A: Mary
Ellen Lepionka, Publisher, Atlantic Path Publishing:
"A textbook publisher
probably would not be interested in your book's potential as a trade
book. Publishers' channels for distribution and sales are not flexible.
If it is a large publisher with a trade division, you could redirect
your proposal there. However, I think your primary intended audience
is college students rather than the general public. Trade books by
definition are for the general public, typically are priced under
$20, and are sold in brick-and-mortar and online bookstores. Of course,
nothing would prevent your publisher from offering your textbook online,
which they all do nowadays, so it probably would be available to general
readers anyway. So I suggest you not mention its value as a trade
book.
In your proposal,
it's best to identify your audience in terms of the names of the courses
in which your book would be used as a primary or ancillary text. For
example, your primary audience might be students taking courses in
women's studies or gender studies (specify undergraduate or graduate
level), and your secondary audience might be students of social work
taking (names of courses). You can discover the names of courses by
surveying course catalogs of different institutions. Course information
is the most valuable to publishers, as it helps them 1) to determine
if they can sell your book (i.e., they already go to the departments
where faculty might adopt it) and 2) to target the particular markets
(i.e., the individual professors who teach the particular courses
you identify).
In sum, textbook
publishers focus on books for students, so your audience analysis
should focus on them also. Textbook publishers receive their orders
from college stores. Some authors try to suggest that academic libraries
are a secondary market for their book, but textbook publishers do
not sell to libraries. Rather, library wholesalers order from publishers
as needed to fill library orders that they receive. So, it's better
not to mention trade bookstores and academic libraries as prospective
markets in your book proposal.
Finally, note
that an interdisciplinary text may be a strength if the courses normally
are treated as interdisciplinary (and you should point this out if
this is the case). Otherwise, an interdisciplinary text may be regarded
as upper or graduate level with correspondingly lower projected sales
(e.g., under 5,000 copies). Naturally, publishers are most interested
in books with large markets that can sell in the greatest possible
numbers."
