Writing a non-fiction book proposal
Get your book snapped up by agents, publishers...and most importantly, readers!
There is no single route into getting published but it’s fairly safe to say that you can split fiction and non-fiction writing up with this basic rule: fiction - write the whole book first, non-fiction - write a proposal. Once you’ve been published for the first time, and have developed a relationship with your publisher, this rule may shift and change, but, if you are a ‘nobody’ in book terms, then that’s a fairly standard path.
So to get either a literary agent or a publisher interested in a work of non-fiction, you don’t actually have to write the whole book first - and even if you have, you will almost certainly be asked to write a proposal. A well written proposal is the best thing you can send to literary agents, who are usually actively seeking submissions (just look on their websites for more info). As and when they agree to represent you, they will then send that proposal out to publishers. In most cases (but not all), you won’t get near a major publisher unless you have an agent.
Writing a proposal is also a great way to sharpen your own mind and bring that book idea from a blob of clay into something that has a real shape and form. There are of course different approaches to proposal writing, and you can find various blogs and articles online, but today I’m going to share with you the format that I’ve used and talk you through it. I’ll use my second book, Give Birth like a Feminist, to illustrate some of the proposal sections.