Business and personal growth authors often make this (very logical) error of writing their whole book first (or a sizable chunk of it), and then approaching a publisher. Don’t.
Authors often write the book they want to write and what they feel needs to be written, but that’s only half the equation. Because while an author’s passion and drive remains crucial, this needs to be balanced with what the marketplace and potential readers want and how it needs to be presented to them--something only a publisher can know well. I have (all too often) seen authors hammer out an entire book and take it to a publisher, only to have the publisher – if they accept it -- then ask the authors to overhaul the entire work, rendering much of their previous labor useless.
Instead, take the time to plot our your book by putting together a book proposal (all publishers ask for the same details in their proposals so you can multipurpose the one document) and figure out the tentative table of contents, length, big idea, (just) a tentative introductory chapter, and other crucial details. Build the skeleton of the book and present that to a publisher. And then, upon acceptance of the proposal, work with your editor to write the book. Build it from the ground up using both your knowledge and expertise in tandem with a publisher’s market-awareness, guidance, and instruction.
Crankily yours,
