Writing the Book

Proposal

For Fiction and Nonfiction Writers

Speaker: Emily Grosvenorwww.emilygrosvenor.com

What is a Book Proposal

• A Sales Document• It argues why your book is a marketable

product

It answers the following questions:

SO WHAT? WHO CARES?

WHO ARE YOU?

Who uses the book proposalAgents, acquisitions editors, editors, the marketing team, the publisher

Thinking Like the Book Industry

The Book

The Hook

The Cook

The Book, The Hook and The Cook

Parts of the Nonfiction Book Proposal

• Title page• Overview / with endorsements• Audience• Comp Titles• Marketing and Promotion• Bio• Sample Chapters• Appendix

Parts of the Fiction Book Proposal

• Brief overview: This should read similar to back-cover copy. • The market• About the author• Author marketing• Comparable books• Details: How many words will your book be? (Words, not

pages.) How many chapters? • Longer synopsis: In several pages (2 to 6 is a good guideline)

describe the story. • Sample chapters: Include the first 40 to 50 pages of your

manuscript

The Title Page: Titles and Subtitles

1. Make an obvious promise2. Identify your target readers3. Be as specific as possible4. Differentiate your book from the competition5. Engage your readers’ curiosity6. Use metaphor to make it more interesting and memorable7. Choose the right tone of voice8. Be as concise as possible9. Write the way your market speaks10. Choose a web-friendly book titlehttp://www.lulu.com/titlescorer/index.php

The Overview

Your three sentence description of your book and why its important, wrapped in a compelling introduction to your book (2-5 pages)

Sample Overview: The Family Gene

The Family Gene is the story of a medical mystery. It is a story about science’s shortcomings and its miraculous capabilities. It is also a story about doctors on a quest to map a gene and understand it. The astonishing potential to “cure” a genetic illness, and save future generations from a new and terrible scourge, is merely the icing on the cake.

This is the story of a daughter trying to make sense of her father’s senseless death, and of a young woman facing her own mortality. It asks all the ethical questions that modern genetics brings to humanity’s table: Do we have a right to alter our own genetic codes and those of our children? What happens when technology gets so far ahead of us that it ceases to save lives and begins to destroy them?

Endorsements

1. Make a list of colleagues, experts in your fiend, friends, writers of similar books

2. Plan ahead – give them time to read it3. Help another writer out4. Get creative about approaching others5. ASK6. Follow up7. Show your appreciation

Audience: Or the Unexpected Benefits of Numbers in the Writing Career

• Define your audience: Who will read this book?

• Example: The Scent Trails, a memoir– Scent lovers– The New Domestics– Transplants

Scent lovers

A new market has opened up for people who connect to their sense of smell. These Scent aficionados are a growing group of DIY perfumers, sniffaholics, and people who read perfume blogs/sites like Sniffapalooza.com (site for the world’s major perfume event), Cafleurbon.com, Fragrantica.com, ThePerfumePosse.com, Bois de Jasmin, and NowSmellThis.com. The Scent Trails will serve this audience with a story filled by folding the latest scientific research about the sense of smell in an appealing narrative and voice and by shedding light on the unfolding DIY perfume market in the United States.

The New Domestics

The New Domestics value traditional roles in the home, but with a twist. They are women who have decided to be stay-at-home moms while pursuing their life passions. They are at the point in their lives when they are drawn to things that surprise them. They are a group that has just started being chronicled by sociologists, in books such as Emily Matchar’s Homeward Bound: Why Women Are Embracing the New Domesticity.

TransplantsThese are people who have left their ancestral homes to settle elsewhere.

Americans have always been on the move. According to the Pew Research Center: -- More than 6 in 10 adults have switched communities at least once in their lives. -- More than 15% have lived in four or more states. -- A full 38% of Americans say that the place they are living right now isn’t “home in their heart.” -- The West remains the least rooted of all American regions, where only 30% of residents live where they grew up. -- And yet, America is at a point when it is settling down. Roughly 11% of Americans say they have plans to move within the next five years, the smallest percentage since the government began tracking this trend in the late 1940s. -- The Pacific Northwest is of special interest to transplants. In 2013, Oregon replaced Washington, D.C. as the number one location to move to among people who moved from one U.S. state to another.

Comp Titles

• Use mid-market titles• Show how your book is different than what’s

out there, but similar enough to not be re-inventing the wheel

• Explain why your book can be compared to these titles

Ex: The Scent Trails will touch on the anxieties of new motherhood in a DIY culture of the Pacific Northwest in books like Claire Dederer’s wonderful Poser: My Life in 23 Yoga Poses (Picador, 368 pages, 2012, Trade Paperback reprint, $16.00, ISBN-10: 1250002338), but its author will find connection and peace by building a sense of place through scent, not achieving crow pose.

Tips for the Comp Title

1. Respect the authors with whom you compete

2. Objectivity is your friend. 3. Hyperbole is your enemy. 4. Confidence is classy.5. Be concise6. It’s ok to use your “voice” here as long as it’s

appropriate

Your Bio

• Relevant details wrapped in a compelling story

• Actually tell a story about who you are, weaving in details that lend credibility to being the author of your proposed book

• Ex: Beth Howard, Mrs. American Pie• Include education when relevant• Try not to be too cute

Marketing and Promotion

You will make yourself available to radio and television.You will send press releases to major magazines about

your work.You will start a new Web site to promote your book.You will promote your book at any public lectures you

do.You will attend professional conferences and promote

your book there.You will do any other thing you can think of to promote.

Getting Creative with Marketing and Promotion

• Social media outreach: Influencers you know• Media relationships you have• Bookseller connections• Connections within the writing community• Twitter feeds you’re on• Klout Scores• It’s unending! Make it stop!

Sample Chapters

YOUR VERY BEST WORK

The Appendix: It’s all about that context

• Articles• Links to YouTube videos you’ve made• Press about you• Articles that get at the importance of the

market you are serving• Any other RELEVANT materials

Resources

• How to Write the Nonfiction Book Proposal by Michael Larson

• Nonfiction Book Proposals Anyone Can Write by Elizabeth Lyon

• Building Your Writer Platform by Chuck Sambuchino

• Your Novel Proposal: From Creation to Contract by Blythe Camenson and Marshall J. Cook

The book proposal s how you carve out a space for your beautiful, star-bright art in the marketplace of ideas.

The book proposal is how you carve out a place in the marketplace of ideas for your star-bright art.

Pitch me an Idea