Spell it right!
The number of manuscripts I’ve seen — and even printed books — with this common misspelling is staggering.
Sometimes they’re long. Sometimes they’re short. But they’re always written by someone other than the author — preferably that someone is SOMEONE.
Someone well-known. Foreword writers can be an expert or authority in field that is the subject of the book or a celebrity who enjoys a relationship with the author or a passion for the book’s topic or purpose.
First Lady of Nevada, Dawn Gibbons, wrote a gracious foreword for 100 Years in the Nevada Governor’s Mansion. Siegfried and Roy were naturals to ask to pen a foreword for our book on the history of the legendary Stardust. Former governor Kenny Guinn was honored to write a foreword for civil rights activist Bob Bailey’s memoir and we tapped former Governor Mike Huckabee to write the foreword for Bayou Country about southeast Arkansas. Boxing champ George Foreman contributed the foreword for Fight Town. One of my personal favorites was visiting composer John Williams at his Los Angeles film studio bungalow to discuss his foreword for More Than a Parade, our pictorial history of the Pasadena Tournament of Roses. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid provided the foreword for Silent Heroes of the Cold War. I would say that these and other luminaries have unfailingly been honored to be asked and very helpful and interested in the process.
Give some thought to who you know, or who you know who might know the person you wish to approach. If you have a noble cause or a subject close to their hearts, many famous folks will listen to your pitch to write a foreword. Don’t be shy — it can’t hurt to ask.
Once an agreement has been reached to provide a foreword, you should offer to send your manuscript for their review. At this point, you can gingerly feel out your SOMEONE as to their intention to write the foreword themselves, or if they prefer to have the author or editor write for their review and approval. Yes, that happens.
Can your SOMEONE be NO ONE? Sure. While your publisher is looking for any and all advantages to help sell your book — and the credibility or star power from a famous expert or celebrity may help — forewords can be written by anyone. A foreword’s purpose is to give the reader some perspective on the subject and/or the author before they delve into the text. Nor do all books require a foreword.
But if you have one, spell it right!
“How do I protect my work?” is a question that comes up at every conference and the writers groups where I speak. Having one’s manuscript stolen seems to be a huge concern among new writers. Many would-be authors, upon having an editor or agent ask for a manuscript to be sent to them, go into spasms of anxiety that their 100,000 hard-won words will be swiped and sold to a publisher under someone else’s name.
What happens when a parent’s perfectly normal day turns into every parent’s worst nightmare?
Vu Tran, the seventh author in our Restless City serial novel, has won a 2009 Whiting Award. With the literary prestige comes a check for a cool $50,000. The Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation named ten recipients of the 2009 Whiting Writers’ Awards. The awards have been given annually since 1985 to writers of exceptional talent and promise in early career. The short stories of Vu Tran have appeared in such journals as the Harvard Review, Southern Review, Glimmer Train, and the Antioch Review and have been selected for inclusion in the 2007 O. Henry Prize Stories, Best American Mystery Stories 2009, The Best of Fence: The First Nine Years, and Las Vegas Noir. Born in Viet Nam and a refugee at the age of five, he and his family were relocated to Oklahoma where he grew up and earned a BA and MA from the University of Tulsa. Mr. Tran also has an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and a PhD as a Glenn Schaeffer Fellow at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He writes often of Vietnamese and Vietnamese-Americans and of the immigration experience. Mr. Tran’s first novel is forthcoming from W.W. Norton. He currently teaches at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and also works as a free-lance editor.
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