How to write a book proposal (with template)
One of the first biggest jobs for a non-fiction author who wants a traditional book deal is to write - not their book - but their Book Proposal. The proposal is really a sales document - it’s written for the benefit of your potential publisher.
If you’re hoping to go down the mainstream publishing route, you’ll almost certainly need to secure representation from a literary agent - and your Book Proposal is part of how you’ll secure that representation, and will then be used by your agent to help to land you a book deal.
What exactly IS a Book Proposal?
The Proposal introduces your book idea, explains why you’re the ideal person to write this particular book and lays out your author platform.
Whole books have been written on this topic, but the main thing to bear in mind is that your Proposal is a cross between an advert and a business case. You want to intrigue the reader and draw them in, and then to make a compelling pitch for why they should invest in your book.
And make no mistake - it is a big investment on the part of an agent and a publisher. If they decide to offer you a deal, they’re investing a significant amount of time and money in you and your book, and the risk is that they won’t make that money back. This is your chance to sell them on exactly why investing in you would be the right decision.
What do you need to cover in your Book Proposal?
An agent or publisher who reads your proposal is looking for you to explain the following points:
What is the book about?
Can you write well?
Are you qualified to write this book?
Will people hear about the book? Do you have either a PR strategy/connections and/or a decent following via social media/an email newsletter/podcast audience?
A publisher’s biggest concern when they read your Book Proposal:
As they read your Proposal, however much they may love your idea, the main preoccupation in the mind of an agent or editor is, “yes, but will it sell?”. Your Proposal needs to answer that question succinctly, but with conviction.
And don’t overthink it. As award-winning author Nicola Morgan puts it in her (recommended) book Write to be Published:
‘Focus on clarity, cleanness, common sense and professionalism.’
As she goes on to say, there are three types of submission - the premature one (‘this writer is either talentless, lazy, too impatient, or not prepared to countenance the idea that the book might not be good enough’); the OCD one (‘rarely actually submitted, because the writer can’t bring himself to declare it ready for public viewing’); or the Goldilocks one, (‘just as perfect as you can get it without having a nervous breakdown’).
The very fact that you’re reading this article means that you’re unlikely to fall into the first category. And if you go on to work with a professional and ask for feedback then you’re unlikely to get stuck in the OCD loop of perfectionism. You’re choosing to get out of your own head, so that you can get advice about when your proposal is good enough, and can start submitting it at that point.
If you can focus on what makes your book saleable and different, and make that case clearly and with confidence, your proposal will be much stronger.
Which sections need to be in a Book Proposal?
Here are the sections you’ll probably want to include. I say probably, because some of them (such as the Hook Page) are optional.
And if you have no track record with live events and no endorsements, you obviously won’t include those sections. So, in my listing here, numbers two, ten and eleven are all optional. (Though I strongly advise you to do everything you can to secure one or two endorsements from relevant people).
Equally, in the attachments section, the sample chapters are non-negotiable, but the other sections are optional. They’ll strengthen your case, but if you don’t have, say, any media clippings, that’s not necessarily a deal breaker.
If you have a fantastic idea for a book on a timely topic and you can demonstrate depth of knowledge of your subject and decent writing skills, plus at least the beginnings of a promising platform, all of these things are more important than having a media reel.
What’s included in a Book Proposal:
Main section
1.The Cover Page
2. Hook Page
3. Proposal Table of Contents
4. Overview
5. Detailed chapter summaries
6. Author bio
7. Market: main target audience & secondary audience
8. Competition analysis (recent books to compare yours to & explain why yours is better!)
9. PR + Media: Media Contacts, Media Angles, Alliances, Publicist (if relevant)
10. Live events (with potential for back-of-the-room sales)
11. Endorsements
12. Online Presence
13. Book Specifics
Attachments:
Sample chapters
Press Clippings
Speaking Schedule
Media Reel
How do you complete each section of the Book Proposal?
In brief, here’s what needs to go into each section.
Cover Page
Unless your book is very visual, the convention is just to include your book title & name and your agent’s details (if you have one already).
Hook Page
This is not a compulsory thing to include, but the idea is to express the core idea of the book, its Unique Selling Proposition, in a way that intrigues the reader. So you might just include the book’s elevator pitch, or a one-liner plus a fantastic endorsement quote, if you have one.
Proposal Table of Contents
You’ll add page numbers once you’ve finished putting the Proposal together, so it’s actually one of the last things you’ll do, but it appears here in the document, after the cover page & hook page.
Overview Page X
Chapter outline Page X
Author bio Page X
Market description Page X
Competition analysis Page X
PR + Media Page X
In-person events Page X
Endorsements Page X
Online Presence Page X
Book Specifics Page X
Sample chapters Page X
Press Clippings Page X
Speaking Schedule Page X
Media Reel Page X
Overview
This needs to answer the following questions:
What’s your book about?
What’s the core of it? Why do you want to write this particular book?
Why is your book important?
Why is it timely? What will people get from it?
What problem does it solve?
What need does it fulfil - why will people buy it?
Why are you the best person to write it?
What experience, passion, talents or skills do you bring to it?
Who is it for? Who is your ideal reader?
How do you plan to write it?
What format and style will you use? What research will you do/have you done? Will anyone else be involved? How long will it take to create?
The main purpose of the overview is to act as the Sales Page for your Book Proposal and to demonstrate the commercial viability of your book.
If your overview section is long, make it skimmable by using section headings.
Chapter Outline
One of the most important sections of your proposal. This is what will convince an agent or publisher that you really do have a book in you and not just an extended article. You’ll produce a table of contents for the book and will then follow that with summaries of each chapter, which can be as short as a paragraph, or can each extend to a couple of pages (but shorter is better). Bullet points can work well here.
This is the edited highlights of the whole book - giving a sense of the whole flow and logic of your argument, and an indication of how you’re going to weave everything together. Keep bearing in mind that the Book Proposal is a sales document - you don’t want to plod through every detail of what’s going into your book, instead you want to create a narrative arc and within that create moments of curiosity and intrigue. The outline should be an engaging and entertaining read in its own right.
How do you go about working out your list of chapters in the first place? Well, I like either mind-mapping or post-it notes, and my favourite of these two is post-it notes, because you can keep moving them around, adding them in and taking them away and coming up with new combinations.
You need to separate out the brainstorming process of generating ideas for chapters from the editing process of pruning down the ideas to just the ones you’ll include in your book, and combining them into new orders. Ideally separate those processes out by leaving at least a day or two between the brainstorming and editing, but if that isn’t possible, take a short break and get your head into a different space (exercise or meditation are good ways to do this) and then try to come back with fresh eyes.
When you come back, keep anything that feels interesting, fun, intriguing or that you know is core to the book and ditch everything else. Then just try combining them in different ways. Take photos of different combinations so that you have a record of your different ideas. Again, if you can give it time for your ideas to settle, that would be ideal - otherwise, go with your intuition about which order and line-up gives the best flow for the reader. And remember, less is more. Don’t try to fit everything you’ve ever thought into one book.
Author Bio
You can choose to write this in the first person or the third person, either can work, so it’s up to you.
You need to summarise your credentials for writing this book - so, you want to explain your expertise in the subject matter and describe your writing track record. You can also include professional/academic qualifications, and life or work experiences, but all of these are only really relevant insofar as they relate to this particular book. Also touch on your media/PR experience, since that’s highly relevant here.
In terms of length, I’d aim for 1-2 pages - you can go a bit longer if your own story is truly pertinent to the book. The filter for what to include in this section is, does this fact about you explain why you’re the perfect candidate to write this book for your target audience? If not, leave it out.
Market Analysis/Target Audience
You’ll describe your ideal reader (this is your primary audience) and then, if it makes sense to do so, you can also describe overlapping secondary and tertiary audiences. So, for instance, for a cookery/lifestyle book, your primary audience could be 30-50 year old mothers, your secondary audience could be 25+ women making their first homes and your tertiary audience could be empty-nesters. Your primary audience are the people you’re really writing the book for, but the secondary and tertiary audiences may also buy it.
Competitive Title Analysis
Ideally, you want your comparison titles to have come out in the last 3 years, and to have done well, but not be seen as outliers, which means big bestsellers aren’t really the ideal comparison titles.
You need to show a detailed understanding of your genre of book, and how your particular book will complement what’s already out there. One of the best ways to come up with your titles here is to go to the biggest brick and mortar bookshop you can find, and wander round looking in the sections where you’d expect your book to be shelved, so that you can get a sense of what else is selling in those sections.
Failing that, browse big online bookshops and take note of ‘customers who bought this, liked that’ recommendations and also check out how your comparison titles are catalogued, and then check out what else has been published in that section.
PR & Media
Contacts, angles, potential alliances are all included here. This is the place to mention anyone in your niche to whom you’re connected, and anyone else who will resonate with your audience, but only if you actually have a connection to them - this isn’t supposed to be a wish list of the celebrities whom it would be great to get endorsements from, instead it should be people you can actually commit to contacting.
If you’re either already working with a freelance publicist, or you’re willing to commit to doing so, here is a great place to mention this.
If you’ve already recruited a street team, or plan to do so, then again, mention this here.
In-person events
Description of your past & upcoming events and retreats & the potential to ‘sell from the back of the room’. This is interesting to publishers because if you are a great live speaker, you will do well at Book Festivals and tours and they will sell many more copies of your book as a result.
Endorsements
The PR section above talks about potential contacts/alliances - but here is where you put specific quotes about you or your book that you’ve already sourced.
Online Presence
Website (with visitor stats); IG and FB follower numbers/other platforms as relevant; mailing list numbers. Engagement is as important as numbers, so you can talk about your open rate, numbers of people coming to IG lives, patrons on patreon, etc.
Book Specifics
Title, subtitle, no. of chapters, projected length, when you anticipate being finished etc.
Sample chapters
Unless you have good reason to do otherwise, start with your Chapter 1. The ideal is to include 3 sample chapters (if not, then try to include samples that come to around 10% of the projected length of your book). You don’t need to include Chapters 2 and 3 if later chapters would be more effective.
Press Clippings
Include anything relevant here - even if it’s a decade or more old.
Speaking Schedule
Gives agents and publishers a sense of how used you already are to speaking.
Media Reel
Include any tv/radio/podcast appearances here.
Would you like help putting together your Book Proposal?
This is one of the things I do for my clients in my Booked Out intensives - find out more here.