I am often asked what makes a good book proposal, so here are some thoughts on the topic.
No matter what stage you’ve reached with your book – be it just an idea, or a mostly complete draft – a publisher will usually want to see an outline proposal for it, assuming that they are the right publisher for it and are interested. The proposal will explain who you are, how the book came to be, what the rationale for it is, who it is aimed at, how it fits into the existing literature, and what its physical parameters are. The proposal can also demonstrate to a publisher a) how good you are at understanding the point of your work, and b) how good you are at organising and communicating your material and argument.
Publishers will have a preferred format for a proposal, and many will make this information available on their website. Some provide a fairly detailed template questionnaire. Personally, I think that a questionnaire robs the author of an opportunity to display their persuasive skill, in free form. I favour allowing the author to demonstrate their writing skills by simply giving them the key parameters for a proposal and then letting them choose how to put their case. A captivating, informative and concise proposal can be an indicator of a well-written script. A typical proposal guide will ask for these key things:
The rationale for the book is crucial, as an author is typically so close to their work (perhaps having spent years on it) that it is hard to step back and see the bigger picture. Why does the book matter? Can the author answer the “So what?” question?
The market for academic books is tougher now than it has ever been. If the book is to succeed in sales/downloads and in review terms, the author (and of course the publisher) needs to be market focused. In the proposal guidelines checklist above, there is a request for a ‘blurb’ of 200 words or less, written as if for the back cover of the book. This can be a good place to start when drafting a proposal, as writing an attractive summary of the book is going to be necessary eventually – not only for the back cover but also for the publisher’s catalogue and for online booksellers’ websites. Writing and refining a blurb for the book will make the author really think about why the book matters, and why anyone should buy it. The proposal also needs to sell itself to a busy commissioning editor and their colleagues in sales and marketing – none of whom will necessarily be subject specialists. Writing a good blurb is quite a challenge. The author is pushed to really work out what their book is about and why it matters. The mere fact that they have four years of research data, or that nobody has written about this before (unlikely), just isn’t enough. It needs to be packaged and sold.
Here is a good example of such a ‘blurb’ from a published book:
Technology Is Not Neutral: A Short Guide to Technology Ethics by Stephanie Hare (London Publishing Partnership 2022)
It seems that just about every new technology that we bring to bear on improving our lives brings with it some downside, side effect or unintended consequence.
These issues can pose very real and growing ethical problems for all of us. For example, automated facial recognition can make life easier and safer for us – but it also poses huge issues with regard to privacy, ownership of data and even identity theft. How do we understand and frame these debates, and work out strategies at personal and governmental levels?
Technology Is Not Neutral: A Short Guide to Technology Ethics addresses one of today’s most pressing problems: how to create and use tools and technologies to maximize benefits and minimize harms? Drawing on the author’s experience as a technologist, political risk analyst and historian, the book offers a practical and cross-disciplinary approach that will inspire anyone creating, investing in or regulating technology, and it will empower all readers to better hold technology to account. [162 words]
Sample material is also important. Ideally it would be actual draft chapters from the book, but it can also be published articles or a PhD thesis. The snag here though is that articles (for a journal, say, or, at another extreme, a magazine) or a thesis will most likely have been written for different markets, and will therefore have been written in a different style to the book. For an experienced book author, the sample could of course be a previously published book. A previously published book will at the very least indicate that the author has made it through another publisher’s approval process – and if it has garnered reviews and sales success, then so much the better.
Sample writing that isn’t from the actual book will need to be qualified with some explanation as to how the book script will differ. For example, a journal article will be written in a certain style, perhaps more heavily referenced and narrowly focussed. A magazine article or blog post would be at the other end of the ‘accessibility’ scale. Published journal articles demonstrate academic credibility, but a published magazine article (print or online) will demonstrate an ability to reach a broader audience. A PhD thesis is written for a market of about six people (the thesis supervisors and examiners), who are not looking for ‘saleability’ as a metric.
The length of the script is important, for several reasons. A book’s length will affect the cost of producing it and will therefore have a bearing on its selling price. An overly long book is generally going to be less accessible and more challenging for readers. Authors want to see their book reach the widest possible market, and a high price will make that much less likely. However, there is no hard and fast rule here. A really long book might still justify a relatively low price by virtue of its market appeal (and that can include the profile of the author, or the sheer brilliance and originality of the work). But scripts above 100,000 words will, in my view, put the book in the ‘long’ department. A publisher will look more kindly on an ‘extent’ of 60,000–90,000 words.
This brings us to another question: what is the minimum length? Here again there is no hard and fast rule, and we get into the realms of format, design, packaging and marketing. If the book is being pitched for a series that encourages or requires short scripts (such as the Oxford University Press ‘Very Short Introduction’ series, or ‘Palgrave Pivots’), then the decision will have been made already. The only ‘problem’ with a really short book is that a publisher might not be able to justify a cover price high enough to make the book worth publishing – unless the likely market for the book is very large. Famously, On Bullshit by Harry Frankfurt, published by Princeton University Press in 2005, has fewer than 10,000 words in it, but it sold many tens of thousands of copies and made it to the top of the New York Times bestseller list.
Before sending your proposal to a publisher, do read it aloud to yourself and have it read and critiqued by trusted colleagues (ideally someone who has had a book or two published already).
Who to send a proposal to, when and how - could be subjects for my next article, depending on how this one goes…