by Jenna Kalinsky (& featuring books by One Lit Place authors)
If you’ve got a winning idea, before you take another step, you’ll want to decide when is the best time for you to write the nonfiction book proposal that you’ll be submitting to agents or publishers.*
Unlike all other book genres, which must be written in full before you look for representation or acquisition, for journalistic, self-development or self-help, and narrative nonfiction projects, because publishers acquire projects based on the book’s concept, marketability, and your expertise or street cred., they only want to see a proposal.
*If you don’t wish to bother with traditional publishing and instead are heading straight to self-publishing, you will not need a proposal.
(That was easy; look at all the work and time you just saved!)
It seems obvious then that the best time to write the nonfiction book proposal would be first, right? That way you can sell the project, or get feedback on it to make necessary tweaks, before investing the months or years in writing the book. It’s the perfect hack!
Yet while many writers write the proposal first, and some sell their projects from the strength of the proposal alone, equally as many writers find that a more organic, authentic approach is to write the book first and draft the proposal based on what the book ultimately becomes.
Both strategies have their merit, so when you write the proposal comes down to your publishing goals, your comfort level with writing and marketing an idea, and your willingness to either adhere to your early ideas or your desire to explore a potentially more interesting angle to your topic during the act of bringing it to life. Once you see what you’re up against, what would feel more in line with your personality, and your approach to the project itself, you’ll be best able to begin!
A nonfiction book proposal typically includes the following components:
TIP: To learn the best practices for writing your proposal, get answers to common questions about what to include and why, and access a proposal template, check out this excellent article from Jane Friedman.
You’ll see from the list of components you need to include in your nonfiction book proposal that some are easier to do off the bat, such as identifying your audience or creating a marketing plan. Other elements require you to be more intimately acquainted with your project.
The question for you is can you write a chapter outline, sample chapters, and truly distil the essence of the project without writing it first?
If you’re someone who likes to plan, have notes, guidelines, or talking points, you’re going to enjoy writing your proposal first. Not only will drafting it force you to get to know your project more in-depth and determine how it will develop, its audience, how you’ll market it, and which books already on the shelves are similar, but all that preliminary work you do to create the proposal will be highly useful when it comes time to write the book itself.
Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma and other influential books on food, health, and the environment, uses his nonfiction proposals to help him shape the trajectory of his books early in the process, often getting editorial feedback before he begins writing the books.
Writer Jane Friedman, a recognized expert on publishing, frequently emphasizes that proposals are not just for the publisher to understand your project—they’re for you too. Creating a strong proposal helps you clarify your message, audience, and goals. Bearing in mind the more “saleable” a book idea, the more likely it is to get published. She recommends thinking like a publisher when you’re writing the proposal. Ask yourself: “Why would someone buy this book? And most importantly, why now?”
Writing the proposal first helps you get a sense of whether there’s interest in your book before you sit down and spend the requisite sweaty months writing it.
If your proposal adeptly illustrates how your book meets a particular societal need, that you yourself are a commodity, or both, it’s not uncommon for an agent or publisher to offer a contract and/or an advance based purely on the proposal. Tawny Lara’s book, Dry Humping: A Guide to Dating, Relating, and Hooking Up Without the Booze, was picked up by a literary agent the day the pitch landed in his inbox. Why? Because the agent saw the viability for the marketplace in the concept alone.
If however agents or publishers pass on the project, saying it’s not for them; there’s already a book on this topic or from this perspective; or that it’s not culturally or socially timely, their rejection will tell you how to proceed: adjust the project, try an indie publisher, hybrid, or self-publish, or come at it from a different angle (online course, write it in a different genre, or wait a bit and try again later).
If your goal is to sell your book to a major publisher, you will have saved a lot of effort by not writing the book. But if your goal is to write a book you truly believe in and that’s the project you want to launch into the world, then you know to take the reins yourself.
If your first hope is to be traditionally published, but in the end, you know that come heck or high water you will get your book out into the world, then writing your proposal first is the most efficient use of your time.
Since nonfiction books are sold less on the artfulness of the writing and more on the marketability of the premise, topic, or author, you can focus your attention on creating a dynamic and saleable proposal. Once that’s done, you can then bring your writing chops to the forefront (and enjoy that you now have so much useable material from your proposal) as you hunker down and begin the project itself.
Once you begin shopping your proposal around, it could be days, weeks, or even months before you hear back from the agents and/or publishers you submitted to. Since you will want to exhaust your list of potential agents/publishers by submitting your work in waves (wait for each batch of rejections to come in before sending out the next round), that holding pattern is best filled up with writing.
Getting rejections is no picnic, so keeping yourself busy and moving forward will help you feel stronger and more productive and reduce the amount of time you spend feeling sorry for yourself or getting blocked. [This article lists the 10 most common reasons a nonfiction book proposal will be rejected].
You may be a list-maker/planner (in fiction, they’ve got their own term: plotter), which can mean you like having a few sketchy handwritten notes to fashion 10-page outlines and cross-reference two organizational apps when you work, but you’re also aware that the real book with its true premise and purpose still lies deep inside you.
The only true way for you to get to the heart of the matter, and to be able to present your ideas fully, in detail, and with specificity, is to write your way into them.
Flannery O’Connor famously said, “I don’t know so well what I think until I see what I say,” and many writers agree.
You may think you know what you want your book to be about, but if you allow yourself the freedom to write your way into the topic, you may find you were right, but only to a degree.
Why is your mind such a mystery, you want to know? Well, we often think we know what we know, but it’s only through the act of developing that idea in a linear format (talking and writing being the best) that your unconscious mind has the opportunity to surface.
Ideas you hadn’t known were important to you bloom. That “letting it happen” phase of writing is often called “flow,” and it’s the time when writers yield our most energetic material.
Writing the book before the proposal allows you to “control the narrative.” Proposals offer some depth, but if you want to maintain full control over what your book is meant to be and how it should develop, you need to know it inside and out—knowledge that comes only after you’ve done the deep dive of writing the book.
A saleable if broader idea represented in a proposal may be open to some interpretation from your agent or publisher, who might request that you adjust the book to what they feel meets current cultural/societal need, or a trend, taking the book in a direction you aren’t truly are passionate about. Writing the book first ensures it will be authentic to your knowledge and authority and pointed at the exact issues you wish to cover— with integrity.
If you write your book first, the proposal will slide out a lot more like butter than if you write it without having a full grasp of the minutiae of your concept. Additionally, since you have to provide 2-3 sample chapters (up to 50 pages), if you’re on a roll, well, you may as well keep going! This way, you’re making sure the subsequent proposal is as clear and specific as possible.
In addition to providing proof of your platform, the book’s saleability, and its potential to influence the marketplace, the proposal will also need to present itself as a microcosm of the book to come. It should be written in the same voice and style as the forthcoming book, speak to the case studies, resources, and collaborators involved, and provide engaging sample chapters.
Doing this before writing the book for some writers may prove to be a challenge and cost a lot of time—time they could have spent nurturing their narrative voice, finding out what case studies they’d need while exploring their topic, and identifying the research, resources, and collaborators that will benefit the work.
If or when your proposal works and sells your book, it’s truly fantastic news. But if time has passed (from months to years) between you crafting the proposal and selling the project, that distance will make it a little harder to return to the voice, style, and purpose of the book you sold. The advance you got looms every day as you strive to fill in the blanks of the book and be the public-facing author you’re soon going to be. Your once passion project may become a high-pressure obligation.
Every writer faces deadlines, so this is a part of life. There are however cases of writers selling their proposals and then once they began writing, realized the “real” book they wanted to write deviated from the one they’d sold. The result is they felt stuck, hemmed in, disconnected from what should have been an extension of their thought leadership.
An initial book outline will often evolve when writing long-form nonfiction. In the case of selling the project based on the proposal, having to later force the topic to remain inside the confines of that proposal can truncate the book’s true energy and be stifling, cause writer’s block, or in the worst case, force a writer to renege on their contract out of an inability to produce the book they’d sold.
By writing the book first, you remain in control in the driver’s seat, selling only that which you know you can fulfill- because you already have.
Ultimately, writing a nonfiction book proposal is a necessary step for any nonfiction writer aiming for traditional publishing. Writing the proposal allows you to get to know the project and refine your ideas, use your time wisely and possibly secure an advance to help you focus on writing the book, and gives you valuable feedback you can use to refine your publishing goals—all before you have to commit to writing the full manuscript.
Whether your best time to write the nonfiction book proposal is before you write the book or afterward, you’ll need stamina, support, strength of conviction that your book will help people or make their lives better, and the encouragement from friends, family, your writing coach, and your creative community to help you carry on. With time and tenacity, you will get your book where it’s meant to go.
Poets & Writers’ e-book, The Art of the Book Deal provides:
Assembling all of the elements and writing the nonfiction book proposal is a challenge, but when you have an editor by your side to support you through, guide the writing, and edit the proposal and sample chapters for submission, the task is easier, far more enriching, and faster. Reach out any time!
Our 4-month Mentored Book Programs, Online Courses, & Writing Coaching and Editing Hours. From November 21-27, 2023