Grimm Cinema
Folktales, Horror Movies, and the Transmission of Culture
RHET 4347/5347 Topics in Nonfiction: Publishing Inside Out Book Proposal
The Course
RHET 4347/5347 Topics in Nonfiction: Publishing Inside Out is a course offered by the Department of Rhetoric and Writing at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. The course is designed to introduce and explore the publishing process from start to finish by providing insight into the roles and career paths available in publishing today while offering guided practice in conceiving and developing a proposal for a nonfiction book and teaching skills in content editing, market research, and project development.
Call to Adventure
When I registered for this course, I’m not exactly sure what I was expecting. I honestly didn’t think I would learn a whole lot of new information. I had already taken four or five publishing classes in the Rhetoric and English departments and, a few months before the start of class, I started working as a freelance cover designer for a small independent press. I thought I had a pretty decent grasp on how the publishing industry worked, so I was mostly looking forward to working on the book idea I started developing the previous semester.
To say this course far exceeded the expectations I had originally set is an understatement. Not only did I learn a plethora of new information about the publishing industry, I gained a new appreciation for the industry itself. One of the most important things I learned from this course was the process of creating a book proposal. I had always thought in order to get a book published, all you needed to do was submit a few chapters from a manuscript along with your name and contact information. I had no idea how involved the submission process could be, especially for non-fiction writing.
Cue the Montage
Back to Basics
One of the aspects I loved about this course was the scaffolded assignment structure. I really appreciated how the course broke down each step from the very beginning, adding new pieces in manageable increments. When I was first developing the idea for my book, I felt really overwhelmed by it all. To be honest, I felt overwhelmed through the first three or four projects because I wasn’t 100% sure about my book concept or how all of the pieces I wanted to include would fit together.
Working through each assignment, the direction of my book started to take shape and it completely changed from my original idea. I found the related titles and peer review projects to be the most beneficial and they completely altered the landscape of my topic. I think by the time I started working on Project 5, the final book proposal draft for peer review, I was starting to get a handle on the topic I wanted to write (Fig. 1). That is not to say it was all clear sailing from there.
Solidification of an Idea
I got really bogged down by Project 6, the table of contents (Fig. 2). I think that was one of the hardest assignments to complete because I was still really uncertain about the concept. On top of that, it was a real struggle coming up with chapter titles that were interesting but also informative. I spent a lot of time on those titles, finding just the right combinations of words to express the overarching ideas that would be presented in their corresponding chapters. During this process, I discovered what I really wanted to write were titles I could use as a beacon when it came time to actually pound out this manuscript. It was an interesting learning experience, working my way through that process. Project 6 was definitely the mortar that solidified the concept of Grimm Cinema.
Fig. 2. Table of Contents Sample Page Design for Table of Contents, Grimm Cinema, 2014
Publishing as a Conversation
I never considered how publishing is a conversation, and not just between author and reader. In this regard, I loved the discussion we had about how social media impacts modern publishing and it was really cool to see social media addressed in greater detail during the marketing projects. I got a lot of great ideas from that discussion and some of them even made their way into my final marketing plan (Fig. 3).
A Message to the Audience
This course also gave me a deeper appreciation for audience and message, and how even something as simple as a title can convey different meanings to different groups of people. Thinking about the book cover project, I probably created about ten different designs and all of them had a different message about the book. For example, an illustration of Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf (Fig 4) has a completely different message than the image of The Wolfman (Fig. 5) and Frankenstein (Fig. 7). These were all things I had to consider when choosing the cover for my book. But it didn’t just stop there. I also had to think about audience when designing the layout of the pages, what images to use within the text, and even the words I used to describe the book itself. All of these things have an impact on audience because they all relay different messages to different people. These were things I didn’t consider before.
Fig. 4. Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf Cover for Grimm Cinema, 2014
Fig. 5. The Wolfman Cover for Grimm Cinema, 2014
Fig. 7. Boris Karloff from The Bride of Frankenstein Cover, Grimm Cinema, 2014
The Reward
This course made me feel like I was a part of a community of writers. Though I did not post as often as some, it was really refreshing to see the level of activity in this class. I especially appreciated the feedback from other students and I know that it helped both my writing and designs. Similarly, I thought the level of involvement by the instructor, Michael Greer, was absolutely indispensable. As a student, receiving consistent feedback from the professor is so important, but sometimes very lacking—especially in an online course. So it was a welcome surprise to see how active Greer was in this class. He also provided a lot of constructive feedback and I know my writing improved because of it. Furthermore, as a designer, it means a lot having a professional actively working in the industry reviewing and commenting on your work.
The knowledge and confidence I have gained from this course have been indescribable, and I’m really grateful and glad this class was available when I was coming through my program. I have continued to work on the book I began in this course, but decided to self-publish rather than seek out a traditional publisher. I don’t think I would have every had the confidence to write it had I not taken this class which forced me to solidify my ideas and make concrete progress toward completing this project.