Do you know what a One Sheet is? I had never heard the term until Susan J. Reinhardt asked me for feedback on the One Sheet for her first manuscript. It was a great introduction to my current task, the One Sheet for our collaborative WIP. More on that in a minute.
For those of you who don't know what a One Sheet is (and don't feel bad, I had no clue till about a year ago), it is a summary used to present an idea to editors or agents at a conference. It contains brief information such as genre, title, bio, contact info, and word count, and works as an intro and ice breaker.
As Susan said, "A One Sheet is reserved for editors/agents and trusted friends because it often gives proprietary information about the book. You don't want to give away the ending to the whole wide world now do you?"
Think of it as a portable reference document that can be sent with whomever expresses interest in your project. So if you want to pitch your amazing fiction book idea, that non fiction guide you've always wanted to write, or a fabulous article, a One Sheet is a handy tool.
I volunteered to finish the One Sheet for our collaborative book when Susan ran into technical difficulties with the program she was using. She sent me the rough draft and I inserted the info into a template I made in Word. I edited the text and added our bios and pictures, then we had a phone conference to finalize the draft.
Our One Sheet has the title centered at the top of the page. A small picture (designed by my son, who is a graphic designer) sits to the left of the title. The left side of the page contains the book summary and info on our collaboration. A narrow column on the right contains special notes of interest and word count. The second page contains our bios and pictures. Normally this info can be placed on the first sheet, but since there we are co-authors, we decided to use a second page for a better layout.
If you'd like more details on how to compose a One Sheet, check out this article by Tracy Ruckman, or this post at the Arkansas ACFW site.
Susan's Monday post has more info about our One Sheet journey. I'm sure she'd be delighted if you stopped by to say hello.
Have you ever written a One Sheet? Do you have any pointers for us? Any good conference One Sheet stories?
Happy writing,
Karen
P.S. The 300 follower giveaway info will be posted on Thursday. :)
Image credit: Stock Exchange
