But first, a little about Stephanie. She is an award-winning author of nine books, including six collaborations with experts (most on health, fitness, and medicine) and two books on women?s issues: Slayingthe Mermaid: Women and the Culture of Sacrifice and The Women Outside:Meanings and Myths of Homelessness.?
She?s also a book doctor and writes websites, newsletters, training manuals, and reports, and blogs at Writing Craft & Practice.? (For more about Stephanie, visit her website.)
Books are my favorite form of writing. I like to get my teeth into a big project and spin out the ideas over time. I wrote three books on my own and six collaborations with expert authors. In my definition, ?collaboration? means I get my name on the book and actually write it, as opposed to doctoring a manuscript. If I ghosted a book ?invisibly,? I?d ask for a larger fee.?
I was a developmental editor at a book publisher for fifteen years and have done lots of book doctoring since?useful experience, since collaboration requires client management. People may be anxious about the writing process and react badly when they see their words on paper. They need reassurance. Or they have difficulty verbalizing ideas.?
My client Yamuna Zake is a genius body therapist who created her own self-therapy system.When teaching classes, she can demonstrate her routines. But writing requires a whole other level of detail. When words failed her, she?d get down on the floor and do show instead of tell. At first she and my other body-therapist collaborator, Ming Chew, were both quite irritated by my constant query, ?What does that mean, exactly???
Even as you strive to do your best, you also take your ego out of the process. It?s the other person?s book. I may have written a neat phrase that I just love, but if the expert says, ?I would never use that language,? I have to drop it and find another. Still, you?re the writing expert, so you must assert your authority as the one who knows how to build structure and present information clearly. You strike a balance, inhabiting a space somewhere between just doing it for the money and being too identified with it.
Another essential non-writing skill is the ability to stand up for yourself. You need to negotiate an agreement with the expert that ensures you are paid adequately and protects you in case something goes wrong?and in book publishing, anything can go wrong. (Visit this page of my website for articles detailing other critical collaboration issues.)
You must also screen would-be clients, weeding out people who ?will drive you crazy, don?t have the money to pay you, don?t actually have enough material to fill a book, or are caught up in a fantasy and aren?t willing to think their concepts through. No one who hasn?t done it realizes how much work it is to write a book. If they don?t have the fire in the belly, it won?t happen.?
I get queries through Facebook or my website, but in my experience the best sources for work are personal contacts. My first collaboration, with Yamuna, happened after I profiled her for a magazine. All the others came through referrals from agents who knew me and from writer colleagues.
Source: http://nancychristie.blogspot.com/2013/05/focus-on-book-collaboration-with.html
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