For Prospective Authors

Should you write a book?

Writing a book is a difficult, time-consuming, and occasionally painful undertaking. It’s also a gift: it’s rare to have the opportunity, with sufficient time and ample support, to develop an idea that you care deeply about.

Before you proceed, ask yourself these questions:

1. Do I really want to spend most of a year (or more) of my evenings and weekends on such a challenging pursuit?
2. Is a book the best format to bring my idea to life, especially when other formats may play better to both my strengths as a communicator and to the topic itself?

If your answer is ‘no’ to either question, writing a book is probably not your best option.

Should you write a Rosenfeld book?

We’re glad that Rosenfeld Media is on your radar!

Founded in 2005, Rosenfeld Media is a small, independent publishing house that works closely with its authors to develop and promote books on user experience design, product design, and related topics. We typically publish no more than ten books annually, and we lavish each with tender loving care throughout the processes of writing, production, and marketing. Please note that we are not a hybrid publisher—we’re not “pay for play”.

There are two things you should know before you propose a book to us:

1. Approach: We’re unusually collaborative—and you will need to be too. That means we don’t accept manuscripts that have already been written, or that you don’t want to work together to develop. Our approach is to work with you from proposal to publication. That’s true of marketing your book too; book marketing works best when author and publisher partner.
2. Audience: Our core audience is user experience designers, researchers, writers, and product designers.

If you’ve got a different audience in mind, or don’t feel the need to collaborate on your writing, or expect your publisher to handle the bulk of book marketing, we are not the right publisher for you.

What Rosenfeld is looking to publish

Most of our books cover user experience design principles, tools, and methods. UX is a broad field that synthesizes ideas from many disciplines—from architecture to graphic design to human factors to librarianship—with the goal of helping people use and enjoy their experiences with all kinds of products and services.

• Our UX books teach craft and actionable skills to designers, researchers, writers, and other people who care about delivering great user experiences. These books tend toward practical advice: a rule of thumb is 25% “what and why” content, and 75% “how” content.
• We also publish another imprint, Two Waves Books, that explores the convergence of business and design. These titles cover topics that may have originated in the design world or benefit in special ways from a designer’s perspective, but are important to related audiences, like product managers, data scientists, and customer experience professionals.

Regardless of imprint, our house voice and tone emphasize warmth and accessibility as much as intelligence. Through the use of plain language and a conversational tone, our authors serve as trusted guides and facilitators as much as authoritative experts.

The ideal length of our books is 45,000-75,000 words (150-250 pages). Our authors use illustrations, examples, and stories to show as much as tell. And we prefer topics that are “evergreen”: while some of their examples might be especially current, each book’s principles and frameworks should stand the test of at least a few years’ time.

What Rosenfeld avoids publishing

Never say never, but we generally avoid publishing books that are:

• On topics we’ve addressed in a recent book. We avoid covering the same topics twice in the space of a few years; it’s simply not fair to our authors. Please review what we’ve published or are planning to publish and make sure we don’t already offer a recent book on your topic.
• Already written. Most publishers love receiving a manuscript that’s “ready to go.” We’re not one of those publishers. We prefer to pool your ideas with ours about the topic, its audience, your research, and the writing and production of the book. If you’ve already written a manuscript, it’s actually more work for us to produce your book.
• Compilations written by multiple authors. Regardless of how good you are at herding cats, compilations often suffer from uneven coverage, voice, tone, and quality.
• Repackaged blog entries. “Writing short” can be a good way to test your ideas and content in public, and it can get you part of the way toward a full manuscript. But a book is more than the sum of its parts; you’ll still need to make significant changes to your individual entries before they work together as a book.
• Based on a proprietary process or method. You or your company may be promoting a unique and novel approach. But is it broadly relevant and generalizable for readers?

Other things to know about Rosenfeld

• Our philosophy. Whether we’re co-creating books, workshops, conference programs or presentations, our approach comes down to three words: inclusion, collaboration, and iteration.
• Research equals promotion. Collaboration goes beyond you and us. We’ll work together to engage influencers, subject matter experts, and the broader community with your ideas with two goals in mind: to help you improve your content, and to give them a sense of and stake in the final outcome. The more people who feel a part of your book’s development, the more will support and promote it once it launches.
• We invest, you invest. We assign a developmental editor to each book. They work with you as a writing coach/project manager to get you through the process. And our marketing team works directly with you from development through launch. Both of these things are rare in our industry. In return, we expect you to be at least an equal partner in creating and launching your book—not just writing it but working hard to promote it.
• Speak with, not to readers. We want the world to be a better place thanks to your ideas and expertise. So we work with our authors to avoid jargon and other forms of poor communication that can get in the way of our readers learning from our books.
• We don’t play favorites. Our books receive an equal amount of editorial and marketing support, and all are consistently produced to meet our uncommonly high quality standards. If we’ve signed you, we are about you as much as any other author.
• Book formats. Our paperbacks are 6” x 9” (15.24cm x 22.86cm), and are printed with four-color covers and, in most cases, interiors. Our ebooks come in ePUB and DAISY DRM-free digital formats. We also market foreign language and audiobook rights to your book to major publishers in those channels.
• Business terms. We pay royalties twice annually on net sales (the money left over after production and printing costs are covered, as well as from audiobooks and translations). Our royalty rates are typically higher than the industry standard. We don’t pay advances. You own the copyright to your book, and license it to us.
• Distribution. We sell directly via our website and fulfill orders globally. We also sell via Amazon and other major retailers and wholesalers that do business with Ingram Publisher Services, the world’s largest book distributor.
• Covers. We’re glad to have your input, but the final design up to us. We’ve worked with the acclaimed design team from The Heads of State to develop each of our covers.

Ready to propose a book?

If you got this far, you’re probably ready to propose your idea for a book. Here’s what to do next:

If you’re at the idea stage:

Send us a pre-proposal that’s no more than one page, and includes:

• Working title: Ideally both descriptive and engaging.
• Elevator pitch: No more than 100 words that address both the challenge or problem readers need your help addressing, and what your solution is.
• Primary audience: Describe who the book must reach. Please be specific; “everyone” or “all humans who design” is too general. Also list any secondary audiences you’d love to reach if possible.
• 3-5 take-away bullet points: Explain how your idea will benefit your audience. What will they be able to do after reading your book?
• Your objective: What does success look like once your book is published?

If you’re further along with your proposal:

Send us a complete proposal that includes everything above, plus:

• Table of contents: Include a sentence or two that describes the goal of each chapter, some bullets describing what each chapter will contain, and how many pages (at 300 words/page) you estimate for each chapter. Also let us know the total number of pages you estimate the book will be. (Our sweet spot is 150-250 pages.)
• Writing sample: 2-3 pages, ideally from the proposed book; we’re also happy to read other samples of your professional writing.
• Competitive review: What other books will your book compete with, and how will your book be different from those titles?
• About you: Why are you the right person to write this book?
• About your ability to market your book: How will you market your book? Are you well-known in the field? Do you have a strong following on social media, a newsletter, or something else?

When you’re ready, email us your document. As you might imagine, we receive a lot of proposals. We do our best to review them at least once per quarter; please keep that in mind if you don’t hear from us right away. And if you decide to go in another direction, please let us know.
Thanks and good luck!