Resource: Author Questionnaire Model

To Help You Collect, Convey, and Organize Information that Will Be Crucial to Building Your Book's Campaign

This author questionnaire (AQ) is an important resource for your editorial, marketing, publicity, and sales teams as they work to create and execute the campaign for your book. Answering the questions with as much detail as possible provides a great way for you to offer unique insights about your background, author platform, and your book; share details about your network/connections and your publishing history; and help shape the messaging and components of your book's campaign.

Even if you don’t yet have a book deal, or you are self-publishing, filling out the author questionnaire is a very useful exercise. It helps you think through and collect all kinds of information that will be helpful in the development of your marketing and publicity plan. If there are questions you don’t have answers to, or have responses where you aren’t able to provide much information, that’s still valuable, because it identifies areas where you need to invest time and develop.

The author questionnaire is one of the first things your publisher will ask you to complete, often times right after you’ve signed a contract. All the more reason to get a head start and insure that you have the strongest and most thoroughly complete AQ as possible.

Note: I wrote two newsletters focused on the AQ:
— The Importance of the Author Questionnaire
— The Inquiries of the Author Questionnaire