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Why book proposals must be custom made, just like the books

  

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At first glance, it might seem that Vern Associates' proposals follow a rough kind of template: services first, then the elements the client will provide, followed by specifications, fees, and production schedule. That sequence seems to work, regardless of client type, because the books we produce all have certain elements in common. But that's where the similarity ends.

We have learned the importance of honing each bid or estimate in ways that suit the needs and interests of individual customers.

Just as each book we produce is tailor made to suit the needs of a specific client—its publisher—it is crucial that the bid we prepare for that book be custom-built for the individual(s) who will consider it. For example, if we're proposing to package an exhibition catalogue for the director of a museum's publications department, the level of specificity concerning items such as paper and binding materials is apt to vary from what suits a 97-year-old widget manufacturer looking to publish a book to mark its forthcoming centennial.

The following example compares two approaches we have used to cite identical specs for two otherwise very different books: a museum catalogue (A), and a university's centennial history (B).

The difference? The clients.

Because the museum's publications director recognizes the shorthand, she knows that extent refers to the number of pages and "4/4" indicates that every page will be printed on a four-color press. From smyth sewn, the Brillianta brand name, and the board's size, she will recognize immediately that we propose to bind the sewn signatures using high-quality cloth and board as materials.

The client for the anniversary publication, however, is the university's institutional advancement director, whose publications have never been more involved than 16-page brochures, and those are traditionally handled entirely by an outside PR consultant. The university executive knows his business inside and out, but throwing around terms like extent, 4/4, smyth-sewn, and Brillianta is practically an invitation for him to skip the specs altogether, and that would be the best-case scenario. A much worse outcome would be if the specialized terminology sewed seeds of distrust and cost us the commission as a result. Especially in 2012, does heavy-handed jargon favorably impress anyone who is not initiated into the mysteries of the bidder's specialization?

Of course, including a dense thicket of descriptive copy is just as likely to dissuade a potential client from proceeding farther. To avoid either eventuality, we developed a single-page sheet that acts as both glossary and 5¢ tour of printing procedures. (Nevertheless, we typically ask the potential client whether she wants to receive it, thus avoiding hurt feelings or embarrassment.)

Such a commitment to ease of proposal comprehension is crucial in the balancing act of describing the services we recommend to each specific client. I'm embarrassed to admit that we learned the hard way not to go overboard. In striving to demonstrate that we could do everything they needed, the least that resulted was misunderstanding once the job was commissioned, but in a couple of instances we lost opportunities to other book packagers because the clients perceived the proposal to be padded (or "larded," as one disgruntled development director termed it) with items the client deemed to be unnecessary. After all, if the team members considering the proposal don't know a dylux from a blueline, the fact that we intend to review them isn't apt to impress much at all.

Then, too, it's always possible to underdo it. Whereas a marketing director for an insurance company may be accustomed to parsing a fee breakdown by type of work, another decision maker—the business manager at a landscape architect, let's say—may simply want to make certain her budget will accommodate the total. To her, knowing how much of the fee goes toward editorial work may be as enlightening as the cost of a dozen Buxus sempervirens would be to the insurance exec.

Several years of honing our proposals taught us something that should have been clear from the start. To prepare a serviceable working document that is useful to our client as well as Vern Associates, we need to approach it exactly as we do any of the publications we produce: as a clearly stated, appropriately comprehensive offering carefully tailored to the people who will read it. This means taking time up front to discuss the project in detail with the prospective client's team, then writing the proposal specifically for its particular members, tailoring it to their specific interests, perceptions of the book they want produced, and what sort of learning curve they are willing to accommodate.

This is one instance where one size fits, well, one.