Competing Titles/Market analysis for proposal

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billfarr
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Competing Titles/Market analysis for proposal

Post by billfarr » April 20th, 2010, 12:36 am

I am writing my proposal for my book I have recently written. As part of the proposal you suggest to include “competing titles/market analysis” I have found some books I could compare to mine, however, I cannot find out about their success, other then they are top in sales at Amazon in the category of personality. Is there a place where I can find out how successful they are such as sales, copies sold, etc?
My book is a self-help relationship book. Do you have an example of what this section of the proposal should look like?

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Nathan Bransford
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Re: Competing Titles/Market analysis for proposal

Post by Nathan Bransford » April 20th, 2010, 9:00 pm

Exact sales info isn't usually necessary, and publishers will have that information because they usually have access to Bookscan. It's more important to just mention some of the more well-known titles in your arena and how yours is similar/different.

billfarr
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Re: Competing Titles/Market analysis for proposal

Post by billfarr » April 30th, 2010, 12:34 pm

Thank you Nathan! and I am new to your site and love the blogs and info.

In the blog about "formatting your manuscript" you mentioned a few things I didn't understand. (I posted there but not sure if you respond to old blogs)

My question is regarding the word "manuscript." Does that mean just fiction or is a self-help book called a manuscript as well?

More importantly, regarding spacing of the manuscript, does the double-space rule on format and submitting to agents go for self-help (non-fiction) books as well? (that would change my book from 180 pages to 360)

Also I have heard that in a non-fiction book proposal that the overview should be in single space but the rest in double-space. Do you know of any rule for this?

Thank you! Billy

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