The Proposal

A former colleague contacted me recently to say hi, and came out with this question:

“What happened to that surfing book you were gonna write?”

Whoa. I hadn’t thought about that book for years. Let me explain.

When you write a nonfiction book and you want to get it published, you must submit a book proposal to either an agent or a publishing house. Book proposals are incredibly time-consuming to write and research, and take months and months to organize and format. Publishing now isn’t about the writing, but about the marketing. If you can’t prove that you can market it, don’t waste your time submitting. Just self-publish.

I have submitted three book proposals in my lifetime. The first was in the late 90’s, and was a book proposal that dealt with the humorous side of infertility. I was heartbroken because I couldn’t seem to get pregnant, so I figured if I couldn’t be a mommy, I would finally be an author. My proposal was rough and rudimentary, but I still have the note from the publisher:

Your proposal is well done. We’d like to see more. Please submit the next ten chapters.

This was fantastic news, but by then I had even better news: I had finally gotten pregnant. With twins.

And there went my life, and I stepped away from my writing for a long time. I obviously had no more infertility stories to tell since, well, I wasn’t infertile anymore.

Ten years later or so came the surfing book idea. By this time I was writing fairly regularly for The Philadelphia Inquirer, and I (and they) thought that traveling around New Jersey to all of the best surf breaks in each surf town would be a great idea for a book. Interview the local surfers, listen to their stories, etc. Local surfers are some pretty colorful individuals. If it went well, I thought I could expand the idea nationally, and visit the best surf breaks in the United States. I still love the idea.

What came of it? I will tell you what I told my friend. I really, really wanted to do it. I swear. I didn’t give it up out of laziness, or indifference. Nope.

I couldn’t get a publishing house to pay for my expenses. The only way I could do it was if I retired from teaching. If I was going to leave my babies, I needed to be reimbursed.

Nope.

So I shelved the idea, and got back to writing columns and teaching.

Present day: This third book proposal continues to morph, but this is the one. I now have the time, the platform and the visibility.

I hope I’ve cleared that up. Twenty-five years ago, my column byline was “Mary Oves is writing a book about surfing.” It was accurate at the time, just never came to fruition.

Maybe one day I’ll do it.