Have you ever written a book...

[Cienja]

I'm looking to write a non-fiction book and am wondering if anyone has experience in what to do first. For example, should I contact a publishing company first or should I write a chapter first?

Thanks!

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

A few of my clients have written books and they publish/sell it themselves, so they wrote it first. Take a look at http://www.lulu.com/

 

[Drakkon]

I used to work with a major publishing house - usually you contact a publisher and pitch them an idea, whether its a first chapter, a pdf of a paper thats already been published (a good starting point for a non-fiction book), or a full already written book. If its non-fiction you better be one helluva subject expert or have more people than just you. From there the editor will asses the potential risk/reward associated. If they see enough potential it will be pitched to a higher up. from that point its out of your hands until they actually decide whether or not to go with you. From there - well thats the fun part 😀

 

[Cienja]

Any thoughts on software to use? I use OpenOffice.org, but I know there are others' out there specifically for writing, such as FrameMaker (at almost $1k), which is way out of my league.