This Book Started Here: Book Proposals

Published on by Jennifer Kelly

In 2013, after years of teaching writing at the college level, I contemplated what I would do if I weren’t teaching. I had two young children and the idea of working for myself gave me the ability to be flexible with my time and complement my husband’s working schedule as well. That’s when I got the idea to write my first book, Sir Barton and the Making of the Triple Crown, and, in the process of making that book a reality, I learned a few things. I’m going to share one of them now.

If you ever thought about writing a nonfiction book, here is a bit of what I learned about the process. The first step toward making that idea a reality is something simple but helpful: writing a book proposal.

Heading

The great thing about writing is that anyone can do it. You don’t need a college degree and you don’t necessarily need special training like you might if you were a carpenter or an electrician. Walk into any bookstore and take in the vast variety of not only books but also the people behind them. From baking a cake to writing a script, just about anything you would like to learn about is available at your fingertips thanks to someone like you, someone with an idea. But how do you take that idea and make it a reality?

This is where I’m going to add a caveat before I go too much further. Writing fiction and writing nonfiction are not one in the same. One cannot approach crafting a romance novel the same way one might a cookbook. Your favorite search engine will share thousands of links that can help you with that pursuit. Here, my focus is on writing nonfiction. Either way, I hope to provide some insight into the process of crafting a long-form project and then getting it published.

At the heart of all of this is your idea. Publishers want to see what your idea is and where it fits into their catalog as well as into the genre as a whole. After all, a book is a product that they will produce and sell. On the flip side is the business process. This is where a book proposal comes in.

Like a proposal for the Saturn V rocket or for your public library’s new makers’ space, you are sharing what your idea is, how you will executive, why you are the right person to do it, and your vision for how a publisher can sell it. Since it is your idea, you are the best person to provide this insight. A publisher might help you expand on it with their own resources, but, for the most part, it starts with you. This is why I am such an advocate for starting here if possible. It forces you to think about your idea in a way that is practical and executable. It forces you to make a plan for executing your vision and to sell your idea as a tangible product for a publisher.

For both Foxes of Belair and Sir Barton, I crafted book proposals that followed a plan I found via Jane Friedman. When it comes to resources about writing nonfiction, she is my go-to for the practical side of the pursuit. The following section pulls from her resources.

Heading

To sell Foxes of Belair, I needed to show what my idea would look like in reality. I need to show how it fits in amongst the long list of books on great horses. To do this, my book proposal took Foxes of Belair from an elevator pitch to a document that went into the right amount of detail and depth to show a publisher what they needed to know before saying yes or no to the project:

  • Overview — My first task was to write an overview of what the book would cover. This forced me to expand from my single-sentence pitch to something more specific. This would define what the book would and would not cover. My goal was to show how both Gallant Fox and Omaha fit into the pantheon of Triple Crown winners and the role that William Woodward played in helping those three races evolve into the elite accomplishment we know today.
  • Comparable titles — This section discusses books that are similar to the one you’re proposing. If you’re writing a book on World War II, the available books on that subject are numerous. Here is where you show where you fit in, but also where you stand out. Foxes is not the first book on a Triple Crown winner, but it is the only book on those two Triple Crown winners. My comparable titles included the various books on the Triple Crown (Lucky Thirteen, Most Glorious Crown, etc.) and then books like Sir Barton, those on Secretariat, etc.
  • Target Audience — Whenever you write an email, you know who you are writing it for. Whenever you write a note for your spouse or your loved one, you know your audience, the people for whom it is intended. When it comes to writing a book, knowing your audience — who they are, where they live, what their ages are, etc. — is another way to demonstrate to a publisher that what you offer is an idea that will resonate with readers. For Foxes, that audience was fans of horse racing, specifically, but what else do we know about them? Where do they live? How old are they? What other demographics and potential audiences might be interested in my subject? That kind of information gave a potential publisher an idea of who to advertise to and who to expect to show up at events, essential information for marketing purposes.
  • Marketing Plan — Writers may not immediately think of marketing as part of their job. Surely, that’s a job for the publisher, right? To effectively sell your idea, you need to show that you have a vision of how to sell the result of that idea. This goes a step further than analyzing your audience. It is the combination of your comparable titles and your audience to give a publisher insight into selling the product that you’re creating. You know your audience and you know your market best. My marketing plan for Foxes covered print publications, podcasts, and other programs to target as well as potential locations for book signings, presentations, and other events.
  • Author Biography — This section shares why you are the right person to do this. What is it about your education, your work experience, and your familiarity with the subject that qualifies you to take this on? For Foxes, I shared my educational background, my teaching experience, and my time working on Sir Barton.
  • Chapter Outline/Table of Contents — In this section, you will show your approach for executing the idea at the heart of your book, including a proposed table of contents. How many chapters are you planning? What will each chapter cover? This is a great way to help you define what you will cover, what order you will cover it in, and how much detail you will go into. In the Foxes book proposal, I proposed seventeen chapters plus an epilogue. The final version has twenty-one chapters plus the epilogue.
  • Sample Chapters — Most publishers will ask for sample chapters to go with the book proposal to get an even more detailed picture of what your idea will entail. I included three chapters of Foxes in mine, each from a different section of the book. What it did was show the publisher what the tone of the book would be and the sort of information I felt was necessary for the story. What it did for me was help me focus in on the research I would need to flesh out this story and the names and other contextual considerations I had to account for as I wrote. Since both Gallant Fox and Omaha raced during the Great Depression, I knew from my time writing these sample chapters that I would need to research not just the horses but the Depression and how it intersected with the sport.

Your great idea deserves a chance to become reality. Finding the right home for it is the first step on the road to a real book. Starting with a book proposal will show a publisher that you have a plan for your idea and brings you just a bit closer to fulfilling this dream.

If you would like more information about this goal, here are a few links you might find helpful:

Thank you for reading!