Our Non-fiction panel (L to R) Nancy Burkhalter - a former journalist and ghostwriter, Nancy has used her PhD in Linguistics to write four textbooks (and has also penned a murder mystery and Y.A. novel). Rebecca Staffel - fresh from a career at Doe Coover Agency, where she specialized in selling cookbooks like ;The Dessert Wine Lover;s Cookbook; and ;Extreme Measures: Living Eating Well after Gastric Bypass Surgery Sean Taeschner- has 7 books on Amazon.com and just signed a contract with First Books to produce his book on finding gold in Washington State. Diann Macrae ; Freelance writer, editor and indexer, Diann has published a birding guide to Washington State and is the current editor of the WA Ornithological Society.

Below are some tips plus some handouts from our Non-Fiction panel.

Nancy had the following tips for getting your non-fiction published:
1. Schmooze everywhere - conventions, writers meetings, groups. Meet the people to help you.
2. Find the right place for your material - research who uses similar items.
3. Differentiate your ideas from other similar ones out there. What makes your's unique?
4. Write a dynamite cover letter and proposal. This will focus the actual writing.
5. Find out what mix of materials a particular publisher wants - query, excerpts, manuscripts?
6. Copyright the work at the Library of Congress- to better protect it.
7. Get a contract. The National Writers Union offer free contract help.
8. Research, keep notes, check facts. Recordings are useful too to document interviews.
9. Keep records of submissions. Follow-up in a few weeks after submissions.
10. Get paid. This is a business and you deserve to get paid for your work.
11. Celebrate rejections. It means your work is out there. Keeps your morale up.

Sean started selling his books on Amazon and advises it's easier than you think. They are very helpful and add credibility. You don't have to do it the "traditional way." See the pages below for Sean's tips.

Rebecca told us about the elements of a good proposal. "So what, who cares, why you?"
So What? Why would someone want to read your work? Why is it compelling?
Who cares? What market is there? What problem are you solving?
Why you? Are you the person to write it? Sell yourself.

Diann emphasized to be patient and work through any rejections. Her many other tips are in the handout pages below.

Handouts

by Sean T. Taeschner  STeshner@Juno.com (360) 886-1262

1. Start photographing your hobby if it is to be used in your book.
2. Begin writing your book using a computer and MS Word for Windows-IBM version is the industry standard. Using this first or Adobe Acrobat will save you a ton in editing fees with a publisher.
3. Save this work of yours on 3.5" diskette or CDs.
4. Is this a subject that the average person would want to buy?
Test market your printed copy on others and ask for honest written feedback.
5. If you are ready, begin saving your copies on disk and make a diskette cover from those mailed cardboard junk CD covers from AOL, etc.
6. Design your diskette cover using a desktop publishing program.
7. Get a scan-able barcode from Accession, Inc. at http://www.barcodes.org (800) 531-6029 during business hours, 8am - 5pm PST, Monday through Friday.
You will want the ISBN Bar Code wI Price Extension. This will go on the front and back of your e-book diskette or CD cover, which you will print on cardstock using your home publishing computer program.
8. Log onto http://www.Amazon.comlAdvantageprogram and sign up under the new BOOKS section. It explains the program rules, etc. and how to submit a book to be carried by them. Approvals usually takes 2 weeks and they will e-mail an order from you by then. The more books you sell through them on a 45-55% split the more websites they will advertise your book on throughout the world and your sales will increase and sales rankings will get better.
9. Take your book to some newspapers and ask them to do a feature article on your book. This is free publicity and will drive sales.
I always have them include where the public can buy my book. http://www.southcountyjoumal.com(scjnews@southcountyjoumal.com) did an article on my panning for gold leading to me doing e-books.
10. If your e-book sells well on Amazon.com then think about branching out to other e-book websites such as: www.FirstPrint.com. www.ebooks-online.com. www.albooktross.com. www.Mindlikewater.com. etc.
11. If they do well there also then contact http://www.1stbooks.com and consider having your having your book published as a paperback, hardcover and rocket e-book all in one.
12. Start charting your sales by creating a sales spreadsheet using MS Excel. This will help you get an idea if your books are doing well or if they are floundering and need more promotion.
.
Publishing Non-fiction Articles by Diann Macrae

Do your homework: Go to the library and look in all types of periodicals for a possible market. Many very narrowly-focused periodicals also insert something far out of their field for added interest. Begin with the various shorter columns in almost any periodical. This is often a good way to start.

Style matters: Every periodical has its own style, sometimes very subtle, sometimes not. Check on whether the articles tend to be first-person, whether lots of quotes are included, whether sidebars are included, etc.

Do you have to start at the bottom? No way. Have confidence in your ability. Start at a top market
and work down; well, at least start in the middle.

Usually one finds the idea first, perhaps sketches an outline, then writes a query letter. Seldom do
writers write the article first.

Query letters: Start with a sentence, or paragraph, that will catch the editor's attention; something about the subject you wish to write about. If you don't have writing samples, tell the editor about life experiences that might apply. Don't state that you don't have any experience.

Best kept to one page unless you know the editor or if your subject is something truly remarkable that takes a bit more explanation. Be sure to find the proper editor's name from a current masthead. And, if mailing, be sure to enclose a SASE.

Enclose a writing sample of some kind. It doesn't have to be a published, paid-for sample. If you write for a newsletter, a church bulletin, or just your own thoughts, send this as a sample.

If e-mail queries are permissible (check the guidelines or call the periodical), make them professional, just like a letter query, not a "Hi there, thought you might be interested in this. . . "

Responses: Patience is a remarkable quality here. Query letters are often weeks in being responded to; don't call to check on it. If it is over six weeks, you might drop a short note, but often it takes quite some time to hear back (by snail mail).

Format for submissions: the sample is the generally accepted format. Always on plain white
paper and double-spaced. No attention getting things on the ms or the envelope.

Responses: Here, it also takes patience since the article is usually passed around to more than one editor. Often you will get a pre-printed rejection; sometimes a hand-written note. If this is the case, just send it off to another market, perhaps after making a few changes.

After article-writing: Books can result from articles. If you write a column, combining these can make a great book. Articles on a common theme can be put together with smooth transitioning to make a book. Possibilities are endless. Just keep writing.

Record-keeping: Do yourself a favor and keep track of what you are doing. Just a simple notebook with the article's title, where it was sent, and notes about its progress. Keep everything possible to do with each article in a separate folder or envelope. The more you write, the more you will thank yourself.

Diann Macrae, tvulture @ vei.net

(sample query letter for a non-fiction article)

February 14, 1998

Birder's World Magazine
find the proper editor's name and address from a current masthead}

Dear

It isn't all chrome and neon with a juke box in the comer. Nor does it serve chicken fried steaks, mashed potatoes, and apple pie. But the ambience is unsurpassed for its customers. This diner is strictly for the birds: a comedero de buitres in Spain, a Vulture Restaurant in South Africa, and the "back 40" in North America. Vulture restaurants have become instrumental in the efforts to save endangered and threatened vulture species around the world.

The concept of restaurants actually got started in the 1960s and was implemented by the Natal Parks Board in South Africa as a means of providing safe winter food for the endangered Bearded Vultures resident in the Natal Drakensberg. In the 1970s, the Vulture Study Group was formed, initially to deter the possible extinction of the Cape Griffon vultures in the Magaliesberg. As a result of the Magaliesberg restaurant and the tireless work of the Vulture Study Group, local farmers and ranchers began restaurants of their own that provided uncontaminated foods plus bone chips for the calcium that young vultures need.

I would like to propose a feature article about vulture restaurants and the clientele that frequent them. Included would be descriptions of vultures in general, how and why vulture restaurants got started, and more detailed information on the species that could be highlighted: the Cape Griffon in South Africa, the California Condor in North America, the Griffon Vulture in Spain, and the Bearded Vulture in Austria and Switzerland. Notes about the people who got all of this started and the trials of the ongoing restaurant projects should be a big part of the story.

I write and photograph natural history material when not working on research projects. Birds, especially raptors, are my focus. My work has appeared in Wildlife Conservation, Birder's World, Northwest Magazine, Bird Watcher's Digest, Washington, and many others. My book, Birder's Guide to Washington, was published in 1995, and I am currently writing the species accounts for Turkey Vulture and Swainson's Hawk for the new Birds of Washington book. I am coordinator of the Olympic Vulture Study, an ongoing Turkey Vulture migration project between the United States and Canada.

I look forward to hearing from you in the near future.

Sincerely,

Diann MacRae

(sample of first page format for a standard non-fiction article)

Diann MacRae
22622 - 53rd Avenue S.E. Bothell, WA 98021 Telephone: 425-481-2797 E-mail: tvulture@veLcom

ca. 1600 words 1st serial rights
@1998, Diann MacRae

VULTURE RESTAURANTS: A Raptorial Diners Club

The three witches in Shakespeare's MacBeth would know exactly how to prepare a recipe for what have been called ghastly gourmets: fillet of snake, eye of newt, toe of frog, lizard's leg, and on and on. All would be gustatorial delights for the world's vulture species, although probably a little meager. Vulture restaurants in our time would present a poison-free diet of wildebeest or other game, cow or horse, chickens, and a vast variety of other deceased beings.
The concept of vulture restaurants began in South Africa in 1966 as a hope for bolstering declining vulture populations: seven of the eight South African species are listed as endangered or vulnerable. Restaurant number one was set up in the mountainous Natal Drakensberg, home to the endangered Bearded Vulture or Lammergeier. Winter food was the primary goal. Other restaurants soon sprang up, some near local abattoirs (slaughterhouses) such as one in the Transvaal's Magaliesberg Mountains. There, meat and bone chips were provided for the Cape Griffon colony which had dwindled to fewer and fewer nests on the cliffs.
Vulture species diminished for many reasons. Game animals once ranged over all of South Africa and carcasses were plentiful. With the advent of more extensive farming, an increased population, and a proliferation of roads, the ungulates and other animals which once provided much of a vulture's meal were slowly relegated to the parks and nature preserves. Lions, cheetahs, and leopards were shot or poisoned to protect the large herds of cattle and sheep now being raised.
Farming practices also changed. Farmers cleaned up by burying or burning dead animals to prevent the spread of disease. They poisoned carcasses which were intended for...

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