e-publishing or conventional?

I am writing a book.  My target audience is, primarily, the 150,000 lawyers in the UK although it may be of interest to the 1.3 million lawyers in the USA (but the book is not directed at them and they already have a huge range of books in the dissatsfied lawyer genre).  In particular, my target is disaffected women lawyers, probably under 35. 

The book 'The Flourishing Lawyer', deals with the extent to which there is a lawyer type, the difficuties in the market place created by two factors  a) too many lawyers and b) deregulation of legal services.  It sets out how lawyers lack well being (high rates of divorce, depression, alcohol dependency and suicide) and, finally, what they might  do about thier lives to become more flourishing.

I expect to be able to get the book picked up by a conventional UK legal sector publisher who should be able to get it on to the shelves in the early part of the new year.

The book is to be the major writing/marketing effort for a business delivering information, training and coaching to help lawyers find ways to enjoy their lives, both inside and outside the work place.

Question:  go the publisher with the book (and be seen as traditional and part of the world I am trying to influence)

or

e-publish - and risk not being seen?

Any advice?

Love to all

Sue

Hi Sue,

Hope the writing is going well :o)

... my gut feeling is that it's probably a blend -

1. Have your own website on which you give away (in exchange for peoples e-mail addresses) a free e-course maybe called something like "The seven biggest threats to your legal career (and how to avoid them)". This will enable you to build an audience - and will help to impress a prospective publisher, because it positions you as an expert, and shows that you're thinking of ways to contribute to the marketing of the book.
2. Write a great book proposal and get a mainstream publishing deal if you can - otherwise - you could also consider self-publishing. But this isn't my area of expertise so I recommend signing up for Julia McCutchen's information (she's our publishing guru, who we hope to get onto these forums soon). I wonder of there's any way to hang onto the digital rights to your book within the contract, so that you can make all or most of the money on any e-book version you create...
3. Also, consider hidden option number 3 - which is to sell your book, in bulk, into big law firms and legal associations. Imagine if your book was included in the "welcome pack" every time a new employee joined Simmons & Simmons?  Also, I wonder if you could partner with magazines targeted at lawyers to licence a "mini-version" of the book that they could give away with the magazine. I've seen this done in other niches. These ideas could both apply to both the physical and digital versions of your book. 
   

Hope this helps,

Niki

Hi Sue

Just a few other thoughts - if you a clearish vision of the business you are going to be creating around this project, and the major purpose of the book is information/credibility/visibility then the conventional publishing route might work best in order to feed people into everything else. So you can look at it, as Niki suggests, as part of a whole package, not a stand alone product. My own experience is that being a successful author has certainly helped me with visibility and credibility - but I needed to know what to do with them once I created them. It came as a bit of a shock to me that I could be successful by just writing! I have now built a business and wished I had thought further ahead. I may or may not write any more books but am so glad I did.

Hope that helps

Nick

Fabulous - a real help.

Book writing is going well - I really enjoy it.  It is all engrossing so it is hard to plan the business as well as write.

I like the blended approach so I'll look at all of those ideas. 

I expect my book to be critical of the big law firm culture so doubt they will give it to their employees but there are organisations on the edge of the professions (i.e. junior lawyers division, and association of women solicitors) which may prove useful as routes for marketing/publication.

Love to all

Sue

Thank you so much.

As I said to Niki, writing and business planning make competing demands on time but I can see that the old adage about lack of proper planning leading to poor performance needs to be avoided.

Love to all

Sue

Hi Sue

Yes, "starting with the end in mind" is a good way of approaching it - even if it is vaguish end in mind, it still helps you see where to invest your time and energy to get there

Let us know how you get on

Nick

I have been looking at various POD publising options for my book.  I though people might find this series of posts interesting on weighing up the pros and cons -

http://www.websitetoolbox.com/tool/post/cookcomm/vpost?id=1524296&trail=30