let's talk about publishing books about music

I don't know if there's been a thread about this exact topic before, kind of a hard thing to search for. I was thinking about an idea and it occurred to me that in this day and age, given the economy and all, I have no idea how difficult or unlikely it is to convince someone to give you money to write a book, particularly about a niche musical topic. But then, the climate can't be much worse than it is for writing about music for newspapers and magazines. Or can it? But anyway beyond things with an open call for pitches like 33 1/3, I have no idea how one even gets a foot in the door in that world. I know there are a few published authors on here and I wouldn't expect them to just lay out all their trade secrets but maybe we can get some insight into the process.

hey look at that, even my subject line is all fucked up, why would anyone pay me to write anything?

just stay away from the shift key and you might have a chance

i think, if you choose the right publisher to approach, the nicheness of your project might work to your advantage, what with long tail theory and all. some music-specialising publishers have realised that books about charting mainstream acts often don't sell many copies, because the majority of their fanbase isn't interested about them in a way that would lead them to buy a book, whether its because they have no real story to tell, or because their fanbase regards them merely as a soundtrack to their lives; they aren't invested in the identity or narrative of coldplay, say, but rather just the music.

on the other hand, an artist whose appeal is a little more limited, but whose fanbase are generally dedicated enough to want to read a book on the sibject, and whose story is interesting enough to attract readers who perhaps *aren't dedicated fans of the group. its a poor example, but The Dirt has a large readership either ignorant or disdainful of Motley Crue's music, but who wanted to read the story for the story. and the appeal doesn't have to be prurient sex'n'drugzzzz, just a narrative that is gripping in its own right.

look around at the sort of music books you wish you'd written, books that cover similar ground or occupy generic space with the ideas you already have, and then approach those publishers. the worst they can do is say no.

yeah, good point (haha i read The Dirt before i owned any Crue albums)

write a proposal for your book, the longer the better (esp if you haven't been published). summary/intro + sample chapter.

find a literary agent to sell your book to a publisher. you can try to sell it yourself but it's pretty difficult.

http://www.writers.net/agents.html

good luck

awesome, that's just the kind of thing i was hoping to find through this thread

Mike McGonical, longtime fanzine editor and critic and such, is publishing some books at yeti publishing dot com. He posts here on occasion

MgGonigal

McGonigal

MackGarmichael

And it's Mickey, not Mike.

jayzus etc.

- work first on the stuff m coleman suggested -- having a very clear and detailed presentation of what the book is going to be, and sample chapters so amazing and readable as to blow minds, and research and source material as ready to go as possible; you are not asking someone to have you write a book for them, you are telling them you just about have the product, and this is what it will be like

- find books comparable to what you're planning and see who publishes them -- you will want this information for your proposal -- and then go look at their acknowledgments to see who the agent was, and if there are particular agents who deal with a lot of stuff of your type; also generally give some thought to different titles in the area and the business end of it in general, and what about your title would be different from other works, or comparable to other (successful) works, and just generally who's going to read it and why

- not to be a downer, but I definitely wouldn't expect anyone to "give you money to write a book" in any very meaningful way -- unless you have a staggeringly unique and marketable concept or a pre-existing readership (e.g., you are better known and published than, say, Kelefa Sanneh), the main benefit here is just going to be to make sure that, after your lonely and tiring and self-funded hours of writing a book, there is at least someone interested in publishing it, so you won't be stuck with too much wasted time; this is something you'd do because you wanted, not anything anyone else is likely to go make possible for you to do

I'm working on a niche book and two publishers are already interested. Very encouraging. Now I need to finish writing it though. Very discouraging.

"this is something you'd do because you wanted, not anything anyone else is likely to go make possible for you to do"

^this

my wife works in nonfiction publishing, and i'd say that the niche stuff is the way to go ... they've published some very niche-y sports books (like things about the cleveland browns in the 50s) that sells better than the big, broad stuff. I think it's important in your proposal to really demonstrate that there are people out there who are interested in the topic/will buy the book ... obvious, but, you know ...

nabisco OTM

I've published three books on music. The first one went through an indie startup - the company went bankrupt, the book is out of print, but I've got a dozen or so copies in my basement. The second one went through a small but well-regarded indie, and is still in print. The third one went through Da Capo, which is a medium-sized house, and may be out of print - in any case, Amazon has it for $3.99 or something. I got meager advances on all three - in the case of my first book, they paid me $1000, which I took literally just so I'd have a book out there which I could eventually use to convince someone to publish another book by me. (It worked.)

I'm currently working on another book, and I'm not planning on sending it to any publishers. It's a niche book, and I'm gonna do it myself through the print-on-demand website lulu.com. I've got enough publicist friends (including publicists working artists discussed in the book) that I think I can bring it to the attention of a few hundred people willing to buy it from me. In a best-case scenario, I will make almost as much as I would have gotten from a publishing house, assuming I could get them to take a chance on it in the first place.

If you think you've got the right combination of skills and connections (I'll be able to lay out the entire book, including the cover, in Quark on my laptop), you may want to look into going this route yourself. Lulu takes a cut of every sale, but joining and uploading files to be published is free.

I'll review your book Phil. :)

i just finished my second. the advances have been reasonable, enough to justify a couple of months dedicated work on the project, along with long-range research (interviews, etc) juggled with my 'day job' magazine work. i think i'm a fair way off having sold enough copies of the first book to get royalties, and as one of several books on a niche subject, i don't totally expect i will in the future. the one i just finished is the first on a large niche group, and i could see it selling enough to earn royalties in the future, but to be honest, as long as the advance is enough to keep me afloat and out of my overdraft while working on it, that's fine with me, and any eventual royalties are gravy.

what i *have been told is, books on single subjects - an artist or a group - are much more preferable than books on more general subjects, scenes or movements, and are considered endlessly more profitable by publishers.

- not to be a downer, but I definitely wouldn't expect anyone to "give you money to write a book" in any very meaningful way -- unless you have a staggeringly unique and marketable concept or a pre-existing readership (e.g., you are better known and published than, say, Kelefa Sanneh), the main benefit here is just going to be to make sure that, after your lonely and tiring and self-funded hours of writing a book, there is at least someone interested in publishing it, so you won't be stuck with too much wasted time; this is something you'd do because you wanted, not anything anyone else is likely to go make possible for you to do

Yeah, understood, absolutely. I mean I have no problem writing things on spec and having the idea pretty well thought out before it's presented to anybody, it's just that the final product would require a fair amount of research and legwork so I'd want to make sure someone's actually going to publish it and pay me at least something for it before I put in all that effort, since I have neither the means nor the inclination to go fully DIY with it.

i wouldn't write off being able to get an advance though, some dude... they are out there to be had, for projects with i guess obvious commercial viability, though they may be miniscule.

Yeah...I'm not totally pie in the sky with all this, although I'm trying to approach the whole thing with ambition and confidence that it could be great if I do it right, but it's good to get realistic ideas of what to expect out of the process from you guys.

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