Lorraine Mace

Write Away! December 2008

Text Box: What’s Your Unique Selling Point? You’ve been living abroad for a while and have had lots of amusing encounters with the locals. You’ve fallen into all sorts of truly hilarious situations as a result of mangling the language and the time has come to share your anecdotes with the wider world. There’s clearly a market for such books; after all, look at how successful they are for so many authors. So all you need to do is dash off your memoirs and a publisher is going to snap it up. Yes? Sadly, no. There are now so many writers living abroad, that to follow in the footsteps of Peter Mayle, Chris Stewart, Carole Drinkwater and countless others, you need to hone your unique selling point. Even these three well-known authors had something to offer in addition to their ability to write about their experiences. Peter Mayle was the first, always handy as a USP. Chris Stewart was a former rock star and Carole Drinkwater wrote about managing an olive farm. So, before you spend time putting together a proposal, you need to work out your unique angle. Would you be the first to write about living in your particular country? Have you retired from, or taken up, an unusual occupation? Have you founded a sky-diving school in a ski resort? Converted a chateau into a nudist colony? Escaped from a religious commune? What is it about you that would sell a book? You can no longer rely on quaint local customs, and even humour isn’t enough. I received feedback from a publisher who’d read my proposal for a book based on a column I’d written for Living France. He said he’d laughed out loud in places, but he wouldn’t take the book on because it lacked a USP. Once you’ve decided on the angle, what should you submit to publishers? Always check the submission guidelines, but in most instances, a publisher will ask for a covering letter (don’t forget the USP), a list of chapter headings with a mini-synopsis of each, some examples of competing books with a word about why yours is better/different/unique, the approximate word count and the first two or three chapters. The following publishers accept email submissions, but it is advisable to phone first to check they are still open to new authors. Michael O'Mara Books: www.mombooks.com Portico Books: www.porticobooks.co.uk Summersdale Media: www.summersdale.com Snowbooks: www.snowbooks.com Write Away! Notes from the Margin


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