Marketing Your Book Begins With You

The proposal for a nonfiction book is a sales pitch, a teaser, a public relations kit, and a business proposal rolled into one package. The purpose of a book proposal is to sell a book project to an editor at a commercial book publisher. The editorial and marketing standards set by the proposal can bear heavily not only on whether a given book will sell but also on how hefty an advance the project commands.

The book proposal tells prospective buyers (that is, acquisitions editors at publishing houses) what the proposed book is about, who the writer is, and why the published work will sell.

Before publishers commit to the considerable effort and expense required to bring a book to the commercial market, they must believe a given project is worth their investment. Publishers must see profit in the enterprise—this much is a given. The author’s mission is to make publishers see money written all over their words.

Something new, something old: The book proposal sells the project to the publisher by showing what’s new about the book, as well as where it fits into the established book-marketing category structure. The writing in the proposal demonstrates that the author(s) will present the targeted material with energy and freshness. The book proposal is a chance to show what’s in the book, of course, and to emphasize what’s in it for the publisher by displaying all the advantages you as an author bring to the project.

What Publishers Love

Publishers cherish authors whose accomplishments extend well beyond compositional skills. The author who brings abundant accessory resources (such as proven marketability) to the project has the best chance to stand out from the pack of those who compete for publisher support and bookbuyer dollars.

Among valued not-necessarily-literary author attributes:

· Promotional guile (and accompanying successful track record).

· Tangible media contacts and appeal: Appearances on television talkshows and radio call-in programs; press clips from the print media—reviews, interviews, and personality profiles about you and your work; journal articles featuring your byline; previous book credits.

· Sales sense linked to strong concept development and on-target readership definition.

· The ability to create the hook that sells the book: And sell it must—to every player in the publishing chain, from the agent, to the editor, to the publishers’ sales and marketing team, and, importantly, to the bookstores and the bookbuying public.