How to write a book proposal 1

For the next 4 weeks my How to write a book thread will be about creating a book proposal.  That’s because I think it’s the most vital thing you can do before you start to write.  Why?  Well I learned how to think about…

researching a market twenty years ago when I worked for a medical equipment company.  My boss was a product development specialist.  Unlike many development people, his approach was rooted in the real world.  So many innovators come up with an idea, become convinced that it’s going to revolutionise the world and pursue that idea through thick and thin.

My boss was quite different.  I’ve seen him design a product, do all the process calculations on the back of an envelope and then set about getting it into the marketplace as fast as possible,  But he was only able to do this because his product was rooted in what people were asking for.  He’d talk to anyone who was involved in using similar equipment and ask them what their problems were. Then he’d design something that fixed the problem.

In 5 years we introduced 8 products into the market and had them selling successfully.  Rough and ready it might have seemed as a process but it worked.

That’s why it surprises me that more people who write books don’t do the same thing.  Whilst I believe that books are the key to so many things, can introduce people to ideas and ways of improving their lives, they still have to be considered as products.  Because that’s the way publishers treat them.

And it isn’t like the publishers don’t help you to find out what they want.  A few months ago I met a woman who wanted to write a romantic novel.  So I directed her to the site for the company that publish most of the Mills and Boon books and the Silhouette imprints.  They have an enormous amount of information on the site helping you plot characters, work out your themes.  Has she been there yet?  I’ve no idea but I doubt it.

I investigated the site because I wanted to do the same.  In fact I’ve written three, all unpublished, but what great experience in actually doing all of that and getting to the end of a book.  Tried the last one out on a few people who liked it but not acceptable to the publisher… yet!

But any publishing site will have a book proposal outline and they don’t differ much.

Key points in creating a book proposal are:

• Who are you writing for?
• The structure of the book’s content.
• How you can offer something different from competitive titles.

There’s a lot more to the proposal but if you can crack those three you”ll be ahead of most would be writers.

More next week.