Skip to main content

Getting published

When I had completed my manuscript I was hit by the realisation that I had no idea what to do next. A bit of quick research online told me that I needed to start by finding out which of the many publishers out there accept unsolicited texts. Once I had a list to work with I quickly found that each of the publishers ask you to complete a proposal form and send it to them. They are all different, but they all include the same sorts of thing

  • information about you
  • synopsis of the book
  • suggested audience
  • what sets your book apart from others on the market

This last one floored me, but it made sense to have to answer it. I guess that publishers don't have the time to read all the manuscripts they are sent, so a short proposal form helps them decide which they can look at in more detail and which to reject completely.

The problem I was then faced with was to actually 'sell' the idea of my book. In my experience, selling ourselves is not something that teachers are naturally good at and I am pretty terrible at it to be honest. I can remember at Uni my English lecturers thinking that all the teaching students would be outgoing and confident, when we were anything but, and that has been the case for almost all my colleagues and myself since then. I suspect that it might be different for the new generation of teachers, as I have met some quite outgoing potential employees in recent interviews I have held, but there are still some old school characters out there.

For me personally, I feel like anything approaching self-confidence on my part will be interpreted as baseless arrogance, but I am going to have to get over it if I am going to make it as a writer, I guess. 

Typically for me, I have found a workaround that means I can stay true to my feelings of averageness. I have identified what makes my book different from the others on the market and it is the fact that I am/was just an average head teacher, not one of those super heads you read about. That's my selling point, the stuff in my book is realistic and achievable. 

I have sent off three proposals so far and I think I will leave it for a bit now as I don't want to burn all my bridges at once. There I go again, I need to be more confident!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What is 'teacher mode'?

The inspiration for today's post came recently during a walk around the town in which I live. I have spent the past two decades residing in what could loosely be described as a small but popular resort town, the type that only has a low-cost supermarkets in its centre. I was entering one of these recently when I came across a family who were clearly having an off-season break, probably in one of our many holiday-focused establishments. They didn’t actually say as much, but their 'city ways' certainly screamed this to all the locals present. The parents were obviously keen to pay for their purchases, but the children had not finished looking at sweets, so they did not follow them towards the till. As a result, the clearly annoyed mum turned and yelled to the children to get a move, using that old trick of using first and middle names as an indication of how serious they are about what they are asking. I don’t remember the name of the boy, but the girl was definitely called ‘...
Post a Comment
Read more

Leadership Lessons - school relationships

The following post is taken from the manuscript for my still unpublished book. The book is designed as a manual for the new head teacher and the section I am including below is one where I describe the particularities and challenges involved in building positive relationships with different staff groups. I hope that you find it an interesting read and that some of it strikes a chord with your own experiences.
Post a Comment
Read more

Why are schools obsessed with improving attendance?

I am fully aware that this post might be a bit controversial, but please read it in its entirety before judging me. It seems to me that the obsession that schools have with improving attendance at the moment is misguided at best and self serving at worst. Whilst regular attendance is of course what are looking for, I don't understand why are we spending so much time and energy trying to get attendance to 'above average' levels when that effort would be much better spent elsewhere. For a child, 94% attendance means missing about 8 days school over the course of the year. Younger children in particular are often ill and although the expectation on teachers is super high now we haven't quite got to the point where we are expected to provide a medical service. Sending letters and threatening families if attendance drops below 90% is not what we should be doing and the hard line on holidays in term time is a case of using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.  Surely there is room ...
Post a Comment
Read more