Book Proposal: 10 That Sold and Why, 2nd Edition by Jeff Herman and Deborah M. Adams
• The Shortest Distance Between You and a Published Book, by Susan Page

From these books you’ll learn what goes into a great book proposal, including:

1. Your book’s contents.
2. Why you’re the right person to write the book.
3. How you will market your book.
4. Your platform (your reach or how well positioned you are to attract buyers). Book publicist Annie Jennings has some great tips on building a MEGA author platform.
5. Your book’s competition and how yours differs. This establishes potential demand for your book.

You can learn about your competition online at websites like barnesandnoble.com and amazon.com. But I suggest a trip to the bookstore as well. One piece of advice I learned from veteran book writers and publicists is to mine the acknowledgments and the book jackets. From the acknowledgments page, you can find out which agents rep the type of health books you’re interested in writing. This will help in your search for the right agent for your book.

From the book jackets, you can get inspiration for the kind of snappy, targeted copy you should include in your proposal. The book jacket copy is a consise, calculated strategy for marketing a book. Someone spent some time and expert thought into putting it together. When you read the jacket copy of similar health books to the one you want to write, see if you can identify why the copy works. Why does it make you want to read the book? Then do that in your book proposal. This may take some time. But before you can sell your book to the public, you’ll need to sell it to an agent and then a publisher. Then, once you have your book sold — with advance money in hand — writing the actual book will be that much easier.

Should you write a health book?

Want to write a book? Join the club. Surveys say more than 80 percent of people want to write be published authors. The reasons are many and varied. You may just want to share what you know about a particular health, fitness, or nutrition topic with the world. Or you may want to promote your medical practice, speaking, consulting, or marketing business. Or maybe you want to quit your day job and write full time. Anyone can write a book for any reason. How you go about getting it published, though, depends on your reasons and goals.

Let’s say you want to write a book to help establish you as an authority for your consulting or training business or medical practice. Or maybe you market health products and want to spread the word with your book. If this is your goal, it matters less who you get to publish your book, or even whether you self-publish and market it yourself. If you want to self-publish your book, you can simply write it, set up a website to sell it as an e-book, and/or sell print on demand (POD) copies that you can have printed from a reliable service. Doing all the work yourself will take a considerable investment in time, probably more than you think. (More about self-publishing books, booklets, and e-books later.)

On the other hand, if you’re trying to prove your chops as a professional writer, or need the validation or support of an established publisher, they will take on a large part of the work and the bigger chunk of the profits for their efforts. But having your book commercially published presents a few more hurdles, starting with writing a detailed book proposal. There’s a bit of a learning curve involved here, too, so here are a few resources for learning how the book publishing industry works.

1. Read books on book publishing. A few good ones:

Thinking Like Your Editor, by Susan Fortunato and Alfred Rabiner

Nonfiction Book Proposals Anybody can Write (Revised and Updated), by Elizabeth Lyon

Book Proposals That Sell: 21 SECRETS TO SPEED YOUR SUCCESS, by W. Terry Whalin

Write the Perfect Book Proposal: 10 That Sold and Why, 2nd Edition by Jeff Herman and Deborah M. Adams

Shortest Distance Between You and a Published Book, by Susan Page

2. Subscribe to the e-newsletter Publisher’s Lunch. You can start with the shorter free version and move up to the paid version if you find it helpful. This will give you the gauge on which publishers are buying what titles, from which writers represented by which agents, with links to more information. Also, check out Publishers Weekly, the leading industry trade journal. Subscriptions aren’t cheap, but your local library might carry it.

3. Consider taking an online writing course. Veteren writers Andrea Campbell and Jenifer Lawler offer good ones on writing a book proposels.

4. Consider attending writers conferences. The American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA) has a good one in April (next week). But you can buy CDs or an MP3 of all the conference sessions and workshops. They offer a discounted price if you order before the conference begins.

Now you’re ready to get started down the long road to book publication. Writing and polishing your proposal is the first step.  Then you’ll want to hire an agent to submit and sell the proposal to book editors. (An agent can also hellp you find a collaborator.) Once a publisher bites, your agent and publisher will negotiate the publishing agreement.

Only then will you actually begin writing your book.

Happy Health Writing,

Kathy Summers