Learning The Trade: Advice For Scientists Seeking Book Publishers

Learning The Trade: Advice For Scientists Seeking Book Publishers The well-publicized commercial successes of science books for the lay, or trade, market--going all the way back to The Double Helix by James Watson (New York, Atheneum Publishers, 1968), and through the more recent A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking (New York, Bantam Books, 1988)--provide indisputable evidence that science titles can have broad appeal and even occasionally become mega-bestsellers. Less well-publicized have been those many science titles that never achieved such broad recognition, yet still returned handsome profits for their publishers. TRADE BOOK TIPS Here are a few tips for the scientist thinking of writing a science book for trade publication: Good trade book authors are trade book readers. Before you begin to write your proposal, go to a good general-interest bookstore and read through the science titles on the shelves. Don't limit yourself to those in your own field. If you don't leave with a book or two under your arm, you are probably not destined for trade authorship. After you have read a trade science book, go back and carefully reread the flap copy. Now ask yourself: Does the book provide the information, thesis, and analysis the flap copy suggests it will? If not, a dissonance existed between what the author attempted with the work and what the publisher thought it could sell. Note the name of the publisher and remember it. This is not a house you want to give your project to. Title your book even before you submit your proposal. And, contrary to the general rule in most book publishing, titles of science books should beeline to the topic of the book, as in Consciousness Explained (by Daniel C. Dennett; Boston, Little, Brown & Co. Inc., 1991); The First Three Minutes (by Steven Weinberg; New York, Basic Books, 1977); and Innumeracy (by John A. Paulos; New York, Hill & Wang, 1988). Such titles suggest to an editor that the author has done the work necessary to focus the book. Understand the distinction between a technical accomplishment and a new conceptualization. Books for the trade market require the second, not just the first. A book about a critically important breakthrough in our understanding of oncogenes would likely have limited trade book potential; embed it in a discussion of how the breakthrough could lead to reshaping what we know of a disease process and you're on your way. In writing your proposal, envision an intelligent reader; don't be afraid to introduce difficult ideas. Include the chain of mental events that brought you to your special interest in the subject matter and your decision to pursue the scientific inquiry that led to the book. Know what other science books the editor has published. (The editor's name is usually found in the acknowledgments at the front of the book.) By all means, seek out and talk to other science authors the editor has published; most will be happy to share experiences with fellow writers. Finally, if you are unagented, don't be afraid to telephone a publishing house and ask if there is one editor who specializes in science publishing, and if you might be connected to that editor. You may not always get through on a first try, but an editor who does not return calls is not the one to whom you should be submitting your proposal. Once you reach the editor, describe your project in terms as brief as will leave it accurate. The editor will either ask you to submit a proposal or discourage you from doing so. Or he or she may direct you to another editor, possibly at another house, who might be better for your project. But how does a researcher who has never before written for any audience other than his or her own professional colleagues find a trade publisher--and how can the scientist be sure that the publisher will treat the work with the care it deserves? There are two aspects of publishing that a scientist looking for the right trade publisher should be aware of. The first involves certain important differences between university- press and trade publishing; the second concerns where today's science editors see the market for science books. Generally speaking (and I speak as someone who was a university press editor for more than a decade), a proposal found worthy of publication at one university press will be similarly seen at all of them. Why? Because all university presses publish for the same market--other scientists in the same or related disciplines. And they all use the same methods to determine publishability--outside review by well- known figures, again, in the same or related disciplines. Trade publishing, on the other hand, is not so single- minded. Some of us publish for the well-informed serious reader; others for a much broader market; still others for specific segments of the general reading public. Thus, the same proposal submitted to five different trade houses may be rejected outright by three and accepted at two others. Further, the two that accept the proposal may offer very different advances and plan very different first print runs. Let me explain. At the most commercial trade publishing houses, editors are under enormous pressure to fish out of the river of proposals flowing past their desk only those projects with prospects for best-sellerdom. At these houses, your science project will have to compete not only with other science books but also with cookbooks, self-help books, fiction, and so forth. A proposal for a fully publishable trade science book, but not a potential blockbuster, may well be at the wrong house here. But this should not be taken to mean that authors of serious science projects must either simplify their work to appeal to a less-educated reader or reconcile themselves to publication only by university presses, with their smaller advances and more limited distribution. There are still many trade houses that are looking for quality science titles, whether or not they have the potential to make best-seller lists. Moreover, because they consider their back lists (those titles published in seasons prior to the current one) to be valuable assets, they are not under the same pressure to be in the black within weeks of a book's publication. That the names of such publishers may not be household words is related at least in part to this commitment to serious nonfiction at the expense of more commercial books. It is thus not surprising that Harvard University zoologist Stephen Jay Gould and the late Nobel physicist Richard Feynman--scientist authors who could have written their own tickets at any of the most commercial houses--chose instead a house like W.W. Norton & Co. of New York, known as a publisher of serious nonfiction, or that noted scientists like Robert Gallo and Gerald Edelman publish with my own small imprint, Basic Books, also in New York. Such houses (and there are many others, as well) not only publish a much broader range of science titles than the typical high-profile publisher, but also do so, I would argue, more wisely--resulting in far fewer books that fail to fulfill the reasonable expectations of the house, the editor, and the author. For those who are looking for trade publication of their work and are finding it difficult to get a foot in the door, the following should be helpful. As suggested in a recent article in The Scientist (R. Lewis, Feb. 7, 1994, page 21), agents play a vital role in science publishing. By virtue of their continuing relationships with publishers, agents are in a special position to bring to the attention of particular editors projects of a kind those editors have shown an interest in publishing. Many agents also play a role in helping authors put together proposals that are more likely to provide all the information an editor wants to have in hand when making that "publish or pass" decision. Obtaining representation, however, is not a guarantee of publication. Once brought to the attention of an editor, agented and unagented proposals and manuscripts are read alike. More important for the young scientist who has not yet made a reputation, agent involvement cannot guarantee that a project will be marketed appropriately. This consideration should be of special interest to all those whose primary profession is science rather than writing and who consider the respect of their peers to be of even greater importance than book sales. We are in a period in which demand among the general book- buying public for both scientific literacy and currency seems at an all-time high. While the general public may not know the sales history of books such as Douglas Hofstadter's Godel, Escher, Bach (Basic Books, 1979) or Timothy Ferris's Coming of Age in the Milky Way (New York, William Morrow & Co. Inc., 1988), editors who regularly publish science books know that such titles were very profitable for their houses. It is my feeling that scientists are now in a better position to have their work published, and even to get wide review attention for it, than serious nonfiction writers in other fields (see accompanying tips). Of course, all science projects are not equally attractive to all editors. Broadly speaking, here are the categories of science books for which editors regularly receive proposals. First, and most desirable (because they have the greatest prestige and greatest sales potential) are books written by leading scientists (without the help of cowriters) that are based on the scientist's own work and the work of colleagues and attempt to add a new conceptualization to their field. Such books are often hard reads. In this regard they violate a precept that has become almost gospel in most other types of publishing--namely, the most accessible books are likely to be the most successful in the marketplace. Surprising as it may sound, the opposite is often true in science publishing. As William Frucht, executive director of three major science book clubs, noted in a session on science publishing at the 1993 meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (Science, 260:1150-2, 1993), science titles with challenging presentations often ring up better sales than those that are "dumbed down." A second category of science books likely to command an editor's attention is made up of those written not to influence the field but to explain state-of-the-art science to an intelligent reader. As long as their focus remains on explaining science, and they do not veer off into celebrating the occurrence of some important breakthrough and the great scientist who brought it about, such books can be successful, although rarely do they have the sales potential of the first group. This is an ideal category for a first-time trade science author to think about. Third are those books that cross over from a science market to a "New Age" market. A good part of the potential market for many science books, particularly in such areas as cosmology, astronomy, evolution, and ecology, has come to be seen as including a large number of people who are often not only anti-science but also anti-rational at their core. Editors at many of the more commercial houses are looking for science books that allow for a spillover appeal to such readers--for example, a book about life on other planets. I am not. A very different group of science books is made up of those that include style elements of science fiction/fantasy. Based on cutting-edge physics and often written by cutting- edge people, they combine solid science with informed speculation. Kip S. Thorne's Black Holes & Time Warps (W.W. Norton, 1994) is an example of this kind of book. Another is The Last Three Minutes by Paul Davies, part of the Science Masters Series, soon to be simultaneously issued by 13 publishing houses worldwide. Such books are fun to read. Especially in cosmology, in which new breakthroughs now seem less likely, they may well be a wave of the future. Of less interest to most editors who maintain a serious science list are those books by scientists in one field trying to write about another field--engineers, for example, trying to write books on cosmology; books on "heroic science," best left to science writers; "Mr. Wizard" books-- that is, books explaining the marvel of certain breakthroughs in science to the lay reader. (Such books often make successful young adult books.) In science publishing, as in other publishing, the megabuck advances make the big news. But no matter how much money is being thrown at you, make the decision about whom to publish with based on a realistic assessment of the ability of the editor and publishing house to help you bring out a book that you will be proud to have authored. Susan Rabiner, whose 25-year career in publishing includes more than a decade at a university press, is a senior editor at New York-based Basic Books. She is currently under contract to write a book entitled Thinking Like Your Editor: Writing and Publishing Serious Nonfiction with her husband, Alfred Fortunato, whom she acknowledges for his help in preparing this article.

Learning The Trade: Advice For Scientists Seeking Book Publishers

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