How I Got a Book Contract

Introduction

In February 2023, I signed a book contract! My book should be published sometime in 2024. I thought I would write an article to help others who are interested in publishing a book with Apress and what that experience was like. I’m still in the writing phase.

Finding a Publisher

I wanted to publish a book in the tech space. There were a few publishers I was aware of in this space. The big one was O’Reilly. I was also familiar with Packt from my experience with Humble Bundle collections of their books, and Apress because I actually owned a few books from them.

I decided to target Apress and Packt for a book. There is only one book on the market about this particular topic (published by Packt, incidentally.) I thought I could add to this collection with a book on based on work that I help nonprofits do regularly in my role as a Senior Consultant at Provisio Partners. I won’t get into the details until the book is published.

Packt

I read a bit on Packt’s website about their process. They have an “Author Community” that you create an account on and then you can join the group for your platform. I joined the Salesforce platform, which seemed pretty empty. There was one post from 2 years earlier about someone pitching a book and a comment from an editor that they’d like to take it on.

I made my post (with an introduction to myself, the book, the market, and an outline.) I didn’t hear anything back. Probably for the best, as I’ve had mixed experiences with Packt books. At the same time, I thought that Packt taking chances on new authors might improve my chances of getting a contract. Apparently not.

Apress

I decided to also pitch Apress. I really like the Apress books I own. Their process was a bit more streamlined. They have a proposal form that you download and email to the editor for your platform. I emailed the Cloud editor, who quickly replied that they were forwarding my proposal on to the Salesforce editor (oops! I didn’t realize they had a Salesforce-specific editor.)

After a couple days, the Salesforce editor let me know that she enjoyed the proposal and would like to suggest it to the wider editorial team. A few days after that, she had good news! My book was approved and a contract would be forthcoming.

The Contract

I reviewed the contract closely. I would have about 3 months to write the first 3 chapters and another 5 months after that to deliver the final manuscript. I would get paid an advance, and a graduated royalty schedule that increased based on the number of copies sold.

The Writing Process

I’d already written about 5,000 words that expanded on the outline I sent out specifically for the book at the time I got my contract. If I wasn’t successful, I planned to turn those into blog articles. My own past writing has also been useful for the writing process, even I didn’t re-use any of it.

Apress uses a Word template to structure their books, so they sent me the template. This is how I would know I was hitting the 250 manuscript pages. Pretty straight forward. They also had resources for citations, images, and other elements of the production process.

Next Steps

I identified a Technical Reviewer and began writing. I submitted my first three chapters (about 75 pages) in early May and have continued writing. I’m looking forward to the editing process and seeing my book come to life.

Will update when I’m a little further along!