Squeeze the Stone

Don’t exaggerate or make wild, unrealistic claims about your book’s prospects or potential sales. Although it’s important to be enthusiastic, to believe in your work and to pursue your dreams, it’s imperative to face reality. Understand that the book industry is market driven, and if you want to get published, you must present information about your book in a way that will make publishers willing to buy it. This requires you to do your homework—to identify your audience and its size and to explain why it’s going to buy your book.
Claiming that your book will attract a huge audience simply isn’t enough; you must substantiate your claims. Making wild, undocumented claims is a sure way to turn off agents and editors. They want facts and figures. The editorial boards that ultimately approve book acquisitions are bottom-line oriented. If they don’t think a book will make the house money, they usually won’t agree to buy it. So as the author, it’s up to you to show them in black and white that buying your book will be a great financial move.
Many authors believe that it’s the publisher’s job to justify the market, and to some degree that may be true. Few publishers invest without first fully running the numbers, and they will definitely verify
your claims. However, since you, the writer, have so much riding on
your proposal, present your own best case. Point. the number crunchers in the right direction; show them that you’ve done your homework and that you’re a professional. Plus, you may come up with an angle, an approach or something new that they may not have considered.

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