The truth is not everyone is going to write like AJ Harper, multi-award-winning author and ghostwriter and editor for some of today’s most elite thought leaders. She’s an author who—let’s face it—writes at a level most people will never reach.
But you don’t have to write like AJ to build a valuable body of work that serves your audience. Your work just needs to be good enough.
You see, not everything you create needs to be remarkable. Of course, you should always strive to provide value to your readers and deliver high-quality content. But if you try to make everything a masterpiece, you’ll never finish anything. You won’t be able to deliver.
So don’t get caught up in perfection. Just make sure it’s good enough and keep going.
The Eight Essential Elements of an Effective Book Proposal
Like AJ Harper says, a book proposal is simply a business plan for your book. In it, you’ll outline who your book serves, why you’re offering it right now, and how you’ll market and promote it. Building a book proposal can help you gain clarity for both writing and promoting your book, understand your market, and help you refine your outline.
Depending on the publishing path you choose, you might not need a book proposal—but creating one can give you a valuable guide that can help you position your book for success.
Each of my—now cringe-worthy—book proposals was good enough, and propelled me forward to more creative work (and yes, more books—probably a few too many). And each of my book proposals had the essentials to make them work. You see, to craft a winning book proposal, make sure you include these eight things:
The Overview
Perhaps the most challenging and important part of your proposal is the overview. Here, you want to hook the editors, publishers, and agents reading your proposal right out of the gate by showing them your book’s primary reader, powerful promise, and core message. Describe the problem your book will solve and why the world needs your book, right now.
Excellent book proposals capture attention from the very first page. It takes time to write and refine an enticing overview, so be patient with yourself and the process. And remember, when it’s good enough, move on.
In GRAD | Book Writing Mastery, you’ll find the eight questions your book-proposal overview must answer to pique a publisher’s interest and compel them to read your proposal. Talk to an advisor about the upcoming cohort here.
Your Target Audience
When you describe your target market in your book proposal, you’ll want to include basic information and statistics about size, along with the psychographics—for each segment of your target audience.
Just like knowing your audience is essential for crafting a transformational speech, knowing your readers is crucial for writing a meaningful book. AJ Harper always reminds thought leaders: “A book is not about something—a book is for someone.” That’s the core message of her award-winning book, Write a Must-Read: How to Craft a Book That Changes Lives—Including Your Own—and it’s something every aspiring author should keep front of mind.
About the Author
In this section, your goal is to position yourself as an authority. What qualifications and experiences make you the best person to write about this topic and present your solution to the problem?
Make sure your biography is relevant to your book’s topic and core message. For example, in my book proposal for The Contrarian Effect, I focused on my journey in sales—and how my background in acting helped me be fully self-expressed and fully transparent. I didn’t follow traditional sales advice—in fact, I focused on doing the exact opposite, which is exactly what the book is about.
A Competitive Title Analysis
In this section, you’ll want to mention three to seven books that are competitive with yours. Describe how each book serves its readers and what it accomplishes, and explain how yours is different.
Make sure the books you choose are recent publications—preferably within the last two years—and are selling well. You don’t have to compare your book to award-winning bestsellers that have sold millions of copies. In fact, AJ Harper recommends you don’t. Most publishers realize that results like that are unusual, and if they see it in your book proposal, they usually won’t consider it a viable comparison.
Your Marketing and Promotion Plan
Here, you’ll describe your plan for getting your book into your readers’ hands. It’s a good idea to include the size of your following, mailing lists, and connections. Include a list of people and organizations who will help you market your book, along with the approximate number of people they can reach.
In my book proposal for Steal the Show, for example, I outlined my plan to deliver keynote speeches, make guest appearances on TV, produce webinars, write blog posts, fund and host a launch party, utilize social media, and maximize valuable connections to ensure the book’s launch, marketing, and promotion were successful.
In GRAD | Speaking Business Mastery, students finish the program with a full publishing plan to get their book into readers’ hands—in a way that aligns with their goals and resources. When you have a publishing plan, you can include parts of your plan in this section of your book proposal.
Outline & Chapter Descriptions
An effective book proposal includes the table of contents for your book, along with a detailed description for each chapter. In your chapter descriptions, include unique and exclusive stories, frameworks, research, and case studies.
To help you craft strong chapter descriptions, ask yourself:
- What is the main takeaway from this chapter?
- How does the content in this chapter get my reader closer to the book’s promise?
- Why is this chapter absolutely essential for the reader?
Manuscript Specifications
Make sure to include in your book proposal how many words you expect your book to be, and an approximate date for the completion of your manuscript. This is also the place to mention if you have any unique design elements, photos, or specifications for your book.
My book The Contrarian Effect was originally titled The Costanza Principle, a reference to George Costanza from Seinfeld, who started doing the opposite of everything he normally would do—with spectacular results.
And in the book proposal, I specified that I wanted the cover to look and feel like velvet—since George Costanza dreamed of being draped in velvet. That request didn’t play out in the end, and we ended up changing the title of the book (although, I really never should have changed this title—but that’s a story for another day).
Sample Chapters (Including Chapter 1)
When deciding which chapters to include in your book proposal, make sure you include Chapter 1. Your book’s opening chapter should connect deeply with readers and propel them to keep reading.
The agents, publishers, and editors will read your sample chapters to get a feel for your writing style and analyze how you present your content. That being said, don’t overthink it. Choose your strongest or favorite chapters—the ones you’re most excited to show the world—and remember, good enough is good enough.
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