If you are just beginning your first book project, here are three great tips regarding researching what your want to write about.
1. Research the internet. Online bookstore databases such as Amazon.com list books that are currently available or "in print" as well as out-of-print books. Make a subject search and print out the results. Try several alternative words as well. For example, for a book on parenting, try " parent", "mother", "father," etc.
Next make a search on your proposed or working title. This will tell you if such a title or something like it has recently been used.
Using the internet, see how much information is available on your subject. You'll want to gather details from every book, magazine article, database and resource you can find. Visit websites listed in appendices, and use search engines.
2. Obtain reference books. Even though your computer does a pretty fair job with spelling, grammar, and the thesaurus, every writer needs some reference books. The computer is not infallible when it comes to language use.
The least expensive places to buy dictionaries, style manuals and other reference books are used book stores. Some references may also be available in a digital format.
3. Attend writer's conference. Writer's conferences are markets that bring buyers and sellers together. These events inform, entertain and console. They are a venue for being inspired by successful authors and a place to meet editiors, agents and publishers. You will also meet other writers who are trying to figure out the secret of successful writing and getting published.
The end result is, the more research you do and the more material you find to reference, the better chance you have to successfully jump start your first book project.
[This post was create, with permission, from excerpts taken from Successful Nonfiction, authored by Dan Poynter.]
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