The authors in this category are all women. How would he stand out?

Publishers baffle me.

My book, The Girly Girls Survival Guide, has been submitted to several publishers and my agent forwards me their responses periodically. And the responses have been pretty uniform -- they like the idea, the writing and the approach. They wish they had had this book when they went off to college or moved into their first apartments. But they don't know if they can sell it, or how to sell it, so they pass.

Frustrating.

Here are some of the comments I've gotten:

• I actually got a big kick out of this -- and I learned a lot about my car! That said, I don't think I can move forward with it. It's not that it's not right for our list -- actually, this kind of thing is perfect for me. The issue is with this particular category. It's not very robust... I know this book would differentiate itself because it also covers car care, computer care, and bicycle care, but that actually might make it more difficult to shelve in the store -- where does it go?

• As I mentioned, I loved this proposal, but after looking into the competition for this category, there was some hesitation as to whether we'd be able to compete with similar titles already on the shelf. Also, since so many fix-it books for women are backed by strong female personalities, there was some concern that the author's lack of a platform in this area would make it a bit difficult for us to help him stand out from the crowd. I loved Steve's approach to this subject, however, and do agree that his advice would be incredibly useful to any girl moving into her first apartment.... I really regret having to pass on this since the content is so great, but we just can't see how we'd be able to break it out on a large enough scale to make it work for our list.

• Well, I pitched the book today in pub board, and we are going to take a pass. We felt the material split audience by covering everything from computers to cars to lawn to home interior. Then we considered whether we could follow the model of the successful Dare to Repair, which does focus on home, then came out with a car manual, and most recently a plumbing guide. The home improvement shelf, however, is a very tough one to crack, and we weren’t confident we’d get the sell in. I wish I had better news. He’s a great writer, and it’s a book I’d wished I’d had when I was his daughter’s age.

So that's where it stands.