Chess as the trigger
When we lived in northeast Kansas, I coached scholastic chess from 1993 to 2000. My son was the reason for that. We lived in a small town of about 1,100 people, yet we had a Saturday chess club of about 8 to 10 players. The players eventually became strong enough that the team won 2nd place at the Kansas State Championship tournament . . . twice. They beat out teams from much larger schools from cities like Kansas City, KS, Wichita, Topeka, and Lawrence. When we moved to Iowa in 2000 due to the Quaker Oats plant in St. Joseph, MO closing, and I transferred to Cedar Rapids, my son was going into the 10th grade. We didn’t continue with chess because at that time, there were very few scholastic tournaments in Iowa. I began coaching again in 2009 having been inspired to return to it by writing the chess book (below). I coached thirteen years for a school, eleven for a scholastic club at the local library, and still am coaching private lessons for scholastic players (12 years so far).
In early 2009, my wife told me I should write a book about coaching chess so people could learn from my successful coaching experiences. That was very exciting and I started writing it on February 1, 2009. My original intent was to write a book about how to coach a scholastic chess club, but not to get mired down in having a section on how to teach players the game. It wasn’t long before I realized you couldn’t have one without the other.
I used the same Excel spreadsheet template I’d used for the two novels, with some changes, of course, since this was nonfiction. Worked great, though. While working on the book, I was also researching how you “pitch” a non-fiction book to an agent. The process is quite different from a novel. For a novel, it’s a gigantic no-no to try to land an agent without first finishing the book. For non-fiction, the reverse is the norm. You pitch the book with a three chapter sample, plus a completed outline, and where the book will fit in the market. Sort of like what makes your book so special?
Somewhere along the line, I’d also started researching self-publishing. At that time, self-publishing, also known these days as indie (independent) publishing, was still carrying a stigma that the writer was “not good enough” for the traditional publishers. I think a large part of this was due to two things: 1) people thought it was the same thing as “vanity” publishing, which it most certainly is NOT. More on this in a second. And 2) Few people believed the quality of self-published books was very good. Back to vanity publishing: this is where YOU pay a company to publish your book. They offer “services” like editing and book covers, but you pay them for each service including the actual printing. You typically have to order quite a few copies of the book. As a general rule, self-published writers take the position that we should never pay someone to publish our books. Paying someone to edit our books and / or to create our covers is okay and is considered a cost of our publishing the book.
Back to the chess book, which ended up having the rather lengthy title of Chess Handbook for Parents and Coaches. Those were the two target audiences. The first half of the book helps a person teach a student (or child) how to play the game. It’s based on how I taught many kids to play. It includes the benefits of playing chess. The second half of the book is about the world of chess: the United States Chess Federation (USCF), famous players, world champions, how to start and run a scholastic chess club, how to prepare for a tournament, and what actually happens at a tournament. How to help players during a tournament, but not during a game, which is expressly forbidden by the rules of chess.
Coming next: Chess book published! Operation
Devil’s Fire Published! Charged up! Summary.
No comments:
Post a Comment