How to Write a Non-Fiction Book Proposal That Publishers Want

Ask most first-time non-fiction writers what they are working on and they will describe a manuscript. Ask a commissioning editor and you will usually hear about a proposal. In trade non-fiction, the document comes first: a compact case for a book that does not exist yet, written to persuade a publisher to pay for it. The proposal is not paperwork that trails behind the writing. It is the piece of writing that decides whether there is anything to write.

That can sound daunting if you have already spent two years on a draft. Seen properly, it is an advantage. A proposal tests your idea while it is still cheap to change, and it forces you to argue for your reader before you have grown too fond of your own sentences.

What a proposal is actually for

A proposal is a sales document. It will be read twice: once by the editor you send it to, and then, if it survives, in an acquisitions meeting where sales, marketing and rights colleagues decide whether the book deserves a slot in the list. Everything you write should help those people describe your book to somebody else in one sentence without embarrassment.

Most trade non-fiction proposals run to roughly ten to twenty pages plus a sample chapter, though length varies by publisher and subject. Academic and professional publishers often want something shorter and more formal. Read the submission guidelines before you cut or pad anything, and if there are none, keep it tight.

Whatever the length, the document answers three questions: what the book is, who will buy it, and why you are the person to write it. If a paragraph serves none of those, it is padding.

Position the book on the shelf before you describe it

Editors buy books relative to other books. A page of market analysis showing you know the shelf your title will sit on does more for your proposal than another paragraph of enthusiasm. Aim to cover:

• Three to five comparable titles, preferably recent, each with a sentence on what it does well.
• The gap: what those books leave out, and what you are adding.
• Your reader, described as a person with a situation rather than an abstract demographic.
• Why the subject is live now, if it genuinely is.

Do this physically. Spend an hour in the relevant section of a bookshop and note the subtitles, cover promises and blurbs. Then write a positioning line that uses the shelf without hiding behind it: "For readers who came to X and wanted something more practical, and for anyone put off by Y's academic tone."

Be ruthless about audience. "Anyone interested in better sleep" is not an audience. "Shift workers in their thirties who have tried apps and want something that fits a rotating rota" is far more useful, easier to write for and easier to sell.

The chapter outline: proof that there is a book here

The outline is where most proposals collapse. A list of topics is not an outline. What an editor needs to see is a sequence of arguments or steps a reader will want to follow, one chapter at a time.

Write a contents list first, then expand each chapter into a paragraph of roughly 60 to 120 words. Use verbs that commit you: shows, explains, walks the reader through, argues, gives the reader a method for. Say what the chapter does for the reader, not just what it contains. Mention any structure a chapter will use, such as a case study or a worked example, but do not invent people or research to make it sound substantial.

Two checks. First, does chapter four depend on chapter three? If every chapter could be reshuffled without consequence, you have a collection of essays, not a book. Second, have you signposted a beginning, a middle and an ending, or does the outline simply stop? Finish by noting your target total word count and a rough per-chapter figure.

Author platform: evidence rather than boasts

Platform means evidence that you can reach readers. It is not a synonym for follower count, and a modest, verifiable audience usually beats an enormous, vague one. Relevant platform might include a newsletter, a teaching or speaking schedule, a professional role, a community you have built, regular journalism, previous books, or a network of organisations that could buy copies in bulk.

Give numbers you can stand behind and say where they come from. If your platform is thin, admit it and point to the routes that do exist: a course you run, a conference you speak at, a professional body, a gap in the market that you happen to occupy. Then add a short marketing section with three or four things you will realistically do around publication, with time attached. "I will write four pieces for the trade press in the month before publication" is a plan. "I will promote it on social media" is not.

The sample chapter, and the last read-through

Editors read the proposal for structure and the sample for prose. Send one chapter, generally the first or the most distinctive, written to the standard you would want on a bookshop table. Follow the stated length, usually around 3,000 to 5,000 words, and do not send the full manuscript unless it has been requested.

Before you send anything, check the package against the usual faults:

• A reader described as "everyone".
• Comparable titles from a decade ago, with no explanation of what has changed.
• An outline that lists subjects instead of building an argument.
• Platform claims with no figures or sources.
• A sample chapter still carrying first-draft sentences.
• Submission guidelines ignored, or the proposal sent to the wrong imprint.

In the UK, many large trade publishers prefer to receive non-fiction through a literary agent, so check each publisher's guidelines before you send. A covering letter of three or four paragraphs, matching the tone of the proposal, is enough: what the book is, who it is for, who you are and what you are sending.

A sensible order of work

1. Write a one-sentence pitch and a one-page overview of the book.
2. Read four or five comparable titles and note what they do and what they miss.
3. Define your reader as a specific person in a specific situation.
4. Draft the contents list, then expand each chapter into a paragraph.
5. Write the sample chapter slowly, at final-draft quality.
6. Assemble the platform and marketing pages with real figures and real commitments.
7. Give the whole document to two readers: one who knows your field, one who does not. Ask each of them what the book is and who it is for.
8. Rewrite the weak pages, then send to a small number of well-matched agents or editors.

A proposal is a working document. You can rewrite a paragraph in an afternoon, which is precisely why it is worth doing well. The alternative is discovering eighteen months into a manuscript that nobody can say which shelf it belongs on.

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