77 Reasons Why Your Book Was Rejected
by Mike Nappa, available as e-book and paper book at Amazon.
The author’s experiences as acquisitions editor, marketing copywriter, and literary agent uniquely qualify him to write on this topic. The book is divided into three sections: Editorial , Marketing and Sales Reasons for Rejection.
An editor is going to look at your proposal – and if it doesn’t meet certain editorial standards, it will go no farther. If it passes basic editorial scrutiny, an editor will then consider whether you’ve done your “marketing” homework — analyzed and defined your audience, established a platform, shown that you know how and why this book will sell. From there, the editor will need to convince the publisher that they can sell this book, and sell enough to merit the investment in its publication.
Perhaps the clearest message that emerges from this book is that getting published is a lot of work. The job doesn’t end when you finish writing the last chapter. Publishers are in the business of selling a product, and it’s your job to convince them that your book will sell.
Or maybe you will decide to go it on your own. After all you have to do your book marketing anyway, even if your book is accepted by a commercial publisher.