Yesterday, I mentioned that I help authors write and edit their book proposals. I blog about book proposals fairly often, but that’s because it is important. And, though, you may read this blog often and have seen my posts on this topic, there are people just discovering it.
Here’s the drill—some publishers require a book proposal. If you hope to capture the interest of a publisher, most likely you’ll do so with a killer book proposal. And this is true of most publishers of nonfiction and for many publishers of fiction, as well.
But what if you don’t want to land a publisher? What if you plan to bypass this option and go straight to a “pay-to-publish” company? Or maybe you plan to self-publish—become an independent publisher. Then a book proposal is even more important to you.
You see, a book proposal is like a business plan for your book. It will help you to determine whether the book you have planned is actually a good idea or not. You’ll learn what else is out there like your book, whether there is an audience for your book, who this audience is and how large it is. You’ll discover something about your platform—whether it is solid and what you can do to strengthen it.
Most of all, during the process of writing a book proposal, you will learn volumes about the publishing industry and how you can best fit in it so that you can experience a successful outcome.
Go blindly into publishing with an untested book project without a book proposal and you are likely to become one of the majority. You do not want to be among this majority. They are the nearly 78 percent of authors who sell fewer than 100 copies of their books, total.
Do you need to take the time to write a book proposal? I’d say, if you plan to write a book and you desire even minimal success, you must write a book proposal. Tomorrow’s blog post will reveal what goes into a book proposal and why.
If you are struggling through the process of writing a book proposal or even if you feel you have a pretty good handle on it, contact me to take a look at it. I won’t charge you to look at it, but you may want to use my services to strengthen it. PLFry620@yahoo.com