The art of writing a nonfiction book proposal is sort of like cooking lasagna. There are a thousand ways of making it, everyone has their own recipe, but most every lasagna will have a few basic ingredients and chances are it’s going to taste good in the end. The below recipe, if you will, applies to just about every kind of nonfiction, from history to self-help to narrative nonfiction. Also, people often ask if they need to write the whole nonfiction book before they query an agent. Not so! Or at least not usually so. An agent can often sell nonfiction projects on proposal, meaning you write the proposal first, then sell the project, then write the book. It mostly depends on the quality of the idea and its marketability, your platform, and your writing ability. There are definitely exceptions to this — it really depends on the project, and sometimes it pays to write the whole thing, especially memoir. Think of a memoir like a novel. You’ll have to write the whole thing.

So without further ADO (thanks everyone), here are the basic sections of a nonfiction book proposal.

Overview
The overview is unlike anything you’ll ever write. It’s not quite a synopsis, it’s not quite a sample chapter, it’s not quite catalog copy, it’s not even quite, uh, an overview. Its really the distillation of the book you’re going to write. You’re getting across the meat of the story that you are writing about. You’re telling the story/narrative/subject in brief. You’re telling the agent/editor what the book is going to be about, what it will be like and who’s going to read it. It’s really a sales pitch.

So to write the overview, pretend you’re a broke screenwriter pitching a project to a big time Hollywood producer. You’re telling the gist of the story, you’re selling him on how America absolutely needs a movie about the number 23, baby! You want the producer at the end to have an idea of what the book is about so he’ll scratch his chin and say, “Interesting…. Tell me more about this number 23.”

A good overview will give the agent/editor a great sense of the subject, the scope, the heart, and the need for the book. It will get them excited about the project.

I know all of this is really vague, and that’s because the approaches to the overview vary a whole lot depending on the project, and it’s difficult for me to say that the overview is one thing or another. You have some room for creativity here, so just focus on summarizing and pitching your project while making it sound as appealing and necessary as possible.

Competing Titles/Market Analysis
This is the part where you discuss the other books that are out there as a way of convincing an agent/editor that there is a pressing need for your book. Counterintuitive, I know. The market analysis should not be along the lines of, “275,000,000 Americans drink milk, therefore my book about milk will sell 275,000,000 copies,” but it should really address the market for the book and who your potential reader will be.

Also, in this section you should discuss other books that have been published on your subject. If they’re close enough to yours you might list them and address them individually, assessing how each one differs from yours. This is not the time to Swift Boat other authors, but you should clearly differentiate your project from the other books that have already been published on the subject. It’s not enough to try to convince an agent/editor that your book is like someone else’s only better — you have to find a genuine unexplored niche in the marketplace.

Biography
Platform platform platform. This is the part where you convince the agent/editor that you are the best person in the entire world to be writing the book. It’s probably best not to lie in this section.

Outline/List of Chapters
Sometimes people include an outline or a list of chapters to give a sense of the scope of the project. Personally I feel like this part is a little overrated for something like narrative nonfiction because the finished product is probably going to change, but this section is very important for any sort of self-helpish or businessish proposal since you’ll already have a pretty good idea of where the project is going and can summarize it here.

Sample Chapter(s) (1-3)
Other than perhaps the overview, the sample chapter(s) is(are) the most important part of the proposal. Some editors I know just get a gist of the overview and then turn straight to the sample chapters to see a sample of the author’s writing. So work very, very hard on these chapters to make them as good as possible.

Other
Other things that you might consider throwing in I mean including are copies of newspaper/magazine articles you wrote that apply to the subject (if the book is arising out of a published article), reviews of past nonfiction books you’ve published (not self-published), and anything else that will help convince the agent/editor that you’re super-awesome.

And that’s pretty much it! Easy as lasagna.

 Posted by Nathan Bransford

http://nathanbransford.blogspot.com/2007/02/how-to-write-nonfiction-book-proposal.html

Welcome to publishing, the land of books, writing, and agonizingly long waits. Pour yourself a drink. You’re going to need it.

Step 1. If you are trying to find an agent and you are not a) a celebrity or b) a deity, you will need to have a finished and polished manuscript if you are writing a novel or memoir, and a finished and polished proposal and sample pages if you are working on a nonfiction project. Did I mention the finished and polished part? Well, you missed a spot. Go back and polish some more.

Step 2. Ok, so you’ve finished and polished your manuscript so much it’s shining like the top of the Chrysler Building. Now it’s time to find an agent, right? Nuh uh. Time to learn about the publishing business.

Many aspiring authors feel that all they have to do is write a good book, sit back, and let the God of easy money and literary groupies take care of the rest. Not so! Before you embark on your quest for a literary agent, you should devote many, many hours to familiarizing yourself with the business, literary agents, editors, and anything else you can possibly do to discern how this unique industry operates. Luckily there is more information out there on the Internet than ever before.

Now, hopefully you took care of all this research as you were procrastinating while working on your manuscript. But honestly, in today’s publishing clime it’s just not enough to have written a good book. Treat this business seriously, because it is a business. Explore the links on the right side of this page, read blogs, talk to booksellers, attend conferences, get to know authors. If you do this BEFORE you try to find an agent your odds of success will increase dramatically, because you will ooze professionalism and knowledge, qualities that bode well for future successful writers.

Step 3. Finding that agent. There are many ways of going about this, and, believe it or not, none of them involve telling an agent they’re a cutiepatootie. First off, we’ll address referrals.

Referrals are a great way to find an agent, and for many of your more experienced/legendary agents they’re darn near essential. And it’s easy to see why — you’re coming in with an endorsement from someone the agent respects, you’ve got their attention, and you’re more likely to get a thorough look.

How do you get a referral? It’s kind of tricky. If you don’t have preexisting personal connections, the best way to do this, especially if you live in a big city, is to get involved with local writers communities, fraternize with writers, and put yourself in a position where your work will be seen by other established writers. Genuinely (and not selfishly) invest in those writers and you may find that they will invest in you — trust me, they remember what it was like to be an aspiring writer. If you don’t live in a city, get your stories published in journals, become involved with writers’ blogs and online writer’s communities, and really invest in authors until you are virtual friends.

Now, notice that I didn’t suggest the “e-mail random writers and ask for referrals out of the blue” approach, which has about a zero chance of success. These things have to evolve organically.

Step 4. No referrals? Time to write a query letter.

A query letter is a short letter that describes your work. I have posts on the basic format (which you will need to expand upon), as well as some examples of good letters (here and here). This will give you a basic letter. You should adapt and personalize this basic letter depending on which agent you’re submitting to in order to demonstrate your aforementioned professionalism and knowledge. Which leads us to…

Step 5. Now you need to figure out who to submit to. That’s easy. Start with me.

After you’ve queried me and assuming I didn’t offer representation, it will then be necessary to expand your search beyond the confines of this blog. There are various resources on the Internet you can use (again, check out the links on the right side of the page) to narrow down the search. You should try to target agents who represent your genre, but avoid agents who previously represented something extremely/eerily similar to yours. Another way to target agents and get personalization fodder is to check the acknowledgments in your favorite books in your genre and see who represented those writers.

Before you submit, Google the agent and the agency to try and find their submission guidelines. If you find it, go precisely by what they ask for. If you do not find any information online, the default procedure is to print out your personalized query letter, send it in the mail to the agent, and be sure and include a self-addressed stamped envelope.

And yes, the trees weep.

Step 6. Query widely. Don’t blanket the town with your query unless you want to end up on Gawker, but agents assume you are going out there trying to find an agent. Also, you should limit your query to one agent per agency. After you’ve heard back, it’s usually ok to re-query another agent at the agency if their submission guidelines don’t suggest otherwise, but wait a couple of months.

Step 7. You wait. You want a request for a partial or full manuscript, and then you wait some more. You wait until you think you are physically going to die and/or commit a drastic crime. And then you get “the call!”

Now, chances are at this point you are going to be in a psychological state where you are ready to sign over a body part just to get an agent, and you will be predisposed to say “Yes, for crap’s sake, yes!!”. But take a step back, take your time, make sure you’re very comfortable with the agent before you enter into one of the most important business relationships you will have in your life. You and your agent are going to have to seriously trust one another, so ask questions, don’t be shy, and make sure you’re ready.

That’s it! You’ve done it! Now that wasn’t so hard, was it? Oh. Wait. Yes, it was.

Please continue adding thoughts in the comments section, and if I missed something I’ll update this post as needed.

Posted by Nathan Bransford

http://nathanbransford.blogspot.com/2008/04/how-to-find-literary-agent.html

Much like my haircuts, this is a blog post that I have put off for quite a long time. How to write a synopsis. It’s like my own personal kryptonite. I’ve been meaning to post about this for such a long time, but then I’d think, “How in the world am I supposed to give advice on how to write a synopsis? Ohh! I know! I can write about The Hills instead!!”

But I shall put it off no longer. Today’s post will be about how to write a synopsis.

I’m starting now. I can do this.

I mean it. I’m going to do it.

Starting now.

Ok, really starting now.

The reason for my recalcitrance is that there’s really no one way to write a synopsis. Everyone has a different idea of what a synopsis should entail, how long it should be, whether it should be single- or double-spaced, whether it should include all of the plot or just the really important stuff… I mean, how I can even begin to summarize this and offer any advice is frankly beyond me.

But here is the thing to know about synopses: A synopsis is not an opportunity to talk about every single character and every single plot point in a “and then this happened and then this happened” fashion. A synopsis needs to do two things: 1) it needs to cover all of the major characters and major plot points (including the ending) and 2) it needs to make the work come alive. If your synopsis reads like “and then this happened and then this happened” and it’s confusing and dull, well, you might want to revise that baby.

A good place to start for a model on how to write a good synopsis is to mimic book cover copy, only also include in the synopsis what happens in the end. The blurbs on flap jackets and on the back of paperbacks are usually good synopses — they’re a hybrid of plot points but with a bigger sense of what makes the book unique and interesting (although discard the stuff in cover copy that talks about the author — that doesn’t go in a synopsis). You want to strike a balance in the synopsis between covering the plot and characters, but also conveying the spirit and tone of the book and smoothing over gaps between the major plot points you describe.

So in the synopsis, you definitely want to capture how the novel begins and the hook and include all of the major climaxes and the big climax at the end. Between those points introduce major characters and their relationships, and make sure you’re conveying the core of the conflicts between all of these elements. But then, rather than just filling in with more and more plot and more and more characters, connect the dots between them with your own summarizing, in order to make the synopsis easy to read and compelling on its own.

Easier said than done, I know. Synopses are tough. Like mosquitoes (my war against them is going better, btw).

How long should a synopsis be? Unless the agent specifies otherwise or you have found better synopsis-writing advice elsewhere (the odds of that are pretty good, frankly), I’d shoot for two to three pages, double-spaced. If it’s longer or shorter than that I don’t think anyone is going to be angry, but that should be enough to do what you need to do.

So there you have it. It’s done. I did it. Thank goodness. Now about that haircut I’ve been putting off…

Posted by Nathan Bransford

http://nathanbransford.blogspot.com/2007/08/how-to-write-synopsis.html