You can do the same, with poetry, essays, short stories, and nonfiction. By starting out with previously published work, you lend credibility to your book. Also, you save time, as you don't have to develop completely new material.

A Writer's Checklist

Look through your current and past writing, and ask yourself:

• Does it lend itself to a book on a particular topic, or are your writings about too many different topics?
  
  
• Is there a market for your articles/columns in book form? Do you have a readership who would be interested in your book? Can you interest readers of special-interest groups on the Internet?
  
  
• Do you speak to groups whose members would be interested in your book? Is there a niche market for the book?
  
  
• Can you schedule booksignings? Do you have contact with bookstore CRCs who will be interested in having you give a talk and do a signing? If not, start getting acquainted with them now and setting the stage for future signings.
  
  
• If the book lends itself to self-publishing, can you afford it? If not, perhaps the publisher of the newspaper in which the columns appeared would be willing to help finance or promote it. (Be sure, however, that the copyright stays in your name.) Or, perhaps you should consider e-publishing.

Organizing Your Book

When organizing your book or deciding how to structure the columns, essays, poems, or recipes, you have various choices. It's more than a hit and miss situation. You want to plan your book so that there's some sense of order or flow.

• Chronological. This might be in the order that you've written the columns/articles. Or it might mean in the sequence that the events happened, even though you may not have written them in that order. When organizing When We Become the Parent to Our Parents, I placed the essays in the book pretty much in the order that they happened in our lives. I started with the recognition of my mother's Alzheimer's, accepting it, coping with it, and then placing Mother in a nursing home and adjusting to this situation.
  
  
• Seasonal. If your material has a seasonal aspect to it (poems that take place throughout the year), you may want to organize them monthly or seasonally. A book I'm compiling consists of essays and columns I've written about raising my daughter. I'm planning to begin this one with January, because that was her birth month, and continue it throughout the year.
  
  
• Regional. When I compile a book of my history columns about New Hampshire, I think it will be logical to have them organized so that they reflect the different regions of the state. Or, I could organize them chronologically. This will be a decision to make when I have all the material in front of me.
  
  
• Subject Area. If your material concerns different topics that are held together by a specific theme, you may want to arrange them according to subject.
  
  
• Rounding Out. As you compile your book, you may find you don't have quite enough to items. With my Alzheimer's book, I decided I needed two articles to make it flow smoothly and complete the transition from the first stages to nursing home stage.

Traditional Publishing, Self-Publishing, or E-Publishing?

Sometimes your work will attract a traditional publisher. In other cases, your topic may be too narrow in scope, or too regional, for larger publishers to consider.

Besides looking at well-known publishers, research smaller regional and literary publishers. Check out the types of books these smaller publishers produce and see if yours fits their categories.

Another alternative is to self-publish the material. If you teach workshops, give talks, or are involved with groups, these can be excellent outlets for your books.

You may also decide to e-publish, either by publishing the book electronically yourself, or finding an e-publisher who handles your type of book. Many self-publishers print or electronic) go on to become small publishers themselves.

Format

Do you need illustrations? Can you do them yourself or do you need to find an illustrator? Most larger publishers will use their own illustrators, but if you are using a smaller press, or doing it yourself, you may need to find your own. If you are self-publishing, you may be able to find public-domain clip art (including electronic clip art).

Will you have an Introduction, Preface, or Acknowledgements? How about an index? Do you plan to index the book yourself, or do you need to hire an indexer?

Do you need additional information for the reader? I found two appendices would help make When We Become the Parent to Our Parents more credible and give readers places to go for further information.

Producing a book of your writings can be exciting. It can also contribute to your credibility as a writer, and open still more doors in your writing career.

Find Out More...

• The Art of Assembling Anthologies, by Brenda Warneka and Arlene Uslander