How to get a book deal for your non-fiction book

One of the things that usually surprises people about getting a book deal for a non-fiction book is that you don’t start by writing the book. Instead, you write the Book Proposal, which includes chapter outlines and 1-3 sample chapters, but is otherwise effectively the business case for why a publisher should consider taking on your book idea.

One of the reasons that you don’t start with writing the whole book is that your eventual publisher (and before that your agent) will probably want to have a role in shaping that book. They may want you to shift your perspective; or to include chapters on topics you hadn’t thought to cover; or to take out chapters that you were intending to write; or to make any number of other changes, small or large, to your book idea. It’s therefore considerably more efficient for you to wait for their input before completing even your first draft manuscript.

I’ve written in some detail here on the blog about how to write a Book Proposal. This is obviously a big part of successfully getting a book deal, but in this article I’m zooming out a little and looking at the bigger picture of what you need in place to get a deal, beyond the Book Proposal itself.

What are the big things you need to be able to get a book deal?

There are three factors that are equally crucial when it comes to getting a book deal for a non-fiction book:

1. An original and interesting book idea. Please don’t think that this means you need to come up with an idea that no one has ever had before. By ‘original’ I mean an interesting take on a topic on which there are most likely already lots of books published. It’s your perspective (and potentially your life experience) that will make your book original. In most cases (unless you’re covering a brand new technology or very timely new development, such as a book about Covid in 2020), you actually want there to be plenty of books in print on your topic area, since this is proof that there’s an audience.

2. You need to be uniquely well-qualified, by virtue of your skills, expertise and life experience, to write this particular book. For example, as Cal Newport argues in this article on how he got his own first book deal: as a 20 year old student doing well at an elite college, he was well-placed to write a book on doing well at college, but he would not have been similarly well-qualified to write a book on work/life balance.

3. You need to have a meaningful author platform. For more on author platforms see this article, but in short, your platform is your ability to reach the people who might buy your book, so it could mean your PR and media profile, your newsletter subscribers, your social media followers, conferences you regularly keynote at, etc.

If you don’t have these three pieces of the puzzle in place, then you can write a well-researched and argued Book Proposal and present a nicely written sample chapter, but you’ll be extremely unlikely to get a book deal (unless you’re a bona fide celebrity, in which case your author platform will be considered big enough to dwarf the necessity for points one and two - although even then, point two will still be considered relevant).

How important is it to have a big social media following to get a book deal?

Your overall author platform is one of the biggest factors that will influence whether you get a book deal or not, but that doesn’t mean you have to have a huge following on Instagram, YouTube or BookTok. That’s not to say it will do you any harm if you have, but it’s not the be-all-and-end-all that it used to be a few years ago.

Over the last five or so years, publishers have been badly burnt by investing a lot of money in book deals for social media influencers who turned out not to sell many of their books. So now it’s not that your social media following is considered to be irrelevant, but it’s less likely that you’d be offered a deal on that basis alone.

Instead (along with the good book idea and relevant credentials mentioned above), publishers are taking a broader approach to understanding an author’s visibility and authority. In this context, appearing on lots of well-ranked podcasts and having a decent newsletter audience will probably be considered just as significant (if not more so) than having a big following on social media.

Perhaps most importantly, publishers are looking for evidence of relevance and engagement in your audience. Appearing on lots of podcasts that don’t contain the book’s likely readers in their audience isn’t going to do much to help your case, and nor is having a big list of newsletter subscribers but a low open rate for your emails.

If you can show that your audience may not be huge, but it’s highly engaged and your potential book topic is entirely relevant to your audience’s main areas of interest, then that’s more likely to get you a deal than having a bigger audience for whom your book topic would be less pertinent.

Finally, an element of Book Proposals that is often under-estimated is the endorsements section - if you have built relationships with people whose word carries weight with your book’s potential readers (they don’t have to be household names, but people with name recognition in your book’s niche) then their enthusiastic endorsement of your book can really help to get you a deal.

This is one of the reasons why podcast guesting is such a great tactic for building your author platform, because in the process of guesting, you get to meet and build relationships with podcast hosts. Of course, you can’t guarantee that everyone who interviews you will go on to endorse your book - but they’re certainly significantly more likely to endorse it if they first of all know you exist, and secondly had a really great conversation with you.

How important is it to write well?

For a non-fiction book, (especially one that’s in the ‘how to’ or guidebook-type category) it’s more important to be a clear communicator and to be open to editorial input than it is to be able to write beautifully.

People usually buy this type of non-fiction to solve a problem or learn how to do something. They’re not looking for moving prose or beautiful similes, they just want to learn how to play the guitar or start a bed & breakfast business. In the case of narrative non-fiction, such as memoir or travel writing, prose style is much more important (to the extent that, in some cases, you may need to submit the whole manuscript to get your book deal, as you would for a novel). In these cases, your book will sell based on the quality of your writing and storytelling, much more so than on the basis of your author platform - so please assume that the advice in this article is aimed more at the ‘how to’ book authors than the memoirists.

What exactly do you need to do to get a book deal then?

Assuming that you’re writing the ‘how to’ style of book, here’s what to do, in chronological order:

1. Start by focusing on growing your author platform, building your authority, researching your market and building relationships with people who might be able to help you either to get your book deal or to launch and market your book further down the line.

2. Then start working on your Book Proposal.

3. In parallel, start working on your chapter outlines and sample chapter(s).

4. Start researching to find agents who would be a good fit to represent you and/or publishers who accept unagented submissions.

5. Start sending out query letters to agents. Your query letter is a one pager that, in effect, summarizes your Book Proposal. Don’t be tempted to start querying agents before you write your Book Proposal - if they’re interested, they’ll ask for the Proposal by return email.

6. Hopefully, one or more agents will be interested in representing you. This is a crucial relationship in your writing career, so do make sure that you feel really comfortable with an agent before signing on with them. It’s not impossible to jump ship if your relationship with your agent doesn’t work out, but it can be tricky, so pay attention to your gut before committing.

7. Your agent will then start the process of selling your book to publishers. Buckle up, this is potentially a rollercoaster ride - and it may take quite a while before you get a deal. They may have had a particular editor in mind when they signed you up, in which case in some circumstances, they may offer them an exclusive, or they might approach lots of different publishers.

8. Eventually, possibly after an auction, if there are lots of interested publishers, you’ll get a book deal. Celebrate like mad - but also realize that this is just the beginning of the publishing process. It will most likely take 18 months to two years before your book will be on bookstore shelves.

If you want help navigating the complex process of getting a book deal (or even deciding if you want to go down this route or would be better off self-publishing) then please check out my services here.