Things That Worked: First Book Proposal (Part 1)

Sample materials to simplify your life

Welcome back for another installment of ‘Things That Worked’ that focuses on first book proposals! Advising people on their first book proposals is something I’ve been doing for a long time, and I’m glad to be able to share some of that advice here (as well as my own first book proposal further down, accessible to paid subscribers).

If you’d like feedback on a book proposal you’re drafting, get in touch—I’d be happy to give it a glance. And if you’d like more regular feedback on proposals, cover letters, or articles you’re writing, you always have the option of becoming a Founding Member, which gets you feedback on your writing, whenever you like, for only $150 a year!

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After last week’s post on how to approach publishers, I thought I’d follow up with a post featuring my very own first book proposal! Like many first academic books, this one was based on the thesis I had finished a few years earlier.

Between receiving my PhD and proposing my first book, I had worked in a museum and gotten what would be the first of several short-term contracts. Looking back, I’m grateful to have had a bit of time away from my dissertation. I ended my PhD convinced that I hated research, but taking time off from academia gave me the opportunity to remember why I loved it, and helped me return to my project with fresh eyes.

There’s a lot of information out there regarding how to transform your dissertation into a book. (My wonderful first editor at Boydell & Brewer, Caroline Palmer, recommended William Germano’s From Dissertation to Book, a pithy little guide to that tricky process that I now recommend to others.) Someday I’ll probably write a post about that process, but this post is all about the proposal itself.

Every publisher is different

As you may have gathered from last week’s post, every publisher has a slightly different process for making a book proposal. Some have a short form you need to fill out. Some require the full manuscript before they’ll give you a contract. Some only need a short proposal and a sample chapter. The most important thing to do at the outset is to find out what your publisher wants from a proposal, and then stick to that.

My target publisher, Boydell & Brewer, requested a completed proposal form, my examiners’ reports, and a short proposal that outlined the following:¹

• what the book would cover

• how it would differ from related studies in the field

• plans for converting the thesis into book form

• and a breakdown of what each chapter would cover

My first step was to submit these materials to Caroline so that she could assess whether or not the book might be of interest.

Multiple stages

You’ll notice I said ‘my first step’. That’s because there are often multiple stages involved in submitting a book proposal, whether or not it’s your first. In this instance, Boydell & Brewer also required a second, expanded book proposal, accompanied by two sample chapters. And while I’ll probably share that book proposal in a later ‘Things That Worked’ post, it’s worth reflecting on why there are multiple stages to the proposal process.

Each stage has a different purpose. The initial approach email is all about expressing your interest and seeing whether your target publisher might potentially be a good fit for a book on the topic you cover. If it isn’t, an editor can immediately direct you somewhere else without either of you investing too much time or effort in a proposal that isn’t going anywhere. If this happens, don’t assume it means that 6your proposal isn’t good—it just means it’s not a great fit. In some cases, the editor might even direct you to another editor at the same press, one who covers a slightly different subject area that could be a better fit for your project.

The first proposal stage (when there is one) is where you get the opportunity to really ‘pitch’ your book. You give the publisher a short description of what the book would cover, how it would contribute to the field, and what the book’s structure and contents would look like. If it’s going to be a book based on a PhD thesis, then you might also be asked to give a brief explanation of the changes you would make in order to convert the thesis into book form.

My first book proposal

When I was looking for a publisher, I asked current and former supervisors for suggestions about which presses might be interested in publishing my work. They gave me different lists of suggestions, but Boydell & Brewer appeared on both lists. Since I’d also used many books published by B&B in my research, I knew the kind and quality of work they liked to publish, and thought it would be a good place to start.

The book proposal I submitted is based on what Caroline (the editor I contacted) requested in the first instance. While I was writing it, I also asked friends who had recently submitted proposals of their own to share those proposals with me, so that I would have a better sense of how first proposals were supposed to look. I recommend you do the same! But hopefully my proposal will be a useful starting point.

(Nota bene: If you’ve looked at my first book, John Lydgate and the Poetics of Fame [2012], you may notice that the proposal below has a different title, and that the short chapter descriptions don’t match what eventually made it into the book. That’s pretty normal! You can expect your book project to evolve, though it should bear a relatively close resemblance to the book you describe in your proposal.)

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