Writing Your Book Proposal - Part 3 (of 3)

Ok, if you've followed along with part 1 and part 2 then you're ready for part 3.

1. Title Page
a. Name, sub-head
b. Your name, any representation (like your agent)
c. “A Non-Fiction Book Proposal”

2. Proposal Table of Contents
a. Note: not the book’s table of contents, but the proposal’s

3. Overview
a. This is a one page summary of the book and may include: Statistics; Possible or confirmed interview subjects; Some structure (i.e., Each chapter will include sidebars that highlight the most important take-away points for readers to remember…)

4. About the Author
a. Written in third person
b. Reads like the back flap of a book cover
c. About the Author (used in Rookie Reiner):

Heather Cook spent several years working in the reining industry as an assistant trainer, traveling as far as Austria to one of the country’s premiere facilities to teach reining and horsemanship lessons. She has worked for several notable trainers, including World Champions Bob and Jason Grimshaw. Currently Cook is an editorial team member with Canada’s number one western horse magazine, The Western Horse Review, a monthly columnist for The Quarter Horse News, has been published several times in The Reiner, the official publication of the National Reining Horse Association, and is an international reining correspondent for PhelpsSports.com. Using a humorous and conversational writing style, Cook has written about every aspect of the reining horse industry. She has covered recent rule changes and their effect on the industry, profiled top professionals, written training articles and spoken with hundreds of reining horse enthusiasts from the first time rider to the highest money earning rider of all time.

5. Target Audience
a. Write as much as you know about your audience
b. Stats from StatsCan
c. Research studies
d. Angus Reid Polls

6. Comparable titles
a. Include: title, author, publisher, format, page count, price
b. Two sentence summary about the book
c. Two sentence summary about how your book is different (and presumably better)

7. Marketing and Promotion
a. “The author is committed to promoting and has investigated the following:
i. Web site (including regular newsletter/promotion)
ii. Events you can attend
iii. Advertising in specific publications or sponsorship for events

8. Format and schedule for delivery
a. How many words?
b. How many photos, graphics and charts?
c. Full-colour or black and white?
d. When can you complete the manuscript?

9. Companion books
a. Pitch more books in the same line, propose a series or smaller supplementary books

10. Chapter Outline
a. All chapters should include number, title and a short description
b. You can use bullet points (no more than five) or a five sentence paragraph.

11. Sample Chapters!
a. Up to three
b. Normally it would be the first three chapters but can be any three if you already have some portions written, but be ready to answer the question “why didn’t you give us the first chapter?”
c. You will calculate the book length (from #8) by multiplying the number of chapters by the word count in one chapter. For example, a 50,000 word book with ten chapters should be 5,000 words per chapter.
d. If the math doesn’t work out, make a note that this chapter is slightly longer because…
e. You can include some formatting such as text boxes or “call outs”. No graphics, however note where a graphic might be include with


So that's about it! Now get to work!