- An overview: a description of the book. This can be as short as a paragraph, or
several pages long. - The background of the author. Your biography, as it relates to your expertise
for this book. - The competition in the marketplace. This is where you mention the top four or
five titles which are your book's competitors. (Note: if there are dozens of
competitors for your book, this is a good thing, because it means that the
subject area is popular. Your book will need to take a new slant.) - Promotions. This is where you describe how you will promote your book, both
before and after publication.
-^ A^ chapter outlines.^ - A sample chapter, or two chapters. This is always the first chapter, and if
you're sending two chapters, it's the Introduction and Chapter One, or if there's
no Introduction, it's Chapters One and Two. - Attachments. Optional. You may want to attach articles you've written about
the book's topic, or any relevant supporting material.
Let's write the proposal
(^)
Your chapter outlines
You've already been working on a major part of the proposal --- the chapter outline. If
you like, you can begin today's work by spending an hour or two with that. If your
chapter outline still has major holes in it, don't worry too much about it. Today we'll
complete an initial draft of the complete proposal, and you can fill in the gaps later.Your background — why you're the person to write this book
Next, we'll work on the background^ section.^
The first piece of info you'll need to include in the background section is a
brief bio. Every book you own has a bio of the author, so take a few books off your
shelves and study the author bios. Most are short. Novelists' bios mention the writer's
interests, partner, children and pets. The bios of nonfiction writers (that's you)
emphasize the writer's academic credentials if it's important to the writer's credibility,
or the writer's experience in the field the book covers, or anything else which might
be relevant.