The Best Resources For Writing A Commercial Nonfiction Book Proposal
Get everything in line to make 2025 the year you land a book deal
You’ve been planning to write a book for ages. All your friends and colleagues are asking when you’re going to do it, and you’ve decided that 2025 is your year to thrive!
Even if you’re well-known in your field, have 200K+ followers on Instagram or have already written a successful commercial nonfiction book, you’ll need to write a book proposal.
What is a book proposal?
A book proposal is essentially a business plan for your book, one that your agent presents to investors (publishers), who then acquire the rights to it. The proposal covers your ‘hook’ (why this book? Why now? Why you?), as well as your target market, your credentials and author platform, your marketing & publicity strategy, a detailed chapter outline, competing and comparative titles, one or two sample chapters, and more.
Why all this information?
Assuming an acquiring editor (the person your agent submits the proposal to) likes the proposal, they will then take it to others in their office for a second or third read. In larger houses, they might take it to acquisitions meetings or give it to the sales team, so they can run a profit and loss statement based on your figures (read: mostly platform).
Who needs a book proposal?
If you want to write a nonfiction book, and you’re aiming to publish traditionally, you’ll most likely need a book proposal. Your initial book proposal will help you find an agent; the agent may then work with you to revise the proposal (every agent is different) before sending it “on submission” to editors at publishing houses, a time period colloquially known as “on subs.”
What about memoir?
It used to be that memoir was sold like fiction—that is, on the strength of the story and the writing. I’m seeing an increase in memoir proposals, though—and if you want to write a hybrid memoir, one that blends expertise and personal narrative, you’ll most likely need a proposal.
Because commercial memoir can be a very hard sell, I recommend writing a book proposal that demonstrates your platform, which I define as your ability to reach your target audience.
How long does it take to write a book proposal?
It depends. How clear are you about your subject matter or story? Who is your target audience, and do you have access to them (platform)? What else do you have on your plate? I generally say that it takes about three months if you’re able to dedicate most of your time to the proposal, or six months if you’re working full-time, have a family and the usual obligations. Your mileage will vary depending on a variety of factors. I wouldn’t expect anyone to have a polished proposal in fewer than three months, though. If you don’t yet have a platform, add another six months to a year (if not longer) to become visible to your audience.
How long is a nonfiction book proposal?
This, too, will vary, depending on your topic and the level of detail you share. For example, someone with a significant platform and partnerships might have much lengthier Author Platform and Marketing & Publicity sections than someone without those assets. There are expectations around certain parts of the proposal—for example, the Overview should be around 250-300 words, unless there’s a good reason for it to be longer. Because this is a sales document, it has to be written tightly and in your voice (or your co-author’s voice, if you have one).
Aside from the sample chapters, most proposals should be about 6,000 to 7,000 words. It’s possible for them to be shorter, sure, but try not to go much longer.
In short, writing a solid book proposal is even more work than a book!
Commercial proposal vs. academic prospectus
Very broadly, nonfiction books can be separated into commercial and academic (scholarly). Commercial nonfiction books are published by trade presses (Big Five, yes, and also smaller and mid-sized publishers). Memoir is almost always published by commercial presses.
For these books, agents and trade publishers require a book proposal that proves the marketability of the book idea and the author’s platform. In other words, commercial publishers want to know how this book will make them a profit. (It’s crass, but true.)
Academic books are generally published by university or other scholarly press (University of Chicago Press, Princeton University Press, etc.) They focus—big surprise—on academic and scholarly topics.
If you’re coming from academia, as many of my clients do, you might be more used to writing a prospectus about how your book will contribute to the scholarly literature on your topic. Your academic credentials (including journal publications and academic books) are paramount, rather than your ability to sell the book yourself.
This post deals only with commercial proposals, because that’s what I work on. If you’re a recent Ph.D. looking to turn your dissertation into a scholarly book for an academic press, I recommend Katelyn Knox, who works exclusively with scholarly writers.
The best resources for writing a book proposal
There are many books and even more blog posts about how to write a commercial book proposal, but I stick with the tried-and-true: Michael Larsen’s How to Write a Book Proposal. I’ve been using this book since 1997 and have created multiple successful proposals using Larsen’s structure. In my experience, it’s the most comprehensive book on the subject.
Jane Friedman has a section of her site dedicated to writing book proposals, and I highly recommend reading those.
The QueryManager factor
In the past, nonfiction authors would query agents with their proposals attached or pasted into the body of an email, or they would query and hope to be asked for the proposal. Today, a proposal is more of a modular system; QueryManager allows agents to pick and choose which sections they’re most interested in. (Agents also use QueryManager for fiction, but that’s not the focus of this post.)
If you don’t have a full proposal ready, then this modular approach is likely to be challenging for you. I highly recommend writing the full proposal and then pasting the relevant sections into QueryManager.
Some agents request a query first, and if they’re interested, they’ll request your proposal. Some request the proposal alongside the query, either as an attachment or pasted into the body of the query email. The single most important factor in querying is to follow each agent’s directions to the letter.
The single most important tip for querying:
Follow instructions. Follow instructions. Follow instructions.
Once you have an agent, they will most likely help you refine and revise your proposal. When you go ‘on submission’ (when your agent sends the proposal to acquisitions editors at publishing houses), of course, they’ll send the full proposal.
Book proposal coaching & reviews
If you’d like support, accountability, feedback and cheerleading while you develop and revise your proposal, I can help. Six months of the Seed package, or three months of the Harvest will get you most of the way there. In addition, you’ll receive 20% off my book proposal review ($827 - 20% = $661).
Group book proposal coaching
I’m considering starting a group for people writing book proposals. We’ll meet weekly for six weeks to go over different sections and what they should include and demonstrate. I’ll also do live reviews of participants’ drafted sections, so everyone can learn from and support each other on the road to publication.
If group coaching sounds of interest to you, please send me an email.
Remember, your words matter
As we enter into an era of extreme uncertainty, I want to re-share this post from November, about why it’s essential to keep writing, even—especially—when the world seems to be falling apart.
This is quite helpful for someone like me who wrote a proposal some time ago. I need to do a thorough review and update.
Question: Most agents I have queried ask to see a proposal only for fiction. But they don't *specifically* put memoir in the non-fiction category. Memoir "stories" align more with fiction in that they aren't about current events, or how to de-clutter your life, e.g. Directions often aren't clear. Their proposal guidelines seem to address non-fiction books yet to be written, but like fiction, memoir is expected to be complete prior to query. What to do?
Also, a few agents have requested a proposal that goes outside or way beyond the usual proposal format, requiring a heavy re-write. Again, what to do?
Thank you Sarah!
Very helpful. Even my agent asked for a proposal when I pitched a non-fiction book idea. Not only did the proposal help me to better organize my thinking but it helped my agent to see my vision and made her job easier to pitch the non-fiction idea to publishers.
Secondly, I agree it's always important to keep writing -- no matter what. But I don't agree it feels like the world is coming to an end. There has been upheaval since time immemorial. It is what it is. This world owes us nothing. Keep the faith. Whatever one thinks is horrible, will pass. But keep writing. It's good for the soul--not matter what.