- Writing a Killer Book Proposal
- The Parts of a Book Proposal
- Knowing the Theme of Your Book
- Writing A Summary Sheet
A summary sheet is a one page summarization that forms the skeleton of your proposal and contains basic information about the work on offer – size, genre, intended audience, completion date, summary logline, and the like. It is the first thing that the editor sees when opening one of my proposals. When done correctly, it should allow the editor to classify your project at a glance so they know, to some extent at least, what to expect when they get deeper into the proposal.
Let’s examine each element one at a time.
Size
How long do you intend the finished work to be? I’m not talking about page count here, as modern publishing does not measure size by the number of pages but rather by the number of words. This is primarily because the design, typeface, and selected binding of the book will have an impact on the page count and publishers require a more concrete means to measure the length of the manuscript they have received. The word count will be the same regardless of whether the book is released as a hardcover, a trade paperback or a mass market paperback.
The average for adult fiction is usually in the neighborhood of 80,000 to 100,000 words. Longer works do get published, obviously, but more than 85% of commercial fiction today would fit very nicely into this average. First time novelists will have a much easier time selling a work that neatly fits into this size range than they will selling a longer one. For Young Adult fiction, the average size tends to be 60,000 to 80,000 words, though there is growing trend at this time for longer YA works.
Genre
Marketing departments have come up with a number of terms to try and best describe just what classification a book will fit into. This was done to make it easier for booksellers to place similar books and authors together in one location in the store, which in turn was supposed to make things easier on the consumer. The trouble with this is that different publishing houses label material in different ways and book store chains might have different sections as well. My books might be labeled horror by one publisher and stocked in the horror section in a certain bookstore chain, but another publisher might label them general fiction and a different store will stock them in that section. (The end result being that my books might be stocked in different places in different stores, defeating the whole purpose of labeling them in the first place, but I digress.)
For the purposes of the summary sheet, you want to use common classification labels to tell the editor what kind of book you are writing. These would include literary fiction, mysteries, thrillers, horror, urban fantasy, fantasy, science fiction, romance, paranormal romance, western and the like. Each of these terms conjures up a specific type of book in an editor’s mind, so keep it as simple and straightforward as possible.
Intended Audience
This is another area where I tend to keep things as simple as possible. I use only three different categories – Adult, Young Adult, or Children. Don’t try to classify it into multiple groups as this just tends to annoy editors. Pick one primary audience and leave it at that; if the publisher thinks it can be cross sold they will handle it appropriately.
Completion Date
Figure out the time frame you need to submit a completed manuscript from the date on which the contract is signed and enter it in this part of the summary sheet. Remember to give yourself enough time to do as many drafts as you require; what you want as an end result is s complete, polished manuscript. (If you are the type of writer that needs to let a project sit for a time before going back to edit and revise it, be sure to figure that time in as well.)
Summary Logline
A logline is a one or two sentence summary of your book that provides both a quick look at the plot and an emotional hook to engage interest. They have been used for decades to describe screenplays in Hollywood, but are also becoming more useful in the publishing world. I will sometimes include a summary logline into my book proposal if I think it will help the editor feel connected to the work.
