Getting published

I decided early on in this process that I wanted to secure a publication agreement before spending months writing something that nobody wanted to print. After some research I chose New Society Publishers, which is one of North America's most important publishers on social issues, ecosystems, food supply, and climate change. NSP has proven itself to be committed to “building an ecologically sustainable and just society”. Readers looking for background information on the key ecological and societal issues of our time look to NSP, and that’s where they would expect to find this book. NSP has already published several other books on climate change, all, of course, a little different from this one.

Like other publishers, New Society has a process for submitting book proposals. I had to send them an annotated table of contents, a sample chapter, an explanation of why the book is important, why I should be the one to write it, a list of who might read such a book, and how we could reach that potential audience. The last one was the hardest for me because many of the suggestions included social media of some kind and I've never been a social media user. This blog goes part way towards that goal; perhaps over the coming months I can get a little more social-media savvy.

Long story-short, they really liked the concept and accepted my proposal! I had a couple of useful conversations with an acquisitions editor and the art director, and now I have a contract in hand.

So now the fun part begins. Over the next few months I'll be blogging about my experiences writing the various chapters and sharing some new discoveries and new insights. I hope you'll come along for the ride!