Book proposals are an important part of traditional publishing. Learning how to put together an “elevating proposal” for a project and yourself will make you more memorable in the minds of editors, so they will ask to be a representative of you and your project. Get yourself published. See Step 1 for more information.
Step
Part 1 of 3: Planning a Project
Step 1. Choose the right project
In general, books published with proposals are only nonfiction books, textbooks, and children's books. Usually poetry collections, novels, and story collections are not submitted in the form of proposals, because such books are more about aesthetics and execution than topic. Publishers are regularly looking for projects to invest in on topics or issues that they find interesting.
Step 2. Choose a discussion area within your area of credibility
You'll want to write about something that's your area of expertise, or that you're good at. If you want to write about the American civil war, but haven't read the necessary literature, or haven't taken American History lessons, your credibility is at stake. Why should they believe that your project will be successful, interesting, and sellable? With the exception of when you've published a lot of work, the strength of your proposal will basically be built on three things:
- The power of the topic and point of view
- The book's marketability and the publisher's interest in the subject
- Your credibility as a writer
Step 3. Find a broad approach to your topic
A successful book makes a specific and narrow topic universal. The average reader isn't necessarily interested in knowing a lot about salt, but the best-selling book "Salt: A World History" by Mark Kurlansky manages to find a connection between salt and the formation of the modern world. This book is a success because it makes something general and specific applicable to many problems and places.
Alternatively, seek a very specific approach and research only the few publishers that cater to such typical publications. If you really wanted to write about the Rolling Stones' drug use in the summer of 1966, it might be a hard topic to sell to Norton. But Drag City, Da Capo, or 33 1/3…
Step 4. Choose something you can work on for several months or years
Are you still interested in finding out what the Union deputy commander-in-chief ate at Appomattox on the third day of the war, six months from now? Otherwise, the project may have to be tweaked a bit. You need to come up with a writing project proposal that you can work on with a high level of enthusiasm throughout the entire writing process.
Step 5. Plan to cover as much of the costs yourself as possible
Say you want to write a nonfiction book about rebuilding Noah's ark, or starting an organic farm from scratch. If you are not widely published, it is unlikely that the publisher will help you financially with a large enough budget for such a project. Will you pay the bills yourself?
Perhaps instead of doing the brunt of the project yourself personally, it would be better to find a third party to observe and learn from. Instead of starting your own organic farm from scratch, can your project be done by observing a growing farm? Consider the alternatives
Part 2 of 3: Preparing the Proposal
Step 1. Research the right publisher for your project
Start by finding out which publishing companies and academic publishers have published books on similar topics.
- Alternatively, you can check out publishers that you particularly like, are very familiar with, and who you think might be interested in your aesthetic and project, even if the topic has never been published before.
- Check if they are willing to accept an unsolicited proposal from the author. If you can't figure this out from online information, find a contact and write an email asking for a professional explanation to inquire about their policy on the proposal. In the email, you can include an author's note and a brief summary of the project (a sentence or two) to let the contact you contact know which editor your question should be forwarded to.
Step 2. Begin your proposal with a cover letter
Your letter should be short (250-300 words) and written personally for each publisher, agent, or editor to whom your proposal is intended. In the cover letter you need to introduce the project and yourself in a few sentences, guiding the reader to your proposal. Tell them what they will read. Make sure your cover letter includes:
- Your contact information
- Your basic background, but not a detailed biography
- Introduction to your project
- Project tentative title
- Some discussion of why you submitted the project to the publisher in question
Step 3. Provide an overview of the entire book
The body of your proposal is a basic outline of the book's theme, content, and setting. This includes a table of contents, a formal outline, and a brief description of the specific chapter you wish to develop. The overview should include sections that target the intended audience and a discussion of why the publisher would benefit from investing in your project.
- Describe the market for your book. Who was the book written for, and why would they be interested?
- Name some of your competitors and explain why your work is different from theirs. Basically it's your unique features that can sell.
Step 4. Include one sample chapter
In the overview, you need to include chapter by chapter descriptions (since you're now looking at the project) for the entire book, so editors can get a sense of its breadth and structure. You'll also need to give a brief description of your writing style and aesthetics, so it's a good idea to include completed chapters, especially those leading up to the start of the project.
Be prepared for criticism. From something as small as a title to as big as the very nature of the project itself, editors will have an opinion they can freely discuss with you if they plan to think about the project. Prepare yourself to deal with disagreements and ideas about your writing
Step 5. Include an “About the Author” section
Provide details regarding relevant information about yourself as well as your background. Include a basic bio, then specifically deepen your expertise in the related material. Any formal degrees you have earned, previous publications, or research funding you may have received will be appropriate and important to include.
Step 6. Include return envelopes and postage to make it easier for them to reply
If a publisher is interested in publishing your work, they will likely contact you by phone or email. If they choose to decline, it's likely that they won't contact you at all in a personal way, unless you make a more effort to contact them first. Since it's better to know that you can stop waiting to hear from them, it's a good idea to include an envelope and return postage in your proposal package, so they can send you a short letter to let you know that they've decided to skip your proposal.
Part 3 of 3: Submitting a Proposal
Step 1. Personalize your proposal form and cover letter
The more individual and personal your proposal is, the better it demonstrates your knowledge of the publisher's business and the type of work they publish, and the more seriously they will consider your project proposal. Some publishers provide lists of editorial contacts in various discussion areas who will address the proposal.
Address the letter to a specific editor, not “Respect” or “Editor's Section”. Taking the extra step of researching the publisher itself will go a long way in helping you stand out in the early stages
Step 2. Inquire about additional forms that may be available from your intended publisher
Some major publishing companies have a package of forms that you must fill out to simplify the proposal submission process.
Much of the information that this form asks for is already done by you, so to submit the process to a particular publisher you just need to rewrite your proposal and fill it out in the form. But it's still a good idea to "shape" the proposal
Step 3. Consider the advantages of submitting a project to multiple publishers at the same time
You may be interested in getting several publishers to consider your project simultaneously, especially if the project is time sensitive. Publishers take several months to respond to the sheer number of proposals and projects they have to screen, although some publishers won't even consider projects that were also submitted elsewhere at the same time. Find out their policies before submitting.
In general, publishers don't like being part of a “chain shot,” where an author submits the same proposal to every available publisher, hoping that his proposal will get stuck somewhere. Pinpointing specific places and really thinking about what they're interested in will make your project stand out much more effectively than approaches like chain shots
Step 4. Send, record and forget
Your psychological health will be much more stable if you submit a proposal, record the date in your submission log, and quickly push it back to the back of your head. In this way, the good news will feel much more pleasant when the time comes.
