Many writers think they should only go through the trouble of crafting a solid book proposal if they plan to pitch their idea to an agent or editor. If they’re self-publishing, why bother? In fact, creating a REALLY STRONG book proposal is an essential thing to do no matter where you plan to publish or sell your book, and in my experience in both worlds – publishing through traditional publishing houses as well as self-pubbing – writing out a comprehensive, detailed, and compelling book proposal is key.

Even if you don’t plan to send a proposal to an agent, the simple act of writing it will boost your ability to sell your book yourself. A proposal is a completely different beast from your manuscript. While you’ve been writing your book, you’ve been in creative-mode, crafting and designing and editing and hopefully having fun. Your proposal, on the other hand, is a selling tool. It crystalizes the facts about your book in ways that will convince potential readers to pick it up and read it. 

The Components of a Book Proposal

In my Book Proposal Bootcamp course, I teach about the components of writing a solid and successful book proposal, especially one that will be sent to an agent. These pieces include an author bio, a hook, a summary, a competitive book analysis, features and benefits, and other sections that come together to create a cohesive marketing tool for your manuscript. (If sending to an agent, they’ll tell you which sections to include and in what order.)

If you’re self-publishing, you’ll want to develop these sections, too, because being able to write and speak ABOUT your book (rather than THROUGH your book) is key to making sales. You’ll need to develop a short hook—a few sentences or a couple of paragraphs that capture the essence of your book in a compelling way.

Your proposal needs to be factual and descriptive without falling back into the narrative itself. It must be objective as if you are a reviewer summarizing a book you’ve just read for the first time.

Even the competitive title analysis is extremely helpful. You’ll inevitably be asked by potential readers if your book resembles those by their favorite author, or how it is different from another book on the shelf next to it. How do you describe yours? Crafting a competitive title analysis is a fantastic exercise to do before you publish so that you can answer these questions and sell your book.

Selling Versus Getting Feedback

Many authors utilize beta readers, people who agree to read their book prior to publication to look for errors and generally ensure the flow is correct and appealing. This is great and very helpful for your manuscript. But writing a book proposal is very different—instead of asking for feedback on your manuscript, the proposal is the selling tool that describes, summarizes, compares, and sells.

Can you describe your book being factual and at the same time being inspiring? To sell your book, you must be concise yet so full of the details required for an editor or reader to make a decision.

Because your proposal will become a boilerplate with language that helps you sell your book, you’ll use the words and phrases from it continuously on your website, at conferences, in emails, and in every shred of your marketing. Perfecting your book proposal especially with the help of “read aloud” partners will make it stronger.

My online course Book Proposal Bootcamp walks you through this entire process, step-by-step, so you don't miss any important features and you use the most effective words and phrases.

What’s Obvious to You Isn’t Obvious To Everyone Else

When you’re immersed in writing your manuscript, you live and breathe your book. But when you go to describe it to someone else who hasn’t been immersed in it, you can come up short. What do you say?

I realized when I wrote my book proposal for my upcoming book Once Upon a Place: Forests, Caverns, and Other Places of Transformation in Myths, Fairy Tales and Film, that my early proposal draft didn’t do an adequate job of setting the stage or preparing a reader for why they’d want to read the book. In my early draft I assumed people “got it” or knew why they should be interested. After I went through the process I teach in Book Proposal Bootcamp, my proposal was much clearer and more straightforward about what my manuscript was trying to accomplish.

Guessing will only get you so far--in fact, not very far at all. Join me in Book Proposal Bootcamp for a clear, targeted strategy for writing your best book proposal, one that will grab the attention of editors, agents, and potential readers.

For the best guidance writing a solid, sales-worthy book proposal, enroll in Book Proposal Bootcamp.