Publishing Your Novel Part 2 - Preparing a Proposal
See Part 1 of this series - The Publishing Process
Before you send your query letter to an agent prepare a proposal. Whoa! Why do I need a proposal before I send out query letters? If an agent follows up with you and you are not prepared, you lose your best chance at getting published. Nothing reeks of unprofessional and unorganized more than unpreparedness.
A proposal is a thorough outline of your book. The proposal should contain the following elements:
Overview
The first two to three pages should be summary of your idea for the book. Provide a synopsis of your fiction work or an explanation of the topics you intend to write about for a non-fiction piece.
Market
The next three to four pages should be a description of the audience your book will appeal to. This should include the age, education level, socio-economic status, and general reading habits your target audience.
Competition
Description other books that cover similar topics. Agents can easily discover if you’re omitting something so be honest. A crowded market is not necessarily a bad market. A crowd is one indication that people are making money in that market.
Author(s)
Briefly description yourself and the co-authors of the book. Brag and boast about yourself and the other authors. Convince the agent that you are the best author for this book. If you don’t convince the agent to support you, he will never convince a publishing house to back you.
Chapter Summaries
The majority of the proposal should be a chapter by chapter outline of the book. For fiction pieces include up to twenty pages of text from your book. For non-fiction provide a minimal outline summarizing the heart of each chapter.
Delivery
End with a short paragraph stating the length of and deadline for completing the book.
To learn more about preparing a proposal and how to get published I recommend reading either The Complete Starter Kit for Aspiring Writers or 100 Things Every Writer Needs to Know, both by Scott Edelstei.
Find out what your peers think about your book by uploading a chapter for critique.
Jacob
Stumble it!
Tags: How to write a proposal, Query lettter, Writing agents
July 3rd, 2009 at 1:02 am
[...] Part 2 of this series - Preparing a Proposal [...]
August 1st, 2009 at 7:04 pm
I have a couple of questions.
1. How do you find an agent.
2. If you book does not become accepted by a publishing company, but an agent has taken you on, how does paying your agent work then?
August 3rd, 2009 at 4:41 pm
@Deana
You can find answers to these questions in the publishing your novel series. You can view all six articles at http://www.reviewfuse.com/blog/?s=%22publishing+your+novel%22