wild ink

Tenacity and talent are everything
in this business—with tenacity being
the overriding MUST HAVE.

For the longest time, teens interested in reading about specific subjects were restricted to dull textbooks or else they had to find a book written for adults. Not anymore! The genre of YA nonfiction is really taking off.

Getting a book published about a topic you love is a chance to share your interest and even make a little money. But before you get started on this fulfilling endeavor, keep in mind that nonfiction writers have a different job than novelists. You must convince agents and editors of three things:

Voice is just as important in nonfiction as it is in fiction, but many writers make the mistake of focusing strictly on information when writing nonfiction. The resulting style is about as juicy as the Great Salt Desert. Your audience is not made up of captives; they need a reason to keep reading. You won’t provide that reason if you get all stark and dry with the facts and leave your voice out of your book. Here’s a good example of the use of voice from Zachary Hamby’s Mythology for Teens (2009):

You may not be a theatre person. You may not enjoy dramas, comedies, one-acts, or musicals. Maybe you haven’t even seen a staged play before, but you surely enjoy the theatre’s modern-day descendants. Movies and TV owe everything to theatre. They’re just fancier, flashier versions. And theatre? Theatre owes everything to the Greeks. (p. 67)

Hamby could have written something crusty and bland. He could have said: “Although you yourself might not enjoy staged theater, you probably enjoy movies and TV. The shows you like to watch are descended from Greek plays that have their roots in mythology.” But Hamby didn’t do that. He used juice to get his point across.

In the first edition of Seize the Story: A Handbook for Teens Who Like to Write (2008), I say: “Getting through a first draft feels very much like clawing my way through solid rock using only my fingernails” (p. 15). I could have said: “Writing a first draft is really difficult for me.” But phrased like that, my words would hit the reader’s skull and ricochet onto the floor, where they would stay. A publisher would never pick up such a book in the first place.

If you’ve done much academic writing, you’re probably accustomed to a style that deemphasizes drama and strives for an ultraobjective stance. For example: Eighty one percent of novelists polled by Boring, Inc. indicated that they disliked performing the actual writing of their first drafts (Tedious Text, 2011, p. 00). This is the style that creeps into textbooks and renders them d-u-l-l. But we are not talking about writing text-books here; we’re talking about being fascinating.

You might be the only person you know who’s awestruck by earthworms, but if so, you’re the perfect person to write about worm drama. Hook your readers with surprising tidbits. The longest earthworm ever found was 22 feet! And yes, to a catfish, a night crawler is super yummy! And how did earthworm burrows give rise to the sci-fi term “wormhole”?

You may have been conditioned to think that you must be dry to be accurate, but you don’t: You can be perfectly accurate and still be interesting. To create interest, play up drama. It’s always there. Find it, and it will help you reach your readers.

When writing for teens, it isn’t necessary to confine yourself to two-syllable words, but please don’t be needlessly verbose. Get to the point. No room for rambling or run-on sentences! Be entertaining, but be clear. If your subject includes unfamiliar terms, define each term the first time it’s used, support your definition with at least one example, and then create a glossary or an index.

It’s always a good idea to create an index for print books. Teens are accustomed to using search functions, and they will be annoyed if they can’t easily find something they remember reading. Your publisher can help with an index. Nonfiction publishers have plenty of experience in this area.

Sprinkle colorful examples throughout your chapters, and include activities that involve the reader. As you write, be aware that you’ll want more white space than you would find in the average book written for adults. Break up your pages with bold headings, text-boxes, lists, sidebar suggestions, and other ways to create visual texture. Photos and drawings will liven up your prose. (Your publisher and book designer will have very specific criteria for how to treat graphics, so be sure to find out exactly what they are.)

Your subject matter might also be well-suited to become a graphic format (a.k.a. comic) book. For more about graphic format in YA nonfiction, read Sari Wilson and Josh Neufeld’s interviews in Chapter 11.

As a writer of YA nonfiction, part of your market is teens themselves. Another part of your market is parents and educators of teens. Ideally, you’ll present your topic in a way that appeals to teens but also gives parents and educators a good sense of your credibility and expertise so they can be confident about buying your book.

Publishers, too, need to feel confident in your expertise. What qualifications are they seeking in authors of YA nonfiction? Well, if you’re a prominent expert in a field in which you have an advanced degree, and you have experience working with teens, and you’re a writer with a flair for reaching young adults, you have an irresistible combination. However, if you’re not in that enviable position, there are other ways to put your expertise into the best possible light for publishing a book.

1. Become known as an expert. If you are a “go to” person on the cutting edge in your field, you may be able to leverage your expertise into a book deal. Publishers may even seek you out. So, how do you establish yourself as an expert?

a. Publish articles. When you author articles on your subject in professional journals and magazines, you create a positive addition to your resume.

b. Build up blog appeal. If you’re consistent about blogging for at least 2 years, and your blog has a following, you have a favorable selling point.

c. Give presentations at national or regional conferences. Seek out conferences related to your subject matter. Submit presentation ideas, and when you’re accepted, put together a scintillating talk. Publishers interested in doing a book on your topic may have scouts in attendance at conferences.

d. Offer to review books for publishers. If particular publishers have impressed you with the quality of their line of books, offer to review titles for them. Become a reliable partner so the publisher knows you’re some-one to be trusted. You might be surprised by how many people will promise something and then fail to deliver it on time. Publishers need writers who will not flake out. Reviewing books is a chance to participate in a mutually beneficial service while cultivating professional relationships.

e. Conduct workshops for teens. By conducting workshops for teens, you’ll get a sense of how to present your topic in a way that’s relatable for your audience.

2. Emphasize experience. Perhaps you do not have an advanced degree in the subject you’re interested in writing about. Whereas it’s advantageous to have a doctorate or master’s degree, it isn’t always necessary, especially if your book is a “how-to” on a particular craft. If you have a successful business that offers products appealing to teens, you could turn your mojo for money into a book on starting a business even if you haven’t attained a graduate degree in finance or business administration. If you’ve grown up in a bakery, you could write an outstanding manual on cake decorating without going to art school.

3. Get involved in your community. If you’re a good writer active in your community, your level of experience may trump a formal education. For example, if you’ve run a community garden for an innercity teen camp, you’re a better bet for a YA book about gardening than someone with a recent Ph.D. in horticulture who hasn’t talked to a 15-year-old since 10th grade. When I pitched the idea for Seize the Story, although I didn’t have a master’s degree in creative writing, I had led writing workshops for thousands of teens in schools and libraries for more than 7 years. I was also a YA novelist published in dozens of countries. In addition, I reached out to other YA authors through my community and asked for interviews to give more dimension to my book.

4. Get endorsements and vetting from experts. If you do not have a formal educational background that relates to your topic, it’s wise to seek out endorsements from experts. If your subject is technical or scientific at all, find at least one person with an advanced degree who promises to vet your work.

a. Be mindful and professional when approaching experts. Carefully research the qualifications of those you plan to contact. In your initial e-mail to any expert, be as clear as possible about exactly what you’re hoping to receive. Request a fee schedule to show that you expect to pay a consulting fee for the expert’s time and training. (To ask for vetting as a favor is unprofessional and will probably be turned down.) Be prepared to alter your text if the expert finds inaccuracies or gaps in your presentation. And remember that experts are often extremely busy. If someone turns down your project, it isn’t personal.

If you’re primarily a writer rather than an expert, perhaps a collaboration will work for you. Maybe you have always been intrigued by gardening, but you don’t know all that much about it beyond your own small plot of flowers and veggies. However, you have superb writing skills, and you think there’s a market for a YA book on gardening. Then you cross paths with someone who has a Ph.D. in horticulture, an enthusiastic and knowledgeable gardener who doesn’t have a background in nonacademic writing. This may be an opportunity to collaborate on a book.

Coauthoring can take many forms, with many possible divisions of duties. Sometimes, one person will provide all of the writing and the other all of the expertise. Sometimes, both people share equally in expertise, writing, and everything in between. No matter how collaborations happen, they demand excellent rapport between the coauthors, with the ability to share work and credit. If you’re considering coauthoring, I recommend The Writer’s Legal Companion by Brad Bunnin and Peter Beren, in particular the chapter on collaborations and how to set them up legally.

If your book presents facts, those facts will need to be checked. Normally, your publisher will not have the resources to do this. As part of your standard contract, you will sign a document saying you have correctly represented the facts. Cite your sources, and be sure you’ve used direct sources rather than secondhand information. If you’re unsure about your research methods, your local library is an excellent resource. Media specialists are trained to help you research anything in the world. As you research, keep close track of your references, including authors, titles, publishers, editions, dates, and page numbers so you can create a comprehensive reference list. Your publisher will have guidelines for which format it prefers for this.

Draw clear distinctions between opinions and facts so you don’t confuse your readers or land in legal hot water. And if there’s any doubt in your mind—or even if there isn’t—about the information you’re presenting, get a highly educated person on board to check your work. All of this will make your book more credible and valuable.

Sadly, it doesn’t matter how knowledgeable and passionate you are about creating tie-dyed shoes if only one in a million teens will care. If you’re an authority on Tolstoy, you’re out of luck in the marketplace, because it’s a rare teen who reads Tolstoy by choice. And if you’re an artist who practices glass-blowing, your craft is too dangerous and expensive for the average teenager.

To clarify whether your expertise will fit with YA, you might try making a list of what young people could gain by learning what you know. When you’ve finished, convert the items on your list into questions and then poll the teenagers in your life.

Young people who learn to landscape would gain:

a) A sense of being closer to nature.

b) Self-esteem and accomplishment from tending plants.

c) Seeds of confidence for future homeownership.

Your related questions for teens:

a) Would you like to feel closer to nature?

b) Do you think tending plants would boost your self-esteem?

c) Would you look forward to being a homeowner someday if you knew more about landscaping?

The teens you talk to might say “no” to your questions. If they do, it doesn’t mean it’s time to abandon your book idea yet; it means it’s time to rethink your approach.

New list with different benefits:

a) Possible source of income working in yards during the summer.

b) Learn about varieties of trees, shrubs, flowers, and stones and how they fit into the artistic aspect of landscape design.

c) Get eco-friendly by learning about nonpoisonous pest control, electric mowers, organic fertilizers, and xeriscape methods for conserving water.

New questions:

a) Would you enjoy having a summer income while being your own boss?

b) Would you like to know more about the creative aspect of landscape design, including color palettes?

c) Are you interested in eco-friendly choices for landscaping and how to put them into practice?

This time, you might get a “yes” to every question from all of the teens you ask. If so, you know your angle. The all-important “What’s in it for them?” question has been answered. You’re ready to generate an outline.

A jazzy outline is great, but it’s not the only thing you’ll need when presenting your subject. Remember, when publishing companies take on a new book, they’re investing time, energy, and money. They need to believe there’s a possibility of getting a return on that investment. (For more on publisher costs, see p. 146 in Chapter 8.)

In general, nonfiction publishers are leery of being the first company to bring out a book on a subject no one has focused on before. There’s already plenty of risk inherent in the publishing business, and they don’t like to just throw something into the marketplace cold. Often, the reason no one has yet published a book about a certain topic is because the market for that topic doesn’t exist.

You may be convinced there’s a market for something no one else has recognized, but it’s up to you to persuade a publisher. If you’re right, both you and the publisher will win big. It’s lovely to be the first to identify a niche market with sizable buying power. But if you’re wrong, nobody gets nothin’. Publishers are quite familiar with “blue sky”—where a writer promises the moon and delivers a patch of mud. They will not be impressed with big dreams of success if you don’t present them with a viable launch pad.

When I first pitched Seize the Story, my editor didn’t think there would be enough interest from teens to justify developing such a book. Her company usually published titles that primarily served English teachers rather than teens themselves. At the time, there weren’t any other titles visible in the marketplace that did what I wanted to do: teach all of the elements of fiction in a book designed for ambitious teen writers. I planned to cover techniques for how to write dialogue, characters, setting, conflict, plot, and point of view.

In the process of persuading my editor to give it a try, I didn’t promise her the moon. I told her about my experiences leading writing workshops for teens. During every work-shop, the kids wanted more, more, more. I believed that they—and their parents—would love to have a handbook about creative writing.

No doubt it helped my cause that this editor had a soft spot for young writers. She decided to take a chance. At any rate, my tale has a happy ending. Today, Seize the Story is in its second edition—and other books have followed in its footsteps.

It might take some doing to gather what you need to make your subject desirable to a publisher. I suggest mixing a pragmatic approach with enthusiasm.

When writing your proposal, never assume that a publisher is already excited about your subject. Gather practical selling points to back up your personal enthusiasm. And always be professional. Provide your list of benefits in an eloquent but concise manner. A few enticing bullet points will be more persuasive than a long list of details.

Submission policies for nonfiction books differ from those that govern fiction. Rather than writing your whole book before you begin to submit (which is a must for novelists!), you’ll create a resume, an outline, and a couple of sample chapters. This is because instead of selling a great story, you’re selling your expertise and your subject matter along with your ideas on how to present it. An agent or editor will want to see not only that you can write but also how you intend to approach your subject as a whole. Along these lines, some of the publishers you approach may require additional pieces of information as part of your total proposal such as identifying your target market, researching competitive titles, and doing market analysis in advance.

If you have an agent, and if you have a topic with such broad market appeal that you could conceivably attract a large publisher, your agent will submit your proposal for you. But many nonfiction books—and nonfiction publishers—cater to smaller niche markets. These markets don’t have enough potential buyers to draw in a large publisher. If your book is designed for a niche market, instead of involving your agent in submissions, you will need to find a home for your project yourself. Once you have an offer from a publisher, your agent can get involved in the contract.

Whether you end up dealing with a large or small press, if an editor takes an interest in your proposal and likes your writing style, he or she will want to discuss your outline. You’ll receive suggestions or demands about what to include (or exclude), and these will take your outline in new directions. So unless you just adore writing for its own sake, it’s a waste of time to complete a nonfiction book before you have those crucial discussions about content. You’ll end up scrapping a lot of what you’ve written in favor of fresh ideas. (If you intend to self-publish, then you have a different situation. See Chapter 10.)

Publishing company editors do not get hired by accident. They are selected from a large pool of candidates and picked because they have talent, dedication, and skill. These professionals have their eyes on the big picture, a picture you may not be able to see from your vantage point. It’s in your interest to carefully consider what they have to say: They know what the market is doing. Besides, writers who can’t or won’t adjust their approach are not a good risk for publishers.

Imagine you’re a cook with a Ph.D. in nutritional science who has worked with a number of teens on how to make healthy food choices. You submit a proposal for a book that will cover how to avoid or even treat Type 2 diabetes with good nutrition. An editor loves your writing style but suggests a different emphasis: the role that healthy food can play in teen dating and get-togethers. The editor thinks your original idea should be streamlined and occupy only two chapters, one on basic nutrition and one on steering clear of Type 2 diabetes. The other chapters will cover having fun on dates that involve healthy food, who pays for what and when, how to host a party, peer pressure to eat junk food and what to do about it, and a section with recipes such as making your own pizza.

You could moan about how the editor doesn’t understand your subject. Or you could jump at the chance to expand. If you settle for moaning, you’ll also stamp yourself as an amateur—and you won’t get a book contract. But if you can work together with an editor to reorganize your chapters and come up with a new outline, you’ll have fun and end up with a wonderful book. The best editor-author relationships incorporate listening on both sides.

Sometimes you may get an offer that really doesn’t fit the message you have for your readers. For example, an editor wants to turn your nutrition book into a weight-loss manual that zeroes in on body image and caters to fast-food sponsors. In such a case, to agree would compromise your integrity as an author. Then, of course, you’re better off saying no.

Your outline is meant to support your sample chapters and give an idea of how you intend to treat your subject. But again, realize that the content could change significantly by the time you’ve completed discussions with an editor, so don’t get bogged down with too much detail.

If you have ideas for illustrations, photos, or other graphic elements, including them can be a selling point, but only if you present them as suggestions rather than hard-and-fast requirements. Publishers have teams of designers with a track record they trust. Their designers will always have the final say on layout and visual elements.

Your opening chapter will introduce your subject and give an overview. Other chapters will break down elements of that overview. For your sample chapters, write your opening chapter and one other. Showcase your savvy and your voice. Before approaching an agent or editor, get these two chapters in the best shape you can.

The information you include about yourself is an essential part of selling your proposal. Why are you the right person to enter the market with a book on your chosen topic?

When listing your qualifications, be thorough but brief. This might sound like an oxymoron, but it isn’t. Weed out any information that doesn’t apply to the topic you’re writing about. If you want to write about earthworms and you once contributed two lines in an obscure magazine on an unrelated subject, please do not include it as a writing credit. If you worked window-washing skyscrapers, that experience doesn’t pertain to earthworms. But if you’ve led workshops on how to start your own night crawler farm, you have a selling point.

Rather than expounding on the facts, let them speak for themselves. Organize your education and experience into neat, succinct bullets. Editors are extremely busy; they need to be able to browse your resume and pick out the relevant details with ease.

To help you streamline, create two resumes, one long and one short. Cut the short one to half a page that hits the highlights. An asterisk can mention that a longer version is available on request. Busy editors will appreciate your thoughtfulness.

It’s worth keeping in mind that publishers like to invest not only in specific subjects but also in particular authors who may continue to provide good books over time. Your resume and query letter is your first impression. (For tips on writing query letters, see p. 130.) If you hope for a long relationship, be courteous and forthcoming, but keep to the essentials.

As mentioned, many publishers of YA nonfiction are smallish companies that cater to niche markets. This has a number of implications for your wallet.

If you’re working with a small publisher, you can expect your advance to range from zip to negligible. However, you have a better chance of collecting royalties year after year with nonfiction than with fiction, unless your subject goes out of date. The majority of fiction books go out of print within a year or two of publication, while nonfiction books are designed for a more enduring market. Also, nonfiction can always be revised and expanded to add muscle to its marketplace physique.

Sometimes nonfiction writers are paid a flat fee to create a specific project for a publisher. Such projects usually have tight deadlines, and they are more common for writers who have proven themselves reliable. Let’s say a publisher has noticed a gap in the marketplace for a manual on how to maximize the space in college dorm rooms. After negotiating with several universities, the publisher has received a large purchase order for a booklet called Making the Most of Your Dorm Room Space. The universities plan to give out this booklet or offer it as a free download to matriculating freshmen.

The publisher may then approach a writer and offer a contract for a flat fee to research and write up this booklet within 2 months. The publisher will furnish an approximate word count and a broad outline at the outset. Now, it’s up to the author to decide if he or she wants the job. If so, a portion of the flat fee will be advanced to get things rolling, and then when the writer meets his or her deadline, the rest of the payment is made. Whether the resulting product goes on to sell a few more copies or a million, the author will not receive royalties. However, the publisher might have another job for that same writer.

If you’re aiming to capitalize on a sizzling trend before it disappears, make it clear in your proposal that you’re uniquely positioned to write about it. Maybe there’s a sudden fad among teens involving DIY armbands made from vintage buttons and beads. It so happens that you have been making jewelry in your basement out of these items for the past 2 years. You know all of the tips and tricks for creating attractive designs that don’t fall apart, as well as how to shop for buttons and beads. Your proposal will include a description of the fad with supporting facts, along with your qualifications and a reference to the time-sensitive nature of your book. Normally, it takes 18 months to 3 years to publish, but every now and again a publisher will move a title into rotation quickly to grab sales. Trendy topics work out better for big publishers; they can maneuver publicity to dovetail with a rising fad. In this scenario, you’d get an advance to encourage speedy writing.

You can make a real and positive difference in the lives of young people by transmitting your love of your subject, whether it’s cooking, nutrition, landscaping, designing—or earthworms. Hundreds of topics are waiting to be discovered by enterprising and curious readers. So go ahead, throw your topic in the ring!

Chapter 4

Writing YA
Nonfiction

Chapter 4

Writing YA Nonfiction

Writing YA
Nonfiction