So You Want to Write a Book

My best advice for authors contemplating trade non-fiction

I’m sometimes asked, in my line of work, to advise authors who are interested in writing a book—a non-fiction trade book, specifically. For those of you who don’t know, a trade book is a book written for a general audience, typically published by a general rather than a specialist (say, academic) publisher. (I say “typically” because many major academic publishers do have a trade division—and some books are written as “crossover” books, intended for both academic and lay readers.) Since my first book was a crossover book, and my second two were trade books, I have a lot of thoughts about how to embark on this exciting, but often daunting, process.