Writing a Killer Book Proposal

I’ve had a request to do a series of posts relating to putting together a book proposal.  As the vast majority of the books I’ve sold have done so on the basis of a proposal – and I use that same proposal format for everything I do – I think such a series would be an excellent idea.  It will also fit well with the series we presently have underway dealing with how to sell to a foreign publisher as the techniques discussed in this series can also be used for that endeavor as well.

Before I jump into the actual mechanics I use to craft and present a novel proposal, I wanted to touch on the way in which a book is actually acquired first.  Knowing the process the publisher uses to acquire a book can help you immeasurably when you are putting together your proposal and can, in turn, increase your chances of having that proposal accepted.

In years’ past, selling your novel was a relatively simple matter.  You submitted your work to a specific editor, the editor reviewed it, and made an offer if he or she liked it enough to want to buy it.  Unfortunately, those days are long gone.  Now acquisitions are primarily made through a process known as an editorial review (or an editorial meeting.)

We’re going to take a close look at the editorial review and the step by step process that leads to a publication offer.   Too many writers think that writing a good book is enough and that is simply no longer the case.  Writing a good book is the first necessary criteria, yes, but even good books can be turned down in today’s editorial environment.  Being fully prepared for all facets of the approval process will increase your chances of getting a yes instead of a no and that’s what we hope to achieve with today’s discussion.

We’ll begin with the editor.

The editor is your first point of contact on the road to getting an acceptance.  The editor is also the person you will end up interacting with most at the publishing house, should your work be accepted.  They are not, however, the last word on getting to that acceptance.

An editor’s job is to wade through all the junk to find those few proposals/manuscripts that are well written, interesting, unique, and which fit the publishing houses’ editorial slant.  (By the latter I mean the type and style of fiction the publisher is most interested in producing.  You won’t sell a western to a publisher focused on chick lit, for instance.)  It is NOT his or her job to decide whether to publish the manuscript, or at least, not completely.  Think of the editor as your in-house champion.  She will push for your work to be published because she likes the story.  She likes your writing style.  She likes you.  Nine times out of ten the editor who takes your work to the editorial board meeting will also be the individual who will work with you once your book is accepted.  (This isn’t ALWAYS true though – sometimes you end up passed to another editor because the previous editor’s plate is too full.)

Once the editor decides that she wants to take a chance on your book, she schedules a time to present it at an editorial board meeting.  Publishing houses handle these in different ways – sometimes there is a meeting every week, sometimes once a month, sometimes when there are enough projects that need to be talked about to schedule one.  The players tend to remain consistent from house to house, though.  These are usually the fiction editors and the publisher (or the individual in charge of that imprint), as well as representatives from Sales, Marketing, and Art.

Now here’s the thing to remember – everyone has to agree that the book is worth publishing for you to get an offer.  If Sales disagrees – no offer.  If Marketing disagrees – no offer.  If the other editors disagree – no offer.

It is for this reason that my proposals are set up in the fashion that they are – I’m trying to offer something to satisfy each of these individual groups.  (We’ll talk more about that specific structure later in this series.)

Sometimes you can have a terrific proposal but still not get a publication offer because you have failed to convince one of the groups involved in the process.  For instance, I am a fan of mixed martial arts and pitched a proposal to a number of sports publishers a few years ago.  I had complete open-door access to one of the larger mixed martial arts organizations and was proposing that we do an introspective on the 2008 season – interview the fighters, do blow by blows of the major tournaments, do exposes on the coaches, etc.  Time and time again at the editorial meetings we ran into the same issue – no one had written a book on mixed martial arts similar to the one being proposed and therefore Sales had no numbers to compare it with.  No previous sales history from any other publisher meant they had to take a chance and none of them wanted to commit to doing so.  To this day, as the sport of mixed martial arts explodes in America, I still haven’t been able to sell the book.

If your proposal or manuscript makes it past the editorial meeting, you’ll go back to dealing primarily with the editor who first championed your work (and his or her editorial assistant, if they have one.)  Smart writers don’t just settle for that relationship, however, but will try to make friends with whoever is pushing your book in Sales and Marketing as well.  (The more they know and like you, the harder they will try to create good cover copy and push your book to the booksellers.)

While I have been focusing on submissions to the major publishing houses in the U.S., I should also mentioned that I have used the same proposal format (and gone through the same kind of editorial weeding-out process) when submitting original novels to overseas markets.

Finally, a word about submitting to the small press publishers.  For the majority of small and specialty press publishers, the owner is usually the editor.  Since that individual only has to answer to themselves, they are free to make whatever decisions they desire when it comes to acquisitions.  While I don’t often submit to the small press, I can say that I would be likely to use the same proposal format should I decided to do so.  When something works, I see no reason to change it.

So now that we have a general idea on how a book is acquired, in the next post we’ll dive into actually constructing the proposal.

Tagged as: book proposals, fiction proposals, how a book is acquired, novel proposals, Selling Your Novel