What is a Book Proposal?

In this week’s blog post, we will be looking at what a book proposal is and why you will need one to pitch your nonfiction book to publishers. We will consider what the aim of a book proposal is and the basics of what you need to include, with a later blog post looking in more detail at the structure and contents. We will also look at some common problems that writers run into and the steps you can take to avoid this. Above all, we will focus on how to make your book shine and give it the best possible chance of being picked up by a publisher. For this, you will need to know what they are looking for, so it is worth keeping this in mind as you write.

To start with, what is a book proposal for? Essentially, it is a marketing piece for your book to get the publisher’s interest. They are only used for nonfiction books – fiction books tend to be written in full, then this manuscript is submitted for the publisher to assess and potentially buy. With a nonfiction book, it is not absolutely vital that you have written the entire thing before you start seeking a publisher. In fact, it is unlikely that they will expect you to have done so unless their submission guidelines specifically ask for this. If a publisher does take an interest in your book proposal, they will then pay you to write the book described in the proposal.

A good book proposal acts as a business plan for your book, explaining how and why publishers will get their money back if they invest in your book. You need to give convincing reasons why potential readers would be prepared to pay the cover price for your book, bearing in mind this is usually higher for nonfiction books than fiction. The profits that the producer gets from these sales will have to be enough to cover all of their expenses and outgoings (paying you, printing, marketing, etc.) and still leave a reasonable profit afterwards, otherwise, it will not be worth their investment.

What is Needed in a Book Proposal?

Before we look at what is needed, let’s consider what you should avoid in your book proposal. Surprisingly enough, one of the things you should avoid is too much detail about your actual book. Of course, you will need to include some information to introduce your book, but try to limit this to a maximum of a couple of paragraphs per chapter if you have a narrative book. If your book is not narrative, it is possible that just a chapter list will suffice. Alternatively, you may want both, but try to keep this to a small section of your book proposal as a whole. Just make sure that you have established the area and extent your book covers.

One thing you should also avoid in a book proposal is having no author platform. To sell a nonfiction book to a publisher, you will have to make a convincing argument that it is worth their time and money. A big part of this is marketing yourself as an author, so you will need to have already built an author platform and be able to show how you will use this to market and sell your book. It’s important that you use evidence to back this up, so don’t just state that you have a good author platform – be specific! Give the statistics for your website and sales of any other books. If you have had formal speaking engagements or papers published, include the details of these.

In addition, you will need to include an author bio, to introduce yourself and list your experience and past accomplishments. A competitive title analysis is also a good place to start, by analysing what already exists in the genre, as well as a description of your target audience. Naturally, you will also need a marketing plan, showing how you will put all of this together to sell your book. We will look at these required parts of your book proposal in more detail in my next blog post.

Tips and Problems

One of the most common problems you can run into writing a book proposal is that there is no real marketing strategy given. Nonfiction book proposals depend almost entirely on the potential for sales, so focus on this.

Also, make sure you are applying to the right places, meaning publishers that match your niche. Research publishers and agents to find the ones that are most likely to be interested. However, make sure you distinguish your book from the ones they have already published so that it is something new.

Finally, another problem is not giving details of your credentials. Why are you the right person to write this book? What experience do you have? This is also the place to describe your author platform.

Wrapping Up

Being able to write a good book proposal is vital to getting your nonfiction book published, so it is worth spending some extra time on it. I hope that this guide helps you to get started and you found it useful. Good luck with getting published!

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