How Broad is Your Market?

You must know before you begin to write exactly how broad your market is for the subject you are writing. The broader the market, the more specialized the subject must be in order to get an editor's attention. You must be able to catch the editor's attention with the uniqueness of your material.

For example, if you are writing a nonfiction article on art history, you may want to broaden your market by writing on a specific or obscure local artist that impacted the regional art sensibilities in a permanent or a trendy way. By choosing your subject with such concerns you accomplish some important marketing needs of your editor. You are selecting a broad market, art history, and you are specializing at the same time. This is a powerful combination that editors appreciate because it helps eliminate their concerns for a broad appeal. In taking this approach, your editor knows that they can market broadly to local, regional, and national niches of art lovers. You have your editor's attention and interest.

Buyer Value

As a nonfiction writer, you must remember that the editor who buys your writing will want a very good return on his or her investment [ROI]. He or she will want to know that the audience to which she or he publishes and markets your work will walk away with a sense of gaining a good deal. The audience of your writing MUST feel they have spent both their time and their money well when reading your material.

One of your biggest jobs as a nonfiction writer is to convey things in a fresh and effective manner. Re-spinning someone else's work is not writing at all; it is lazy and it is plagiarism; and it is unappreciated by the reader and the original author alike. Editors have a nose for writing that smells of plagiarism; it will quickly land you on their "never talk to him again" list.

If you have not developed your own writing style, you will come across to the editor as either too stiff or too stuffy. You want to come across as fresh so spend time developing your own writing style. Style sells, stiff smells. Be a real person without being sloppy and you will eventually develop your own style.

When you tackle your subject with freshness and authority, then you are adding value to the buyer. You are giving the editor a good ROI for the money he pays you and the reader feels that he or she has spent their time (and possibly money) well. If the editor or reader does not have a sense of added value when they read your article, then you will likely not receive a contract.

Pet Peeves

There is no shortage of pet peeves among editors. It may be impossible for you to initially avoid them all (some are never spoken), but you can be aware of some that are most popular among editors. Some of these will land you in the rejection pile or the "Canceled Contract" basket. Here is a list of common irritants:

• The author shows potential, but also shows his laziness.


• The author has never heard of, much less purchased, The Elements of Style or The Chicago Manual of Style. [Hint: These are the bibles of the editing world]


• The author fails to perceive misspelling, grammatical faux pas, and the passive voice as sloppiness and thinks the editor will be his or her red-pencil person.


• The author has rock star thinking and believes he will wake up as a sudden Hemingway, with wealth, wine, and women.


• The author thinks she or he is in charge of the publishing process or becomes demanding with the editor.


• The author thinks that their work should fetch $4 USD per word and that the editor should prepay him. [Hint: Very little in the U.S. market fetches this much; don't think that you should in the beginning, or even after 20 years]


• The author submits the manuscript in a fashion that is 20 years out of time, with no standardized Word document or CD.


• The author thinks that the editor's "job" is that of a rewriter. [Hint: These are two separate jobs and you will do well to rewrite your own work before submitting it unless you want it to look like something you never intended]