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Tim Bete is director of the Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop at the University of Dayton. He tells me that he gets dozens of emails every week with questions about book publishing. He therefore decided, earlier this year, to document the key stages in seeing a book of his own through the publishing process. The result, he feels, provides answers to some of the more frequently asked questions.

You can find Tim's article, Anatomy of a First Book, at his personal web site. Tim covers how he started writing, how to create an author's web site, how to write query letters and book proposals, and a lot more.

The material on offer is not so much a template for everyone to follow as an example of how one professional writer handled each stage of the process, from the first approach to publishers to book signings. What worked for one person may not be precisely right for you, but you can build on the examples.

If you are new to the submissions business, and particularly if you are trying to sell a non-fiction book, this is well worth a look.

Tim Bete's web site, by the way, has been selected by Writer's Digest magazine as the best writer's site of 2005.