Do You Need a Book Proposal? (Yes, Even If You’re Self-Publishing)

What is a book proposal?

A nonfiction book proposal is a business plan that seeks to derisk a publisher’s investment.

Yes, bring your full writer-self and all of your creativity to your proposal, but never forget that publishing is a business. Your book may be your baby, but a publisher sees it as an asset. The question they’re asking themselves at the core of every decision related to your book proposal is: Will this make the company money?

Don’t hear me wrong. For the most part (based on my experience), the people who work in publishing are in it for the love of words. If you’ve ever seen average salaries for agents and editors, you know they’re not in it for the money. They love books and what books can achieve possibly more than you do. They work long hours for less pay than they should because they believe in their authors.

But the argument could be different when you begin to discuss the upper echelons of publishing. For example:

• Simon & Schuster is owned by KKR, one of the largest private equity firms in the world.
• Penguin Random House is owned by Bertelsmann, a privately held company.
• Macmillan is owned by Holtzbrinck, a family-owned private company.
• HarperCollins is owned by News Corp.
• Hachette is controlled by the Louis Hachette Group.

In other words, none of the Big Five publishers own themselves. They all report to someone higher in the food chain. And those someone else’s want profit.

This is not necessarily bad. Profitable publishers don’t go extinct. However, the need for profit filters down to acquisitions. That’s why, from my perspective, an acquiring editor can be completely in an author’s corner, but the question they have to answer at every turn, in order to keep their job, is: Will this make the company money?

So your job in a book proposal is to derisk their possible investment.

This is how you do that.

What’s in a nonfiction book proposal?

Every proposal is different, and some agents or publishers may want to see different sections or different arrangements of sections, but these seven parts typically comprise a nonfiction book proposal.

Note: Since I work mainly on prescriptive nonfiction, my examples lean toward that genre. Nonfiction like memoir and narrative nonfiction will require different emphases, but the general layout below still holds.

1. Overview: What’s your big idea? What specific problem(s) are you solving for your readers? Why does your book matter right now? And how will your writing immediately capture the interest of the person reading your proposal? This is the part an agent or acquiring editor reads first. Sometimes it’s the only part they read. Write and revise accordingly.
2. Author bio: Who are you? How do your expertise, credentials, and knowledge make you the perfect person to write this book?
3. Audience: Who’s going to buy your book? Don’t write a book for everyone. The more specific you can get, the better.
4. Comps (aka Comparable Titles or Comparative Titles): What recent (within 3–5 years) and relevant books prove that there’s a waiting market for your book? The delicate balance is showing how your book is both similar to and different from your comps. You have to show that the market exists and that a your-book-sized gap is waiting to be filled.
5. Marketing (aka the dreaded P-word: Platform): Who makes up the audience that already follows you? Who’s in your network? What’s your media presence like? Essentially, how many people are you already bringing to the table? Then, what are you going to do to launch your book?
6. Chapter outlines (aka Chapter Summaries): What does the map of your full book look like? Every chapter gets a few paragraphs of summary, if not more. You have to prove that your story, argument, or prescription can sustain interest and momentum over the course of a 50,000- to 80,000-word book.
7. Sample chapter(s): Do you have what it takes to deliver a full chapter that’s compelling and pays off the expectations that your book proposal has been building up to? Note: Some agents or editors want one sample chapter, some want two.

For each of these parts, you have to achieve two goals: the stated one and the unstated one. You have to fulfill each of the seven requirements while also always answering the question, “Will this make the publisher money?”

(If you’re not seeking a traditional publisher and you’re still wondering why you should write a proposal, we’re getting there. Stick with me.)

For example, if an agent or acquiring editor can’t immediately identify the problem you’re solving for your readers in your overview, they won’t see why a reader would buy your book.

If your marketing section lists your Substack with just a few thousand subscribers, they’re unlikely to take a chance on you—unless your writing is stellar, your solution is unique, and there’s an obvious gap in the market for a book like yours.

Even then, platform still tends to play an outsized role in nonfiction proposal sales. (Just think of how many celebrity memoirs get published.) But that’s why you have to see your proposal from the publisher’s perspective: a large and growing platform is often the single largest and easiest calculation of derisking their investment. If a publisher can count on several thousand presales due to your built-in audience, that’s significantly decreasing their risk.

Why should I write a book proposal if I’m not pursuing traditional publishing?

These days, self-publishing and hybrid publishing are both viable routes to get your book into the world. You no longer have to wait for a gatekeeper to open the doors of publishing to you. And there are many reasons why self-publishing or hybrid publishing is the better option for you over seeking traditional publishing (a future article, though here’s an older article of mine on the topic: Should You Self-Publish Your Book? 5 Essential Questions to Help You Decide).

So the question is, if you’re not going to get a literary agent or pitch a publisher, why should you spend time and effort on writing a book proposal?

I see at least three reasons.

Because you’ll greatly help your future self

When you give dedicated time and attention to the big questions of your book set apart from the actual writing of your book, you’re removing future roadblocks.

You’ll know the specific problem you’re attempting to help your reader solve, the question that your every sentence must answer. You won’t get halfway through your writing and wonder, Am I speaking to my target audience? You’ll always have a clear (or at least clearer) idea of your chapter progression. You’ll be able to compare what you’re trying to accomplish against similar books, noting whether or not you’re saying something new and helpful or worn and derivative.

Every part of a book proposal is necessary scaffolding that strengthens the writing of your book.

Because you’ll have a better roadmap to publication

When you complete a book proposal, you’ll likely have one or two areas that just don’t seem as strong as the others. For most nonfiction authors, that’s the marketing section and, if I had to guess, the chapter summaries.

If you feel that your marketing section is anemic, or you’d be anxious to show your platform numbers to anyone, take that as an opportunity to start growing your platform immediately. What can you realistically do between now and the publication of your book to increase your number of potential buyers?

You have so many options, from newsletters to podcasts to videos. The choice is daunting, but don’t let that prevent you from taking one small step today. Pick the platform and the method that bends to your strengths. Make it a habit to show up there on a schedule that works for you. (No, I don’t know any author who loves having to create more content to sell the content they actually want people to read. But it is a necessary evil of our over-saturated media culture.)

Many of the authors I work with tend to get stuck on the chapter summaries. They discover that their ideas, once put on the page, aren’t as fully formed or as structured as they were in the silo of their mind. For example, if you’re struggling with having enough content for a chapter, maybe you need to read more about that particular topic. Maybe that chapter shouldn’t be its own chapter. Maybe it should be combined with another or altogether deleted. Or you read your entire flow and just have a gut-level feeling that something is off. That’s when bringing in an experienced book coach or developmental editor can help. Even just speaking your frustrations and questions to someone else can help bring clarity to confusion.

Now, you don’t have to fix these issues within your proposal. Remember: if you’re not pursuing an agent or traditional publishing, this document is just for you. But these noticeable weaknesses give you clear insight into your next steps.

Weaknesses in a book proposal aren’t failures; they’re opportunities to discover what you should focus on right now.

Because you have the same goal as a publisher

Let’s bring it back to where we began.

Every author wants a return on their book, whether that’s sales, clients, or credibility. And that begins with getting your book into as many hands as possible.

Even if you don’t care how much you make from your books, you still want to sell books because that’s how people read what you spent so much time crafting. (Of course, you can give away your books for free, but I’d call that a rarity.)

When you write a book proposal before writing your book, you’re derisking your own investment. You’re seeking answers to these questions:

• If I invest hundreds of hours into writing this book, can I expect a return on my investment that I’m happy with?
• If I invest my focus most every day for a year, will the sacrifice be worth the cost?
• If I invest my time—even some time that I could have been paid for otherwise—can I reasonably expect to make that money back?

Again, don’t hear me wrong: My intent is not to simplify writing books as just a commercial product. But it is a product waiting to be sold. Done right, your book can sell for years if not decades. And a well-crafted book proposal, no matter your publishing path, is the first step toward that goal.

Further reading on book proposals

For more on writing a nonfiction book proposal, I recommend:

• How to Write a Book Proposal, 5th edition, by Michael Larsen
• Start Here: How to Write a Book Proposal + Book Proposal Template

I also ghostwrite, collaborate on, or edit prescriptive nonfiction book proposals, but only a few per year. If you’re interested in working together, tell me about your book.

P.S. I’m launching a 12-question book proposal readiness scorecard soon. Send me a note and I’ll send it your way first.