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> letter to authors
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> author guidelines
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> submission guidelines
> how to write a self-help book
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> the publishing process
Dear Author or Prospective Author,
We look for psychology and health self-help books that teach readers how to master essential life skills. Mental health professionals who want simple, clear explanations of important psychological techniques and health issues also read our books. Thus, our books must be simple and easy to understand but also complete and authoritative. Most of our authors are therapists or other helping professionals.
We choose our titles carefully for the timeless nature of their content, issue updated editions when needed, and promote our “old” backlist titles continuously. The result is that we keep our books in print longer than other publishers. Titles we published fifteen years ago are still strong sellers.
Our acquisitions editors receive between 600 and 700 manuscripts every year. It takes us approximately a month to evaluate your proposal. Be prepared for the acquisitions process to be more involved than simply sending in a proposal and signing a contract. In order for a manuscript to be accepted, it must fit into our established niche. You may need to develop your manuscript further prior to its acceptance. It is to your benefit that this screening be so rigorous; a good match between the manuscript and the publisher is important for the ultimate success of the book. Please note that for publicity and marketing reasons, we generally do not accept proposals from authors residing overseas.
We look forward to the privilege of working with you in the future.
For more details, consult our Author Guidelines.
Sincerely,
Matthew McKay, Ph.D. Publisher
Catharine Sutker Acquisitions Director
Fewer New Harbinger books go out of print. The average book published by a big publisher has a short shelf life. After that, the books are no longer available, even though there often remains a significant demand. New Harbinger keeps books in print as long as possible.
New Harbinger books are promoted year after year. Not so at the big publishers, who only push their average book for the first three to six months. New Harbinger sends out a quarter million pieces of direct mail promotion per year, in which all of our books, no matter how many years since initial publication, continue to be advertised.
You’ll sell many more books. The average New Harbinger book sells 7,000 plus copies the first year, then reaches steady sales of 4,000 to 10,000 copies in succeeding years. Compare this to the big publishers, whose average book sells 5,000 to 7,000 copies, period. Books we published six years ago have now sold 60,000 copies. And they will continue to sell at steady rates for years to come.
You have access to a professional audience. We promote our books heavily through direct mail to mental health professionals. Big publishers don’t do that, relying only on bookstore sales. Because psychology self-help books have a major audience of mental health professionals, big publishers miss a bet by ignoring the very people who buy a lot of books and whose word-of-mouth recommendations will be so important to sales of your book.
You get the best of both worlds. Most of our titles sell very well in bookstores. But for any book, bookstore sales diminish after the first year. That’s when the big publishers give up. We continue to promote your book directly to bookstores, as well as to libraries, health care and psychology institutions, and lists of likely buyers.
You have input into decision making. With big publishers, nameless employees in the marketing department decide whether to promote or not to promote your book (that’s right, many books aren’t promoted at all because most of the publisher’s money goes into pushing the 5 to 10 percent of their list that may have best-seller potential). At New Harbinger, you have a personal relationship with your publishers. We really listen to your input about marketing, cover and book design, changes, new editions, and so on.
You’ll benefit from our attention to detail. We bring out approximately fifty books per year, and each one gets tremendous individual attention, follow-through, and quality control. You’ll receive consistent, high -caliber editing. Our editors understand how a book must be written to maximize reader comprehension and learning, achieve favorable reviews, enhance professional user appreciation, and create good sales.
Can a medium-sized publisher guarantee a best-seller? The answer is no, not the first year. But over the years, your book can sell well over 100,000 copies because it continues to sell. That’s a substantial reward in recognition and remuneration. Consider our title The Relaxation & Stress Reduction Workbook. It has sold more than 500,000 copies and earned $347,200 in royalties for its authors.
Many of our books have a cognitive behavioral slant. We believe that painful emotions and undesirable behaviors are often caused by distorted thoughts or inaccurate interpretations of events. To relieve a painful emotion or alter an undesirable behavior pattern, it is first necessary to uncover and change the underlying inaccurate self-statements. Cognitive therapy translates particularly well into the self-help format because it typically uses a lot of step-by-step exercises and homework. Increasingly, we publish books based on acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), and mindfulness techniques. These “Third Wave” treatments offer many new, research-proven techniques that are making a major impact on psychology.
The following is a list of the types of books we publish.
Self-Help Psychology and Health Books
Our definition of a self-help psychology or health book is one that teaches essential life skills. It isn’t about something—it teaches something. It may give information, spur insight, motivate, or inspire, but these are secondary goals. The primary goal is to train the reader so that, after reading the book, he or she can relax at will, do self-hypnosis, survive a divorce, cope with grief, raise self-esteem, or more effectively deal with some health problem. Check out Stop Walking on Eggshells, Self-Esteem, and Messages, Third Edition, The Interstitial Cystitis Survival Guide, and Energy Tapping, Second Edition for examples of self-help psychology and health books.
10 Simple Solutions Series
The 10 Simple Solutions series is a closely focused series of short books that provide easy-to-grasp solutions to readily identified problems. Each book in the series follows a ten-chapter format—each chapter presenting a key solution to a specific problem associated with the topic. The books are nonlinear in the sense that a reader could open the book to any chapter and garner benefits. See Coping with Anxiety and 10 Simple Solutions to Panic for examples in the 10 simple solutions series of books.
Companion Series
The companion series offers concise and manageable solutions for the busy reader who wants fast results. The books in the series are intended to be positive, inspirational, and grounded in practical advice. Organized into fifty two-page chapters, each with a brief introduction and a short, engaging story that serves as an example for the exercises presented, the companion books are designed in a friendly, non-intimidating format. The intent is for readers to open the book to any page and still be able to understand what the book is about. The books offer concrete, easy-to-do exercises encouraging readers to take immediate action in their lives. The topics in the series include health, general, and women’s issues. Two bestselling companion series books are The Self-Esteem Companion and How to Stop Backing Down and Start Talking Back.
Medical Health and Psychology Workbooks
Workbooks are the purest form of self-help book. Printed in an 8.5 x 11 inch format, they teach skills by having the reader practice the skills in the book itself. They offer detailed and practical assessments, exercises, and checklists that help the reader cope with a specific problem. We publish both medical health and psychology workbooks.
Take a look at Fibromyalgia and Chronic Myofascial Pain, and The Chemotherapy Survival Guide, for examples of medical health.
Check out The Anxiety and Phobia Workbook, Thoughts and Feelings and The Relaxation and Stress Reduction Workbook for examples of psychology workbooks.
Professional Books
New Harbinger professional books are targeted to mental health practitioners such as therapists, counselors, psychologists, and psychiatrists and are meant to provide step-by-step help for practitioners wishing to add to their knowledge base. Two great examples of successful professional books are Handbook of Clinical Psychopharmacology for Therapists and Dialectical Behavior Therapy in Private Practice.
Memoirs
Memoirs should be first-person accounts of coping with psychological disorders. They should include compelling and honest descriptions of how the disorder has affected the author’s life and how he or she was able to overcome or cope with the problem in a more healthy way. Memoirs need to help others in the same situation, provide hope, and teach the reader something new about human strength and resilience. They should also simply provide a good read. A great example of one of our memoirs that fits this criteria is Bloodletting: A Memoir of Secrets, Self-Harm, and Survival.
Gift Books
Gift books are small-format books with a cute, edgy, or hip style. They offer inspiration as well as practical tips and suggestions for the reader on topics such as relaxation, self nurturing, relationships, and coping with stress. These books are entertaining and positive, but the help they offer is based on the most current research on effective psychological techniques. The best examples of New Harbinger gift books are Five Good Minutes and The Daily Relaxer.
Think Books
"Think Books" are literary non-fiction books that do not fit the formula for traditional step-by-step self-help. Instead, they focus on a groundbreaking concept or idea and are designed to offer the reader new insight into an issue as well as to offer inspiration for change. These titles provide both lay and professional readers with a new way of looking at an important and timely topic.
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