Whenever you are taking twice as long to get half as much written, that may be a good time to prepare the evergreen portions of your book proposal. That is, if you plan to court literary agents and traditional publishers.
Prepare Your Chapter Summaries
A good time to prepare your book proposal’s evergreen bits is after you’ve developed your main message and identified what’s going into each chapter and why.
Highlight your credentials in each chapter by showing readers how you approach facts, ideas and perspectives. And, once you’ve developed the chapters and their summaries, you’ll be in a better position to send agents your book proposals. So let’s break these steps down.
Organize
In terms of your book proposal’s length, think one page per chapter summary. The internet houses dozens of templates and graphic organizers to guide your writing. Avoid checklists that are too elementary. Read what publishing industry expert Jane Friedman has to say about proposal writing. Preparing a book proposal forces you to believe in your writing and your marketing abilities.
- Detail. After brainstorming the topics you want to include, be specific about the aspects of those topics you will cover. Also include why you’re the one to write about them. This is a good time to conceptualize so chapters begin flowing sequentially, from robust beginning to end.
- Flow. So, what do I mean by flow? In what order will you introduce each topic? Will you introduce the topic with a story or statistics or steps? How will you example or illustrate the topic’s prominent points? What primary and secondary research will you use as support? Consider adding visual and maybe even interactive elements. Build toward a strong conclusion that reveals something new and connects both past and future topics. Organize your thoughts so what you ultimately create is relatable content exquisitely written. Keep thinking about how you want your ideas to flow include and keep digging for as much specificity as possible.
Visualize
- Create. Do you have a visual concept of what you want your book proposal to include to help you determine how you want it to flow? This is a good time to create a thumbnail sketch, mind map or story board. Illustrate how individual chapters will transition smoothly and logically from one topic to the next.
- Share. Ask others to read your chapter summaries. Consider trusted sources for input – and stay open to their critiques. If readers keep sharing concerns about the same section, you know you’ve hit a bump in the road. Decide if the issue needs a quick tweak or complete revision, but don’t ignore it. Without a doubt, that section needs your attention. Ultimately, you have to have the courage to dig deeper to make it better. Understand what readers want you to deliver.
- Relate. In addition to building each chapter’s structure and support, explain how this information will change the lives of your readers. They need to know that every chapter will improve their lives by some spectacular margin or get them steps closer to some bigger picture. So, if you’re positioning your book for big sales, understand what your book is the first to do. Why is this important and to whom?
Publish Early Articles First
As you create your chapter summaries, begin identifying a section within your overall content that you can pull out, develop and spin off into an independent publishable article. Publishing articles in advance of your book publication will elevate your marketable authority and help you build the social media capitol you need to land a literary agent, publisher and, ultimately, a larger following and readership.
Literary agents and publishers reviewing your book proposal appreciate seeing a healthy list of published pieces as part of your submission. Help them see your ideas are current, relevant and being well-received.
When you can check the “I’m published” box in your book proposal submission, you are showing literary agents and publishers that you are a serious writer and that they can bank on you to write the book.
As focused as you need to be as a writer, you are also the only one who can decide whether to stay the course and write only on your chosen topics of interest or stay open to the new angles and ideas that current publishing outlets want to promote.
For example, if a publication asks you for a topical piece that veers from your goal, decide if that’s an opportunity or a pass. Some ideas may need to evolve due to a current event or a new interest that’s trending in your field. Others won’t.
Understand Your Competition
Writing brief competitor analyses is a time-consuming task but a relatively linear and easy one to accomplish. The key to writing these brief summaries is to maintain an upbeat tone and keep them succinct.
Read at least half a dozen books by your closest competitors and ones you admire. The more you find that have sold or are selling well the better. Choose books that are a mix of current bestsellers, popular classics, academic titles, books by colleagues in your field or those writing in your genre.
Points to Cover
Write one or two brief paragraphs to summarize the book, comparing and contrasting your work to theirs. What is the book about? What does it do a good job covering? What doesn’t the book cover that yours will?
- Title, Author
- Publisher, Year
- Sales-to-date, if you can get them
- What the book is about
- Major strength, weakness
- How your book will differ
Literary agents want to know what you like about your competitors’ books, where their strengths and weaknesses are, and what your book, in contrast, will be the first to do.
If these analyses are harder to write than you thought they’d be, focus on a few ideas from the details within your competitor’s book. Take note of all the elements, both positive and negative, that capture your attention.
Note Finer Features
What do the structure, format, design, art and extra features look like in books by competitors? Art may include charts, graphs, graphics, infographics, illustrations, photos. Extra features may include side bars, exercises, activities, tests, case studies.
- What features are a part of each chapter?
- Do they use a formula you like or dislike?
- How do they structure their table of contents?
- Do they include an index? Citations? An epilogue?
- How will your book be different (aka: better)?
Other Genres
What bestselling book do you admire outside of the genre you are writing? Does your book have a similar approach or style that resembles it? If you want literary agents and publishers to understand your angle in a nutshell, this is a good time to stop and connect some aspect of it to a bestseller they would recognize.
Category Fit
Please don’t say you don’t have any competition – at least not to any professional in publishing. If you do, that statement will only reveal that you have not done your homework, which sits right next to the kiss of death.
Not only does your agent want to know where your book fits into the universe of literature, so do booksellers. They need to be able to categorize it if they are going to sell it. So, yes, your book does have competition because it must fit into at least one sales category. This is an indisputable fact.
Of course, you are not going to find a book identical to yours, but you will find plenty that are close enough. Maybe even a few published by your dream publisher. Find out.
A Final Word on Preparing Your Book Proposal
Unless you are self-publishing, keep chipping away at the evergreen basics of your book proposal until they are done — to-dos like updating your CV and narrative bio. That way, when you find the right literary agent, you will be in position to more quickly email your proposal to them and get feedback from them.
Another upside to having your book proposal ready in advance is that you haven’t wasted time writing an entire manuscript your new literary agent or publisher may ask you to rethink.