What is an Advanced Information Sheet and how do you create one?

I have been asked questions about an Advanced Information Sheet by a number of my authors recently so I thought the best way to answer it would be to actually create one using information from one of Goldcrest Books’ most recent publications. So, my thanks to Hester Durkan whose book Get off that Phone is featured here in this blog post.

How is an Advanced Information Sheet used?

If you have just finished writing your first book then you may not be aware of the need for an Advanced Information Sheet (AI). If you are going to be promoting your book to bookshops, editors or journalists, for example, it is a great way to give them all the details they need about your book. It makes it easy for them to decide whether they wish to stock it or feature it in an article for instance. It is also useful if you are going to approach an agent. Ideally, you would send out this sheet in advance of publication, but it is also useful as an ongoing marketing tool.

What does an Advanced Information Sheet consist of?

There is no set format for an AI but it is usually a single A4 sheet. It should contain the following details:

• Book title
• Sub title (if the book has one)
• Author name
• Endorsement/Review (if you don’t have any reviews then take a couple of lines out of your book which grab the interest of the reader)
• Cover image
• Readership
• Publication date
• ISBN
• Size and format (i.e. paperback, hardback etc)
• Publisher
• Synopsis
• Author biography and/or a quote from the author
• Key features (these can be key facts about the book in general)
• Price
• Contact information

The AI should be easy to read and extract information from, so nice clear headings for example.

I have included an example below to give you an idea of how you could lay out your sheet.