CHAPTER 4: PUBLISHING PROPOSALS

 After studying this section, you should be able to:

• Evaluate the importance of publishing proposals in the development of a publishing product.

 The aim of a publishing proposal is to help the management team of a publishing company (a team including people from sales, marketing, finance, and  publishing) decide  whether to  take  on  a particular project or not. Publishing proposals are therefore almost always for projects that have not yet started. But although the project has not yet started, a considerable amount of work may have been done by the commissioning editor and her team in researching and conceptualising the product. The commissioning editor is the person who usually writes the proposal.

Most publishing proposals are for these scenarios:

• Where a commissioning editor has an idea for a new product
• Where a commissioning editor has received an interesting new manuscript or proposal from a writer or writers;
• Where a commissioning editor wants to make a new edition of an existing product.

Let's take the first scenario as an example. The commissioning editor has an idea for a new product. Before she writes a proposal for it, she will need to do at least some of the following:

• Talk about the idea to several important colleagues, including the sales team and the marketing team.
• Do market research with possible buyers and/or users of the new product so that she is sure she understands their needs and behaviours.
• Review existing competing products that are similar to her product idea.
• Start refining her thoughts about what kind of product it would be best to make, and who her product is for.

This could take between two weeks and six months. If the results of this research stage confirm that the product would be a good idea, the commissioning editor will then start actively preparing her proposal. These are some of the steps she might take:

• Identify the meeting at which she will present her proposal. Some companies have monthly meetings to consider publishing proposals with dates set up at the beginning of the year, while other companies have a less formal approach, calling a meeting when there is a proposal to discuss.
• Request print quotes (or production quotes, for digital products) for the product specifications that her research makes her feel are appropriate.
• Make sure that the people who will be at the meeting know about her proposal, and, if possible, are in support of it.

Diagram 4.1. Five stages for approving a publishing proposal

4.2. Understanding the market

 After studying this section, you should be able to:

Appraise the important role and function of market information, and show an understanding of the market sectors and their specific requirements in the development of publishing proposals and products

Identify and consider the impact of important considerations in the identification of an appropriate product

When conceptualising a new product, you will refer to the market research you’ve done and the competitor analysis that forms part of this. See Chapter 3, and also the template for a Market Intelligence report.

You will also want to think about two other factors: the requirements of the entire market sector that you are competing in, and your company’s strategy to gain market share in that market. These will help you know how the publishing proposal for your specific product fits into a bigger picture, and enable you to persuade the senior managers considering your proposal to invest in the new product.

 As a commissioning editor, you need to understand the requirements of your market sector before you start writing your publishing proposal. You will to say clearly how your proposed product fits against these market sector requirements. The table below outlines some of the considerations in the different publishing sectors. However, markets change, and you will need to keep up to date with the latest developments.

Table 4.1 Requirements for different market sectors

The target market in the Academic sector is students and their lecturers (for HE textbooks), and professionals and post-graduate students for professional products. What will make products appropriate for them?

Language. Many students and professionals learn in English while speaking another language as their home language. Textbooks need to be written in plain and accessible English. You can consider using definitions for complex technical or scientific concepts, and including these in a glossary.

Design. The artwork used in textbooks won’t be pretty pictures but mind maps, process flow diagrams or technical illustrations. The internal design of textbooks in this sector can use features that support the consumption of content, such as “boxes” that help the reader pause and think critically about a topic. Other suitable design features include sections for revision, reference lists, and extra reading lists.

Layout. Textbooks are used to convey knowledge but should not have lots of dense, uninterrupted text. The layout can use a structure of headings that enables the student to follow the text easily, and a simple numbering structure.

Format. Some professional products, e.g. for medical doctors studying in specialist fields, are published as e-books with embedded content that can be interactive. HE textbooks need to be robust (as students carry them in backpacks), and easy to notate (white space in margins).

The Trade sector contains diverse target markets, namely, general readers of adult fiction in print and e-book format, the parents who buy children’s fiction and non-fiction in print and digital format, the adults who buy scholarly non-fiction, and consumers who buy religious products.

It would be incorrect to say that there are general rules that apply to all genres (or kinds of literary works) and target markets. After all, a poetry anthology published by an independent publisher will look and feel very different to a popular work of fiction translated from Afrikaans into English, which will differ again from a children’s picture book about animals of South Africa.

In principle, the language, design, layout and format should be carefully selected by the commissioning editor to suit the target market and meet their expectations, while differentiating it enough from competitor titles.

 When you devise the concept for a product, there is a lot to think about. You have creative freedom but are expected to act within the confines of your publishing company’s strategy and business plans, and the requirements of the market sector in which it operates.

You should be aware that senior managers in your company use strategy tools to guide their decisions about suitable product for the market sectors you serve. A popular strategy tool used to think about product development is the Ansoff matrix.

The Ansoff matrix was developed by the Russian-American H. Igor Ansoff in the 1950s. In the four squares within a square, the Ansoff matrix shows four strategies that a company’s leaders can use to think about the market or markets (the group or groups of customers for a product) they are trying to serve. It looks like this:

Table 4.2 shows an example of how you can use critical-thinking skills to conceptualise a product. Imagine you have these pieces of information:

• A market report that says that learners are failing geography mapwork.
• A newspaper report that shows the average Grade 9 learner can’t understand basic questions.
• There are very few qualified geography teachers. Maps and their keys are usually labelled in English. Many learners can’t afford protractors or rulers.
• By using critical-thinking skills, you can try to address these issues when you conceptualise a product.

Table 4.2. An application of critical-thinking skills

When you think about generating ideas, there are a few methods which you can use:

Brainstorming: Brainstorming is one of the most common techniques for generating ideas. Start off by writing down a problem. In a small group, offer different solutions to the problem. The aim of brainstorming is to suggest any possible solution. The solutions can be crazy and off-the-wall. Encourage everyone to think creatively and not criticise one another's ideas during the brainstorming stage.

Starbursting: This is similar to brainstorming. Instead of thinking of potential solutions, you ask questions. These questions can start off at a high level – ask who, what, why, when, where and how. As you gather more information, you can start asking more detailed questions.

Lastly, when developing the concept for your proposal, be conscious of any unintended bias on your part. Bias is a partiality that a person has which prevents them from objectively considering an issue or situation. Bias is normal. The problem occurs when a person is not aware that they are biased. Bias can be dangerous if introduced at any time in the publishing process. Chapter 3 mentioned how you should avoid bias in research. When developing a publishing proposal, the commissioning editor needs to read market intelligence reports with an unprejudiced eye to detect any bias. How can you do this?

Watch out for the researcher giving only one side of the story without giving space to opposing viewpoints. Ask, “What information does the researcher take for granted that shapes the recommendations in the report?” Check whether the research uses only negative language to describe competitor products and services, thereby painting your potential new product in a positive light.

Then, when you compile the proposal, take care that in making it persuasive you don’t leave out some facts you know about the market which might make it less attractive. Your aim should be to make a publishing proposal that is as balanced and impartial a recommendation about a suitable product for the market as possible.

 Once you have a thorough understanding of the market and you’ve used some techniques to generate ideas, you will be in a good position to conceptualise the product. A useful starting point is to think of yourself as the reader. What would you want from this product? What information or skills would you expect to learn?

You can’t know everything about every subject you might be responsible for publishing, but you do

need a basic understanding. Here are some tips:

• Do some research on the internet and read about the subject. Follow relevant thought leaders via their blogs or on social media.
• Have a good grasp of what is happening in the news – are there developments or trends which you need to consider.
• Attend conferences or public lectures where you can learn more about the subject, or listen to podcasts or TED talks.

Look at similar products. These could be other books that your target market might have used or read. They could also be competitor textbooks that can help you to differentiate your product.

Don’t worry if you don’t know everything about the subject. Remember that you are expected to be a publishing professional and not a tax consultant, expert on politics, social sciences teacher or a lawyer.

 There is no point in publishing a product that covers the same subject in the same way as a number of competitors. There would then be no reason to buy your product as opposed to a competitor product. Your product needs to be different.

There are a number of ways that you can differentiate your product. Some examples of differentiating products could be:

• Branding – what does your brand represent or what does the author's brand (their reputation, basically) represent?
• Format and binding – hardback vs paperback or different sizes such as A4 or narrow crown.
• Features – such as additional elements, pedagogical features, interactive assets in an e-book or a narrated CD.
• Service – you can offer additional services such as a training video or after-sales service.
• Distribution – is your product offered in a new market? Or is there a bundle deal with other established or new products?
• Price – how does the price of your product compare, and what value does it offer?

To differentiate your product, you will need to look at what is happening in the broader environment. You will also need to have a thorough understanding of your competitors. We will cover this in more detail in the next section.

 A crucial component of your publishing proposal is the product budget. This is the financial description and summary of the proposal, which includes your recommendations about:

• Format or deployment method
• Costs, price, and print or reproduction quantities

The product budget is a tool you use to check whether the proposal you are making will be:

• Viable (feasible, workable, practical)
• Sustainable
• And achieve the benchmarks set by senior managers in your company for sales revenue, gross profit and net profit. (These concepts are discussed in detail in Chapter 5.)

In this section, we will discuss key financial considerations which affect your product budget. Then we go step-by-step through the process of completing a product budget using the product budget template you will find at the end of Chapter 4.

 Determining the format and deployment method of the product. To make a sustainable and viable product, you need to make a decision about the most appropriate and cost-effective format product for your target market.

Firstly, you will need to decide whether it is print or digital, or both.

Print products can come in a huge variety. Variables include the following: 

• Size
• Extent Cover type
• Use of colour 
• Thickness of paper 
• Binding

reprints. Certainly, for educational publishers (whether school- or university-focused), reprints make up the larger part of a business's turnover. As such, if reprints do not reach their target gross profit margins, the profitability of the whole company could be threatened. Based on this understanding, senior managers are likely to reject a proposal for a new print product that does not meet reprint gross profit margins.

The situation for trade publishers may be somewhat different, as this sector tends to be more front list-driven. (For more on front list v back list, see Section 2.1 on important considerations in list- building, 2.2 on front list management, and 2.3 on back list management). In this sector, it may not be important for a book to be priced in such a way that it can be reprint at a target gross profit margin because it may not be reprinted at all, or it may not be reprinted for a long time (it could, for instance, be offered as an EPUB after the first printrun has sold out).

Completing your product budget. To complete your budget, it is important that you have collected all the financial information you will need. You will have obtained this from your research, requests for quotes from various suppliers, and from the finance department of your company.

The financial manager will typically be your point of contact. She will be able to give you the expected profit parameters within which you will have to work, and information about internal costs which you will have to include in your budget. It will help you to schedule a training session with your financial manager to learn how to complete the specific product budget spreadsheet which your company uses. At least the first few times you complete a product budget, it will also be useful to ask her to check your final draft of your budget before you submit it to senior managers.

Refer to the product budget template at the end of Chapter 4. We will now go step-by-step through this.

First, enter all of the development costs, sales price variables, royalty information, proposed quantities and printing costs in the appropriate cells in the Excel® spreadsheet.

Ensure that where required, you fill in the cells for the reprint budget as well.

When you have input all of the information, you will be able to review the results. You will particularly look to see how the budgeted gross profit percentage compares to the parameters required by your company.

Let’s now look at how practically you would do this practically by referring to the product budget template:

It is very important that you are as accurate as possible with the financial calculations in the product budget and when you determine the cost and return on investment for a product.

By including costs that are too high in your product budget, you may make a project appear to be not viable although it actually is viable. On the basis of your too-high costs, senior managers reject the publishing proposal and the business loses out on earning the profit that the product could have generated.

Conversely, if the costs in your product budget are too low, the business may dedicate resources of time and money to a project that will fail to deliver the budgeted profit. This will have a negative effect on the profitability of the business as a whole.

If you realise at an early stage in the process of making a product that actual costs are going to be higher than budgeted costs, you need to alert your manager to the problem. There may be a process that you need to follow, such as preparing a revised product budget. If there isn't a process, make sure you tell your manager all the same. If the difference between budgeted costs and actual costs looks like it will be significant, then senior managers may take the decision to stop the project and limit losses. However, certain costs may not be able to be cut (such as the salaries people appointed on contract specifically to work on the project).

Changes to the book specifications, people involved on the project, or disruptions at the printers during the project will not only impact on the timeline and possibly the quality, but also on the costs and therefore on the gross profit.

If the fixed costs for the first printrun need to increase, e.g. the per-page cost of typesetting or the artwork cost, senior managers may decide to go ahead with the project if the gross profit on the reprint is good, or if it will make up for the reduced profit on the first printrun.

One way to limit the effect of changes is to build in a contingency amount for changes – a reserve amount in the budget that you can use to fund increased costs, within predetermined and managed authority levels.

Managing project costs effectively is extremely important to minimise the risk of overspending. You need to continually check (on a monthly basis, or even more often) that the resources allocated to the project are being used in the best way possible. If you have saved money in one area (e.g. typesetting), and need a little extra in another area (e.g. artwork), you could use the saving to offset the overspend, as long as the product budget overall stays the same.

 After studying this section, you must be able to:

• Appraise critical factors and requirements that play a crucial role in the writing of a publishing proposal and their specific impact and influence.
• Appraise proposal-writing methods and skills for suitability and effectiveness.

 This section of the publishing proposal needs to provide an overview of the market. The publishing proposal must contain all the necessary information to decide whether to publish a product. You need to show a thorough understanding of the market, and how the product you are proposing will meet a need in the market.

To do this, you will need to include information and trends. A useful tool for looking at all the factors which have an impact on the market is the PESTLE analysis as shown in Diagram 4.5.

• Political
  • Is there a curriculum change happening?
  • Are there student protests or movements such as #Feesmustfall?
  • Is there an emphasis on TVET colleges?
• Economic
  • Are bookshops reporting lower sales?
  • Is government setting money aside to buy textbooks?
  • What is a reader willing to pay for an e-book?
• Social
  • Is there a drive for learners to learn in their home language?
  • Are parents concerned about literacy rates?
  • When are students most likely to use digital products?
• Technological
  • Are users likely to use digital products?
  • What kinds of devices are readers using?
  • Is there new technology which impacts book production, such as a digital-first workflow?
• Legal
  • What does the current copyright legislation mean for your product?
  • Are there changes in laws which will impact your product?
• Environmental
  •  What quality paper does your book need to be printed on?
    
  • Can you put some content online so that your book is shorter?

You do not need to include information about all of these elements, but think about how they might influence the publishing proposal. By thinking about all of these elements, you should be able to answer these questions:

• Who will use this product, and why?
• Why will they buy this product, and how much will they spend? When will they use this product, and for how long?
• How will they buy this product, and in what format?

All this information should be summarised in a few paragraphs. It is advisable that you also get input from the sales and marketing team, especially sales reps, when you prepare this section of the publishing proposal. Often these colleagues will have insight into the market as they operate in the field by calling on lecturers, schools, and bookshops.

A competitor analysis involves finding out as much as you can about your competition. Think about what other competitor publishing companies are doing at the level of their businesses. Can you identify a publishing or sales strategy? Is there a way that you can use this information to your advantage?

It is useful to summarise this information in a few paragraphs. If it’s appropriate, you can also include a table that lists the competitor products, the publishing company, the authors, the target market and the price, along with a summary of their strengths and weaknesses. 

 This is probably the most important part of your publishing proposal as it is the actual idea behind the product. The concept of the product is what can convince the management team to invest in the product. You need to sell the idea of the product internally – this means, sell it to your colleagues, including the management team.

Start this section with a summary of the content. Write about the subject of the product, and what its approach is. Briefly outline the target market. Talk about the style of the product – is it an academic textbook, a picture book, a technical manual or a collection of short stories? Include any other information that you think is really important for decision-making. This should be a couple of paragraphs.

Consider including a proposed table of contents, especially for an Education or Academic textbook. This will give more details about what the product is about. It would be even more useful if you explained what each chapter contains – perhaps you could list the main headings of each chapter.

It’s important to include your ideas about the layout of the product. This will give an idea about the look and feel of the product, but also influence costs. Think about the features you would like to include. The list of possible features is endless, but some common features to consider are listed below:

• Checklists Glossary
• Pedagogical features to support learning
  • Examples
  • Case studies
    
  • Exercises
    
  • Assessments Templates
    
• Photographs and illustrations Annotations
• Cartoons
• QR codes or weblinks.

It is useful to include these features when you write about the customer value proposition (see Section 4.4.4 below) as well as the unique selling points (see Section 4.4.5 below).

Once the product is published, a strong concept can be the difference between someone picking up the book, or considering the digital product, and actually deciding to buy it.

Other key people to include as part of the project team in your publishing proposal are: Commissioning editor

Project manager Copy-editor Illustrator

You might not know which other freelancers or suppliers will be involved at this stage. You could make suggestions for people that you want to include in the project, especially if you think they would have an impact on the final product.

Listing all the members of the project team will influence senior management’s decision to approve

the project as it will show the resources needed to make the product.

 The project schedule is important as it helps to plan at what time resources such as people and money will be used. In other words, it will show when you will be busy with the project, as well as when the rest of the in-house project team will be working on it. It will also help senior managers understand when they will need to spend money and when they will receive a return on investment (after the publication date).

Include the key milestones as shown in Diagram 4.7.

 Opportunities refer to anything that could have a positive impact on your product. Risks or threats refer to anything that could negatively impact your product. These could be factors within the broader market, in-house factors or aspects of the product itself.